Here are 100 books that Between Meals fans have personally recommended if you like
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As a journalist who learned his craft on the job in the tumultuous 1960s, I happened to find myself living in states where racial history was being written. Reporting that story required me to understand why discrimination, poverty, and violence remained so deeply rooted in modern America. I wrote Ten Ways to Fight Hate, I made a movie about civil rights martyrs, and, after seeing people from around the world making a pilgrimage to the sites of the civil rights struggle, published my guidebook. Over the course of a 50-year career, I have written a million words. I am proudest of those that tried to right wrongs, and sometimes did.
As I drove through the South researching my guidebook to civil rights sites, my back seat was filled with books. Atop the pile was Taylor Branch’s magisterial three-volume history – America in the King Years 1954-1968: Parting the Waters, Pillar of Fire, and At Canaan’s Edge.
Though encyclopedic, Branch’s story-telling is riveting—weaving together personalities, legalities, strategies, and geography in a way that made me feel as if I were there witnessing history as it was made. Taylor’s detail, reflecting a journalist’s quest for who, what, where, when, how, and why, showed me that these stories could best be told, understood, and felt where they happened.
In Parting the Waters, the first volume of his essential America in the King Years series, Pulitzer Prize winner Taylor Branch gives a “compelling…masterfully told” (The Wall Street Journal) account of Martin Luther King’s early years and rise to greatness.
Hailed as the most masterful story ever told of the American Civil Rights Movement, Parting the Waters is destined to endure for generations.
Moving from the fiery political baptism of Martin Luther King, Jr., to the corridors of Camelot where the Kennedy brothers weighed demands for justice against the deceptions of J. Edgar Hoover, here is a vivid tapestry of…
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
I am an American citizen who taught Classical Studies at the University of Toronto, Canada. I have taught Homer (in translation and in Greek), ancient myth, and “reception” of ancient myth. All the books that I discuss below I have taught many times in a first-year seminar about creative “reception” of the Odyssey. Other topics include comparable stories (like The Tempest by Shakespeare) and other great works of reception (like Derek Walcott’s stage version of the Odyssey and his epic poem "Omeros"). Every time I’ve taught the class, I’ve learned the most from free-wheeling discussions with students.
Though I love to read Homer’s Odyssey in the original Greek, I also appreciate translations that allow particular themes to emerge in new ways.
All translations of the ancient epic are necessarily inventive recreations of the ancient Greek Homeric story, and I like the way this translation employs a quick-paced poetic meter and updates the tale to suit modern sensibilities on uncomfortable aspects of the Odyssey (e.g., misogyny, slavery).
The introduction also provides an authoritative explanation of the Homeric Odyssey.
The first great adventure story in the Western canon, The Odyssey is a poem about violence and the aftermath of war; about wealth, poverty and power; about marriage, family and identity; and about travellers, hospitality and the changing meanings of home in a strange world.
This vivid new translation-the first by a woman-matches the number of lines in the Greek original, striding at Homer's sprightly pace. Emily Wilson employs elemental, resonant language and an iambic pentameter to produce a translation with an enchanting "rhythm and rumble" that avoids proclaiming its own grandeur. An engrossing tale told in a compelling new…
Having sailed the East Coast for over sixty years, from Ocracoke to Gaspe, I know that there’s nothing better than a few days of bad weather - if you`re safely at anchor in a well-protected cove. The wind in the rigging, rain drumming on the deck, the stove fired up, a mug of tea (with or without a tot of rum): add a good book, and that is pure happiness. After a hard day's sail - or just drifting along, becalmed - a good book is a sailor`s best friend.
Everyone loves whales, right? But almost no one knows anything about them (I didn't). As a paleobiologist, Pyenson gives us a compelling view of their world, dating back over ten million years. Using vivid detail and rich narrative prose he shows us just how essential they are to marine ecology, and how our fate is inextricably linked to theirs. I've rarely read a book that so transformed my view of the world.
"A palaeontological howdunnit...[Spying on Whales] captures the excitement of...seeking answers to deep questions in cetacean science." -Nature
Called "the best of science writing" (Edward O. Wilson) and named a best book by Popular Science, a dive into the secret lives of whales, from their four-legged past to their perilous present.
