Food Literature

Gourmet cook Manako Kajii sits in the Tokyo Detention House convicted of the serial murders of lonely businessmen, whom she is said to have seduced with her delicious home cooking. The case has captured the nation’s imagination, but Kajii refuses to speak with the press, entertaining no visitors. That is until journalist Rika Machida writes a letter asking for her recipe for beef stew, and Kajii can’t resist writing back.

This is a book about a bad seed. How bad? Do you really want to know? He has a bad temper, bad manners, and a bad attitude. He’s been bad since he can remember! This seed cuts in line every time, stares at everybody, and never listens. But what happens when one mischievous little seed changes his mind about himself, and decides that he wants to be - happy? Here is a funny yet touching tale that reminds us of the remarkably transformative power of will, acceptance, and just being you.

It all began wit the research of two scientists, Mr. Bensington and Professor Redwood, into the principles of growth in living matter. The fruit of their labor was a substanceknown as "Herakleophorbia IV", but their own private term for it was "The Food of theGods" because of its very special properties. Their tests produced a baby chick large enough to be mistaken for a buzzard, and when the substance was consumed by rats, they grew bigger than horses.

When Lila Macapagal moves back home to recover from a horrible breakup, her life seems to be following all the typical rom-com tropes. She's tasked with saving her Tita Rosie's failing restaurant, and she has to deal with a group of matchmaking aunties who shower her with love and judgment. But when a notoriously nasty food critic (who happens to be her ex-boyfriend) drops dead moments after a confrontation with Lila, her life quickly swerves from a Nora Ephron romp to an Agatha Christie case.

Barrett Bradshaw was always a bookworm, but no amount of reading would prepare him for his childhood crush turning him into a vampire. Even more absurd, it turns out that he was never fully human at all.

Tucked away down a Kyoto backstreet lies the extraordinary Kamogawa Diner, run by Chef Nagare and his daughter, Koishi. The father-daughter duo have reinvented themselves as “food detectives,” offering a service that goes beyond cooking mouth-watering meals. Through their culinary sleuthing, they revive lost recipes and rekindle forgotten memories.

It isn't how chef Bridget "Bunny" MacBride imagined her own cooking show unfolding. But, if preparing historic meals with a modern flair is what it takes to get her cooking on the air, she can deliver, even if her dinner guest is a ghost. For their first episode, the Food & Spirits team sets off to investigate Bramsford Manor, a historic house turned famously haunted hotel, in picturesque Hampshire, England. The sprawling estate is said to be home to the Mistletoe Bride, a young woman who died in the eighteenth century, the victim of a tragic accident on her Christmas wedding night.

Lois Clary is a software engineer at General Dexterity, a San Francisco robotics company with world-changing ambitions. She codes all day and collapses at night, her human contact limited to the two brothers who run the neighborhood hole-in-the-wall from which she orders dinner every evening. Then, disaster! Visa issues. The brothers quickly close up shop. But they have one last delivery for Lois: their culture, the sourdough starter used to bake their bread. She must keep it alive, they tell her—feed it daily, play it music, and learn to bake with it.

A classic of reportage, Oranges was first conceived as a magazine article, but John McPhee kept encountering so much irresistible information that he wrote a book. It is perhaps the last word on the subject (the first came in 500 BC and is attributed to Confucius). McPhee writes about the botany, history, and industry of oranges, from the great orangeries of European monarchs to a fascinating profile of Ben Hill Griffin of Frostproof, Florida, who may be the last of the individual orange barons.

Link up with Max Axiom to learn about the world's coolest webs, food chains, and energy pyramids! Young listeners will unravel the complex systems that keep the world fed.

This cookie has never felt like a smart cookie no matter how hard she tries, especially in comparison to all the clever cupcakes and brilliant rolls in the bakery. Will a dash of creativity and a sprinkle of confidence be enough to help her learn that perfect scores and having all the answers aren’t the only ingredients for intelligence?

Single mom Hayley Powell is barely keeping her leaking roof over her head in Bar Harbor, Maine, when her boss at the Island Times gives her a new assignment - taking over the paper's food column. Hayley's not sure she has the chops - she's an office manager, not a writer, even if her friends clamor for her mouth-watering potluck dishes. But the extra income is tempting, and Hayley's chatty first column is suddenly on everyone's menu - with one exception.

The Great Eggscape is when the Good Egg and his pals escape their carton and drop into the store for a morning of fun, enjoyed by everybody. Well, almost everybody. Shel (an egg) isn’t a huge fan of group activities, especially when he’s made to be “It” for a game of hide-and-seek. Nevertheless, Shel doesn’t want to let his friends down, so he reluctantly plays, anyway. But after a morning of hiding and seeking, somebody’s still missing. Will the dozen eggs friends ever be reunited?

Halloween is the Bad Seed’s favorite holiday of the year. But what’s a seed to do when he can’t find a show-stopping costume for the big night? Postpone trick-or-treating for everyone, of course! Can he get a costume together in time? Or will this seed return to his baaaaaaaaad ways? Find out in this hilarious, charming, and thought-provoking continuation of Jory John’s bestselling series.

Nourish will guide you to transform your eating from self-control to self-love, using a 10-step healing process. In this book, Heidi Schauster, MS, RDN, CEDRD-S, founder of Nourishing Words Nutrition Therapy, shares 20 years of wisdom from her Boston-area practice treating disordered and emotional eating.

The Big Cheese is the best at everything, and brags about it, too. When the annual Cheese-cathlon comes around, the Big Cheese is prepared to win, as always. But what happens when the quiet new kid, Wedge Wedgeman, comes out on top? Is a slice of humility all the Big Cheese needs to discover that some things are better than being the best?

Children will laugh at these funny adventure stories from Bill Myers, bestselling author of McGee and Me, all while learning Christian character and godly wisdom. Join Wally on four hilarious, mishap-filled adventures as he faces a bully at camp, gets eaten by an alien in a film, competes in a hot-air balloon race, and plunges over a killer waterfall.

When Lucy Berberian quits her Philadelphia law firm and heads home to Ocean Crest, she knows what she's getting - the scent of funnel cake, the sight of the wooden roller coaster, and the tastes of her family's Mediterranean restaurant. Lucy could do without Heather Banks, though. The Gucci-toting ex-cheerleader is still as nasty as she was back in high school...and she's just taken over as the local health inspector. Just minutes after eating at the Kebab Kitchen - where she's tallied up a whole list of bogus violations - she falls down dead in the street.

In Sài Gòn, Lan is always trying to be the perfect daughter, dependable and willing to care for her widowed mother and their bánh mì stall. Her secret passion, however, is A Bánh Mì for Two, the food blog she started with her father. Meanwhile, Vietnamese American Vivi Huynh has never been to Việt Nam. Her parents rarely even talk about the homeland that clearly haunts them. So Vivi secretly goes to Vietnam for a study abroad program, determined to figure out why her parents left, and to try everything she’s seen on her favorite food blog, A Bánh Mì for Two.

Everyone knows the cool beans. They’re sooooo cool. And then there’s the uncool has-bean.... Always on the sidelines, one bean unsuccessfully tries everything he can to fit in with the crowd - until one day the cool beans show him how it’s done. With equal measures of humor, wit, and charm, the number one New York Times best-selling Jory John crafts another incredible story, reminding us that it’s cooler to be kind.