This book gave me a different perspective on U.S. history—and especially the Black experience in America—through the lens of food.
I learned about how watermelons come from Africa, the difficulty of cooking with an open fire while wearing a long skirt, and what Civil Rights leaders ate as they planned their struggle (fried chicken and collard greens). Along with these cool facts, what the book showed me was how, from colonial times to the present, Blacks in the U.S. have used food creatively to survive, nurture communities, and prosper.
I loved the author’s empathetic voice and her combination of deep research and vivid writing. The book really opened my eyes to how much the history of food can teach us. Plus, great recipes!
New York Times bestseller From the Winner of the James Beard Lifetime Achievement Award Now a Netflix Original Series
The grande dame of African American cookbooks and winner of the James Beard Lifetime Achievement Award stakes her claim as a culinary historian with a narrative history of African American cuisine.
Acclaimed cookbook author Jessica B. Harris has spent much of her life researching the food and foodways of the African Diaspora. High on the Hog is the culmination of years of her work, and the result is a most engaging history of African American cuisine. Harris takes the reader on…
Like most Americans, I’m the descendent of immigrants, and this book gave me a sense of what my great-grandparents’ experience was like better than anything I’d previously read.
Ziegelman has an incredible ability to connect concrete details to big historical transformations. Her discussion of how Irish peasants’ overreliance on potatoes led to famine, for example, was both fascinating and shattering.
As a New Yorker, I was struck by how much seemed the same but also by how much had changed. The families at 97 Orchard didn’t always have running water, but they had access to a wide range of affordable, good-quality food in a way residents of contemporary "food deserts" do not.
“Social history is, most elementally, food history. Jane Ziegelman had the great idea to zero in on one Lower East Side tenement building, and through it she has crafted a unique and aromatic narrative of New York’s immigrant culture: with bread in the oven, steam rising from pots, and the family gathering round.” — Russell Shorto, author of The Island at the Center of the World
97 Orchard is a richly detailed investigation of the lives and culinary habits—shopping, cooking, and eating—of five families of various ethnicities living at the turn of the twentieth century in one tenement on the…
Growing up, I loved to help my mom cook, and she was very adventurous. She particularly loved Chinese food—one of my earliest memories is of making dim sum with her—so I really enjoyed Fuschia Dunlop’s book about the role of food in Chinese culture.
Dunlop excels at showing just how different (and delicious) Chinese food is. She really helps you understand how China offers a different way of eating, one that can be healthier, more varied, and more environmentally sustainable than what we’re used to in the U.S. She also makes it sound insanely enticing.
I ended the book by running out to get the ingredients for mapo tofu and cooking it immediately!
Chinese was the earliest truly global cuisine. When the first Chinese laborers began to settle abroad, restaurants appeared in their wake. Yet Chinese has the curious distinction of being both one of the world's best-loved culinary traditions and one of the least understood. For more than a century, the overwhelming dominance of a simplified form of Cantonese cooking ensured that few foreigners experienced anything of its richness and sophistication-but today that is beginning to change.
In Invitation to a Banquet, award-winning cook and writer Fuchsia Dunlop explores the history, philosophy, and techniques of Chinese culinary culture. In each chapter, she…
My book is about the last years of Alexander the Great as he heads to the Persian Empire’s eastern frontiers, hoping to reach the end of the world. It’s this epic, wild ride where he meets naked Indian yogis, marries—three times, Macedonian kings were polygamous—and buries his closest friend.
These years are often neglected by historians. But in fact, it’s through the challenges he faces during these years that Alexander shows his mettle. In the crucible of his campaigns in Afghanistan and India, he is transformed from a brilliant young king to a more cautious, pragmatic, experienced leader, frequently unorthodox and, at times, unheroic. This is when Alexander becomes "Great"—after his empire strikes back.
This book is part of the Grishaverse series, and though it is not the first book, I think it’s a good place to start for new readers. Bardugo builds an intricate dystopian world in which a group of six misfits, thieves, and gangsters come together when given a huge offer for a near-impossible heist.
Elegantly written, this book entices and thrills readers through a fast-paced action sequence told from multiple viewpoints.
*See the Grishaverse come to life on screen with Shadow and Bone, now a Netflix original series.*
Nominated for the CILIP Carnegie Medal 2017, this fantasy epic from the No. 1 NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author of the Grisha trilogy is gripping, sweeping and memorable - perfect for fans of George R. R. Martin, Laini Taylor and Kristin Cashore.
Criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams - but he can't pull it off alone.
A convict with a thirst for revenge. A sharpshooter who can't walk…
I originally read this book for school, but it stood out as one of the best books I’ve ever read. It is a memoir recounting Wright’s childhood in the first part and his life as an adult after leaving Mississippi to try to make a better life in Chicago. This is a tale of poverty, hunger, and mistreatment but also of resilience.
Wright’s thought-provoking style forces readers to understand his pain, joy, and frustration. This book is quite difficult to put down and leaves readers feeling awakened to a new perspective on life.
