Here are 100 books that What Did You Eat Yesterday? 1 fans have personally recommended if you like
What Did You Eat Yesterday? 1.
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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.
As a transplant to Atlanta from Los Angeles, I’ve been fascinated by the regional cuisines and culinary traditions of the south. But after being caught up in the romance of pimento cheese, mint juleps, and fried chicken, I knew there was so much more to the story that I was missing.
This book tells that untold story, showing us the immeasurable debt southern food owes to Africa and enslaved peoples brought to America. What I love about this book is not just the history being told but how Twitty tells it, combining a mix of genres, from narrative nonfiction to genealogical documentation, historical account to personal memoir.
Just as cooking is a highly creative act that fuses together diverse flavors and ingredients, writing about food needs to be equally creative and equally diverse.
2018 James Beard Foundation Book of the Year | 2018 James Beard Foundation Book Award Winner inWriting | Nominee for the 2018 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in Nonfiction | #75 on The Root100 2018
A renowned culinary historian offers a fresh perspective on our most divisive cultural issue, race, in this illuminating memoir of Southern cuisine and food culture that traces his ancestry—both black and white—through food, from Africa to America and slavery to freedom.
Southern food is integral to the American culinary tradition, yet the question of who "owns" it is one of the most provocative touch points in our…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I grew up in a family of chefs and restaurant owners, so it’s probably no surprise that food plays a major role in my debut novel, All Stirred Up. (The two main characters are, in fact, chefs and restaurant owners. You write what you know!) Cooking plays a major part in my life as well—I’m always making something for family and loved ones. It’s probably no surprise that I love a good food book as well, whether it be fiction, memoir, or history. On my list are just five of my favourites.
Gabrielle Hamilton isn’t just a ‘reluctant chef’ (in her own words), she’s also an absolutely exquisite writer (her MFA really paid off!). Her memoir traces her life and love of food from her New Jersey childhood, through her many professional ups and downs and international travels (I especially love the parts where she’s staying at her Italian mother-in-law’s home, describing the incredible produce she was able to get. Oh, the tomatoes!) Did I extra love this because she grew up in the same small town I was born in? Maybe, but it’s a wonderful book no matter where you’re from.
A sharply crafted and unflinchingly honest memoir. This is a rollicking, passionate story of food, purpose and family.
Blood, Bones & Butter follows the chef Gabrielle Hamilton's extraordinary journey through the places she has inhabited over the years: the rural kitchen of her childhood, where her adored mother stood over the six-burner with wooden spoon in hand; the kitchens of France, Greece, and Turkey, where she was often fed by complete strangers and learned the essence of hospitality; and the kitchen of her beloved Italian mother-in-law, who serves as the link between Hamilton's idyllic past and her…
I was born and raised in Northern California, right on the banks of the Sacramento River. While I didn’t realize it growing up, it was an epicenter for outdoor adventures. Along with skiing, snowboarding, hiking, wakeboarding, and camping, I always read a lot. My dad was worried that I would have no sense of direction because I was always in the back of our van or RV reading a book. That led to writing…and I had my first article published in a wakeboarding magazine when I was 15 years old. Traveling always took a backburner to reading, but now it’s front and center of my writing.
Anyone who has ever worked in the food or hospitality industry—as a cook, a waitress, a hostess, a barista, or otherwise—can identify with this book.
The restaurant business is a different beast, and Anthony Bourdain took a huge risk in writing this and burning bridges with his bosses and coworkers. But in doing so, he unlocked the universal hidden language that food and hospitality workers share.
As a former hostess/waitress myself who spent most of her college years with a part-time job at IHOP and the Golden Waffle, I could relate to a lot of what Bourdain experienced working in NYC, especially with minority groups and how they were treated during that time. He was a huge inspiration to a lot of people, including me.
THE CLASSIC BESTSELLER: 'The greatest book about food ever written' 'A compelling book with its intriguing mix of clever writing and kitchen patois ... more horrifically gripping than a Stephen King novel' Sunday Times 'Extraordinary ... written with a clarity and a clear-eyed wit to put the professional food-writing fraternity to shame' Observer _____________________________ After twenty-five years of 'sex, drugs, bad behaviour and haute cuisine', chef and novelist Anthony Bourdain decided to tell all - and he meant all. From his first oyster in the Gironde to his lowly position as a dishwasher in a honky-tonk fish restaurant in Provincetown;…
Mia Lark is running out of options. There is only one way to change the score: the fantasy planet Revivium.
Armed with the powerful magic in the helm and the friendly AI, Hex that goes with it, Mia throws caution out the window. It’s time to find the main guildhall…
I come from a huge Italian (and Irish) family and food was everything; tradition was everything. My mother was also passionate about health and wellness, devouring Prevention Magazine and working out to Jack LaLanne on a little black and white TV in the kitchen. She instilled a love of food in me that runs deep. At 26, diagnosed with terminal cancer, I chose food as my tool to regain my wellness. After recovering, I decided to study, gain knowledge (studying acupuncture and Chinese Medicine and getting my master's in food science and nutrition), and dedicate my life to helping others make their healthiest choices.
