Mumbai New York Scranton

An extraordinarily moving memoir from an iconoclastic new talent—an artist, cook, and illustrator whose adventures at home and abroad reveal the importance of living life with your eyes wide open. Best known for her witty illustrations, and as a cook beside her mischievous father in her family’s legendary Manhattan restaurant, in Mumbai New York Scranton, Tamara Shopsin offers a brilliantly inventive, spare, and elegant chronicle of a year in her life characterized by impermanence. In a refreshingly original voice alternating between tender and brazen, Shopsin recounts a trip to the Far East with her sidekick husband and the harrowing adventure that unfolds when she comes home. Entire worlds, deep relationships, and indelible experiences are portrayed in Shopsin’s deceptively simple and sparse language and drawings. Blending humor, love, suspense—and featuring photographs by Jason Fulford—Mumbai New York Scranton inspires a kaleidoscope of emotions. Shopsin’s surprising and affecting tale will keep you on the edge of your seat.

"An extraordinarily moving memoir from an iconoclastic new talent--an artist, cook, and New York Times illustrator whose adventures at home and abroad revealed the importance of living life with your eyes wide open. Best known for her witty, sparse illustrations, and as a cook beside her mischievous father in her family's iconic Manhattan restaurant, in Mumbai New York Scranton, Tamara Shopsin chronicles a year in her life when impermanence was the theme. Told in a refreshingly original voice that alternates between tender and brazen, Shopsin recounts her trip to the Far East with her sidekick husband and the harrowing adventure that unfolds after returning home. Blending humor, love, and suspense--and featuring photographs by Jason Fulford--Mumbai New York Scranton reveals and inspires a kaleidoscope of emotions. Shopsin's surprising and affecting tale is guaranteed to keep you on the edge of your seat"--From publisher's website.

"An extraordinarily moving memoir from an iconoclastic new talent--an artist, cook, and New York Times illustrator whose adventures at home and abroad revealed the importance of living life with your eyes wide open. Best known for her witty, sparse illustrations, and as a cook beside her mischievous father in her family's iconic Manhattan restaurant, in Mumbai New York Scranton, Tamara Shopsin chronicles a year in her life when impermanence was the theme. Told in a refreshingly original voice that alternates between tender and brazen, Shopsin recounts her trip to the Far East with her sidekick husband and the harrowing adventure that unfolds after returning home. Blending humor, love, and suspense--and featuring photographs by Jason Fulford--Mumbai New York Scranton reveals and inspires a kaleidoscope of emotions. Shopsin's surprising and affecting tale is guaranteed to keep you on the edge of your seat"--From publisher's website.

A WIRED Pick for the 7 Books You Need to Read This Winter and one of Vox's 11 Titles Not to Miss From the incomparable New York Times and New Yorker illustrator Tamara Shopsin, a debut novel about a NYC printer repair technician who comes of age alongside the Apple computer—featuring original artistic designs by the author. LaserWriter II is a coming-of-age tale set in the legendary 90s indie NYC Mac repair shop TekServe—a voyage back in time to when the internet was new, when New York City was gritty, and when Apple made off-beat computers for weirdos. Our guide is Claire, a 19-year-old who barely speaks to her bohemian co-workers, but knows when it’s time to snap on an antistatic bracelet. Tamara Shopsin brings us a classically New York novel that couldn’t feel more timely. Interweaving the history of digital technology with a tale both touchingly human and delightfully technical, Shopsin brings an idiosyncratic cast of characters to life with a light touch, a sharp eye, and an unmistakable voice. Filled with pixelated philosophy and lots of printers, LaserWriter II is, at its heart, a parable about an apple.

