, like many, have been a big fan of Anthony Bourdain for a while. I first saw him on No Reservations and then read his excellent book Kitchen Confidential. Around the time he moved his show to CNN I stopped watching as I didn’t have cable. Recently I came back to a “blog” Roads and Kingdoms that he was involved with. I’ve been working through their podcast backlog and reading old blog posts, which gave me the thought to look for other books by Bourdain. That’s how I came across a recommendation for Into the Weeds on reddit.

The book follows a long time producer and his struggles with producing top quality episodes, struggles with Tony’s suicide and ultimately his struggles with himself. There is a lot intertwined in the book. You could approach it as a way to see behind the scenes of what it takes to produce an Emmy award winning show, you could look for more Tony that you haven’t seen until now and you could see it as a memoir about someone and their struggles finding a place in the world. It does great on all those fronts.

Rating: 5 stars out of 5