I loved this book so much that I finished it and immediately started it over again! Growing up Italian, I could more than relate to what the author was writing about.
His passion for food, Italian living, and family touched every part of my heart. It was as though I was being shown a mirror of how I grew up, how my family cooked and ate, and how we interacted with each other. It was like watching a home movie of my life.
A Guardian book of the year A Times book of the year A Daily Mail book of the year
From award-winning actor and food obsessive Stanley Tucci comes an intimate and charming memoir of life in and out of the kitchen. For Stanley and foodie fans, this is the perfect, irresistible gift.
'It's impossible to read this without becoming ravenous!' -- Nigella Lawson
'It is as infectious as it is delicious, as funny as it is insightful. The only reason to put this book down, is to go cook and eat from it' -- Heston…
I’ve always loved cartoons and anime. I’m also bisexual and non-binary. Growing up, gay representation was hard to come by, so when we did get it, we were always super excited, whether it was good or not so good. Luckily, I’ve gotten to watch the world change and grow more accepting, but sometimes it’s still difficult to find good rep when you don’t know where to look. I try to fill my books with good representation so that my readers can feel seen in a way I didn’t, and I want to spread the word about some great LGBT manga that I love and made an impact on me.
I still remember when this book came out my senior year of high school, and how ridiculously excited my friends and I were to find out about it. It was probably one of my first times finding some good, wholesome gay representation in manga.
An unknown brother-in-law traveling from Canada to Japan to meet his husband’s family, with personal character growth about gay acceptance? Sign me up!
I feel like I’m always down to read more about family dynamics that aren’t your typical nuclear setup, so this is just a win-win for me.
One of Amazon.com's Top 10 Graphic Novels of the year
'[My Brother's Husband] arrives in the UK garlanded with praise from, among others, Alison Bechdel. It's not hard to see why. Not only is it very touching; it's also, for the non-Japanese reader, unexpectedly fascinating' Rachel Cooke, Observer, Graphic Novel of the Month
'When a cuddly Canadian comes to call, Yaichi - a single Japanese dad - is forced to confront his painful past. With his young daughter Kana leading the way, he gradually rethinks his assumptions about what makes a family. Renowned manga artist Gengoroh Tagame turns his stunning…
Growing up, I never saw myself fully represented in fiction. I only glimpsed pieces of my younger self reflected in novels about queer or queer-coded characters, and so I made it my life’s mission to give teenage me exactly what he wanted. As a YA author whose queer male readers are not always young adults, the message I get the most is, “I wish I had this as a teen.” While I often feel this way as well, I still know that reading the five books I recommended (as well as my own) at any age is life-affirming for queer men like myself.
Sass’s first novel, Surrender Your Sons, is a favorite of mine, so it’s no surprise that this book, a queer horror novel reminiscent of Scream, is a riot and an absolute page-turner.
It contains all the best elements of slasher movies and teen comedies alike, and unabashedly gay characters with wit and sharp edges kept me invested all the way until the story’s climactic ending.
Scream meets Clueless in this YA horror from Adam Sass in which two gay teen BFFs find their friendship tested when a serial killer starts targeting their school’s Queer Club.
Dearie and Cole are inseparable, unlikeable, and (in bad luck for them) totally unbelievable.
From the day they met, Dearie and Cole have been two against the world. But whenever something bad happens at Stone Grove High School, they get blamed. Why? They’re beautiful, flirtatious, dangerously clever queen bees, and they’re always ready to call out their fellow students. But they’ve never faced a bigger threat than surviving…
Winner of the 2024 New Mexico - Arizona Book Award.
In this deeply researched novel of America's most celebrated outlaw, Mark Warren sheds light on the human side of Billy the Kid and reveals the intimate stories of the lesser-known players in his legendary life of crime. Warren's fictional composer…
I've been aware since childhood how people are battered by political and social forces. My family lived in Taiwan in the 1950s, when it was an impoverished, insecure place. Later, back in D.C., the Civil Rights movement and nascent counterculture and my mother's death deepened my conviction that conflict and fragility are facts of life. Novels like these five, whose characters face overwhelming situations, nurture our reserves of empathy. In my memoir of adolescence, I reexamined how, at 16, I tried to handle the jigsaw pieces of looming adulthood, gay panic, family tragedy, and social upheaval. That needed all the empathy—for myself—that I could muster.
I was captivated by the central relationship, a love affair between two grunt soldiers in World War I. That's quite unlikely, but it hints at a positive outcome or dangles a thread of something hopeful. And that kept me hooked through the decades-long saga of war, displacement, exile, and loss from Europe across the Middle East to China—in a refugee caravan, on foot!—ending in the present, in Israel.
Hemon, an immigrant to the U.S. from Sarajevo, writes in English, his second language, which, for me as a writer, makes this kaleidoscopic story an even more dazzling achievement. He's playful with language, too, not unlike Joyce. And playful with the possible; there's magic realism, but with a light touch. An all-time fave. I'm going to read it again.
