大人になると本当に時間がない。けど面白そうな本は毎日毎日出版されるわけで、本当に困る。自分はアメリカの歴史とか移民の歴史に興味があるので、そういった分野の本を多く取り上げてくれるNew York Times Book Reviewは非常に重宝している。

今週の号から読んでみたいと思ったのは2冊で、一つは移民法の本。

One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic Struggle Over American Immigration, 1924-1965,’ by Jia Lynn Yang (Norton, May 19)

In 1924, Congress passed one of the most restrictive immigration laws on record, a measure aimed at making the country white, Protestant and Anglo-Saxon that curtailed southern and Eastern Europeans and banned people from nearly all of Asia. Yang, a deputy national editor for The Times, sketches the four-decade effort to reverse the legislation, which lasted throughout a major world war and the refugee crisis after the Holocaust, to create a new standard for immigration equality — what ultimately became the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act. Along the way, she weaves in her own family’s story, exploring how the idea of America as a land of immigrants wasn’t always a given.

もう一冊はフレンチシェフの本でフレンチシェフ業界の仕組みが書いてありそう。こういう業界の仕組みや裏話というのに興味がある。

Dirt: Adventures in Lyon as a Chef in Training, Father, and Sleuth Looking for the Secret of French Cooking,’ by Bill Buford (Knopf, May 5)
Buford, whose best-selling book “Heat” chronicled his quest to become a serious cook, is back in the kitchen. Now, the New Yorker writer recounts the next step in his culinary education: studying at the Institut Paul Bocuse in Lyon, the gastronomic capital of France and the gold standard for chefs around the world. There’s plenty for food lovers here, but the book is also a satisfying and envy-inspiring travelogue.