Books like Cute, Quaint, Hungry and Romantic by Daniel Harris

During World War II, a foster girl in Nazi Germany steals books to share with neighbors and a hidden Jewish man, proving literature’s power to nourish the soul amid darkness.

In the unforgettable Le Cirque des Rêves, two young magicians, Celia and Marco, are locked in a nocturnal duel of wonder and will—an impossible game where love and magic collide on a stage of breathtaking spectacle.

Don Tillman, a genetics professor with Asperger’s, designs a scientific survey to find a wife, only to meet Rosie Jarman, a drinker and late arriver who challenges his controlled worldview and leads him to discover that love can’t be measured.

A philosophical novel set in a Parisian apartment building where an autodidact concierge and a teenage resident secretly discover each other's intellect, exploring class, friendship, and hidden genius.

Monsieur Perdu, a literary apothecary aboard a Seine barge, prescribes novels to heal broken hearts. When his own love remains a mystery, he journeys south of France to find closure and prove stories can mend souls.

Verity Durant, celebrated chef and scandalized lover, arrives at Fairleigh Park to cook for rising politician Stuart Somerset, whose culinary curiosity becomes a dangerous affair of passion, revenge and buried secrets.

"In this encyclopedia of low-brow aesthetics, Daniel Harris concentrates on the contagious appeal of that which is not art, on the uses of the useless, the politics of product design and advertising. We learn how advertisers exaggerate our sensual responses to eating, how nature photography magnifies the closeness of the natural world and how the mutated physiology of dolls invites our pity and affection. Harris places the refuse of consumerism under a microscope, capturing the essence of the marketplace on the level on which we actually experience it, on the visceral level of our senses - at the very instant when our neurons begin to fire as Leonardo DiCaprio kisses Kate Winslet or the moment in which the Mars Bar hypnotically breaks in slow motion, its creamy caramel center stretching into translucent filaments."--BOOK JACKET.

"For centuries, women have been caricatured as consummate shoppers, relegated to provisioning the household, and fetishized as objects of advertising. This wide-ranging volume of thirteen original essays illuminates the development of modern consumption practices, gender roles, and the sexual division of labor in both the United States and Europe." "Drawing on social, economic, and art history as well as cultural studies, these essays consider commodities from bread and potatoes, cosmetics, home appliances, and the dandy's suit to social welfare handouts, movie melodramas, and pornographic picture cards. With extensive introductions and an annotated bibliography, this volume advances a new research field and the vital social and cultural issues at stake in its progress."--BOOK JACKET.

See https://openlibrary.org/works/OL19781733W/Eleanor_Oliphant_Is_Completely_Fine