Compulsive reading – Lee Miller: A Life with Food Friends and Recipes

December 04, 2023 by Lisa Reinisch in art, anecdotes, books, food, history, photography, recommendations

When this book arrived on my doorstep, I held off on unwrapping it until the day’s work was done. I waited until I could finally take it all in, everything the promotional blurb had promised: a whopping 350 pages containing “over a hundred of her recipes and material from the cookbook that Lee Miller was secretly hoping to publish at the end of her life”. That evening, I, bona fide Lee Miller fangirl and collector or cookbooks, greedily devoured the book. Here is why I couldn’t put it down until late, late that night.

A few of my favourite things: little books of note

April 19, 2015 by Lisa Reinisch in books, design, lists, UAE, products

In the Sound of Music, Julie Andrews serenades her favourite things. Well, I don't sing. But if I did, I'd definitely dedicate a tune to the simple joy of starting a new notebook. I've stuck to little black ones for the longest time but in the past couple of weeks I've been tempted away from my trusty Moleskines by this trio of local finds.

An alternative breed of Dubai city guides

May 16, 2014 by Lisa Reinisch in books, Dubai, local culture, photography, recommendations, UAE, travel

Two new guide books take it upon themselves to reveal the hidden charms of Dubai, a city routinely dismissed by travel writers as artificial, crass and devoid of character. It seems both books (Uncommon Dubai, edited by Hind Shoufani, and Soul of Dubai, sponsored by the Dubai Culture & Arts Authority) have their work cut out for them. After all, the churn of ready-made write-ups about Dubai is thoroughly entrenched. But now an alternative breed of locally produced guide books is emerging, partly in response to incessant one-dimensional portrayals, partly as a result of a revival in the city's cultural and intellectual life. Their message to the world: forget everything you've heard about Dubai and look at the city through the eyes of its inhabitants.

Guilty pleasure: tales from behind the veil

August 13, 2013 by Lisa Reinisch in Abu Dhabi, books, Dubai, literature, local culture, UAE, women's rights, saudi arabia

As a visit to any bookshop in the UAE reveals, an entire genre of novels based on the promise of ‘lifting the veil’ and revealing the ‘hidden lives’ of women in traditional Muslim societies has emerged and is doing brisk trade. Many of them, such as Jean Sasson's blockbuster Princess series, deal specifically with the lives of women in Saudi Arabia. Slowly but surely, the women of the UAE are also becoming the subject of such literary portrayals. To me, these books are strangely irresistible, a guilty pleasure. Guilty, because the reasons for this fascination seem to oscillate between a principled intention to explore local writing and an indignant kind of voyeurism. Awkward stuff. But I can't help myself, I want to read them all. For better or worse, these are three tales from behind the veil I've devoured most recently.

All booked out for summer

June 01, 2013 by Lisa Reinisch in books, history, journalism, literature, local culture, media, UAE, women's rights, recommendations, lists

I just noticed with horror that my last blog entry dates back almost a month. All the way back to the day after Abu Dhabi Book Fair, to be precise, which was also the day before a European holiday and about four weeks after the day I discovered the What are you reading? podcast. So there you have it, an explanation of sorts. As it turns out, the combination of fair (book launches!), trip (proper bookshops!) and podcast (book recommendations from interesting-sounding people!) has had a pretty disruptive effect on my blogging morale. To make it up, here is a snapshot of the month’s loot, a stack of brand new books now languishing seductively on my desk.