Whales are among the largest, most intelligent, deepest diving species to have ever lived on our planet. They evolved from land-roaming, dog-sized creatures into animals that move like fish, breathe like us, can grow to 300,000 pounds, live 200 years and travel entire ocean basins. Whales fill us with terror,…
Across America, a wave of brutal, inexplicable killings leaves hardened detectives and desperate federal agents grasping for answers.
But what appears to be vigilante terror is something far more ancient - an invisible war between the forces of light and the agents of darkness, playing out on the streets of…
Having sailed the East Coast for over sixty years, from Ocracoke to Gaspe, I know that there’s nothing better than a few days of bad weather - if you`re safely at anchor in a well-protected cove. The wind in the rigging, rain drumming on the deck, the stove fired up, a mug of tea (with or without a tot of rum): add a good book, and that is pure happiness. After a hard day's sail - or just drifting along, becalmed - a good book is a sailor`s best friend.
In these two volumes, Massie shows how the naval arms race Kaiser Wilhelm undertook with his grandmother Queen Victoria led inexorably to the Great War and a century of conflict. The rise of a young power, contesting control of the seas with the established global empire: sound familiar? The stakes could not have been higher - as Churchill said of Admiral Jellicoe, commander of the British fleet: "He is the only man who could lose this war in a single afternoon." Jellicoe prevailed when that fateful afternoon came at Jutland, but Massie shows us the long drift to war that started decades before on a different afternoon: a yacht race at Cowes.
With the biographer's rare genius for expressing the essence of extraordinary lives, Massie brings to life a crowd of glittering figures: the single-minded Admiral von Tirpitz; the young, ambitious Winston Churchill; the ruthless, sycophantic Chancellor Bernhard von Bulow; Britain's greatest twentieth-century Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey; and Jacky Fisher, the eccentric admiral who revolutionized the British Navy and brought forth for the first true battleship, H.M.S. Dreadnought. Their story, and the story of the era, filled with misunderstanding, missed opportunities, and events leading to unintended conclusions, unfolds like a Greek tragedy in this powerful narrative. Intimately human and dramatic, Dreadnought…
As an American living and cooking in Sicily for almost sixty years, I have soaked up Sicilian cuisine and culture both through research and by osmosis, delighting in discovering how the food I was preparing reflected the island’s position in history and geography, a meeting point for almost all the civilizations of the Mediterranean. My first book, a memoir of my life here entitled On Persephone’s Island, was followed by Pomp and Sustenance. Twenty-five Centuries of Sicilian Food, the first book on Sicilian cuisine to be published in English. Six more books on different aspects of Sicilian food and culture, in English or in Italian, have followed.
Whenever I feel a stab of nostalgia for my American childhood, I turn to M.F.K. Fisher, one of the most delightful food writers ever. The Art of Eating is a one-volume edition of six of her books, all written before I graduated from high school: it gives a funny and informative account of American (and other) eating habits before the great foodie revolution of the ‘80’s altered everything. It offers mostly food for the mind but the palate is also served by recipes I’d forgotten all about, often given both in their comfort food guise and in fancy dress.
Ruth Reichl - 'Mary Frances [Fisher] has the extraordinary ability to make the ordinary seem rich and wonderful. Her dignity comes from her absolute insistence on appreciating life as it comes to her'. Julia Child - 'How wonderful to have here in my hands the essence of M.F.K. Fisher, whose wit and fulsome opinions on food and those who produce it, comment upon it, and consume it are as apt today as they were several decades ago, when she composed them. Why did she choose food and hunger she was asked, and she replied, 'When I write about hunger, I…
Like many others, due to allergies, I had to rethink conventional techniques in the kitchen. I started creating new recipes with alternative ingredients, aiming to make a tiered cake that showcased thoughtful choices and beautiful designs. By avoiding processed ingredients, I achieved delicate, moist textures with rich flavors and colors. Working with alternative ingredients keeps me inspired by nature, which I love—it's all about creativity and exploration, using perishable ingredients to create edible sculptures. I owe my journey and ability to experiment to past mentors who taught me about unique flavor pairings and creative baking techniques. Their guidance was essential to my journey and the creation of my cookbook.