Return to the real world! A coupon-style booklet of 52 activities for offline fun, from Jason Fulford and Tamara Shopsin Jason Fulford and Tamara Shopsin's Offline Activities is a book of 52 suggestions for things you can do in real life. Rearrange your furniture; invite an old friend to lunch; bring something home from the supermarket and treat it as sculpture. Part novelty, part self-help guide, Offline Activities encourages you to seek out the chance and mystery that is often lacking in the digital age. Featuring the kind of ingenious, charming design you expect from a Jason Fulford and Tamara Shopsin project, Offline Activities is designed as a coupon book with tear-out pages, with one inspirational suggestion and quote per page. You are encouraged to physically do the activity and rip the page out of the book as proof. If you do one offline activity per week, the book will last a year. Offline Activities is a delightfully analog, pleasantly practical guide to shaking up your offscreen life. Tamara Shopsin (born 1979) is an illustrator, graphic designer, writer and part-time cook in her family's New York restaurant. She is the author of two memoirs, Mumbai New York Scranton (2013) and Arbitrary Stupid Goal (2017), designer of the 5 Year Diary and coauthor, with Jason Fulford, of the children's book This Equals That (2014), among many other projects. Jason Fulford (born 1973) is a photographer and cofounder of J&L Books. He is a Guggenheim Fellow, a frequent lecturer at universities and has led workshops across the globe. His numerous monographs include The Mushroom Collector (2011) and Hotel Oracle (2013).

"Pancakes are a luxury, like smoking marijuana or having sex. That’s why I came up with the names Ho Cakes and Slutty Cakes. These are extra decadent, but in a way, every pancake is a Ho Cake.” Thus speaks Kenny Shopsin, legendary (and legendarily eccentric, ill-tempered, and lovable) chef and owner of the Greenwich Village restaurant (and institution), Shopsin’s, which has been in existence since 1971. Kenny has finally put together his 900-plus-item menu and his unique philosophy—imagine Elizabeth David crossed with Richard Pryor—to create Eat Me, the most profound and profane cookbook you’ll ever read. His rants—on everything from how the customer is not always right to the art of griddling; from how to run a small, ethical, and humane business to how we all should learn to cook in a Goodnight Moon world where everything you need is already in your own home and head—will leave you stunned or laughing or hungry. Or all of the above. With more than 120 recipes including such perfect comfort foods as High School Hot Turkey Sandwiches, Cuban Bean Polenta Melt, and Cornmeal-Fried Green Tomatoes with Comeback Sauce, plus the best soups, egg dishes, and hamburgers you’ve ever eaten, Eat Me is White Trash Cooking for the twenty-first century, as unforgettable and mind-boggling as its author.

It is never too early to learn about abstraction--especially if celebrated illustrator Tamara Shopsin is doing the teaching. What Is This? is Shopsin's wordless children's book that will encourage imaginative thinking in readers both young and old. The miniature book, made for small hands, is filled with simple line drawings, executed with characteristic charm by Shopsin. Each drawing playfully adds to and alters the same basic squiggle, which is transformed across different contexts on each successive page: first the squiggle appears as the petals of a flower, next as a bird's nest, then a cowboy's lasso, then a plume of smoke from a factory chimney. Each time, only a few extra lines are required to suggest the conversion. By the end of the book, faced with an innocent squiggle, the question is not "what is this?" but rather, "what isn't this?" Tamara Shopsin (born 1979) is a graphic designer and illustrator whose work has been featured in The New York Times, Good, Time, Wired and Newsweek. She is the author of the memoir Mumbai New York Scranton, designer of the 5 Year Diary and coauthor, with Jason Fulford, of the children's book This Equals That. She is also a cook at her family's restaurant, Shopsin's, in New York.

The rivalry of Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses, a struggle for the soul of a city, is one of the most dramatic and consequential in modern American history. To a young Jane Jacobs, Greenwich Village, with its winding cobblestone streets and diverse makeup, was everything a city neighborhood should be. But consummate power broker Robert Moses, the father of many of New York’s most monumental development projects, thought neighborhoods like Greenwich Village were badly in need of “urban renewal.” Standing up against government plans for the city, Jacobs marshaled popular support and political power against Moses, whether to block traffic through her beloved Washington Square Park or to prevent the construction of the Lower Manhattan Expressway, an elevated superhighway that would have destroyed centuries-old streetscapes and displaced thousands of families. By confronting Moses and his vision, Jacobs forever changed the way Americans understood the city. Her story reminds us of the power we have as individuals to confront and defy reckless authority.