10 books like The Summer Country

By Lauren Willig,

Here are 10 books that authors have personally recommended if you like The Summer Country. Shepherd is a community of 8,000+ authors sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Betty Crocker Cookies

By Betty Crocker,

Book cover of Betty Crocker Cookies: Irresistibly Easy Recipes for Any Occasion

Monica Wellington Author Of Mr. Cookie Baker

From the list on for people who love baking cookies.

Who am I?

Monica Wellington was born in London and lived in Switzerland and Germany as a child. She has written and illustrated many books for young children, including Apple Farmer Annie, Zinnia’s Flower Garden, My Leaf Book, and Mr. Cookie Baker. She now lives in New York City. Some of her favorites things are: baking desserts, eating chocolate, traveling to France, going to the ballet, and reading at home with her cat on her lap. She teaches at the School of Visual Arts.

Monica's book list on for people who love baking cookies

Discover why each book is one of Monica's favorite books.

Why did Monica love this book?

My first cookbook was Betty Crocker’s New Boys and Girls Cook Book. It was given to me by my mother when I was eight years old. I still have it and Cookies, Cakes, and Other Desserts was always my favorite chapter. I remember working my way through the recipes, starting with Oatmeal Cookies and advancing to creative Paintbrush Cookies. My love of baking started there! This book has many recipes with kid appeal, such as Frankenstein Cookies and Tie-Dye Swirl Cookies. A personal favorite of mine: Turtle Chocolate Chip Cookies with caramel and pecans and lots of chocolate!

Betty Crocker Cookies

By Betty Crocker,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Betty Crocker Cookies as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This foundational book of cookies covers tips and tricks for making, storing, and gifting cookies of all kinds. With chapters organised by baking circumstances, bakers can quickly find a cookie recipe right for them - whether it's No-Bake Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies when it's too hot to turn on the oven, the Caramel-Filled Snickerdoodle Blondies that are easy to take on the go, or the Festive White Velvet Star Stacks that will light up any celebration.

Features expand the cookie repertoire: baking with kids, hosting a cookie exchange, cookie dips, cookie garnishes, and clever ways of using cookie cutters. Icons…


100 Cookies

By Sarah Kieffer,

Book cover of 100 Cookies: The Baking Book for Every Kitchen

Monica Wellington Author Of Mr. Cookie Baker

From the list on for people who love baking cookies.

Who am I?

Monica Wellington was born in London and lived in Switzerland and Germany as a child. She has written and illustrated many books for young children, including Apple Farmer Annie, Zinnia’s Flower Garden, My Leaf Book, and Mr. Cookie Baker. She now lives in New York City. Some of her favorites things are: baking desserts, eating chocolate, traveling to France, going to the ballet, and reading at home with her cat on her lap. She teaches at the School of Visual Arts.

Monica's book list on for people who love baking cookies

Discover why each book is one of Monica's favorite books.

Why did Monica love this book?

Have a glass of milk, or a cup of tea, ready for when the cookies come out of the oven - they will be every bit as delicious as the photos! The names of the chapters give you a good idea of the wonderful selection: Classics, Brownies and Blondies, Fruit Extravaganza, The Next Level, Time to Play, Pan-banging Cookies, and Mix & Match.

100 Cookies

By Sarah Kieffer,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked 100 Cookies as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Featured in Food & Wine, The Kitchn, Cup of Jo, Wall Street Journal, Wine Enthusiast, Food52, Bake from Scratch Magazine. Nominated for a 2020 Goodreads Choice Award for Best Cookbooks

From celebrated blogger Sarah Kieffer of The Vanilla Bean Baking Blog!
100 Cookies is a go-to baking resource featuring 100 recipes for cookies and bars, organized into seven chapters.

Chocolatey, fruity, crispy, chewy, classic, inventive-there's a foolproof recipe for the perfect treat for everyone in this book.

* Introduces innovative baking techniques
* Includes an entire chapter dedicated to Kieffer's "pan banging" technique that ensures crisp edges and soft centers…


Martha Stewart's Cookie Perfection

By Martha Stewart Living Magazine,

Book cover of Martha Stewart's Cookie Perfection: 100+ Recipes to Take Your Sweet Treats to the Next Level

Monica Wellington Author Of Mr. Cookie Baker

From the list on for people who love baking cookies.

Who am I?

