Here are 84 books that Earthly Delights fans have personally recommended if you like
Earthly Delights.
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Mid-life for women is many things, including greatly underrepresented in the stories around us. I am forever in awe of the women around me as they continue to rise to each crazy occasion that life presents, managing and coping with wisdom, humor, and strength. This is why I am recommending these books about kickass middle-aged women. I wrote a novel inspired by some of my own challenges in mid-life. It was published by Atria Books, Simon & Schuster. I hope you love the recommendations as much as I do and that you’ll be inspired to check out my book as well.
I am a fan of Nora Ephron’s films (When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, Julie/Julia…, etc.), but I hadn’t read any of her books. I started with this one—a slim one, as I remembered the movie from years ago.
Our protagonist, Rachael Samstat, seems to have an enviable life: a successful career as a cookbook writer, happily married to a dynamic man, a baby with another on the way, and a calendar of social events with equally lucky people. However, her husband’s betrayal while she is pregnant sends her spinning and onto a painful, witty, sometimes petty, and ultimately empowering journey.
I listened to the book, and Meryl Streep’s narration is relatable. It made me laugh out loud numerous times.
If I had to do it over again, I would have made a different kind of pie. The pie I threw at Mark made a terrific mess, but a blueberry pie would have been even better, since it would have permanently ruined his new blazer, the one he bought with Thelma ... I picked up the pie, thanked God for linoleum floor, and threw it' Rachel Samstat is smart, successful, married to a high-flying Washington journalist... and devastated. She has discovered that her husband is having an affair with Thelma Rice, 'a fairly tall person with a neck as long…
I love cooking, almost as much as I love eating. One of the great advantages of writing a series where the heroine is a jam maker is that it gives me a chance to experiment with jams, as well as other dishes Roxy shares with her family and friends. I live in a place where fresh fruit comes tumbling onto the market all summer: raspberries, peaches, apricots, blackberries, and cherries. You’re hardly through with one before the next appears on your plate. Making it into jam is fun, but writing about it is even better. And reading about someone else’s food loves is a special kind of pleasure. Bon appétit!
This book about a creator of wedding cakes may well send you to the nearest bakery.
This is the third book in Roberts’s Bride Quartet series about four women who run a wedding and event center. But the heroine here is Laurel McBane, creator of sublime cakes, candies, and pastries for both weddings and hungry friends. The plot is charming (it’s Roberts in romance rather than thriller mode), and the cake descriptions are mouth-watering.
The entire quartet is a great example of contemporary romance, and I recommend them all. But it’s Savor the Moment that will have you dreaming of butter cream frosting.
New Love takes the cake in the third novel in #1 New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts's Bride Quartet-in a stunning French flap edition
Wedding baker Laurel McBane is surrounded by romance working at Vows wedding planning company with her best friends Parker, Emma, and Mac. But she's too low-key to appreciate all the luxuries that their clients seem to long for. What she does appreciate is a strong, intelligent man, a man just like Parker's older brother Delaney, on whom she's had a mega-crush since childhood.
But some infatuations last longer than others, and Laurel is convinced that…
I love cooking, almost as much as I love eating. One of the great advantages of writing a series where the heroine is a jam maker is that it gives me a chance to experiment with jams, as well as other dishes Roxy shares with her family and friends. I live in a place where fresh fruit comes tumbling onto the market all summer: raspberries, peaches, apricots, blackberries, and cherries. You’re hardly through with one before the next appears on your plate. Making it into jam is fun, but writing about it is even better. And reading about someone else’s food loves is a special kind of pleasure. Bon appétit!
Burrowes’s Mischief in Mayfair series of regency romances specializes in strong heroines with unusual occupations (unusual for the regency period, anyway). For Ann Pearson it’s cooking.
Her luscious pastries attract the attention of Orion Goddard, a Waterloo veteran with a troubled past. Burrowes’s descriptions of Ann’s pies and tarts will send you to the kitchen, longing for some apple pie with lots of spice. And, of course, in the end Ann and Orion both triumph over the social forces opposing them, like any good romance couple.
Miss Ann Pearson has spent years learning the difficult art of the professional cook, and carefully guards her position in the kitchen of the fancy Coventry Club. When Colonel Sir Orion Goddard asks her to take on a young apprentice, Ann would rather refuse. But Orion is respectful, gruffly charming, and looking out for a girl whom others have neglected, and that is a combination Ann cannot resist.
