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Judith Jones Biography The Eighth Muse was really good! I highly recommend it. She discusses her interactions with Julia Child and other cutting edge cookbook authors of a variety of cuisines.

Well, not really a book....but every time I get an issue of Gastronomica, I'm on the couch reading an article right away. It's like the "New Yorker" for food, there are all different lengths of articles, and I can always find one to suit my mood. And what about "The United States of Arugula"? At times it was a little bit smarmy (and I'm sure some people would say it's gossipy) but overall, it gave me a great background on the chefs who shaped American cooking as we know it today.

Jacques Pepin's autobiography The Apprentice was very fun reading and so interesting! I am also a Ruth Reichl fan, the very NYC-centric Garlic and Sapphires is a fun read, as are the ones about her earlier career - Tender at the Bone and Comfort Me with Apples.

I'm loving Marcus Samuelsson's new(ish) book The Soul of A New Cuisine. It is part cookbook, part travel memoir, part beautiful.

I love the idea of a TheKitchn book club, especially since I've been reading exclusively cooking-related books for about a year now.

I LOVED Anthony Bourdain's A Cook's Tour

"Alone in the Kitchen With An Eggplant" was a good read. Essays with various perspectives on the prospect of dining alone and cooking for one.

I grabbed a galley of In Defense of Food and thought it was great. I vote for that one.

Would love to get the Pepin autobiography.

It's almost as if Michael Pollan's books are required reading so In Defense of Food is next on my list.

The reviews for Laurie Colwin's Home Cooking have me salivating for a great read. Bring it on!

I love "The Art of Simple Food" as a very informative cookbook, and enjoyed reading Julia Child's "My life in France" thoroughly.
My suggestions:
1. Hungry Planet: What the World Eats by Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio. Although this is full of pictures, there is so much food for thought and the essays are beautiful.
2. Mangoes and Curry Leaves by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid. In a similar vein, it brings food and culture to life.
Looking forward to the book club!

Yay book club! I love meshing my favorites (food reading) together! I've been wanting to read In Defense of Food for a while now, but all the others sounds good-o too.

How about Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise by Ruth Reichl?

There are oodles of great choices, but I just finished In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan and would love to talk about it with others, so that is who my vote is for.

I really liked Lunch Lessons by Ann Cooper and Lisa M. Holmes. I think how we feed our children is a very important topic and this book is both inspiring and informative.

I just read and loved My Life in France...am currently reading and liking Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant. I really want to read Judith Jones' biography The Eighth Muse, so that gets my vote.

I would happily read any of the suggested titles Some of them would be re-reads, but none of those would be unworthy of a second pass.

I'm very interested in this book club! I *just* started reading Slow Food Nation, by Carlo Petrini, who started Slow Food. I would be willing to put it down for a week and wait, if people want to start with this. And certainly would pick up whatever everyone else wants, too.

I am very excited about this!! I agree with the others about Reichl, Bourdain, and Alone in the Kitchen With an Eggplant.

Also enjoyed the chef's short story collections put together by Kimberly Witherspoon.

Look forward to hearing what's chosen, I've also gotten very into cooking related reading the past year!

I liked Colette Rossant's book, Apricots on the Nile and I'm a fan of Ruhlman's books. Rossant's book is well written nostalgia for the Egypt of her childhood and Ruhlman brings you into the world of professional chefs - the machismo and the intensity. I think I like Ruhlman because the world he describes is similar to the biological sciences which is my world.

Steingarten's books are also fun. I really enjoy his wicked sense of humour. He's clever and probably the food writer I'd most like to hang out with (well, I'd like to hang out with Bourdain as well for the same reason I like Ruhlman's books, he'd fit in in lab perfectly.)

Pretty much anything MFK Fisher wrote is fine by me, ditto Elizabeth David. The clutch of recent Julia Childs biographies and autobiography were fairly good and an interesting look at a woman I only knew from parodies. In a similar vein, Julie and Julia resonates with the theme of small apartments.

Reichl is great, but I found that each successive book held less and less interest for me.

Pollan's books are damn good and worth reading.

It doesn't fit into the set of books you guys are looking for, but if you're at all geeky, McGee's book On Food and Cooking is full of science-y goodness and offers explanations for everything. With empirical evidence - I'm probably the only one who finds the promise of empirical evidence to be quite so exciting.

I'm unfortunately banned from all book clubs because I read too quickly and tend to have read everything before (which makes it difficult when most people have a rule about anyone having read the book before) and I'm cranky. I'll observe from afar. But if anyone feels like lending me books, I'm all about that.

This will be fun! I'm reading Beard on Food at the moment and really enjoying it. I also thumb through A Tale of 12 Kitchens by Jake Tilson, and that's eye candy for someone like me who loves assemblage.

Eat, Love and Pray? The Best Food Writing 2007? (Just got both those for Christmas, which is why I am pitching 'em!) On Rue Tatin? Cooking for Mr. Latte?

Cooking for Mr. Latte is great; also loved Miriam's Kitchen; recently read Colette Rossant's latest and I really want to read Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant.

The Deeper The Cut, The Less You Cry by Kathleen Flinn is really a good read also. This is a great idea for a book club.

What about The United States of Arugula? Or The Omnivore's Dilemma? I just started Arugula and am thoroughly enjoying so far. I also have MFK Fisher on the back burner...

I'd like to recommend Deborah Madison's "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone." I'm not a vegetarian, but this book has proved to be a wonderful, rich resource--especially after my weekly farmer's market trips, when I often come home with some unfamiliar but beautiful ingredients. It was just published again in a 10-year anniversary edition, too.

also- russ parson's books: "how to read a french fry" and "how to pick a peach"

he's a food writer for the la times
(i've read part of the first one)

"Alice, Let's Eat" by Calvin Trillin. For my money, the most hilarious book ever written about food & eating. (And it's part one of a trilogy too, so there's second and third helpings if you like it!)

cookbook with narrative element: the glorious foods of greece. beautifully written, great recipes, and historically fascinating. but i'm biased. :-)

"My Life in France" is an excellent start.