Monica Wellington was born in London and lived in Switzerland and Germany as a child. She has written and illustrated many books for young children, including Apple Farmer Annie, Zinnia’s Flower Garden, My Leaf Book, and Mr. Cookie Baker. She now lives in New York City. Some of her favorites things are: baking desserts, eating chocolate, traveling to France, going to the ballet, and reading at home with her cat on her lap. She teaches at the School of Visual Arts.

Monica's book list on for people who love baking cookies

Discover why each book is one of Monica's favorite books.

Why did Monica love this book?

Martha Stewart's recipes always work. I always have success with them! I recommend getting your kitchen decorated as you try recipes from each of these chapters: All Dressed Up, Classics with a Twist, Some Assembly Required, Giant Cookies, Tools of the Trade, Cookies by Any Other Name, Celebration Cookies.

Martha Stewart's Cookie Perfection

By Martha Stewart Living Magazine,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Martha Stewart's Cookie Perfection as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Showstopper cookies for a new generation: from Martha Stewart, an authoritative and creative collection to take your cookies to the next level in flavor, technique, and decorative appeal

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE YEAR BY FOOD NETWORK

The editors of Martha Stewart Living present a new, fun source for anyone looking to make their go-to cookies even better and bolder. These recipes make ordinary cookies absolutely extraordinary—all the familiar favorites you love, but taken up a notch in variety, flavor, and creativity. Classic recipes discover new life with unexpected twists such as Brown-Butter Crinkle Cookies and Carrot…


The Book of Cookies

By Pat Alburey,

Book cover of The Book of Cookies

Monica Wellington Author Of Mr. Cookie Baker

From the list on for people who love baking cookies.

Who am I?

Monica Wellington was born in London and lived in Switzerland and Germany as a child. She has written and illustrated many books for young children, including Apple Farmer Annie, Zinnia’s Flower Garden, My Leaf Book, and Mr. Cookie Baker. She now lives in New York City. Some of her favorites things are: baking desserts, eating chocolate, traveling to France, going to the ballet, and reading at home with her cat on her lap. She teaches at the School of Visual Arts.

Monica's book list on for people who love baking cookies

Discover why each book is one of Monica's favorite books.

Why did Monica love this book?

In addition to the essential photo of each cookie, there are also excellent photos showing the stages of preparation. The recipes include a lot of fancy-looking cookies that are actually very simple: favorites include Marbled Shortbread, Madeleines, Pinwheels.

The Book of Cookies

By Pat Alburey,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Book of Cookies as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Few can resist the tantalizing aroma of freshly baked cookies, and The Book of Cookies features every kind, from the old-fashioned favorites to elaborate holiday cookies. Clearly illustrated with step-by-step pictures, all the secrets of successfull cookie-making are revealed in this book.


Heaven's Command

By James Morris,

Book cover of Heaven's Command: An Imperial Progress

Sathnam Sanghera Author Of Empireland: How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain

From the list on the British Empire's impact on the world.

Who am I?

I was in my 40s before I began exploring the topic of the British Empire. It came after I realised it explained so much about me (my Sikh identity, the emigration of my parents, my education) and so much about my country (its politics, psychology, wealth…) and yet I knew very little. It turned out that millions of people feel the same way… and I hope I provide an accessible introduction and summary of the massive topic. 

Sathnam's book list on the British Empire's impact on the world

Discover why each book is one of Sathnam's favorite books.

Why did Sathnam love this book?

By her own admission, Morris was nostalgic about British Empire, and while I disagree with some of her conclusions, and she herself remarked that she was “ashamed” of the work before she died, there is no doubt that she penned the single best narrative of Britain’s imperial adventures.

No other writer has written so accessibly and elegantly about a complicated history that extended across five centuries.

For me, proof that you don’t always need to agree with a writer to admire them.

Heaven's Command

By James Morris,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Heaven's Command as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Great travel accounts.


The Hungry Empire

By Lizzie Collingham,

Book cover of The Hungry Empire: How Britain's Quest for Food Shaped the Modern World

Troy Bickham Author Of Eating the Empire: Food and Society in Eighteenth-Century Britain

From the list on food and empires in history.

Who am I?

