Anthony Bourdain is the executive chef at brasserie Les Halles in New York. After two years at Vassar College, he attended the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park. He has since spent more than two decades working in professional kitchens. His memoir "Kitchen Confidential" (2001) was expanded from an article he'd written for "The New Yorker" magazine about life behind the scenes in restaurant kitchens. The book described life in those kitchens in even more lurid detail, and it became a surprise international bestseller. In late 2000, Bourdain set out to travel his way across the globe, looking for, as he puts it, "kicks, thrills, epiphanies" and the "perfect meal." The book, and its… companion Food Network series "A Cook's Tour," chronicle his adventures and misadventures on that voyage. Bourdain is also the author of two satirical thrillers, "Bone In The Throat" and "Gone Bamboo", as well as the "Urban Historical, Typhoid Mary."
Born in Calcutta, and spent his childhood in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Northern India. He studied in Delhi, Oxford, and Egypt and taught at various Indian and American universities. Author of a travel book and three acclaimed novels. Ghosh has also written for GRANTA, THE NEW YORKER, THE NEW YORK TIMES, and THE OBSERVER. He lives in New York City with his wife and two children.Pico Iyer was born in Oxford, England to Indian parents, who immigrated to California in 1957. He received a B.A. and M.A. from Oxford University and a second masters degree from Harvard University. From 1982 to 1985, he was a writer for Time magazine. Following a leave of absence to visit Asia, Iyer wrote Video… Nights in Katmandu: And Other Reports from the Not-So-Far East. In 1986 he returned to Time as a contributor. He also contributes regularly to Conde Nast Traveler magazine. Pico Iyer has written several other travel books including The Lady and the Monk: Four Seasons in Kyoto; Falling Off the Map: Some Lonely Places in the World; and Tropical Classical: Essays from Several Directions.
Mark Kurlansky is the author of The Basque History of the World, the New York Times bestseller Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World (among the New York Public Library's Best Books of the Year in 1998), as well as A Chosen Few: The Resurrection of European Jewry; A Continent of Islands: Searching for the Caribbean Destiny, and several acclaimed works of short fiction and journalism about the Caribbean. He spent seven years as the Caribbean correspondent for the Chicago Tribune. He lives in New York City.