Candy Professor

Coming soon…”Untitled” candy book

January 18, 2013 at 11:22 am 4 comments

Well, it’s done.  The book is finished, the manuscript is edited, the whole 118,000 words bundled up and sent off to production.

Book? Yes, that’s where I’ve been the past few months, shaping and molding all my candy thoughts into a coherent whole. I’m very happy with the result, an entirely new story about candy in America from about 1880 until today. Some of the themes will be familiar to readers of CandyProfessor, especially ideas about the way candy takes the blame for all kinds of bad things, and our essential ambivalence about candy (“evil, or just misunderstood?”). But what I’m really excited about in the book is the way I can tell a larger story about how the emergence of mass-produced candy changed what we call food, and how so much of what we eat as food today is directly descended from candy.

Alas, you (and I) will have to wait some time to see the actual book. Books, evidently, are like babies.  They take about 9 months, so look for my book at the end of October, 2013. It’s called….

Oh, wait, I don’t know what it’s called. First it was called “The Candy Lure.” Then it was called “In Defense of Candy.” Then it was called “Candy: The Secret History of Food.” And now…I have no idea. There are many masters to please when titling a book: the author, the editorial staff, the marketing people, the sales people…. and while I’m thrilled to be working with an excellent team at Faber and Faber, the fact is that once an author signs the book over, the publisher gets the final word. Lots of smart minds are brainstorming at this very instant to come up with the best title ever; I can’t wait to find out what it will be!

So stay tuned. As soon as I find out what my book is called, I’ll let you know.

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