I am a Professor of History at Texas A&M University and Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.  I teach and research broadly in the histories of Britain and its empire, North America, and the Atlantic world. I am the author of four books, including Making Headlines: The American Revolution as Seen through the British Press and The Weight of Vengeance: The United States, the British Empire, and the War of 1812. I am especially fascinated with how imperialism shape colonizers’ cultures.

Troy's book list on food and empires in history

Discover why each book is one of Troy's favorite books.

Why did Troy love this book?

Collingham has written multiple books on food and the British Empire, and this one is my favorite. Stretching from 1545 to 1996, each of the twenty chapters selects a historical meal, dissecting its ingredients and manner of preparation in order to explore the imperial forces and experiences that created it. Painstakingly research, each chapter is a standalone history.

The Hungry Empire

By Lizzie Collingham,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Hungry Empire as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

*WINNER OF THE GUILD OF FOOD WRITERS BOOK AWARD 2018*

'This is a wholly pleasing book, which offers a tasty side dish to anyone exploring the narrative history of the British Empire', Max Hastings, Sunday Times

The glamorous daughter of an African chief shares a pineapple with a slave trader... Surveyors in British Columbia eat tinned Australian rabbit... Diamond prospectors in Guyana prepare an iguana curry...

In twenty meals The Hungry Empire tells the story of how the British created a global network of commerce and trade in foodstuffs that moved people and plants from one continent to another, re-shaping…


Empires Without Imperialism

By Jeanne Morefield,

Book cover of Empires Without Imperialism: Anglo-American Decline and the Politics of Deflection

Dillon S. Tatum Author Of Liberalism and Transformation: The Global Politics of Violence and Intervention

From the list on liberalism and politics.

Who am I?

Dillon Stone Tatum is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Francis Marion University. His research interests are on the history, development, and politics of liberal internationalism, international political theory, and critical security studies.

Dillon's book list on liberalism and politics

Discover why each book is one of Dillon's favorite books.

Why did Dillon love this book?

Over the past decade, there has been an enormous amount written about the “decline of global liberalism,” and particularly the so-called US-led liberal international order. Jeanne Morefield’s book Empires without Imperialism examines the nostalgia of liberal orders in comparing nineteenth and early-twentieth-century Britain and contemporary Anglo-American debates about liberalism and world politics. Morefield takes us through arguments from a diverse cast of characters including classicists like Alfred Zimmern and Donald Kagan, historians like Niall Ferguson, and political actors like Jan Smuts and Michael Ignatieff in order to understand how liberals draw on history as part of their political projects.

Empires Without Imperialism

By Jeanne Morefield,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Empires Without Imperialism as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The end of the Cold War ushered in a moment of nearly pure American dominance on the world stage, yet that era now seems ages ago. Since 9/11 many informed commentators have focused on the relative decline of American power in the global system. While some have welcomed this as a salutary development, outspoken proponents of American power-particularly neoconservatives-have lamented this turn of events. As Jeanne Morefield argues in Empires Without
Imperialism, the defenders of a liberal international order steered by the US have both invoked nostalgia for a golden liberal past and succumbed to amnesia, forgetting the decidedly illiberal…


The Vandemonian War

By Nick Brodie,

Book cover of The Vandemonian War

Kristyn Harman Author Of Aboriginal Convicts: Australian, Khoisan and Maori Exiles

From the list on the Frontier Wars fought downunder.

Who am I?

Kristyn Harman is an award-winning researcher who successfully completed doctoral research investigating the circumstances in which at least ninety Australian Aboriginal men were transported as convicts within the Australian colonies following their involvement in Australia’s frontier wars. She has published extensively on historical topics, and currently lectures in History at the University of Tasmania in Hobart, Australia. Having lived in both countries, Kristyn is fascinated by the different understandings that New Zealanders and Australians have of their nation’s respective pasts. She is particularly intrigued, if not perturbed, by the way in which most New Zealanders acknowledge their nation’s frontier wars, while many Australians choose to deny the wars fought on their country’s soil.

Kristyn's book list on the Frontier Wars fought downunder

Discover why each book is one of Kristyn's favorite books.

Why did Kristyn love this book?