Lingering scandal has taught Orion to make his way along the fringes of polite society without allies or entanglements. Then he meets Ann, who is fierce, passionate, and warm-hearted, and also worth…
I love cooking, almost as much as I love eating. One of the great advantages of writing a series where the heroine is a jam maker is that it gives me a chance to experiment with jams, as well as other dishes Roxy shares with her family and friends. I live in a place where fresh fruit comes tumbling onto the market all summer: raspberries, peaches, apricots, blackberries, and cherries. You’re hardly through with one before the next appears on your plate. Making it into jam is fun, but writing about it is even better. And reading about someone else’s food loves is a special kind of pleasure. Bon appétit!
All three books in the Liz Danger series are full of guilty food pleasures.
Liz and her beloved Vince chow down at the neighborhood diner, which leads to extended descriptions of burgers, tenderloins, fries, and onion rings. It’s just one of the attractions of Burney, Ohio—the small town Liz and company and determined to save from the sinister forces trying to loot its assets and transform it into another faceless suburb.
Make sure you have at least a bag of chips on hand, and an order of nachos wouldn’t go amiss.
From the NY Times Bestselling duo that wrote Agnes and the Hitman, the first book in a new series.
Liz Danger has come home after fifteen years to deliver a giant teddy bear for her mother’s birthday (color: Guilt Red) when a cop with a great ass picks her up for speeding, fixes the missing lug nuts in her back wheel, pulls her out of a ditch, doesn’t give her a ticket, and helps her avoid her family. This is a man with real potential.
Vince Cooper picks up Liz for speeding and his life gets a lot more interesting.…
I have been fascinated with mental health since long before I was officially diagnosed with Bipolar I. Even as an elementary schooler, I recognized that I was different from my peers: I thought more deeply and often more darkly, I experienced higher highs and lower lows, often beyond my control, and I very rarely discussed my home life. Writing became a logical and perhaps life-saving outlet as soon as I learned to put words into letters (mostly the wrong letters, but thank God for spell-check).
On New Year's Eve, four Londoners climb to the top of a high rise with the same intention. They've all come for different reasons, but their plan is the same. Instead of ending their lives, however, they save each other.
I love this novel, which is perhaps the truest and most hopeful story about suicide I’ve read. The final scene, which takes place on the one-year anniversary of the opening scene, is something I think of at least once a year, and I am always shaken by its insight. At times, side-splittingly funny and heart-rendingly sad, this is a must-read for anyone recovering from a mental illness.
“One New Year’s Eve, four people with very different reasons but a common purpose find their way to the top of a fifteen-story building in London. None of them has calculated that, on a date humans favor for acts of significance, in a place known as a local suicide-jumpers’ favorite, they might encounter company. A Long Way Down is the story of what happens next, and of what doesn’t.” —The New York Times Book Review
A wise, affecting novel from the beloved, award-winning author of Dickens and Prince, Funny Girl and High Fidelity
I’ve gone to France often during my life. I always buy books that look interesting while I’m there, mainly to keep my French in good shape. I tend to pick authors and subjects which catch my eye. Some get discarded, but most give a fascinating and often very different perspective on life than I find in English novels and essays.
This is a complex and overwhelming book. It covers the detailed contents and history of the rooms and characters in a large apartment block in Paris. Some of the rooms and characters interact in a complex, sometimes dark way. It is a long book, but I found it enthralling all the way through. If you like a detailed, complex, baroque book where you have to read carefully and make connections, this is for you.
In this ingenious book Perec creates an entire microcosm in a Paris apartment block. Serge Valene wants to make an elaborate painting of the building he has made his home for the last sixty years. As he plans his picture, he contemplates the lives of all the people he has ever known there. Chapter by chapter, the narrative moves around the building revealing a marvellously diverse cast of characters in a series of every more unlikely tales, which range from an avenging murderer to an eccentric English millionaire who has devised the ultimate pastime...
Ever since I picked up an old copy of Richard Halliburton’s Book of Wonders as a child, I’ve known that exploring other cultures and countries is something I wanted to experience for the rest of my life. From then on, I’ve traveled, taken cross-cultural studies, and managed international teams as a tech marketer–and my passion for new people and places hasn’t ceased. I love reading (and writing) about the liminal spaces in history–the times and places that aren’t easy to define and don’t make it into standard history books. This list reflects my interests, and I hope it broadens the horizons of other readers.
