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Announcing the Latest List from the JBF Book Awards Committee: Fourteen Great Reads for Food Lovers

Anna Mowry

Anna Mowry

May 21, 2012

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An essential list of food writing curated by the James Beard Foundation Book Awards Committee

The thought of firing up the oven during a heat wave probably doesn't appeal to most of us, but we can all agree that mellowing out with some absorbing food writing on a summer's day is highly worthwhile. And thanks to our latest list of JBF-approved books, you'll know just which tomes to throw into your tote for that escape to the beach.

Announced today, our Fourteen Great Reads for Food Lovers list is curated by members of the James Beard Foundation Book Awards Committee (the same folks who brought you Twenty Essential Books to Build Your Culinary Library and The Baker's Dozen). Composed of food literature, humor, history, and non-fiction penned by celebrated authors, from the venerated Calvin Trillin and M. F. K. Fisher to contemporaries like Gabrielle Hamilton and Jennifer 8. Lee, the collection features a total of 14 titles, which means there's a book for every week between summer's bookends, Memorial Day and Labor Day.

See the complete list is below. You can click on the links to purchase titles straight from our Amazon store.

The Art of Eating by M. F. K. Fisher (John Wiley & Sons)

Between Meals: An Appetite for Paris by A.J. Liebling (North Point Press)

Blood, Bones & Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton (Random House)

Day of Honey: A Memoir of Food, Love, and War by Annia Ciezadlo (Free Press)

A Debt to Pleasure by John Lanchester (Picador)

An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace by Tamar Adler (Scribner)

The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food by Jennifer 8. Lee
(Twelve)

Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany by Bill Buford (Vintage)

Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen by Laurie Colwin (Vintage)

The Man Who Ate Everything by Jeffrey Steingarten (Vintage)

Oranges by John McPhee (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

The Oysters of Locmariaquer by Eleanor Clark (Ecco Press)

Simple Cooking by John Thorne (North Point Press)

The Tummy Trilogy by Calvin Trillin (Farrar, Straus, & Giroux)