100,000+ Books, Games & Puzzles in-stock 🇳🇿

Auckland Bookstore open 8:30am-5pm on Sat & Sun

Restaurant

Series: Object Lessons
Brief Description
Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. In the last few decades, restaurants and food culture have achieved extraordinary cultural presence. Chefs are heroes and thought leaders, well-executed entrées go viral, dining out has become theatre,... Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
$2199
AVAILABLE WITH SUPPLIER Ships from our Auckland warehouse within 4-6 weeks

Found a better price? Request a price match

Former restaurant critic Brian Duff examines the restaurant at a critical moment and argues that engaging and creating shared meaning with others across the table offers a path toward the renewal of waning social and democratic capacities.

Former restaurant critic Brian Duff examines the restaurant at a critical moment and argues that engaging and creating shared meaning with others across the table offers a path toward the renewal of waning social and democratic capacities.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.

In the last few decades, restaurants and food culture have achieved extraordinary cultural presence. Chefs are heroes and thought leaders, well-executed entrées go viral, dining out has become theatre, plating has become art and ubiquitous Instagram content. However, in recent years, restaurants have faced crisis upon crisis.

Restaurant takes a deep dive into the drives, desires, and anxieties we bring to dining out during this time of uncertainty. It explores the meaning we find in good food and warm hospitality. It shows why the restaurant offers unique opportunities to change the quality of our engagement with others and to create shared meaning across the table.

Series: Object Lessons

View all
  • Bicycle
    Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. These days the bicycle often appears as an interloper in a world constructed for cars. An almost miraculous 19th-century contraption, the bicycle promises to transform our lives and the world we live in, yet its time seems always yet-to-come or long-gone-by. Bicycle by...
    Paperback
    $2199
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Rust
    Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. It’s happening all the time, all around us. We cover it up. We ignore it. Rust takes on the many meanings of this oxidised substance, showing how technology bleeds into biology and ecology. Jean-Michel Rabaté combines art, science, and autobiography to share his...
    Paperback
    $2199
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Bookshelf
    Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Every shelf is different, and every bookshelf tells a different story. One bookshelf can creak with character in a bohemian coffee shop, while another can groan with gravitas in the Library of Congress. Bookshelf by writer and historian Lydia Pyne explores these differences...
    Paperback
    $2199
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Burger
    Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. The burger, long the All-American meal, is undergoing an identity crisis. From its shifting place in popular culture to efforts by investors such as Bill Gates to create the non-animal burger that can feed the world, the burger’s identity has become as malleable...
    Paperback
    $2199
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Cigarette Lighter
    Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Smokers, survivalists, teenagers, collectors… The cigarette lighter is a charged, complex, yet often entirely disposable object that moves across these various groups of people, acquiring and emitting different meanings while always supplying its primary function, that of ignition. While the lighter may seem...
    Paperback
    $2199
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Earth
    Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. In Earth, a planetary scientist and a literary humanist explore what happens when we think of the Earth as an object viewable from space. As a “blue marble,” “a blue pale dot,” or, as Chaucer described it, “this litel spot of erthe,” the...
    Paperback
    $2499
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Egg
    Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. This book is about a strange object—strange in part because it is something that we all have been, and that many of us eat. Nicole Walker's Egg relishes in sharp juxtapositions of seemingly fanciful or repellent topics, so that reproductive science and gustatory...
    Paperback
    $2199
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Eye Chart
    Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Desert nomads tested their vision by distinguishing a pair of stars. But we have since created more disquieting ways to test the strength of the eyes. Reading the eye chart is an exercise in failure, since it only gets interesting when you cannot...
    Paperback
    $2099
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • High Heel
    Best Fifteen Books of March 2019, Refinery29Best Nonfiction Books of 2019, Paste Magazine Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Fetishized, demonized, celebrated, and outlawed, the high heel is central to the iconography of modern womanhood. But are high heels good? Are they feminist? What does it mean for a...
    Paperback
    $2199
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Hood
    Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. We all wear hoods: the Grim Reaper, Red Riding Hood, torturers, executioners and the executed, athletes, labourers, anarchists, rappers, babies in onesies, and anyone who’s ever grabbed a hoodie on a chilly day. Alison Kinney’s Hood explores the material and symbolic vibrancy of...
    Paperback
    $2199
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Jet Lag
    Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Jet lag is a momentary condition resulting from the human body and its inner clock being pitched against the time-leaping effects of modern aviation. But more than that, it is a situation that explains time, technology, and the human body. Jet lag epitomises...
    Paperback
    $2199
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Mushroom
    Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. They are the things we step on without noticing and the largest organisms on Earth. They are symbols of inexplicable growth and excruciating misery. They are grouped with plants, but they behave more like animals. In their inscrutability, mushrooms are wondrous organisms. The...
    Paperback
    $2199
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9798765121825

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 29 May 2025

Country: United States

Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic

Illustration: 1 b&w illustration

Contributors:

  • Series edited by Dr. Christopher Schaberg
  • Series edited by Professor Ian Bogost

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 18.0mm

Width: 120.0mm

Height: 164.0mm

Weight: 176g

Pages: 184

About the Author

Brian Duff is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of New England, USA. He is the author of The The Parent as Citizen: A Democratic Dilemma (2011). His writing has appeared in The New Yorker and he has written restaurant reviews and food articles for The Portland Phoenix and The Boston Phoenix.