This massive book has haunted me ever since I finished it a few months ago. It’s set during a period I knew nothing about (India, 1975, during Indira Gandhi’s “State of Emergency”).
It took me a while to become invested in the characters, and that is because Mistry takes his time (more than 600 pages) to really develop the four main characters, exploring their history, their motives, fears, and prejudices.
Parts of this book were so brutal that I had to set it aside for a few days until I felt I could continue. Parts of it were so sensitive and touching that I cried.
When I finished it, I had a book hangover, and I haven’t been able to get it out of my head since.
With a compassionate realism and narrative sweep that recall the work of Charles Dickens, this magnificent novel captures all the cruelty and corruption, dignity and heroism, of India. The time is 1975. The place is an unnamed city by the sea. The government has just declared a State of Emergency, in whose upheavals four strangers--a spirited widow, a young student uprooted from his idyllic hill station, and two tailors who have fled the caste violence of their native village--will be thrust together, forced to share one cramped apartment and an uncertain future.
As the characters move from distrust to friendship…
I opened my first history book in school at 6 and have been fascinated by how people lived since then. I found the evolution of furniture, interiors, decorations, exteriors, and everything that relates to how we live of the utmost importance if we want to know who we are and why. I am the son of antique dealers, growing up in France, so furniture is my principal domain of expertise, but I always put it in relation to the epoch they are from and the people who used them. I became the go-to of Martha Stewart for antiques and furniture restoration and have been featured in TV shows and magazines regularly.
I always find myself inspired by anything that can simplify your life. I think this book is the future of living for owners of small spaces and anybody who wants a more edited interior.
I love the practical information, the architectural choices made, and the scaling down of furniture and accessories. I try to adapt all those aspects into my own living.
Joel Beath and Elizabeth Price explore this question drawing inspiration from a diverse collection of apartment designs, all smaller than 50m2/540ft2. Through the lens of five small-footprint design principles and drawing on architectural images and detailed floor plans, the authors examine how architects and designers are reimagining small space living.
Full of inspiration we can each apply to our own spaces, this is a book that offers hope and inspiration for a future of our cities and their citizens in which sustainability and style, comfort and affordability can co-exist. Never Too…
I am Australian but have lived in four other countries – England, Nigeria, USA, and Qatar – so I love reading about life overseas. How does the weather impact daily life, from what people wear to the available activities? How does culture influence behavior? Food, from what’s in the supermarket to the menus at local restaurants, can change the flavors and smells in homes and on the street. And what about alcohol? Does banning wine and spirits impact the vibe? (Hint: yes, it does!) These factors play out in my writing, and I love seeing how other authors portray place on the page.
I loved this book because, well, Paris—what’s not to love?—and at a micro level, the setting is an apartment with attics, spyholes, and lots of stairs. I’ve always wanted to live in a house with a hidden doorway, and this was exactly that kind of place.
Jess goes to the apartment to find her half-brother but instead finds a bunch of creepy inhabitants who seem reluctant to tell her where he is. Lucy’s novels feel like modern-day Agatha Christies, with a locked-room vibe and defined set of suspects, and this is no exception, right up my alley.
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'Compelling, up-all-night reading' Erin Kelly 'Atmosphere you can cut with a knife'Alex Michaelides 'Cunningly constructed' Louise Candlish 'Gloriously twisty' Ruth Ware 'Perfect for a lost weekend' The Times
Welcome to No.12 rue des Amants
A beautiful old apartment block, far from the glittering lights of the Eiffel Tower and the bustling banks of the Seine. Where nothing goes unseen, and everyone…
Being a children’s illustrator and writer, I have built up a well-loved collection of childen’s books over the years. They must have great drawings and imaginative concepts. They are books I can come back to again and again. The books I have chosen are ones where you can lose yourself in their intricate detailed worlds and forget about day-to-day troubles for a while. These books can also help reluctant readers by enticing them into a visual world first and then into appreciating the written word.
This book has so much detail to keep the reader fascinated. It’s like looking inside a doll’s house with its constant activity from all the families and residents living there and what they get up to over the course of a day. Each page is a gem and the intricate detail keeps you engrossed in their lives. Adults would enjoy this book too. I still have my well-loved copy from 1995.
Illustrates a day in the life of an apartment building by showing activities going on in different units at various times between 7:00 a.m. and 1:00 a.m.
