November Adult Reading Challenge
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Drive-Thru Dreams
In Drive-Thru Dreams, Adam Chandler explores the inseparable link between fast food and American life for the past century. The dark underbelly of the industry’s largest players has long been scrutinized and gutted, characterized as impersonal, greedy, corporate, and worse. But, in unexpected ways, fast food is also deeply personal and emblematic of a larger than life image of America. Chandler traces the industry from its roots in Wichita, where White Castle became the first fast food chain in 1921 and successfully branded the hamburger as the official all-American meal, to a teenager's 2017 plea for a year’s supply of Wendy’s chicken nuggets, which united the internet to generate the most viral tweet of all time.
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Eat Joy
This collection of intimate, illustrated essays by some of America’s most well–regarded literary writers explores how comfort food can help us cope with dark times—be it the loss of a parent, the loneliness of a move, or the pain of heartache.
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A Cook's Tour
The only thing Anthony Bourdain loves as much as cooking is traveling, and A Cook's Tour is the shotgun marriage of his two greatest passions. Inspired by the question, 'What would be the perfect meal?', Anthony sets out on a quest for his culinary holy grail.
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The Cooking Gene
Culinary historian Michael W. Twitty takes readers to the white-hot center of this fight, tracing the roots of his own family and the charged politics surrounding the origins of soul food, barbecue, and all Southern cuisine. From the tobacco and rice farms of colonial times to plantation kitchens and backbreaking cotton fields, Twitty tells his family story through the foods that enabled his ancestors’ survival across three centuries. He sifts through stories, recipes, genetic tests, and historical documents, and travels from Civil War battlefields in Virginia to synagogues in Alabama to Black-owned organic farms in Georgia. Twitty reveals a truth that is more than skin deep—the power that food has to bring the kin of the enslaved and their former slaveholders to the table, where they can discover the real America together.
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Ingredients
Zaidan, an MIT-trained chemist who cohosted CNBC’s hit Make Me a Millionaire Inventor and wrote and voiced several TED-Ed viral videos, makes chemistry more fun than Hogwarts as he reveals exactly what science can (and can’t) tell us about the packaged ingredients sold to us every day. Sugar, spinach, formaldehyde, cyanide, the ingredients of life and death, and how we know if something is good or bad for us—as well as the genius of aphids and their butts—are all discussed in exquisite detail at breakneck speed.
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Fast Food Nation
In 2001, Fast Food Nation was published to critical acclaim and became an international bestseller. Eric Schlosser's exposé revealed how the fast food industry has altered the landscape of America, widened the gap between rich and poor, fueled an epidemic of obesity, and transformed food production throughout the world. The book changed the way millions of people think about what they eat and helped to launch today's food movement. In a new afterword for this edition, Schlosser discusses the growing interest in local and organic food, the continued exploitation of poor workers by the food industry, and the need to ensure that every American has access to good, healthy, affordable food. Fast Food Nation is as relevant today as it was a decade ago.
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Dinner on Mars
Feeding a Martian is one of the greatest challenges in the history of agriculture. Will a Red Planet menu involve cheese and ice cream made from vats of fermented yeast? Will medicine cabinets overflow with pharmaceuticals created from engineered barley grown using geothermal energy? Will the protein of choice feature a chicken breast grown in a lab? Weird, wonderful, and sometimes disgusting, figuring out "what's for dinner on Mars" is far from trivial. If we can figure out how to sustain ourselves on Mars, we will know how to do it on Earth too.
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Julie and Julia
Julie & Julia is the story of Julie Powell's attempt to revitalize her marriage, restore her ambition, and save her soul by cooking all 524 recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume I, in a period of 365 days.The result is a masterful medley of BridgetJones' Diary meets Like Water for Chocolate, mixed with a healthy dose of original wit, warmth, and inspiration that sets this memoir apart from most tales of personal redemption.
