Apologies for being later than usual in posting the next CBG book, but it is a very short one so we should still have plenty of time to read it within the month.
I've chosen Babette's Feast by Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen), one of her Anecdotes of Destiny
, a mere 54 pages in the Penguin Mini Modern Classics edition. Here's the blurb:
"Babette's Feast is a sublime celebration of eating and drinking and sensual pleasure. In [this] life-affirming story, two elderly sisters living in a remote, god-fearing Norwegian community take in a mysterious refugee from Paris one night - and are rewarded for their kindness with the most decadent, luxurious feast of a lifetime."
What drew me to it was reading the chapter on Karen Blixen and her house at Rungstedlung in Denmark in the lovely Writers' Houses book (post on it here), and specifically the passage on her love of flowers and her pleasure in entertaining:
"On days when she received guests, she rose at five in the morning to go out and gather flowers while they were still moist with dew. Composing bouquets became her passion, an activity from which she derived as much pleasure as painting. Karen loved to elaborate on her gift for entertaining, which required that parquets be polished to a glistening finish, that a fire be crackling in the hearth, that flowers perfume rooms that she had had repainted in different warm and subtle colours. The dinners were delicious: 'That woman is in the process of transforming a dinner at the Café Anglais into a sort of love affair,' says Colonel Galliffet in Babette's Feast."
I wouldn't anticipate any difficulty getting hold of a copy of the book, but if you want to buy it online, The Book Depository (who also offer free worldwide delivery) have it slightly cheaper than Amazon - when I checked prices just now - and you can get a further 10% off all books there if you enter the code 'May11' at the checkout*.
I hope this little book will appeal (apart from its literary merit I trust it will yield considerable material on which to base the Books and Cakes post!), and how about we put Saturday, 25th. June in the diary as discussion date?
*NB If you read this post yesterday you'll have seen that the 'further 10% off everything' offer was originally open until the end of May, well The Book Depository have now extended it until Sunday, 5th. June, but the coupon code is still 'May11'.
Also, BR Wombat has kindly pointed out that the book is available in a Kindle edition.