The Perfect Dinner Guests

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER ‘Immensely gripping...Stayed up till past 2am to finish this’ Sophie Hannah Four people walked into the dining room that night. One would never leave.

A fun, informative guide to hosting the perfect party every time. "Every dinner party experience I’ve had in the last ten years at Corey’s has been incredible. But practice really does make perfect and I can now honestly say there is nowhere I’d rather be in the world than at his table ... I can’t begin to express the relief I felt in reading this book and realizing there was a method to his success." - Sarah Polley, from the introduction We’ve all been there: twenty minutes before guests arrive, and you’re unsure if you’ve got enough wine, or enough chairs, or whether your friend is a vegetarian or a vegan. Hosting a dinner party is hard, but Corey Mintz can help. For his popular Toronto Star column, "Fed," he has presided over 115 dinner parties, every week opening his home to strangers and friends alike in an effort to perfect the craft of hosting. And in How to Host a Dinner Party, he shares everything he’s learned in a hilarious handbook that will appeal to everyone — from those throwing their first dinner party to seasoned entertainers looking to enhance their skills. This book guides readers through everything they need to know about hosting, starting with the golden rule — that the goal of a dinner party is to have fun with our friends, not to show off our cooking skills. It will explain why we like to gather for dinner, when we should host, who we should invite, what we should cook, and how we should cook it. Featuring recipes, anecdotes, expert analysis, and an endless bounty of how-to tips, it is the essential guide to perfecting the art of welcoming people into your home.

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2018 MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE The Dinner Guest is Gabriela Ybarra’s prizewinning literary debut: a singular autobiographical novel piecing together the kidnap and murder of her grandfather by terrorists, reflecting on the personal impact of private pain and public tragedy. The story goes that in my family there’s an extra dinner guest at every meal. He’s invisible, but always there. He has a plate, glass, knife and fork. Every so often he appears, casts his shadow over the table, and erases one of those present. The first to vanish was my grandfather. In 1977, three terrorists broke into Gabriela Ybarra’s grandfather’s home, and pointed a gun at him in the shower. This was the last time his family saw him alive, and his kidnapping played out in the press, culminating in his murder. Ybarra first heard the story when she was eight, but it was only after her mother’s death, years later, that she felt the need to go deeper and discover more about her family’s past. The Dinner Guest is a novel, with the feel of documentary non-fiction. It connects two life-changing events – the very public death of Ybarra’s grandfather, and the more private pain as her mother dies from cancer and Gabriela cares for her. Devastating yet luminous, the book is an investigation, marking the arrival of a talented new voice in international fiction.

An inspiring visual guide to a richer life. “If there’s a thinker to steal from, it’s Jessica Hagy.”—Austin Kleon, author of Steal Like an Artist and Newspaper Blackout How to Be Interesting is passionate, positive, down-to-earth, and irrepressibly upbeat, combining fresh and pithy life lessons, often just a sentence or two, with deceptively simple diagrams and graphs. Each of the book's more than 100 spreads will nudge readers a little bit further out of their comfort zones and into a place where suddenly everything is possible. It’s about taking chance—but also about taking daily vacations. About being childlike, not childish. It’s about ideas, creativity, risk. It’s about trusting your talents and doing only what you want—but having the courage to get lost and see where the path leads. Because it’s what you don’t know that’s interesting.

Introducing the perfect entertaining and party planning journal for today's hosts. The Dinner Party Diary is a wonderful tool for creating memorable events because it combines the best of planning ahead while looking back. Use it to organize key components for your next soiree and to recall important lessons from parties past. Personalize your parties by keeping an ongoing record of guests adorations and aversions. And record those things that went spectacularly well, and those that aren t worth your time and effort to repeat. With The Dinner Party Diary, you ll always enjoy hosting, and you ll never miss an opportunity to celebrate. The Dinner Party Diary will help you: - Record lessons from parties past - Plan fabulous menus and drink pairings - Note guests aversions and adorations - Create perfect seating arrangements - Coordinate centerpieces, music and decor - Schedule never-miss timetables - Remember last-minute essentials - Organize vendor contacts - Preserve favorite recipes - Cherish memorable moments Take a peek inside and read the latest buzz at www.thedinnerpartydiary.com

