Six top food scenes in fiction

Kate Christensen's new novel is The Last Cruise.

One of her six favorite food scenes in fiction, as shared at The Week magazine:

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

Lily Bart meets Lawrence Selden in Grand Central Station and goes to his apartment — "I can give you a cup of tea in no time — and you won't meet any bores." There's no real food — just cake and cigarettes. Lily never seems to eat. Somehow, for me, this most elemental self-denial lies at the heart of her tragic downfall.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The House of Mirth is one of Anna Murphy's ten "most inspiring fictional women [Lily Bart] you may never have heard of," Anna Quindlen's five best list of novels about women in search of themselves, Jay McInerney's five essential New York novels, Megan Wasson's five novels that explore the dark side in New York City, Rachel Cusk's five best books on disgrace and Kate Christensen's six books that she rereads all the time; it appears on Robert McCrum's top ten list of books for Obama officials.

--Marshal Zeringue