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Cheese, Wine, and Bread
Delicious staples of a great meal, bread, cheese, and wine develop their complex flavors through a process known as fermentation. Katie Quinn spent months as an apprentice with some of Europe's most acclaimed experts to study the art and science of fermentation. Visiting grain fields, vineyards, and dairies, Katie brings the stories and science of these foods to the table, explains the process of each craft, and introduces the people behind them. Part artisanal survey, part travelogue, and part cookbook, featuring watercolor illustrations and gorgeous photographs, Cheese, Wine, and Bread is an outstanding gastronomic tour for foodies, cooks, artisans, and armchair travelers alike.
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Gastro Obscura
This breathtaking guide transforms our sense of what people around the world eat and drink. Gastro Obscura reveals food’s central place in our lives as well as our bellies, touching on history–trace the network of ancient Roman fish sauce factories. Culture–picture four million women gathering to make rice pudding. Travel–scale China’s sacred Mount Hua to reach a tea house. Festivals–feed wild macaques pyramid of fruit at Thailand’s Monkey Buffet Festival. And hidden gems that might be right around the corner, like the vending machine in Texas dispensing full sized pecan pies. Dig in and feed your sense of wonder.
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First Bite
Bee Wilson draws on the latest research from food psychologists, neuroscientists, and nutritionists to reveal that our food habits are shaped by a whole host of factors: family and culture, memory and gender, hunger and love. Taking the reader on a journey across the globe, Wilson introduces us to people who can only eat foods of a certain color; prisoners of war whose deepest yearning is for Mom's apple pie; a nine year old anosmia sufferer who has no memory of the flavor of her mother's cooking; toddlers who will eat nothing but hotdogs and grilled cheese sandwiches; and researchers and doctors who have pioneered new and effective ways to persuade children to try new vegetables. Wilson examines why the Japanese eat so healthily, whereas the vast majority of teenage boys in Kuwait have a weight problem—and what these facts can tell Americans about how to eat better.
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We Are What We Eat
In We Are What We Eat, Alice Waters urges us to take up the mantle of slow food culture, the philosophy at the core of her life’s work. When Waters first opened Chez Panisse in 1971, she did so with the intention of feeding people good food during a time of political turmoil. Customers responded to the locally sourced organic ingredients, to the dishes made by hand, and to the welcoming hospitality that infused the small space—human qualities that were disappearing from a country increasingly seduced by takeout, frozen dinners, and prepackaged ingredients. Waters came to see that the phenomenon of fast food culture, which prioritized cheapness, availability, and speed, was not only ruining our health, but also dehumanizing the ways we live and relate to one another.
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Buttermilk Graffiti
Edward Lee decided to hit the road and spent two years uncovering fascinating narratives from every corner of the country. There’s a Cambodian couple in Lowell, Massachusetts, and their efforts to re-create the flavors of their lost country. A Uyghur café in New York’s Brighton Beach serves a noodle soup that seems so very familiar and yet so very exotic—one unexpected ingredient opens a window onto an entirely unique culture. A beignet from Café du Monde in New Orleans, as potent as Proust’s madeleine, inspires a narrative that tunnels through time, back to the first Creole cooks, then forward to a Korean rice-flour hoedduck and a beignet dusted with matcha.
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Animal, Vegetable, Junk
The history of Homo sapiens is usually told as a story of technology or economics. But there is a more fundamental driver: food. How we hunted and gathered explains our emergence as a new species and our earliest technology; our first food systems, from fire to agriculture, tell where we settled and how civilizations expanded. The quest for food for growing populations drove exploration, colonialism, slavery, even capitalism. A century ago, food was industrialized. Since then, new styles of agriculture and food production have written a new chapter of human history, one that's driving both climate change and global health crises. Best-selling food authority Mark Bittman offers a panoramic view of the story and explains how we can rescue ourselves from the modern wrong turn.
