Stealing Buddha's Dinner

by Bich Minh Nguyen

Book Overview

Winner of the PEN/Jerard Award
Chicago Tribune Best Book of the Year
Kiriyama Notable Book

[A] perfectly pitched and prodigiously detailed memoir. - Boston Globe

As a Vietnamese girl coming of age in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Nguyen is filled with a rapacious hunger for American identity, and in the pre-PC-era Midwest (where the Jennifers and Tiffanys reign supreme), the desire to belong transmutes into a passion for American...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0143113038
• ISBN13: 9780143113034
• Release Date: January 2008
• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.46 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.6" x 7.1"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Reminds me of my past...

This really made me go back to my childhood. I can relate to her need to fit in and find her identity. I agree that the food gets a bit over-done, especially when she goes into detail about The Little House on the Prairie. However it is wonderfully written, and reminded me of feelings and ideas that I have not thought about in years.

Stealing Buddha's Dinner - a fascinating memoir

I really enjoyed this book. It is a fascinating look at the complications of being a first generation Vietmamese American. The places where cultures clash are sometimes very amusing and sometimes hard to take, but always enlightening.

I LOVED this book!

My favorite book of the year! A must read for any lonely, food obsessed bookworm of the 70/80's raised on television. I never wanted it to end.

Children of the 80's unite!

If you were born in the mid-70's and spent your youth as a child of the 80's, with it's neon colors and extreme excess, you will love this book. It is a social commentary on what so glaringly tacky about the 80's, so obviously and grossly "American" that you can't help but smile. All of the over-processed food that Bith idolizes, that were staples for so many of us "American" children are placed on a pedestal by this charming, young woman caught between two cultures. I confess, I took my Kraft blue box Mac and Cheese for granted. I highly recommend this book. Bith is a wonderfully expressive writer and this is an easy, fun read.

A book to savor and devour

Heard the author on NPR and I'm a fan of the whole food writing genre so I snapped this book right up. I often find that memoirs are either beautifully written or have a great story. But this tale of food, assimilation and growing up Vietnamese-American in a conservative midwestern city, has both. I savored the language and also devoured the story. The dinner scenes and descriptions of food, particularly grandmother Noi's Vietnamese feasts, are mouth-watering; Nguyen can even turn a Hostess cupcake into a treasured delicacy. The family's escape from Vietnam is harrowing and heartbreaking, as they have to leave Bich's mother behind. The "characters," if that's what you call them in memoir, are all memorable, from Bich's patchwork family of fulls, halfs and steps to the pious lily-white girls she tries to befriend at school. My heart went out to Bich as a young girl trying so desperately to fit in, and to her entire family, every one of them an outsider in this "sea of blonde." I had bought this book expecting a food memoir, but was pleasantly surprised that it offers far more. A universal story with many rewards. I look forward to this author's next book.