Sarah Perry presents SWEET NOTHINGS

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Sarah Perry joins us in Remington to celebrate her new book Sweet Nothings, in conversation with Baltimore author Jeannie Vanasco!

ABOUT SWEET NOTHINGS

A fun, sophisticated illustrated collection of essays that catalogs the simple and not so simple pleasures of the eclectic world of candy from the award-winning author of After the Eclipse. With illustrations by Forsyth Harmon.

A taxonomy of sweetness, a rhapsody of artificial flavors, and a multi-faceted theory of pleasure, Sweet Nothings is made up of one hundred illustrated micro essays organized by candy color, from the red of Pop Rocks to the purple Jelly Bonbon in the Whitman’s Sampler. Each entry is a meditation on taste and texture, a memory unlocked. Everyone’s favorites—and least favorites—are carefully considered, including Snickers and Trader Joe’s Peanut Butter Cups, as well as the beloved Good n’ Plenty and Werther’s Originals.

An expert guide and exquisite writer, Sarah Perry asks such pressing questions as: Twizzlers or Red Vines? Why are Mentos eaters so maniacally happy? And in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, how could Edmund sell out his siblings for, of all things, Turkish delight? She rejects the dreaded “What is your favorite candy?” question and counters: Under what circumstances? F The question itself is flawed—favorite under what circumstances? In what weather? On the road, or at home? In what mood? For candy is inextricably tied to the seasons of our lives. Sweet Nothings moves associatively, touching on pop culture, art, culinary history, philosophy, body image, and class-based food moralism. It challenges the very idea of “junk” food and posits taking pleasure seriously as a means of survival.

Sarah Perry’s pure love of candy weaves together elegiac glimpses of her 90s childhood—and the loss at its center—with stories of love and desire. Surprisingly smart and frequently funny, Sweet Nothings is a tart and sweet ode to finding small joys where you can. Yes, even in black licorice.

Sweet Nothings releases on Tuesday, February 4 and is available for preorder at greedyreads.com!

Sarah Perry is the author of the memoir After the Eclipse, which was named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, a Poets & Writers Notable Nonfiction Debut, and a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick. Perry is the recipient of the 2018 Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Award and is a finalist for the 2024 MFK Fisher Distinguished Writing Award from the James Beard Foundation. She holds an M.F.A. in nonfiction from Columbia University and is currently teaching in the graduate program in Creative Writing at Colorado State University.

Jeannie Vanasco is the author of the memoirs Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was a Girl—which was named a New York Times Editors' Choice and a best book of 2019 by TIME, Esquire, Kirkus, among others—and The Glass Eye, which Poets & Writers called one of the five best literary nonfiction debuts of 2017. Her third book, A Silent Treatment, will be published by Tin House in fall 2025. Born and raised in Sandusky, Ohio, she lives in Baltimore and is an associate professor of English at Towson University.

Host or Publisher Greedy Reads