This book is a valuable resource for chefs and beginner cooks. It has changed how I think about recipes by showing many flavor combinations. The book is organized alphabetically by different ingredients, such as spices, nuts, herbs, fruits, and vegetables. For each ingredient, it features unique flavor pairings. I find it essential for my personal and professional cooking.
Its main goal is to highlight the many ways to pair ingredients, inspiring creativity in the kitchen. Whenever I need new ideas for pairing, I turn to this book. As someone who develops recipes and enjoys creating unique dishes, I believe this book is timeless.
Great cooking goes beyond following a recipe--it's knowing how to season ingredients to coax the greatest possible flavor from them. Drawing on dozens of leading chefs' combined experience in top restaurants across the country, Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg present the definitive guide to creating "deliciousness" in any dish.
Thousands of ingredient entries, organized alphabetically and cross-referenced, provide a treasure trove of spectacular flavor combinations. Readers will learn to work more intuitively and effectively with ingredients; experiment with temperature and texture; excite the nose and palate with herbs, spices, and other seasonings; and balance the sensual, emotional, and spiritual elements…
The Amazing Afterlife of Animals
by
Karen A. Anderson,
My book is for anyone grieving the loss of a beloved pet. If your heart feels shattered and you are searching for understanding, comfort, and connection, these chapters were written with you in mind.
I share uplifting and life-changing stories that help you move beyond the devastation of grief, including…
I have always loved books that weave food into the narrative. From essays to novels, I'm interested in the way food informs relationships and memories in stories. When Nancy Garfinkel and I created The Recipe Club, we shared a lot of our own food-related memories and passions. After the novel was published, we formed Recipe Clubs with devoted readers across the country. We traveled all over, hearing real-life stories related to food and friendship, love, and family. Recipes almost always carry stories with them, and the telling of these stories becomes a conduit for expressing our most authentic selves. I think this is why our book has had such great appeal.
Stories from the Kitchen is a celebration of food in fiction, an anthology of short stories combined with tidbits from novels. The authors are well known, ranging from Charles Dickens’ “Love and Oysters,” about oysters upending the life of a man and his dependable routines, to Isaak Dineson’s “Babette’s Feast,” in which a lavish dinner served by a French cook transforms the hearts and souls of the most austere members of an isolated Danish community. Another story of particular interest: M.F.K. Fisher’s heartbreaking “A Kitchen Allegory.” As in Fisher’s gastronomical non-fiction writing, in which food is her greatest metaphor, this slice of fiction uses food as a source of empathy for a woman who has to reckon with no longer being needed. Reading this entire collection underscores how my own book—though unprecedented in its number of recipes tucked within a novel— stands on a long tradition of food as…
Stories from the Kitchen is a one-of-a-kind anthology of classic tales showcasing the culinary arts from across the centuries and around the world.
Here is a mouthwatering smorgasbord of stories with food in the starring role, by a range of masters of fiction—from Dickens and Chekhov to Isaac Bashevis Singer, from Shirley Jackson to Jim Crace and Amy Tan. These richly varied selections offer tastes as decadent as caviar and as humble as cherry pie. They dazzle with the sumptuous extravagance of Isak Dinesen’s “Babette’s Feast” and console with a prisoner’s tender final meal in Günter Grass’s The Flounder. Choice…
My twin passions in life have always been food and writing. While I chose poetry and creative writing as my primary fields of expertise, my ten-plus years of working in restaurants are just as important to who I am. I’m hungry for food writing that takes a more literary or creative approach. Cooking is a highly creative and meaningful act, and I love to see writing that aspires to do for the reader what the dedicated cook does for the eater: to nourish not only the body but the more metaphysical elements of our being, which is to say, our hearts, and maybe even our souls.
If The Gastronomical Me was a kind of first course or appetizer into the world of food writing (and French cuisine in particular), this book is the elaborate, ornately baroque, show-stopping main.
