Reading While Eating: The Photography of Juliette Tang

I used to receive a healthy amount of criticism from close friends regarding my habit of reading while I ate. Their complaints were fair: I was ignoring them, I was distant, I was... chewing with my mouth grossly open because I was daydreaming mid-meal over some travel memoir. What they didn't understand — and, granted, I was not the most graceful practitioner of this routine — was the inherent beauty in pairing the perfect book with the perfectly composed meal. Tea and old English literature, bruschetta and a short story by Calvino, a madeleine and some Proust. The list of ideal matches goes on and on.

Thankfully, book photographer Juliette Tang has got my back! Although her focus is not explicitly on food, a number of her photos showcase brilliantly laid out meals alongside a nicely folded, just-worn-in-enough book jacket. I bet the eating is as good as the reading.