Description

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

‘Powerful and profound’ Esquire
‘Unbridled and unapologetic’ Vogue

When Anthony Bourdain died in 2018, fans around the globe came together to celebrate the life of an inimitable man.

Laurie Woolever, Bourdain’s longtime assistant and confidante, has interviewed nearly a hundred of the people who shared Tony’s orbit in order to piece together a remarkably full, vivid, and nuanced vision of Tony’s life and work.

From his childhood and teenage days, to his early years in New York, through the genesis of his game-changing memoir Kitchen Confidential to his emergence into fame and notoriety, and in the words of friends and colleagues including Eric Ripert, Jose Andres and Nigella Lawson, as well as his family, we see the many sides of Tony – his motivations, his ambivalence, his vulnerability, his blind spots, and his brilliance.

Deeply intimate, featuring a treasure trove of photos, Bourdain: In Stories is a testament to the life of a remarkable man in the words of the people who shared his world.

Publisher Review

With pages of personal Bourdain photos, this warm book about an ultimate cool guy - vibrant and vulnerable - is dished up with finesse by Woolever * FORBES * Woolever herself stays at arms length, to powerful effect, giving her cast of characters room to air their Bourdain grievances, both petty and life-altering, and unroots some rather profound conclusions - almost Parts-Unknown-narration-level profound - about the man * ESQUIRE * A fascinating account of Bourdain's childhood through his untimely death, conjuring him as he evolves from curious kid to punky teen to young, heroin-addicted cook ... A roundly true-feeling portrait of a captivating person. Bourdain's fans will find it impossible to put down * BOOKLIST, starred review * A chorus of candid voices creates an engaging biography * KIRKUS * Celebrated chef and author Anthony Bourdain cuts a charismatic yet enigmatic figure in this kaleidoscopic oral history ... This fascinating mosaic ... capture[s] the inimitable legacy he left behind * PUBLISHERS WEEKLY * A candid, compelling look at the man and his work * TRAVEL & LEISURE * [Woolever's] book is the first to begin to reveal [Anthony Bourdain]: It's the most splintered, fractal, and complex portrait of the star that has yet emerged, an enormous compendium of individual observations gathered from 91 people who knew him, including his mother, his brother, his ex-wives and his daughter, friends from school and college, ex-girlfriends, fellow chefs, writers, editors, and television colleagues * EATER.COM * Laurie Woolever, a writer and editor who was Anthony Bourdain's longtime assistant, uses quotes to bring readers deeper into his world ... Through details shared by his friends and family, we learn more about Bourdain's kind heart, how much he wanted to be a writer, his habit of fidgeting when he was uncomfortable, and the dark world he inhabited, especially when traveling * FOOD & WINE *