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Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly bookish meme hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl that features a different bookish topic every week.
Today’s topic is Books Involving Food
I love food! I love books! And I love books about food too! Today’s topic was really fun to curate, and I’m excited about reading, and rereading, many of these books below. What interesting books involving food did you come across for today’s topic? I’d love to know!
Top Ten Books Involving Food
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain – This was the first book that came to mind for today’s topic. I read the book a long time ago and remember loving it, but I didn’t make any notes and I don’t remember much about it anymore. Time for a reread maybe?
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver – I love stories about self-sustainability and growing your own food even if I doubt I’d ever be able to do it myself. It’s inspiring to see other people do it!
The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan – I took a few nutrition courses many years ago and these was one of the books we studied. I rated it 5 stars but I don’t remember much about it individually because I was reading so many other similar books for the course.
Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser – This book was written more than 20 years ago, and I wonder if much has changed since then with our eating habits. There are a lot more healthy options out there now, which is very encouraging and convenient, but I believe to some extent, we are still a fast food nation.
Julie & Julia by Julie Powell – I loved the movie with Amy Adams and Meryl Streep when it came out but I haven’t read the book. I love the idea of cooking through all the recipes in a cookbook as a challenge though.
On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee – This was another book I bought for my nutrition course. I only read parts of it because they were assigned, but I found it fascinating and still mean to read through the rest of it.
Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper by Fuchsia Dunlop – I love Sichuan food and I’ve heard good things about Fuchsia Dunlop’s memoir. I want to read this sooner than later.
Stir by Jessica Fechtor – This one sounds so compelling. The author had a brain aneurysm and nearly died and her journey to recovery involved relearning to cook. I’m curious to read it.
Gulp by Mary Roach – Mary Roach has got lots of great popular science books I want to read. This one happens to be about food and our alimentary canal.
Taste by Stanley Tucci – I love Stanley Tucci as an actor, and I know he’s also a foodie and a chef. He has his own cookbook and he also acted in Julie & Julia, by the way. I want to read about his life through food.
Have you read any of these books? What did you think of them? Would you read any of these books?
Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly bookish meme hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl that features a different bookish topic every week.
Today’s topic is Relationship Freebie (Pick a relationship type and choose characters who fit that relationship as it relates to you. So, characters you’d like to date, be friends with, be enemies with, etc. Bookish families you’d like to be a part of, characters you’d want as your siblings, pets you’d like to take for yourself, etc.)
To be clear right off the bat, I don’t actually want a relationship with many of the mothers featured in these books (some are great but most are not!). I was having a hard time thinking of books with characters I’d like to be in some kind of relationship with, especially mother/daughter relationships, so I thought I’d just do books featuring mothers regardless of whether they’re good or bad.
Surprise! There are a lot of bad mothers in fiction… and nonfiction. Also surprise! There seems to be a lot of Asians with complicated relationships with their mothers.
Top Ten Books Featuring Mothers
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng – A couple of different but equally complicated mother/daughter relationships represented here. I watched the show but haven’t read the book. The show was really good, but so intense and heavy too, and it makes me a little scared to read the book, but I will eventually!
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn – Someone said about this quote from the book: “Even I, in public, was a beloved child. Once her period of mourning for Marian was over, she’d parade me into town, smiling and teasing me, tickling me as she spoke with people on the sidewalks. When we got home, she’d trail off to her room like an unfinished sentence, and I would sit outside with my face pressed against her door and replay the day in my head, searching for clues to what I’d done to displease her.” about how it made them realize that you can be a well-cared-for child, but still be unloved, and that alone made me read the book.
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong – This book is presented as a letter from a son to his mother who cannot read. It’s also presented as fiction but the feelings are so raw and real, it wouldn’t be hard for me to believe it was all true. I read this recently and I love how beautiful and lyrical it is.
Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin – I haven’t read this one but I am fascinated because it’s written in second person POV and I’ve heard a lot of praise for it. I’m a little averse to reading books about complicated relationships with Asian moms in general because it’s a little close to home for me, but maybe my curiosity will win out.
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan – Same deal as the above for why I haven’t read it, but sort of worse. I couldn’t even finish the movie because of all the feelings it dragged up.
Room by Emma Donoghue – A mom and her child locked in a room for the first five years of his life. It was so powerful and painful to read. And I loved the movie too.
From Cradle to Stage by Virginia Hanlon Grohl – I just found out about this book last week and have requested a hold from my library! It’s from the POV of mothers to famous rock stars and I’m excited to read it!
I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy – Well, this one was painful, and I guess the other side of the coin of how mothers to famous people can be horrible too.
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus – Ooh, just realized that Brie Larson acts as the mother in this film adaptation as well as Room. This one is a little more lighthearted than Room, but still covers some sensitive topics.
A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher – I just found out about this new book from T. Kingfisher and I’m excited to read it! All I know is that there’s a lot of reference to the protagonist’s mother in the description, so I’m just assuming that it fits the topic!
Have you read any of these books? What did you think of them? Would you read any of these books?
Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly bookish meme hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl that features a different bookish topic every week.
Today’s topic is Covers/Titles with Things Found In Nature
Most of these are books I’ve read, but there are a couple that I haven’t yet read – The Priory of the Orange Tree, and The Fox Wife. All the ones I’ve read are books I’ve loved, and I have high expectations for the two I haven’t read.
Top Ten Covers/Titles with Things Found In Nature
Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher – This is probably the most recent book I’ve read out of this list. I love T. Kingfisher and I love fairytale retellings, this one is a retelling of the Sleeping Beauty story.
The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon – I have not read this one. I have been wanting to, but the size of it is daunting! One of these days, though!
Grass by Sheri S. Tepper – This is one of my all-time favorite sci-fi stories. It’s been a while since I read it, so it’s probably time for a reread, but I remember being fascinated by the alien world, alien beings, and the incredible world-building.
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo – A heist story, a group of people with different skills brought together, found family. How could I not love this?
The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black – Holly Black is one of my favorite authors. Her stories are so good, so simple, and yet so rich. This book is about the fae, the changeling, but told from a different POV.
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway – Some have said that this book is boring because it’s only about a man fishing, but for me, it’s thrilling because I used to go fishing with my father when I was young, and there’s nothing like the thrill of having a fish caught on the hook but not yet landed. This book describes that feeling so vividly and I love that it was able to put into words what I never could.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman – Neil Gaiman is another one of my favorite authors and I would read anything he writes. I read this book for the second time a couple of years ago, and it was so much better the second time around. It was much scarier, and more horrifying, and so wonderful.
The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel – This is an old book I haven’t revisited in a while. There have been some new books in the series since, but I haven’t read them. It’s probably time to reread from the beginning. All I can say is that I loved the story, and the wonderment of discovering things along with the characters.
The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo – This is the newest book on this list, and that’s the only reason I haven’t read it. It was just released two weeks ago, and I’m impatiently waiting until I can read it! I’ve loved the author’s two other books, and I expect to love this one too!
Stones from the River by Ursula Hegi – This book is set during WW2, and it’s one of the most heartbreaking books I’ve read. I probably read it around 20 years ago and I’ve forgotten most of the details, but that feeling of heartache still lingers even after all these years.
Have you read any of these books? What did you think of them? Would you read any of these books?