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The Secret Life of Groceries
The miracle of the supermarket has never been more apparent. The men and women who stock our shelves and operate our warehouses are understood as 'essential' workers, providing a quality of life we all too easily take for granted. But the sad truth is that the grocery industry has been failing these workers for decades. Benjamin Lorr pulls back the curtain on the highly secretive grocery industry. Combining deep sourcing, immersive reporting, and sharp, often laugh-out-loud prose, Lorr leads a wild investigation, asking what does it take to run a supermarket? How does our food get on the shelves? And who suffers for our increasing demands for convenience and efficiency?
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Spare
Before losing his mother, twelve-year-old Prince Harry was known as the carefree one. Grief changed everything. Angry and lonely, he struggled at school and to accept life in the spotlight. Joining the British Army at 21 gave him structure and made him a hero at home. But he suffered from post-traumatic stress and crippling panic attacks. When he met Meghan, the world was swept away by the couple’s cinematic romance. But Harry and Meghan were preyed upon by the press and subjected to waves of abuse, racism, and lies. Harry saw no other way to prevent tragedy but to flee his mother country. Leaving the Royal Family was an act few had dared -- the last had been his mother.
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One Last Stop
For cynical twenty-three-year-old August, moving to New York City is supposed to prove her right: that things like magic and cinematic love stories don’t exist, and the only smart way to go through life is alone. There’s certainly no chance of her subway commute being anything more than a daily trudge through boredom and electrical failures. But then, there’s this gorgeous girl on the train: Jane. August’s subway crush becomes the best part of her day, but pretty soon, she discovers there’s one big problem: Jane doesn’t just look like an old school punk rocker. She’s literally displaced in time from the 1970s, and August is going to have to use everything she tried to leave in her own past to help her.
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Obsessed
A killer is obsessed with Detective Michael Bennett's oldest daughter. Michael Bennett is obsessed with keeping his family safe. New York City is obsessed with cracking the killer's code.
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Lion and Lamb
The city is in a state of shock over the fate of two hometown heroes: Eagles starting quarterback Archie Hughes, and his even more famous wife, Grammy-winning singer Francine Hughes. One spouse is murdered. The other is suspect #1. Even before the case hits the courtroom, it's the hottest ticket in town. For the defense: Cooper Lamb, private investigator to the stars. For the prosecution: Veena Lion, a sleuth so bright she's got to wear shades. Between them, they know every secret in Philadelphia. Together, they prove how two wrongs can make a right. They are Lion & Lamb.
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Countdown
Agent Amy Cornwall excels at working from the shadows--until a botched field operation reveals dark dealings between her bosses and an informant. And a hidden plot by a terrorist genius that could kill thousands of Americans. Among them: her husband and daughter. She has to go dark. The Division wants to erase her. And they know every detail about her identity, her history, and her family. Agent Cornwall's countdown has begun.
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Reminders of Him
After serving five years in prison for a tragic mistake, Kenna Rowan hopes to reunite with her four-year-old daughter in the town where it all went wrong. But the only person who hasn't closed the door on her completely is Ledger Ward, a local bar owner and one of the few remaining links to Kenna's daughter. The two form a connection despite the pressure surrounding them, but as their romance grows, so does the risk. Kenna must find a way to absolve the mistakes of her past in order to build a future out of hope and healing.
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A World of Curiosities
As the villagers of Three Pines prepare for a special celebration, Armand Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir find themselves increasingly worried. A young man and woman have reappeared in the village of Three Pines. Did their mother’s murder years ago hurt them beyond repair? As Chief Inspector Gamache works to uncover answers, his alarm grows when a letter written by a long dead stone mason is discovered. In it the man describes his terror when bricking up an attic room somewhere in the village. When the room is found, the villagers decide to open it up. But the head of homicide soon realizes that there are puzzles within puzzles, and hidden messages warning of mayhem and revenge in that room.
