The Cooking Gene by Michael Twitty is one of my favorite books of all time. History and food are two of my great passions, and this book is a fantastic combination of the two. Twitty is a culinary historian who cooks traditional 19th century southern food, using 19th century techniques. He often appears at historic sites as a historical interpreter, in costume and demonstrating antebellum cooking as it was done then, largely by enslaved Africans who fused their tastes, skills, and knowledge into the mix, creating what we now know as southern food or soul food. As a gay, black, Jewish man, his perspective opened many doors in my mind, and I learned from almost every page. I've also done a couple of his included recipes. The Cooking Gene is a book that I will return to again and again, and I can't wait to see him in person at an appearance in the future. "The Old South is a place where people use food to tell themselves who they are, and to tell stories about where they've been."
Erik Larson is one of my favorite authors. Winston Churchill is one of my favorite historical figures. Lo and behold, the two meet in The Splendid and the Vile, a record of the year 1940. The United Kingdom was standing alone against the Axis onslaught that had conquered much of Europe. Hitler turned his attention to conquering Britain, and Britain was battered and beaten by the Blitz, almost to the point of collapse. Winston Churchill returned from political exile to lead the British people during its darkest hours. The Splendid and the Vile sets the scene in great detail, and I really got a feel for just how close conquest was. This is my favorite Larson book, Larson at his best.
My last choice is not really history related, but it's by another one of my favorite authors, You may know David Sedaris from his essays on National Public Radio, in magazines, or his occasional late night talk show appearances. To put it bluntly, David Sedaris is a weird little man who sees the world through his own weird little lenses, and he's made a career of writing essays that can be hilarious, ironic, life-affirming, depressing, and sad, all at the same time. Most of his essays are based on his own life and his own family, all just as weird as he is. This fall, he published The Best of Me, a collection of his works that he personally curated. It doesn't included some of his most famous works, but works that he personally thought were his best. In fact, even though I have read all of his books in the past, there were only a few stories that I had read before, and I didn't mind reading them again. Sedaris does extensive book tours around the world, reading stories. In fact, this is his way to "workshop" them so to speak, since the readings often lead to revisions, and he often reads unpublished work in order to edit it. If you see him speak in person, you can see him constantly marking up his script as he reads, based on the audience's reactions. If you want to give Sedaris a try, I would suggest you start with this collection, and listen to the audiobook version, which he reads. As a sample from the book, here's one of my favorite Sedaris stories, and it's a Christmas story. (Warning: he does use explicit language and write about adult themes.)
