{"title":"Books by Rachel Cooke","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9781399620451","title":"Kitchen Person","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eIn 2009, Rachel Cooke started a monthly column for \u003ci\u003eThe Observer\u003c\/i\u003e on cooking and eating. Here are her fifty best.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eKitchen Person\u003c\/i\u003e, unfussy eater Rachel Cooke chronicles several food upheavals since then: new TV cooks, Brexit, viral recipes, the home delivery phenomenon, and the global pandemic. She journeys from her childhood in Sheffield with Henderson's relish and Granny's lamb chops, to a job interviewing top chefs and eating in fancy restaurants, to learning to shop and cook well herself, all the time growing more knowledgeable and opinionated about food.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Reading Cooke is like chatting to your most interesting and forthright friend in their kitchen' \u003ci\u003eSPECTATOR\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e'Erudite, insightful, fearless, often hilarious, with needle sharp observation' Jeremy Lee\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43204245192882,"sku":"9781399620451","price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781399620451.jpg?v=1786019774"},{"product_id":"9780349018430","title":"The Virago Book of Friendship","description":"\u003cp\u003eA fond, fascinated look at women's friendship through the fiction, diaries, and letters of friends\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'\u003cb\u003eA highly entertaining, often instructive anthology bursting with every kind of amicable - or inimical - anecdote . . .  Cooke has dug deep and uncovered nuggets of pure gold in every form of writing  . \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e. . a delicious book about the great power and strength of real friendship\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e' \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003eTABLET\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Friendship, a timeless subject, has never been more debated, something that has to do both with the internet - the perils of WhatsApp groups, the agony of ghosting - as well as with a growing awareness that loneliness is increasing in our society. Friendship has become a matter of urgent inquiry to therapists, scientists and sociologists. We understand its importance more and more, not only as a comfort and a privilege, but as vital to our health. But it's hard to get inside friendship: its particular intensity and its miraculous ease; its tendency to wax and wane; its ability to inspire both delight and despair. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e This is the territory of novels and poems, diaries and letters, comics and graphic novels - and it is where the innovative and wide ranging \u003ci\u003eVirago Book of Friendshi\u003c\/i\u003ep steps in, bringing together work by more than 100 writers. From Jane Austen to Edith Wharton and Virginia Woolf, from Dolly Alderton to Sarah Waters and Meg Wolitzer and, it celebrates and investigates friendship between women from first encounters to final goodbyes, from falling out to making up again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'A treasure chest'\u003c\/b\u003e \u003ci\u003eTHE TIMES\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'An uplifting anthology'\u003c\/b\u003e \u003ci\u003eHARPER'S BAZAAR\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'A fascinating document' \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003eLITERARY REVIEW\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'An exhilaratingly wide array' \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003eSPECTATOR\u003c\/i\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":57685955510645,"sku":"9780349018423","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":56286554718581,"sku":"9780349018430","price":18.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780349018423.jpg?v=1792599213"},{"product_id":"9781844087419","title":"Her Brilliant Career","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Rachel Cooke shines a new light in an elegantly original way into the 1950s and especially into the role of women' Kate Atkinson\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Witty, intelligent, kind and poignant. Cooke exudes love and knowledge of people, gardens, food, art' \u003ci\u003eThe Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn her apron and rubber gloves, a smile lipsticked permanently across her face, the woman of the Fifties has become a cultural symbol of all that we are most grateful to have sloughed off. A homely compliant creature, she knows little or nothing of sex, and stands no chance at all of having a  career. She must marry or die. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut what if there was another side to the story?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this book Rachel Cooke tells the story of ten extraordinary women whose pioneering professional lives - and complicated private lives - paved the way for future generations. Muriel Box, film director. Betty Box, film producer. Margery Fish, plantswoman. Patience Gray, cook. Alison Smithson, architect. Sheila van Damm, rally car driver and theatre owner. Nancy Spain, journalist and radio personality. Joan Werner Laurie, editor. Jacquetta Hawkes, archaeologist. Rose Heilbron, QC.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePlucky and ambitious, they left the house, discovered the bliss of work, and ushered in the era of the working woman.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56308371685749,"sku":"9781844087419","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781844087419_fcc7e666-d797-4645-8afe-f51a706b3cbc.jpg?v=1786028579"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-rachel-cooke.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}