"For the author, food sustains like a lifeline or even a bloodline. . . . [Babine] continues to navigate her way through extraordinary challenges with ordinary comforts, finding poetry in the everyday. Reading this quiet book should provide the sort of balm for those in similar circumstances." -Kirkus
Winner of the 2016 Minnesota Book Award for Creative Nonfiction/Memoir
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Winner of the 2020 Minnesota Book Award for Creative Nonfiction/Memoir
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Praise for All the Wild Hungers
“A lush gem of a book, both heartbreaking and heart-making. Karen Babine’s language is the plush dough she kneads, her observations as elastic as gluten bubbles. By the book’s conclusion you will become a child again, standing on a chair to peer into the pot, not wanting the process of making―of cooking, of understanding, of as she says, ‘consuming the knowing’―to ever end.”
―Amy Thielen, author of Give a Girl a Knife
"“All the Wild Hungers” is moving without being maudlin, tautly written without being sparse or barren, and a cancer memoir that is so adroitly connected to universal experiences that it isn’t really a cancer memoir at all. Its essays are brief, fast-moving, lucid, funny, and jarring, and it’s hard not to whip through the whole work in one sitting, so propulsive is the book’s pacing and so effective is Babine’s writing."
―The Growler
"In the end, the overriding hunger referred to in this lovely book’s title is the hunger for life. Perhaps it is never stronger than in the shadow of death, and in the light of death’s opposite, love. Praise, sympathy and thanks to Babine, who has given us this ode, lament and meditation."
―Minneapolis Star Tribune
“In this beautiful and haunting book, Karen Babine leads us into the kitchen and cooks healing meals for her mother and herself. With humor and imagination, she names each of her cast iron pots, reclaimed from thrift stores, and simmers the elements of grief and longing, hope and love, with acceptance, insight, and wisdom.”
―Beth Dooley, author of In Winter’s Kitchen: Growing Roots and Breaking Bread in the Northern Heartland
“In All the Wild Hungers, Karen Babine welcomes us into the small consolations and quiet moments that define a life. These elegant meditations on food, faith, and family ring with absolute truth and clarity.”
―Dinty W. Moore, author of Between Panic & Desire
“As Karen Babine astutely notes, cancer divides us, sharpens distinctions, isolates, and quarantines. But All the Wild Hungers reunifies (mother and daughter, sufferer and witness, writer and reader) through metaphors of food and family as a private grief is made bearable and shareable in brief, calm, threatening essays about how everyday life must continue amidst uncertainty and pain. The book powerfully and beautifully enacts the stillness we need to survive.”
―Patrick Madden, author of Quotidiana
"Transportive and vivid... Babine’s writing brims with tenderness—for her family, her home, and the food she prepares—warming readers’ hearts."
―Publishers Weekly
"It’s clear that for the author, food sustains like a lifeline or even a bloodline... [Babine] continues to navigate her way through extraordinary challenges with ordinary comforts, finding poetry in the everyday. Reading this quiet book should provide the sort of balm for those in similar circumstances that writing it must have for the author."
―Kirkus
"The book is replete with style... Achingly sad and incredibly beautiful, Karen Babine's All the Wild Hungers is a welcoming invitation to dinner, family, and laughter, evoking a warm, full kitchen and good company."
―Foreword Reviews
"Written in 64 vignettes, readers may initially think the book will be an easy read. They would be wrong. The bursts of text allow Babine to take focused plunges into living with her mother’s cancer recovery, each time from a different poignant angle. Much like someone working through intense physical therapy to achieve a seemingly impossible task, Babine navigates muscles and nerves to craft moments into manageable bites layered with significance regarding the bones of the matter. "
―Split Rock Review
"This is a book for those who love language, for those who love cooking, and for those who want a new way to meditate and to purposefully slow down. The linked essays tell a meandering story, examining life along the way. There are reflections on motherhood and the choice not to have children of one’s own, as well as discussions of the dismissal of women’s pain and the sexism still pervasive in healthcare today. There are also portraits of place in vivid descriptions of Minnesota hot dish, Christmas Eve carols, and church suppers. To read Babine’s essays is to walk a while with a family, get to know their roots, and come out nourished in every sense of the word."
―Colorado Review
“Karen Babine’s All the Wild Hungers captures the disorientation we feel when faced with this most ordinary, yet extraordinary, of shocks: the mortality of those dearest to us.”
―River Teeth
"Scenes are impressionistic, like a rubbing that you do upon a gravestone. Or, like the imprint of a bird that had slammed into Babine’s kitchen window."
―Rachael Hanel, author of We'll Be the Last Ones to Let You Down: Memoir of a Gravedigger’s Daughter
"The writing combines Lia Purpura’s lyrical precision and the clear-eyed directness of Roxane Gay. [...] I admired the anti-velocity of the narrative, its attention to the small moment, its recognition that small moments are often big moments."