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It Ends with Us
When Lily feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, everything in Lily’s life seems too good to be true. Ryle is assertive, stubborn, maybe even a little arrogant. He’s also sensitive, brilliant, and has a total soft spot for Lily. But Ryle’s complete aversion to relationships is disturbing. Even as Lily finds herself becoming the exception to his “no dating” rule, she can’t help but wonder what made him that way in the first place. As questions about her new relationship overwhelm her, so do thoughts of Atlas Corrigan—her first love and a link to the past she left behind. When Atlas suddenly reappears, everything Lily has built with Ryle is threatened.
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The Exchange
What became of Mitch and Abby McDeere after they exposed the crimes of Memphis law firm Bendini, Lambert & Locke and fled the country? The answer is in The Exchange, the riveting sequel to The Firm, the blockbuster thriller that launched the career of America's favorite storyteller. It is now fifteen years later, and Mitch and Abby are living in Manhattan, where Mitch is a partner at the largest law firm in the world. When a mentor in Rome asks him for a favor that will take him far from home, Mitch finds himself at the center of a sinister plot that has worldwide implications--and once again endangers his colleagues, friends, and family. Mitch has become a master at staying one step ahead of his adversaries, but this time there's nowhere to hide.
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The Five-Star Weekend
The Five-Star Weekend is a surprising and captivating story about friendship, love, and self-discovery set on Nantucket. It will be a weekend like no other.
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Verity
Jeremy Crawford, husband of bestselling author Verity Crawford, has hired Lowen Ashleigh to complete the remaining books in a successful series his injured wife Verity is unable to finish. What Lowen doesn't expect to uncover is an unfinished autobiography Verity never intended for anyone to read. Lowen decides to keep the manuscript hidden from Jeremy, filled as it is with bone-chilling admissions of the night their family was forever altered. But as Lowen's feelings for Jeremy intensify, she recognizes all the ways she could benefit if he were to read his wife's words. A truth this horrifying would make it impossible for him to continue loving Verity.
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Ugly Love
When Tate Collins meets airline pilot Miles Archer, she doesn't think it's love at first sight. The only thing Tate and Miles have in common is an undeniable mutual attraction. He doesn’t want love, she doesn’t have time for love, so that just leaves the sex. Their arrangement could be surprisingly seamless, as long as Tate can stick to the only two rules Miles has for her: 1) Never ask about the past; 2)Don’t expect a future. They think they can handle it, but realize almost immediately they can’t handle it at all.
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Mad Honey
Olivia McAfee never imagined that she would end up back in her sleepy New Hampshire hometown with her son Asher. When Lily Campanello and her mom relocate to Adams, New Hampshire, for her final year of high school, they both hope it will be a fresh start. Olivia and Lily's paths cross when Asher falls for the new girl in school, and Lily can’t help but fall for him, too. Then Olivia receives a phone call: Lily is dead, and Asher is being questioned by the police. Olivia is adamant that her son is innocent, but as the case against him unfolds, she realizes he’s hidden more than he’s shared with her.
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The Boys from Biloxi
Biloxi was known for its beaches, resorts, and seafood industry but also notorious for corruption and vice. Keith Rudy and Hugh Malco grew up in Biloxi in the sixties and were childhood friends. But Keith’s father became a legendary prosecutor, determined to “clean up the Coast” while Hugh’s father became the “Boss” of Biloxi’s criminal underground. Keith went to law school and followed in his father’s footsteps. Hugh preferred the nightlife and worked in his father’s clubs. The two families were headed for a showdown, one that would happen in a courtroom.
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Simply Lies
When Mickey Gibsongets a call from a colleague named Arlene Robinson at global investigation company ProEye, she thinks nothing of Arlene's unusual request for her to go inventory the vacant home of an arms dealer. She arrives at the mansion to discover a dead body who turns out to be Harry Langhorne, a man with mob ties who used to be in Witness Protection. And no one named Arlene Robinson works at ProEye. Gibson has now become a prime suspect in a murder investigation. She is locked in a battle of wits with a brilliant woman with no name, a hidden past, and unknown motives.