Written by an 18th-century French judge and gourmand, the book is a fascinating compendium of meditations on a dizzying array of topics related to eating and drinking, or what Savarin calls “the pleasures of the table.”
Another reason that I love this book so much is that it’s translated by none other than M.F.K. Fisher, who provides “glosses” and witty commentaries on Savarin’s text. It’s like watching two of the most intelligent and literary gourmands to ever live have a dinner conversation hundreds of years apart.
A delightful and hilarious classic about the joys of the table, The Physiology of Taste is the most famous book about food ever written. First published in France in 1825 and continuously in print ever since, Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin’s masterpiece is a historical, philosophical, and epicurean collection of recipes, reflections, and anecdotes on everything and anything gastronomical. Brillat-Savarin—who famously stated “Tell me what you eat and I shall tell you what you are”—shrewdly expounds upon culinary matters that still resonate today, from the rise of the destination restaurant to matters of diet and weight, and in M. F. K. Fisher,…
I have always been enamored with the natural world and how it works. This trait, among others, led me into the fields of biology, natural history, and environmental planning. Even as I witness our species chiseling away at the planet, I find hope and solace. Working alongside the tenacity and resiliency of plants, animals, and soil microbes, I've helped landscapes as large as a river basin and as small as a garden come to life and flourish. Give nature half a chance and she can do wonders.
I would be remiss if I didn't have a "food" book from my list. While I have read and liked many such books, Adler's is the top gem.
As I read her book, I pictured us in my kitchen conversing about how we had modified a recipe to save time, money, or both. We compared notes on the lost art of thrift in the kitchen; how to turn bread heels, beans, and bones into tasty components of a meal.
Adler shows us that we can be cooks on our terms, in our own kitchens, delightfully free of pretense and convention. May this book free your mind and inspire you to get creative in the kitchen to discover what's possible!
'The most beautifully written description of what cooking is all about, and what it actually is, with recipes' Nigella Lawson
Through the insightful essays in An Everlasting Meal, Tamar Adler issues a rallying cry to home cooks.
In chapters about boiling water, cooking eggs and beans, and summoning respectable meals from empty cupboards, Tamar weaves philosophy and instruction into approachable lessons on instinctive cooking. Tamar shows how to make the most of everything you buy, demonstrating what the world's great chefs know: that great meals rely on the bones and peels and ends of meals before them.
Jose Castillo is a cynical, wise-cracking Cuban-American who restores classic cars. He’s also a private eye whose sarcastic ways sometimes get him into trouble.
One day, in the process of installing a four-barrel carburetor on a 1965 Mustang, into his shop walks trouble—in the shape of a mysterious, beautiful woman…
My twin passions in life have always been food and writing. While I chose poetry and creative writing as my primary fields of expertise, my ten-plus years of working in restaurants are just as important to who I am. I’m hungry for food writing that takes a more literary or creative approach. Cooking is a highly creative and meaningful act, and I love to see writing that aspires to do for the reader what the dedicated cook does for the eater: to nourish not only the body but the more metaphysical elements of our being, which is to say, our hearts, and maybe even our souls.
This book was my first love in the world of food writing, and it’s a romance that still continues to nourish and ravish many years later.
Simply put, M.F.K. Fisher’s seminal memoir about living, eating, and cooking in 1930s France is one of the most eloquent and moving testaments to the radical power of gastronomy to change and deepen our lives. By sharing her own culinary revelations and gastronomical epiphanies, Fisher helped me to reflect on my own ah-ha food moments and to be hungry for more of them.
The book shows us how food connects us, cuts across time and cultures, and makes us fall in love with our own lives.
In 1929, a newly married M.F.K. Fisher said goodbye to a milquetoast American culinary upbringing and sailed with her husband to Dijon, where she tasted real French cooking for the first time. The Gastronomical Me is a chronicle of her passionate embrace of a whole new way of eating, drinking, and celebrating the senses. As she recounts memorable meals shared with an assortment of eccentric and fascinating characters, set against a backdrop of mounting pre-war tensions, we witness the formation not only of her taste but of her character and her prodigious talent.