In Brenda Janowitz's The Dinner Party, long forgotten memories come to the surface. Old grievances play out. And Sylvia Gold has to learn how to let her family go. This Passover Seder is not just any Passover Seder. Yes, there will be a quick service and then a festive meal afterwards, but this night is different from all other nights. This will be the night the Golds of Greenwich meet the Rothschilds of New York City. The Rothschilds are the stuff of legends. They control banks, own vineyards in Napa, diamond mines in Africa, and even an organic farm somewhere in the Midwest that produces the most popular Romaine lettuce consumed in this country. And now, Sylvia Gold's daughter is dating one of them. When Sylvia finds out that her youngest of three is going to bring her new boyfriend to the Seder, she's giddy. When she finds out that his parents are coming, too, she darn near faints. Making a good impression is all she thinks about. Well, almost. She still has to consider her other daughter, Sarah, who'll be coming with her less than appropriate beau and his overly dramatic Italian mother. But the drama won't stop there. Because despite the food and the wine, despite the new linen and the fresh flowers, the holidays are about family.

Inspired by her beloved blog, dinneralovestory.com, Jenny Rosenstrach’s Dinner: A Love Story is many wonderful things: a memoir, a love story, a practical how-to guide for strengthening family bonds by making the most of dinnertime, and a compendium of magnificent, palate-pleasing recipes. Fans of “Pioneer Woman” Ree Drummond, Jessica Seinfeld, Amanda Hesser, Real Simple, and former readers of Cookie magazine will revel in these delectable dishes, and in the unforgettable story of Jenny’s transformation from enthusiastic kitchen novice to family dinnertime doyenne.

Longtime recipe tester Denise Landis--who has tested Nigella Lawson's books and more than a decade's worth of recipes at The New York Times--is an accomplished and experienced home entertainer. Landis knows what makes a good dinner party and how to compose a menu that will impress guests while leaving the cook free to enjoy her own party. Featuring forty complete menus-appetizer, first course, main course, accompaniment and dessert--Dinner for Eight is organized by season, encourages mixing and matching, and guides any cook through a dinner party timeline of advance preparation and last-minute finishes. A sample of the menus: For Fall: Hummus with Toasted Pita Triangles/Eggplant with Chopped Tomato Vinaigrette and Spiced Chevre/Bourbon-Marinated Roast Pork/Savory Mashed Potatoes/Florida Apple Pie For Winter: Parmesan Cheese Crisps/Salmon Tartare/Roasted Rabbit with Polenta/Wild Mushroom Saute/Pears in Red Wine For Spring: Walnut Spread/Moules Mariniere/Lamp Chops with Mint Butter/Salt-Crusted New Potatoes/Cheesecake with Blueberry Compote For Summer: Deviled Eggs with Avocado/Gazpacho/Seafood and Chicken and Sausage Paella/Rouille/Peppermint Ice Cream

In author-illustrator Nathan Hale’s Donner Dinner Party, discover the shocking and true story of the ill-fated expedition in this Hazardous Tale from the New York Times bestselling graphic novel series. “These books are, quite simply, brilliant. . . . Thrilling, bloody, action-packed stories from American history.” —New York Times In the spring of 1846, a group of families left Illinois and began the long journey toward a new life in California. To save time, they took an ill-advised shortcut—with disastrous consequences. Their story would not take them to California but into history. Bad weather, bad choices, and just plain bad luck forced the pioneers to spend a long, cold winter in the mountains, slowly starving. What they did to stay alive and the lengths that others went to in order to rescue them make this one of the most tragic and infamous stories of the American frontier. Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales take young readers into American history with graphic novels that bring the dangerous, bloody, exciting history of America to life. The Revolutionary War and the Civil War, World War I and World War II, the Donner Party, the Marquis de Lafayette, Harriet Tubman, the Alamo, and more all come to life in a way that will excite young readers of history. Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales! Read them all—if you dare! One Dead Spy: A Revolutionary War Tale (#1) Big Bad Ironclad!: A Civil War Tale (#2) Donner Dinner Party: A Pioneer Tale (#3) Treaties, Trenches, Mud, and Blood: A World War I Tale (#4) The Underground Abductor: An Abolitionist Tale about Harriet Tubman (#5) Alamo All-Stars: A Texas Tale (#6) Raid of No Return: A World War II Tale of the Doolittle Raid (#7) Lafayette!: A Revolutionary War Tale (#8) Major Impossible: A Grand Canyon Tale (#9) Blades of Freedom: A Tale of Haiti, Napoleon, and the Louisiana Purchase (#10) Cold War Correspondent: A Korean War Tale (#11) Above the Trenches: A WWI Flying Ace Tale (#12)