It’s time to vote for our December book selection. The Edible Books community has really come through with some great nominations this time around and it was challenging to decide on the short list. Availability was a big factor in our decision-making this month, but ultimately we were able to narrow the nominations down to a handful of books that are readily available (including outside the US!) and still have a real variety.
Now it’s up to you: you can vote at the bottom of this post. Polls are open until Sunday, November 25th, then we’ll announce the winner! Reading/discussion will start on December 1st.
The holidays are busy, but don’t forget to make a little time to relax, read, and continue our conversation about books on Twitter at the #ediblebooks hashtag. Being part of a community will keep you young!
Here are the book choices for December:
Toast: The Story of a Boy’s Hunger by Nigel Slater: “Toast is the truly extraordinary story of a childhood remembered through food. In each chapter, as Nigel Slater takes us on a tour of the contents of his family’s pantry—rice pudding, tinned ham, cream soda, mince pies, lemon drops, bourbon biscuits—we are transported…
His mother is a chops-and-peas sort of cook, exasperated by the highs and lows of a temperamental stove, a finicky little son, and the asthma that would prove fatal. His father is a honey-and-crumpets man with an unpredictable temper. When he is widowed, Nigel’s father takes on a housekeeper with social aspirations and a talent in the kitchen and the following years become a heartbreaking cooking contest for his affections. As he slowly loses, Nigel finds a new outlet for his culinary gifts and we witness the birth of a lifelong passion for food. Nigel’s likes and dislikes, aversions and sweet-toothed weaknesses, form a fascinating backdrop to this exceptionally moving memoir of childhood, adolescence, and sexual awakening.” (Available in hardcover, paperback, Kindle, and audio editions)
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life Barbara Kingsolver: “Author Barbara Kingsolver and her family abandoned the industrial-food pipeline to live a rural life—vowing that, for one year, they’d only buy food raised in their own neighborhood, grow it themselves, or learn to live without it. Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is an enthralling narrative that will open your eyes in a hundred new ways to an old truth: You are what you eat.” (Available in hardcover, paperback, Kindle, and audio editions)
The Language of Baklava by Diana Abu-Jaber: “Diana Abu-Jaber’s vibrant, humorous memoir weaves together stories of being raised by a food-obsessed Jordanian father with tales of Lake Ontario shish kabob cookouts and goat stew feasts under Bedouin tents in the desert. These sensuously evoked repasts, complete with recipes, in turn illuminate the two cultures of Diana’s childhood–American and Jordanian–while helping to paint a loving and complex portrait of her impractical, displaced immigrant father who, like many an immigrant before him, cooked to remember the place he came from and to pass that connection on to his children. The Language of Baklava irresistably invites us to sit down at the table with Diana’s family, sharing unforgettable meals that turn out to be as much about “grace, difference, faith, love” as they are about food.”(Available in hardcover, paperback, and Kindle editions)
The Reach of a Chef: Professional Cooks in the Age of Celebrity by Michael Ruhlman: “For his previous explorations into the restaurant kitchen and the men and women who call it home, Michael Ruhlman has been described by Anthony Bourdain as the greatest living writer on the subject of chefs and on the business of preparing food. In The Reach of a Chef, Ruhlman examines the profound shift in American culture that has raised restaurant cooking to the level of performance art and the status of the chef to celebrity CEO. Bibliophiles and foodies alike will savor this intimate meeting with some of the most famous chefs in the kitchens of the hottest restaurants in the world.”(Available in hardcover, paperback, and on US Kindles)
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