My Korean Deli by Ben Ryder Howe audiobook

My Korean Deli: Risking It All for a Convenience Store

By Ben Ryder Howe
Read by Bronson Pinchot

Blackstone Publishing 9780805093438
8.78 Hours • 1
Format : Digital Download (In Stock)
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This sweet and funny tale of a preppy editor buying a Brooklyn deli with his Korean in-laws is about family, culture clash, and the quest for authentic experiences. It starts with a gift. When Ben Ryder Howe’s wife, the daughter of Korean immigrants, decides to repay her parents’ self-sacrifice by buying them a store, Howe, an editor at the rarefied Paris Review, agrees to go along. Things soon become a lot more complicated. After the business struggles, Howe finds himself living in the basement of his in-laws’ Staten Island home, commuting to the Paris Review offices in George Plimpton’s Upper East Side townhouse by day, and heading to Brooklyn to slice cold cuts and peddle lottery tickets by night. My Korean Deli follows the store’s tumultuous life span, and along the way paints the portrait of an extremely unlikely partnership between characters with shoots across society, from the Brooklyn streets to Seoul to Puritan New England. Owning the deli becomes a transformative experience for everyone involved as they struggle to salvage the original gift—and the family—while sorting out issues of values, work, and identity.

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Summary

Summary

A Audie Award Finalist Audie Award Finalist

One of O Magazine’s “Books to Watch” in March 2011

One of Amazon Best Books of the Year: Top 10 in Memoir

A New York Times bestseller

An NPR Best Book for Summer 2011

One of Amazon Best Book of the Month in March 2011

This sweet and funny tale of a preppy editor buying a Brooklyn deli with his Korean in-laws is about family, culture clash, and the quest for authentic experiences.

It starts with a gift. When Ben Ryder Howe’s wife, the daughter of Korean immigrants, decides to repay her parents’ self-sacrifice by buying them a store, Howe, an editor at the rarefied Paris Review, agrees to go along. Things soon become a lot more complicated. After the business struggles, Howe finds himself living in the basement of his in-laws’ Staten Island home, commuting to the Paris Review offices in George Plimpton’s Upper East Side townhouse by day, and heading to Brooklyn to slice cold cuts and peddle lottery tickets by night. My Korean Deli follows the store’s tumultuous life span, and along the way paints the portrait of an extremely unlikely partnership between characters with shoots across society, from the Brooklyn streets to Seoul to Puritan New England. Owning the deli becomes a transformative experience for everyone involved as they struggle to salvage the original gift—and the family—while sorting out issues of values, work, and identity.

Editorial Reviews

Editorial Reviews

“My Korean Deli is about a Korean deli, as I expected. But it’s also about love, culture clashes, family, money, and literature. Plus, it happens to be very funny and poignant. So buy a Slim Jim and a Vitamin Water and sit down to enjoy it.” —A. J. Jacobs, New York Times bestselling author of The Year of Living Biblically
“I don’t know how else to explain My Korean Deli except to say that Ben Ryder Howe has made kimchi. As in that splendid staple dish of Korea, the mundane (cabbage/Brooklyn) is combined with the piquant (crazy spices/families) and pickled (natural fermentation/a job at the Paris Review). The result is overpoweringly good. But My Korean Deli will sweeten your reading rather than stinking up your house and will give you deep thoughts not breath that can kill mice in the walls.” —P. J. O’Rourke, New York Times bestselling author
“[A] funny, poignant, true story.” —O, The Oprah Magazine, “Ten Titles to Pick Up Now”
“It’s hard not to fall in love with My Korean Deli. First, it’s the (very) rare memoir that places careful, loving attention squarely on other people rather than the author. Second, it tells a rollicking, made-for-the-movies story in a wonderfully funny deadpan style.” —New York Times Book Review
“Conveys what is absolutely the best of New York. Delightful.” —Los Angeles Times
“Howe ably transforms what could have been a string of amusing vignettes about deli ownership into a humorous but heartfelt look into the complexities of family dynamics and the search for identity.” —Publishers Weekly
“Poking fun at everything from his stereotypically WASP upbringing to his ‘tank’ (he said it) of a mother-in-law…Howe has created a smartly measured and propulsive read.” —Booklist
“Fun! A crucial read if you’ve ever clerked checkout or are remotely entertaining the thought of buying a convenience store. Reads like a novel.” —Library Journal
“In this WASP-out-of-water tale of a Paris Review editor moonlighting as deli owner, Howe plunges boldly into life’s ultimate mysteries: marriage, money, cohabitation with in-laws, the yin-yang currents of striving and slacking, and—perhaps the biggest mystery of them all—why the store can be empty of customers for hours and hours, and then twenty show up at once.” —Ben Fountain, author of Brief Encounters with Che Guevara
“Bronson Pinchot takes on the persona of the stuffy literary magazine editor for the first-person account. Between Howe’s wry phrasings and Pinchot’s slightly exaggerated reading, even a ramble on the profit margins of Doritos is amusing…There’s even a dead-on impression of Howe’s boss, the late George Plimpton.” —AudioFile

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Author

Author Bio: Ben Ryder Howe

Author Bio: Ben Ryder Howe

Ben Ryder Howe has written for the New Yorker, the Atlantic Monthly, and Outside, and his work has been selected for Best American Travel Writing. He is a former senior editor of Paris Review. My Korean Deli is his first book.

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Details

Details

Available Formats : Digital Download, Digital Rental, CD, MP3 CD
Category: Nonfiction/Biography & Autobiography
Runtime: 8.78
Audience: Adult
Language: English

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