O's 2010 Summer Reading List

"My first sensation of life was the smell of machli ka salan, a spicy fish curry, rising through the floorboards," recalls Hassan Haji, in Richard C. Morais' The Hundred-Foot Journey, a mouthwatering debut novel of colliding cultures and cuisines. Cooking has always sent Hassan intoa "magic trance," but when his family's grand Bombay restaurant burns to the ground, they go eating across Europe: A "platto di Mussolini" is a plate of mussels, not the dictator on a dish, Hassan has to explain to a waiter in Tuscany. The family finally opens Maison Mumbai in a small French mountain town and incurs the wrath of the imperious chef across the street, in this hilarious romp through life, love, and the workings of a French kitchen.