Eight titles that feature wine

Rochelle Dowden-Lord is a writer from south London.

Lush is her first novel.

At Lit Hub the author tagged eight "books that I read for the purpose of writing Lush, and others are simply favorites with wine as a theme or delight within the pages." One title on Dowden-Lord's list:

Bianca Bosker, Cork Dork

This was one of the first books that I read when writing Lush. If you know nothing about sommeliers, this book is the perfect place to start. Bianca Bosker is a wine newbie who throws herself palate-first into the wine industry. We learn about wine with her as she comes to comprehend tasting notes, wine etiquette and the strange and booze-soaked brains of the titular “cork dorks”—oenophiles who are obsessed with not only the taste of wine, but the ceremony of it.

It’s funny and fast-paced, sexy in the way that bottles and bottles of wine facilitate, but also shows snippets of the wine industries dark underbelly, the casual or not-so casual harassment, the danger of a group of people (no matter how wealthy or well-put together) indulging in what is essentially and literally, a drug.

Read about the other entries on the list at Lit Hub.

Also see Jay McInerney's eight top novels for the literate oenophile, John Mullan's ten best wines in literature, and Jamie Ivey's top 10 books about wine.

--Marshal Zeringue