―Atticus Review
"This book, Babine’s second essay collection, has faith that making something, and then making something else after that, will help stave off hungers of all kinds— physical, emotional, and spiritual. Cancer might sometimes seem to win, but food, love, and human connection will remain."
―Georgia Review
“A lush gem of a book, both heartbreaking and heart-making. Karen Babine’s language is the plush dough she kneads, her observations as elastic as gluten bubbles. By the book’s conclusion you will become a child again, standing on a chair to peer into the pot, not wanting the process of making―of cooking, of understanding, of as she says, ‘consuming the knowing’―to ever end.”
―Amy Thielen, author of Give a Girl a Knife
"“All the Wild Hungers” is moving without being maudlin, tautly written without being sparse or barren, and a cancer memoir that is so adroitly connected to universal experiences that it isn’t really a cancer memoir at all. Its essays are brief, fast-moving, lucid, funny, and jarring, and it’s hard not to whip through the whole work in one sitting, so propulsive is the book’s pacing and so effective is Babine’s writing."
―The Growler
"In the end, the overriding hunger referred to in this lovely book’s title is the hunger for life. Perhaps it is never stronger than in the shadow of death, and in the light of death’s opposite, love. Praise, sympathy and thanks to Babine, who has given us this ode, lament and meditation."
―Minneapolis Star Tribune
“In this beautiful and haunting book, Karen Babine leads us into the kitchen and cooks healing meals for her mother and herself. With humor and imagination, she names each of her cast iron pots, reclaimed from thrift stores, and simmers the elements of grief and longing, hope and love, with acceptance, insight, and wisdom.”
―Beth Dooley, author of In Winter’s Kitchen: Growing Roots and Breaking Bread in the Northern Heartland
“In All the Wild Hungers, Karen Babine welcomes us into the small consolations and quiet moments that define a life. These elegant meditations on food, faith, and family ring with absolute truth and clarity.”
―Dinty W. Moore, author of Between Panic & Desire
“As Karen Babine astutely notes, cancer divides us, sharpens distinctions, isolates, and quarantines. But All the Wild Hungers reunifies (mother and daughter, sufferer and witness, writer and reader) through metaphors of food and family as a private grief is made bearable and shareable in brief, calm, threatening essays about how everyday life must continue amidst uncertainty and pain. The book powerfully and beautifully enacts the stillness we need to survive.”
―Patrick Madden, author of Quotidiana
"Transportive and vivid... Babine’s writing brims with tenderness—for her family, her home, and the food she prepares—warming readers’ hearts."
―Publishers Weekly
"It’s clear that for the author, food sustains like a lifeline or even a bloodline... [Babine] continues to navigate her way through extraordinary challenges with ordinary comforts, finding poetry in the everyday. Reading this quiet book should provide the sort of balm for those in similar circumstances that writing it must have for the author."
―Kirkus
"The book is replete with style... Achingly sad and incredibly beautiful, Karen Babine's All the Wild Hungers is a welcoming invitation to dinner, family, and laughter, evoking a warm, full kitchen and good company."
―Foreword Reviews
"Written in 64 vignettes, readers may initially think the book will be an easy read. They would be wrong. The bursts of text allow Babine to take focused plunges into living with her mother’s cancer recovery, each time from a different poignant angle. Much like someone working through intense physical therapy to achieve a seemingly impossible task, Babine navigates muscles and nerves to craft moments into manageable bites layered with significance regarding the bones of the matter. "
―Split Rock Review
"This is a book for those who love language, for those who love cooking, and for those who want a new way to meditate and to purposefully slow down. The linked essays tell a meandering story, examining life along the way. There are reflections on motherhood and the choice not to have children of one’s own, as well as discussions of the dismissal of women’s pain and the sexism still pervasive in healthcare today. There are also portraits of place in vivid descriptions of Minnesota hot dish, Christmas Eve carols, and church suppers. To read Babine’s essays is to walk a while with a family, get to know their roots, and come out nourished in every sense of the word."
―Colorado Review
“Karen Babine’s All the Wild Hungers captures the disorientation we feel when faced with this most ordinary, yet extraordinary, of shocks: the mortality of those dearest to us.”
―River Teeth
"Scenes are impressionistic, like a rubbing that you do upon a gravestone. Or, like the imprint of a bird that had slammed into Babine’s kitchen window."
―Rachael Hanel, author of We'll Be the Last Ones to Let You Down: Memoir of a Gravedigger’s Daughter
"The writing combines Lia Purpura’s lyrical precision and the clear-eyed directness of Roxane Gay. [...] I admired the anti-velocity of the narrative, its attention to the small moment, its recognition that small moments are often big moments."
―Atticus Review
"This book, Babine’s second essay collection, has faith that making something, and then making something else after that, will help stave off hungers of all kinds— physical, emotional, and spiritual. Cancer might sometimes seem to win, but food, love, and human connection will remain."
―Georgia Review