I was so excited when I saw that Top Ten Tuesday was going to be about food! 

Why? Because of this –

I run a link up for book reviews on this very topic!  The link goes up on the first of each month.  You can find it on the sidebar and here is the link for October.  If you posted this week you are welcome to link up your post for a chance to win another foodie book in our monthly drawing.  Your links also go to our Pinterest page (great for finding more foodie book ideas) and get tweeted.

Whenever I talk about Foodies Read people are always confused.  What do I mean “books about food?”  Obviously, I love, love, love this topic but here are some of my favorite books to recommend.

There are Foodie Fiction Books for every genre.

Contemporary

“Gretchen Lin, adrift at the age of thirty, leaves her floundering marriage in San Francisco to move back to her childhood home in Singapore and immediately finds herself face-to-face with the twin headaches she’s avoided her entire adult life: her mother’s drinking problem and the machinations of her father’s artisanal soy sauce business.

Soy Sauce for Beginners reveals the triumphs and sacrifices that shape one woman’s search for a place to call home, and the unexpected art and tradition behind the brewing of a much-used but unsung condiment. The result is a foodie love story that will give readers a hearty appreciation for family loyalty and fresh starts.“

Historical
 

“A routine interview between a reporter and an elderly baker brings out memories of darker times: her life in Germany during that last bleak year of WWII. As their lives become more intertwined, all are forced to confront the uncomfortable truths of the past and seek out the courage to forgive.“

Chick Lit

“When Ellie Hall lands her dream job running the little teashop in the beautiful but crumbling Claverham Castle, it’s the perfect escape from her humdrum job in the city. Life is definitely on the rise as Ellie replaces spreadsheets for scones, and continues her Nanna’s brilliant baking legacy.

When Lord Henry, the stick-in-the-mud owner, threatens to burst her baking bubble with his old-fashioned ways, Ellie wonders if she might have bitten off more than she can chew. But cupcake by cupcake she wins the locals over, including teashop stalwart, Doris, and Ellie’s showstopping bakes look set to go down in castle history!

Now all that’s missing in Ellie’s life is a slice of romance – can Joe, the brooding estate manager, be the one to put the cherry on the top of Ellie’s dream?”

British foodie chick lit is my kryptonite.  I read all of it I find.

Urban Fantasy

“In New York, eating out can be hell.

Everyone loves a well-catered event, and the supernatural community is no different, but where do demons go to satisfy their culinary cravings?

Welcome to Sin du Jour – where devils on horseback are the clients, not the dish.”

Need more ideas or different genres?  Just ask and if I don’t have a suggestion, I’m sure one of our link up regulars will!  For example, I’m not a cozy mystery fan but there are thousands of foodie mysteries out there. 

I love reading Foodie Nonfiction.

There are so many topics to learn about.  Here are some of my favorites.

Issues Books

The Omnivor’s Dilemma is considered a classic in the genre.  If you want to know what a lot of the issues are when considering the politics of food, start here.

“Today, buffeted by one food fad after another, America is suffering from what can only be described as a national eating disorder. Will it be fast food tonight, or something organic? Or perhaps something we grew ourselves? The question of what to have for dinner has confronted us since man first discovered fire. But, as Michael Pollan explains in this revolutionary book, how we answer it now, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, may determine our survival as a species. Packed with profound surprises, The Omnivore’ s Dilemma is changing the way Americans think about the politics, perils, and pleasures of eating.“

The Third Plate looks at environmental sustainability of food.

“Barber explores the evolution of American food from the ‘first plate,’ or industrially-produced, meat-heavy dishes, to the ‘second plate’ of grass-fed meat and organic greens, and says that both of these approaches are ultimately neither sustainable nor healthy. Instead, Barber proposes Americans should move to the ‘third plate,’ a cuisine rooted in seasonal productivity, natural livestock rhythms, whole-grains, and small portions of free-range meat.”

Books About Ingredients

Pick any ingredient you can think of and there is a book about it.  They are fascinating.  Banana is my favorite in this genre mostly because people think it is terribly odd that I read a book about bananas.

“To most people, a banana is a banana: a simple yellow fruit. Americans eat more bananas than apples and oranges combined. In others parts of the world, bananas are what keep millions of people alive. But for all its ubiquity, the banana is surprisingly mysterious; nobody knows how bananas evolved or exactly where they originated. Rich cultural lore surrounds the fruit: In ancient translations of the Bible, the ‘apple’ consumed by Eve is actually a banana (it makes sense, doesn’t it?). Entire Central American nations have been said to rise and fall over the banana.

But the biggest mystery about the banana today is whether it will survive. A seedless fruit with a unique reproductive system, every banana is a genetic duplicate of the next, and therefore susceptible to the same blights. Today’s yellow banana, the Cavendish, is increasingly threatened by such a blight — and there’s no cure in sight.”

Memoirs

 

“When Lucie Amundsen had a rare night out with her husband, she never imagined what he’d tell her over dinner—that his dream was to quit his office job (with benefits!) and start a commercial-scale pasture-raised egg farm. His entire agricultural experience consisted of raising five backyard hens, none of whom had yet laid a single egg.“

There are memoirs from chefs and farmers and home cooks and restaurant reviewers and people who just really love food.  Take your pick!

Cookbooks

Some cookbooks are just fun to read.  Afro-Vegan gives song pairings for every recipe and occasionally gives BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS for recipes.

This is a huge book.  Each recipe is headed by a story about the author and her husband cooking at their inn in the Ozarks.  This is the only cookbook I’ve ever read that has a gut-punching plot twist in the middle.

Tell me your favorite foodie books!  Link up your posts.  Check out the reviews we have this month.  (Some people even cook meals to go with their book reviews so you get recipes too!.)Â