New York, NY: Harper Collins (April 3, 2024)

Hardback.

As new in dust jacket.

From the New York Times bestselling author of World of Wonders, a lyrical book of short essays about food, offering a banquet of tastes, smells, memories, associations, and marvelous curiosities from nature.

In Bite by Bite, poet and essayist Aimee Nezhukumatathil explores the way food and drink evoke our associations and remembrances—a subtext or layering, a flavor tinged with joy, shame, exuberance, grief, desire, or nostalgia.

Nezhukumatathil restores our astonishment and wonder about food through her encounters with a range of foods and food traditions. From shave ice to lumpia, mangoes to pecans, rambutan to vanilla, she investigates how food marks our experiences and identities and explores the boundaries between heritage and memory.

Bite by Bite offers a rich and textured kaleidoscope of vignettes and visions into the world of food and nature, drawn together by intimate and humorous personal reflections, with Fumi Nakamura’s gorgeous imagery and illustration.

Aimee Nezhukumatathil is the author of the New York Times bestselling illustrated collection of nature essays World of Wonders, chosen as Barnes & Noble’s Book of the Year and as a finalist for the Kirkus Prize. She has published four award-winning poetry collections and is the poetry editor for Sierra magazine, the storytelling branch of the Sierra Club. She lives in Oxford, Mississippi, with her family and is a professor of English and creative writing in the University of Mississippi’s MFA program.

Nina Parikh has been with the Mississippi Film Office for 25 years, currently serving as the director. She studied filmmaking at New York University and University of Southern Mississippi, worked in the industry as a producer, and teaches a film production class at Millsaps College. She produced the Mississippi made film “Ballast” which won two awards at Sundance Film Festival 2009. Nina is a co-founder of the Crossroads Film Festival & Society and the Mississippi Film Alliance, a non-profit supporting indigenous filmmaking. She also serves on the boards of the Association of Film Commissioners International, South Arts, Mississippi Book Festival, Creative Mississippi, and is a producer of TEDxJackson. To her knowledge, there are only 3 individuals that claim Filipina-Indian heritage in the state of Mississippi: herself, her sister, and Aimee! While they aren’t actually related, “Cousin Aimee” is how Nina and her sister refer to the Bite by Bite author.