Your Favorite Book with Madhushree Ghosh

Welcome to another installment of a collaboration between the Chicago Review of Books and the Your Favorite Book podcast. Malavika Praseed, frequent CHIRB contributor and podcast host, seeks to talk to readers and writers about the books that light a fire inside them. What’s your favorite book and why?

Our guest this week is Dr. Madhushree Ghosh, author of the memoir Khabaar: An Immigrant Journey of Food, Memory, and Family. The book defies all real genre constraints by combining food writing, immigrant stories, journalism, explorations of trauma and violence, and so much more. Ghosh brings together her background as a scientist as well as her love for food and her Bengali heritage and creates a work unlike any other, a collection of related essays that embrace the idea as food as a personal and political symbol.

For this episode, Dr. Ghosh chose the recent collection of essays Azadi by Arundhati Roy. Like much of Roy’s fiction and nonfiction, the work is deeply political and focuses on the rise of the far-right movement in India, the changing perception of fiction, and the impact of recent politics on nationalistic ideals in India and around the world. This episode is part serious discussion and part recipe sharing, but altogether real and passionate. It’s one you don’t want to miss!

See Also

Author Idra Novey on Inspiration, Translation, and Asking What You Don’t Know

FINALE (for now): My Favorite Books of 2022 – Your Favorite Book

Well, we're here, and it's bittersweet. Plain and simple, these are my favorite books that I happened to read in 2022, spoiler free of course, and ranked in order. Something for everyone, with plenty of honorable mentions to boot. I will miss each and every one of you, and I hope to be back in some capacity in the future. Till then, you can stay in touch with me via instagram and twitter @yfbpodcast

1. FINALE (for now): My Favorite Books of 2022 26:22
2. On Book Podcasting (Again!) with Julie Strauss (Best Book Ever Crossover) 38:26
3. The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson with Keenan Norris (Author of Chi Boy) 48:17
4. I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy with Deeba Zargarpur (Author of House of Yesterday) 39:27
5. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (with Ethan Chatagnier, author of Singer Distance) 40:42

Listen to this episode of Your Favorite Book at the link above, and stay tuned for more episodes with other writers in the weeks to come. If you enjoy this episode, check out other episodes of Your Favorite Book on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or other major podcast platforms. Reviews on Apple Podcasts are also very much appreciated.