'This life-stuffed novel is Aleksandar Hemon's masterpiece' - David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas
The epic, cross-continental tale of a love so strong it conquers the Great War, revolution, and even death itself.
As the Archduke Franz Ferdinand arrives in Sarajevo one June day in 1914, Rafael Pinto is busy crushing herbs and grinding tablets behind the counter at the pharmacy he inherited from his father. It's not quite the life he had expected during his poetry-filled student days in libertine Vienna, but it's nothing a dash of laudanum, a summer stroll and idle fantasies can't put in perspective.
I am a forensic and clinical psychologist and have worked years with violent criminals for over 30 years. I am passionate about understanding how and why ordinary people end up doing extraordinary things and specialise in violent crimes by women. Some of the best descriptions of the inner lives of criminals are found in works of fiction, revealing how people think, feel and react. The novels I chose do this brilliantly, leading the reader into the mind of the characters, evoking compassion as well as shock and horror. The psychiatric memoirs describe the fascinating work of psychotherapy with criminal patients and unravel the mysteries of what draws people to violence, even murder.
I first read this book some years ago in one sitting, and have returned to it time and again. I love how it gets right inside the protagonist’s mind, telling the story of erotomania from within his disturbed mind. A chance encounter between two men following a fatal ballooning accident leads to an obsession by Jed, that destroys the life of the man he stalks. I found McKewan’s intricate exploration of obsessive fixation, known as De Cleremabault’s Syndrome both chilling and immersive, like erotomania itself.
From the Booker Prize winner and bestselling author of Atonement—a brilliant and compassionate novel of love, faith, and suspense, and of how life can change in an instant.
The calm, organized life of science writer Joe Rose is shattered when he sees a man die in a freak hot-air balloon accident. A stranger named Jed Parry joins Rose in helping to bring the balloon to safety, but unknown to Rose, something passes between Parry and himself on that day—something that gives birth to an obsession in Parry so powerful that it will test the limits of Rose's beloved rationalism,…
I have an inclusive family with LGBTCuties whom I love dearly. I write and read paranormal romance, but quickly realized that my family might not be able to connect with my favorite genre because they don’t often see themselves represented as anything more than tragic plot points. I gaped at the horror that was hard to face, and realized I had work to do. Paranormal romance has enough room for all of us, so I set out to ensure that my children have books to read in my favorite genre, so we can all be one silly, magical family together, casting spells and looking around every corner for shifters and vampires.
Did you think I would only recommend one Queer Eye book on my list? Do you know me at all?
Love That Story has a lot of laughs, of course, but like the author, the depths of compassion laced with gentle education speaks to the heart of everything I wish I’d always known. Do not read unless you want to better understand this lovely soul. You might just finish this book as a better version of yourself.
Queer Eye star Jonathan Van Ness dives into his favourite subjects in Love That Story, a collection of heartfelt and entertaining essays.
From experiencing heartbreaking grief to uncovering the hidden LGBTQ history of his hometown, Quincy, from overcoming body image issues and living with HIV to cultivating his personal style, JVN speaks out a wide range of topics with heart, honesty and flair.
He not only shares his personal experiences, but with the help of conversations with experts, he also offers captivating perspectives on the wide number of issues we are dealing with today: the current nature of race issues…
Ramon Ramirez’s Dog is a collection of essays written over the years about the adventures and misadventures, mostly outside but occasionally inside the diplomatic career of a U.S. ambassador. Common threads weaving the stories together are a desire for a life well-lived, balancing career with family and friends, keeping physically…
When my daughter was three years old, I enrolled her in a “creative movement” class. I had taken dance lessons for ten years when I was younger, so this felt like an obvious choice. At age eleven, her teacher suggested that she had the facility, talent, and drive to pursue a career in ballet. What followed was seven years of being a “ballet mom,” as she studied, performed, competed, and ultimately left home to pursue her career. The Still Point comes from this experience. It's a novel about dark ambition, but it's also a love letter: to my daughter, to ballet, and to the mothers who became my closest friends inside the ballet studio walls.
This luminous novel, written by former professional Joffrey Ballet dancer, Meg Howrey, follows the life of a dancer, beginning in NYC’s West Village in the 1980s.
It is a beautifully written rumination on not only dance but ambition, family, and secrets as well. Meg and I met for the first time when my daughter had just started on her pre-professional path, and her writing about dance is unmatched.
'A luminous chronicle of betrayal, sacrifice and creative ambition' The Observer 'Lush and enjoyable... a glossy, fast-paced family drama' The Times 'My idea of a perfect book' Jami Attenberg 'By the book's close, readers will be clamouring for an extra curtain call' Guardian Once a year, ballet-obsessed Carlisle Martin spends a few precious weeks with her father Robert and his partner James at their enchanted apartment in Greenwich Village. Time spent with them is impossibly glamorous, filled with art, dance, beauty, books, and grown-ups who take her seriously as they battle the AIDs crisis and Then, one summer, a devastating…