Van Diemen’s Land is the former name for the island at the bottom of Australia now called Tasmania. The British who invaded the island changed the colony’s name after the place became infamous. Not only was it home to the British Empire’s most feared convict stations, but it also had a fearsome reputation as the location of one of the most brutal genocides in the Empire’s history. Nick Brodie draws on extensive, yet previously ignored, archival documents to refute the long-standing myth that the Vandemonian War was fought between hapless convict shepherds at the far reaches of the island colony and the island’s Aboriginal inhabitants. He demonstrates instead how this significant conflict was an orchestrated campaign in which the Lieutenant-Governor of the colony used military and para-military forces to prosecute his war against Aboriginal people. Ultimately, the British won the Vandemonian War and then purposefully covered up the military nature…

The Vandemonian War

By Nick Brodie,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Vandemonian War as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Britain formally colonised Van Diemen's Land in the early years of the nineteenth century. Small convict stations grew into towns. Pastoralists moved in to the aboriginal hunting grounds. There was conflict, there was violence. But, governments and gentlemen succeeded in burying the real story of the Vandemonian War for nearly two centuries. The Vandemonian War had many sides and shades, but it was fundamentally a war between the British colony of Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) and those Tribespeople who lived in political and social contradiction to that colony. In The Vandemonian War acclaimed history author Nick Brodie now exposes the…


Reordering the World

By Duncan Bell,

Book cover of Reordering the World: Essays on Liberalism and Empire

Dillon S. Tatum Author Of Liberalism and Transformation: The Global Politics of Violence and Intervention

From the list on liberalism and politics.

Who am I?

Dillon Stone Tatum is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Francis Marion University. His research interests are on the history, development, and politics of liberal internationalism, international political theory, and critical security studies.

Dillon's book list on liberalism and politics

Discover why each book is one of Dillon's favorite books.

Why did Dillon love this book?

Duncan Bell’s collection of essays, Reordering the World, analyzes Victorian (and Victorian-adjacent) liberal imaginaries of empire and world politics. Of specific interest for Bell is the central place settler colonialism had in the constitution of liberal intellectual traditions, and the complex relationship between liberalism as an ideology and liberalism as part-and-parcel of the British empire. Of particular note in this collection are the essays in part I, which I have found to be indispensable in my own grappling with the contours of liberalism as a political and intellectual tradition.

Reordering the World

By Duncan Bell,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Reordering the World as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A leading scholar of British political thought explores the relationship between liberalism and empire

Reordering the World is a penetrating account of the complexity and contradictions found in liberal visions of empire. Focusing mainly on nineteenth-century Britain-at the time the largest empire in history and a key incubator of liberal political thought-Duncan Bell sheds new light on some of the most important themes in modern imperial ideology.

The book ranges widely across Victorian intellectual life and beyond. The opening essays explore the nature of liberalism, varieties of imperial ideology, the uses and abuses of ancient history, the imaginative functions of…


The Cause

By Joseph J. Ellis,

Book cover of The Cause: The American Revolution and its Discontents, 1773-1783

Thomas Dresser Author Of Hidden History of Martha's Vineyard

From the list on defining a place both quirky and unique.

Who am I?

I’m a washashore who’s lived on Martha’s Vineyard for 25 years. I’ve worked small businesses, drove school and tour buses, volunteered, toured and given walking tours. I know the Island. In my writing I’ve focused my love of American history on the backstory of Martha’s Vineyard. Hence my books comprise a wealth of research and information on each topic. I love what I do. And I like to think it shows.

Thomas' book list on defining a place both quirky and unique

Discover why each book is one of Thomas' favorite books.

Why did Thomas love this book?

Ellis has done his research for The Cause on both sides of the Atlantic. He presents his perspective on what happened during the Revolution and how close we came to defeat before we even got started.

I’m devoted to accurate research in all my books. The point of non-fiction, as Ellis demonstrates, is to report the facts and assess the results, without emotional or personal perspective.

This tome was a joy to read.  

I learned a great deal from The Cause.

My book on the American Revolution was published prior to The Cause, which made it so intriguing for me to read. 

The Cause

By Joseph J. Ellis,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Cause as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

George Washington claimed that anyone who attempted to provide an accurate account of the war for independence would be accused of writing fiction. At the time, no one called it the "American Revolution": former colonists still regarded themselves as Virginians or Pennsylvanians, not Americans, while John Adams insisted that the British were the real revolutionaries, for attempting to impose radical change without their colonists' consent.

With The Cause, Ellis takes a fresh look at the events between 1773 and 1783, recovering a war more brutal than any in American history save the Civil War and discovering a strange breed of…


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