I loved Barbara Kingsolver's book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

The Zuni Cafe Cookbook.

I am also reading a fun book called Red, White & Drunk All Over. It's about wine, but that's close enough, no?

A Laurie Colwin book group would be great. I don't think anyone is doing what she did--do any Kitchn people have recommendations for Laurie Colwin-ish writers?

like water for chocolate.

Ditto on the Judith Jones and Jacques Pepin- I've just finished both and they are fascinating. may I also suggest "Salt: A World History" by Mark Kurlansky? I found this book to be so interesting. And of course anything Tony Bourdain is a must.

My selfish vote is for Judith Jones, since I'm about to click "buy it" on B&N.com. I LOVED My Life in France, but Animal, Vegetable, Mineral pales in comparison to it and most of the other books you have listed...

sciencegeek -- I love Jeffrey Steingarten, he's totally my hero! I used to subscribe to Vogue magazine just for his articles. I recommend his books "The Man Who Ate Everything" and "It Must Have Been Something I Ate" to anyone, as he covers every topic imaginable with plenty of humor, and he's a lawyer so he backs up his thoughts with plenty of research. He's the only person that can make candy sound good for your health. I also think McGee is great, but maybe not everyone's idea of a fun read. For curling up on the sofa on a Saturday afternoon, definitely Steingarten.

We (the brooklyn kitchen) have been hosting live Food Nerd Book Clubs since last spring, starting with The Omnivore's Dilemma. We have since read Home Cooking, and My Life in France, but one I don't think any commenters have mentioned is The Physiology of Taste (no one finished, but everyone meant to). The meetings are pot-luck, bring a dish inspired by the book, and create lively discussions among neighbors.

I vote Physiology of Taste, translated by MFK Fisher. It's two books in one, as MFK writes a postscript/translator's notes at the end of each major chapter, very first person and narrative.

We settled on that book immediately after The Omnivore's Dilemma, as Pollan mentions is heavily. I think it's a good core curriculum text that any Food Nerd should own. And since it's fairly non-linear it can be nibbled!

Come to our next live Food Nerd Book Club, where we discuss HEAT, Thursday Feb 7. Info at http://thebrooklynkitchen.com.

"The Supper of the Lamb: A Culinary Reflection" by Robert Farrar Capon is a classic and well worth an introduction to a new audience.

There are so many wonderful books out there! I was thrilled to see This Organic Life in the running. It's a really neat book that I think was published a few years before its time and deserves to be rediscovered. Alone In The Kitchen With An Eggplant is also a good read. This book club is a fantastic idea!

The $64 Tomato: How One Man Nearly Lost His Sanity, Spent a Fortune, and Endured an Existential Crisis in the Quest for the Perfect Garden by William Alexander

Heat, Bill Buford

I'd also get behind the Steingarten books, Any MFK Fisher, Pollan, the Hesser book, and why not the Best Food Writing series? I usually get them every year and they're great.

here are some literary cookbooks on my to-read list, all are very much tied to place and culture....

Honey from a Weed by Patience Gray (Mediterranean)
Lulu's Provencal Table by Richard Olney (French)
The Taste of Country Cooking by Edna Lewis (Southern)
Vibration Cooking or The Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl by Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor (Southern)

also, the introductions to the first and second editions of Laurel's Kitchen are excellent, inspiring essays on the soulful reasons why we cook. Highly recommended even for omnivores (it's a vegetarian cookbook).

"Following the Bloom" is a book about migratory beekeepers. Many of the books mentioned here deal with food production and this book should be included in that group. After years of being out of print, it is finally available due to its renewed relevance. While it was written before colony collapse disorder, it does take place during one of the honey bee disease epidemics and spends some time discussing the repercussions of the loss of bees as pollinators as well as providing an epilogue concerning today's bee issues. I enjoyed it because it has that perfect blend of factual information and anecdote.

I admit to being drawn to books that concern other people's worlds: beekeeping, being a chef, generally anything that is pretty much a calling or a passion.

Calvin Trillin, Laurie Colwin, Barbara Kingsolver are all excellent choices. Judith Jones, Jacques Pepin's autobiography...just tell me I'll start reading!!!

How about Animal, Vegetable, Miracle?

Full of great recipes and illustrations, I'd suggest
"The Soup Peddler's Slow & Difficult Soups: Recipes And Reveries by David Ansel and Liza Ferneyhough" part history, part cookbook.

Another vote for In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan...I saw his reading at Barnes and Noble in NYC on Wednesday night....he was great and I'm excited to read the book.

I was so disappointed in the questions from the audience, though....absurdly narrow in focus. ("What about kale?" "What about soy?" "Do you drink organic milk?")

How about Toast, by Nigel Slater? And I second the nomination of Jeffrey Steingarten...

Toast was wonderful!

And for fun: Candyfreak, Steve Almond

Something that I've seen book groups do in the past is make sure that the book in question is available in paperback. This makes it more accessible in the library and bookstore.

Many of the above mentioned books have been on my 'to read' list. I wasn't much taken with The Art of Simple Food, though everyone seems to like it, it seemed appropriate for someone very newly interested in food, cooking, and local eating, IMHO. Some others that I found worthwhile are The Improvisational Cook by Sally Schneider which not only has great 'base' recipes it offers a lot of inspiration to experiment and Heat by Bill Bulford which is well written, funny, educational, and inspiring.

What happened to the book?