More from Travel & Adventure

View all
  • The Salt Path
    The bestselling true story of the couple who lost everything and embarked on a journey not of escape but salvation, soon to be a major motion picture starring Golden Globe winning Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs. Just days after Raynor learns that Moth, her husband of 32 years, is terminally ill, the couple lose their home and their livelihood. With...
    Paperback
    $2700
    Elsewhere:
    $3000
    In Stock
    Ships Monday
  • Lonely Planet Japan
    #1 Bestselling guidebook to Japan "Classic. Comprehensive. Crucial." - Library Journal Lonely Planet's local travel experts reveal all you need to know to plan the trip of a lifetime to Japan. Discover popular and off the beaten track experiences from visiting Yoshino for Japan's most famous cherry-blossom-viewing festival to sipping sake at a 300-year-old brewery in Niigata, and exploring the...
    Paperback
    $4100
    Elsewhere:
    $4499
    In Stock
    Ships Monday
  • Maintenance: Of Everything
    The first in-depth exploration of maintenance and a powerful argument for its civilisational importance from the author of How Buildings Learn and creator of the Whole Earth Catalog. Maintenance is what keeps everything going. It's what keeps life going. Yet it's also easy to shirk or defer until the thing breaks, the system falters, and everything stops. The apparent paradox...
    Hardback
    $7999
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Abroad in Japan
    The hilarious number one bestselling memoir from YouTube sensation Chris Broad, a Brit trying to assimilate into life in Japan as he unravels the wonders and eccentricities of one of the world's most mysterious cultures. When Englishman Chris Broad landed in a rural village in northern Japan, he wondered if he'd made a huge mistake. With no knowledge of the...
    Paperback
    $2500
    Elsewhere:
    $3000
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • The Cat's Tales
    Once upon a time, the enchanting creature that is the cat infiltrated our lives – and our folklore. Cats have a long association with the supernatural – from being worshipped as gods in ancient Egypt to vilified as witches’ familiars in Europe – and they appear in countless fairy tales throughout history. Every part of the world has its own...
    Hardback
    $3099
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    In Stock
    Ships Monday
  • The Penguin Lessons
    Now a major film, this is the true story of an unlikely friendship between a flightless bird and a teacher out of his depth. When schoolteacher Tom Michell pulls a penguin from an oil slick off the coast of Uruguay, he has no idea what to do. Back at his apartment, Tom cleans him, but upon returning to the beach,...
    Paperback
    $2400
    Elsewhere:
    $3000
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships Monday
  • Rambling Man
    THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLING HILARIOUS NEW BOOK FROM THE NATION'S FAVOURITE COMEDIAN, BILLY CONNOLLY "Being a Rambling Man was what I always wanted to be, to live the way I damn well pleased. I've met the weirdest and most wonderful people who walk the Earth, seen the most bizarre and the most fantastic sights - and I've rarely come across...
    Paperback
    $2299
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships Monday
  • On Sale
    22% off
    Lonely Planet Pocket Lisbon
    Lonely Planet's Pocket Lisbon is your guide to the city's best experiences and local life - neighbourhood by neighbourhood. Experience the city's most scenic tram routes, find the best pastéis de nata and discover the winding backstreets of Alfama; all with your trusted travel companion. Uncover the best of Lisbon and make the most of your trip! Inside Lonely Planet's...
    Paperback
    $1800
    Elsewhere:
    $2499
    In Stock
    Ships Monday
  • Cozy Bookshops: Colouring Book
    Cozy Bookshops—your ultimate escape into a world of bookish bliss and mindful relaxation in 46 adorable scenes, from the coziest book nooks. Wander labyrinthine bookshelves, sink into soft armchairs by roaring fireplaces, and lose yourself in snug, atmospheric corners. Escape, relax, and unwind with this colouring book for all skill levels and bring your own personality. The possibilities are endless!...
    Paperback
    $2000
    Elsewhere:
    $2299
    In Stock
    Ships Monday
  • On Sale
    22% off
    Lonely Planet Pocket Porto
    Lonely Planet's Pocket Porto is your guide to the city's best experiences and local life, neighbourhood by neighbourhood. Experience the historic Se cathedral, marvel at the stunning Palacio da Bolsa, and visit peacocks in Jardim do Palacio de Cristal, all with your trusted travel companion. Uncover the best of Porto and make the most of your trip! Inside Lonely Planet's...
    Paperback
    $1800
    Elsewhere:
    $2499
    In Stock
    Ships Monday
  • Auto Biography
    From one of the world's most popular motor journalists, a highly entertaining, clued-up and panoramic guide to cars. A highly entertaining, clued-up and panoramic guide to cars by Mat Watson, the world's most followed car journalist on social media. Mat Watson knows everything there is to know about cars. In his 25-year career as a motor journalist, he has driven...
    Hardback
    $4600
    Elsewhere:
    $6000
    In Stock
    Ships Monday
  • Brilliant Maps
    With a foreword by Tim Harford Which nations have North Korean embassies? Which region has the highest number of death metal bands per capita? How many countries have bigger economies than California? Who drives on the 'wrong' side of the road? And where can you find lions in the wild? Revelatory, thought-provoking and fun, Brilliant Maps is a unique atlas...
    Paperback
    $3799
    In Stock
    Ships Monday

Why buy from us?

Book Hero is not a chain store or big box retailer. We're an independent 100% NZ-owned business on a mission to help more Kiwis rediscover a love of books and reading!

Service & Delivery

Service & Delivery

Our warehouse in Auckland holds over 100,000 books, toys, board games and puzzles in-stock so you're not waiting for your order to arrive from overseas.

Auckland Bookstore

Auckland Bookstore

We're primarily an online store, but for your convenience you can pick up your order for free from our bookstore, which is right next door to our warehouse in Hobsonville.

Our Gifting Service

Our Gifting Service

Books make wonderful thoughtful gifts and we're here to help with gift-wrapping and cards. We can even send your gift directly to your loved one.