Choose from a collection of tasty baking recipes to inspiring tales of starting anew
The peak of summer invites the eye and appetite with ripeness, warmth and bounty. But what else can the things we eat teach us about who we are? Rich in thought with hints of sadness, humour and strength, these eight titles explore the heart and soul through the things that sustain us.
Ms Ice Sandwich
By Mieko Kawakami
From the author of Breasts and Eggs, this 100-page bildungsroman takes the innocence of a teenage crush and squeezes it between the complex, volatile nuances of growing up. Its narrator is a young boy who is absolutely smitten by a convenience store clerk, the titular Ms Ice Sandwich, so named for her frosty blue eyeshadow and bread-assembling prowess. His are happy but confusing emotions, made more challenging by the other women around him: a distracted mother, a withering grandmother and an intriguing friend. Mieko Kawakami’s powerfully honest prose brings readers back to the most tender and thrilling moments of adolescence.
Passage West
By Rishi Reddi
Imperial Valley, 1914, is a desolate sandscape along the Mexican border. Ram Singh has accepted a friend’s offer to work on a small cantaloupe farm here, having fled violence in Oregon and left behind his wife and son in Punjab, desperate to make a fortune in America before he returns. The region’s settlers hail from all manner of origins and backgrounds, an untethered group whose livelihoods rely on mustering a harvest — but burgeoning anti-immigrant sentiment among white residents proves as dangerous as spoiled crops. Who is allowed to lay down roots and lead fruitful lives in the land of the free?
Sweet Bean Paste
By Durian Sukegawa
Between his criminal record and drinking habits, Sentaro has all but given up on his prospects. His dreams of writing have been replaced by dorayaki, pancakes filled with sweet bean paste, which he peddles to pay off his debts. One day, the elderly Tokue convinces Sentaro to hire her by making the best bean paste he has ever tasted. Business booms but a painful truth is revealed: the old woman’s disfigured hands are the result of leprosy, and she is subsequently shunned by customers. Durian Sukegawa’s heartwarming title is soft on the surface but piping hot with commentary on social prejudice, intergenerational friendships and self-worth.
The Hotel Avocado
By Bob Mortimer
The second instalment of legal assistant Gary Thorn’s fantastically frenetic misadventures is every bit as absurd and charming as would be expected coming from the mind of British comedian Bob Mortimer. Gary’s girlfriend is preparing to open The Hotel Avocado in Brighton but he is on the fence about giving up his secure job and social circle in Peckham to join her. Matters get messier when a menacing man appears to stop Gary from presenting evidence at a trial. Evil henchmen, talking animals and a five-foot fibreglass fruit fixture give this whimsical meta-commentary the punch and pace of an insane stand-up bit, grounded by just the right dash of real life.
Baking & the Meaning of Life: How to Find Joy in 100 Recipes
By Helen Goh
In this James Beard Award-winning read, Helen Goh shares 100 sweet and savoury bakes informed by her multicultural upbringing, restaurant career and work as a psychologist. Each of its seven chapters relates recipes to a particular emotion or experience baking fulfils — traditional cookies that bring people together on Chinese New Year, champagne and blackcurrant celebration cake for special days, crêpes and pineapple desserts zhuzhed up with an Asian touch of red beans or tamarind. Inspired by the author’s most personal creations and milestones, this collection of tasty tutorials demonstrates how whipping and folding can mirror our most ordinary wishes.
Five Quarters of the Orange
By Joanne Harris
Framboise Simon returns to her birth village to set up a crêperie, intent on selling her mother’s old dishes. When she lived here as a child, food represented something else — scraps to be bartered for in war-torn France, a nauseating smell that could be weaponised and a temptation dangled by an officer leading children into the dark. Framboise is determined to make a fresh start but memories of struggle and betrayal bubble up when she discovers cryptic messages in a cookbook. Eating has been equally a matter of pleasure and torment for so long, can it finally become a way to find forgiveness and love?
The School of Essential Ingredients
By Erica Bauermeister
On Monday nights, eight individuals gather in Lillian’s local restaurant for cooking class, each looking to learn something more than a recipe. Some long to ease the pain of loss — a foreigner missing home or a grieving widower — while others are still finding their way in the world. Like a well-seasoned chef that deals in pinches and gut feelings, Lillian helps these lost few craft dishes that prompt reflection and new relationships. In this feel-good romance, the kitchen is where community, joy and healing converse through fresh-ripped herbs, gentle stirs of the pot and the familiarity of sustenance.
Pomegranate Soup
By Marsha Mehran
Ireland’s quaint village of Ballinacroagh may not be where Persian sisters Marjan and Layla Aminpour grew up in, but having fled conflict seven years prior, they consider it a safe haven. They find their connection to home by opening a pastry shop, where tendrils of saffron and sheets of baklava become delicate and powerful links to their homeland. Even the locals (save for a curmudgeonly property mogul) become entranced by the Aminpours’ spices and stews. But just when the two think they can make a home and stop running, the lives they abandoned in revolution-era Iran catch up with them.
This article first appeared on June 29, 2026 in The Edge Malaysia.
