It's summer, which means it's prime season for reading for pleasure, so here's our food lovers' guide to the new books coming out. Whether you want something light and airy, moody and dark, or thought-provoking and political, read to your heart's content with the 20 books below.
If you're a huge fan of Audrey Hepburn, do we have a book for you. In Audrey at Home, which comes out in mid-June, Luca Dotti, Hepburn's son, compiles memories, anecdotes, and recipes Hepburn wrote by hand. [Available on Amazon]
When Layne Mosler asked her taxi driver in Buenos Aires to take her to his favorite restaurant, she didn't expect that it would spark the idea for Taxi Gourmet, a blog with a cult-following chronicling Mosler's adventures eating with taxi drivers all over the world. [Available on Amazon]
If you followed the 300 sandwiches saga online, here's the full story of Stephanie Smith, the New York Post writer and her boyfriend, who famously said, "Honey, you are 300 sandwiches away from an engagement ring." Sandwich recipes litter the text throughout. [Available on Amazon]
Andie Mitchell, a young food blogger battling body image issues, struggles for self-acceptance in this heartbreakingly honest memoir about finding beauty and confidence beyond food addiction. [Available on Amazon]
Author Jared Stone buys 420 pounds of raw beef directly from a rancher and cooks his way through the cow, learning about the meat industry and what's really for dinner along the way. [Available on Amazon]
Presidents are sort of just like us? At the very least they drank a lot, according to Brian Adams, the author who takes a deep dive into how presidents liked to party. Bonus: cocktail recipes for presidents' favorite drinks. [Available on Amazon]
Food blogger Sasha Martin embarks on a 195-week epic to cook—and eat—a meal from every country around the world. The poignant memoir reaches beyond food as the author sorts through memories of her challenging childhood and finds self-acceptance and healing through cooking. [Available on Amazon]
Pique your wanderlust with the author, Graham Holliday, who left everything behind and moved to Hanoi with one goal in mind: to eat a whole lot of Vietnamese food. [Available on Amazon]
Comedian and YouTube star, Mamrie Hart, compiles hilarious tales of getting drunk and suffering through hangovers in between cocktail recipes that bookend each chapter. [Available on Amazon]
Megan Kimble, a founding editor of Edible Baja Arizona, spends a year eating only unprocessed foods on a shoestring budget. But what started as a seemingly simple experiment becomes an intensive research expedition as she uncovers what it means define food as "processed" in the first place. [Available on Amazon]
Mia Alvar tells the stories of nine Filipino men and women who have left their homeland behind, all the while sharing meals and memories of home. [Available on Amazon]
Any bread-lover or aspiring baker will find inspiration in Samuel Fromartz odyssey around the globe to find—and learn how to make—the perfect loaf of bread, from whole grain rye in Berlin to sourdough in California. [Available on Amazon]
A dairy operation of 700 acres in rich Illinois bottom land becomes a family farm, passed down from father Alan Guebert to daughter Mary Grace Foxwell. Both author this book, and highlight the strength and happiness one family finds through hard work in life and farming. [Available on Amazon]
Ever wondered how human allergies evolved such that middle school children now need to be hyper-conscious of peanut butter contamination? Matthew Smith chronicles the political, economic, cultural, and health factors that contribute to food allergies. [Available on Amazon]
Looking into the U.S. health crisis means finding the link between nutrition and flavor, where our tastebuds are trained to crave ingredients that have little to no nutritional value, says journalist Mark Schatzker in his latest work. [Available on Amazon]
The book that makes us realize that the military is basically a R&D lab for what ends up in our kitchens. From canned goods to energy bars, Anastacia Marx de Salcedo details how the U.S. military shapes what we eat. [Available on Amazon]
James Hannaham's acclaimed Delicious Foods is somewhat of a misnomer, as this dark, vivid and masterfully written novel weaves a tale of hardship and perseverance when the protagonist is trapped by her shady employer on a remote farm. [Available on Amazon]
Rachel Kushner, the author behind The Flamethrowers, writes three shorter stories, and one details a gift of innocent ice cream as a tempting bribe from a president to a prostitute. [Available on Amazon]
Not just a tale of how a seed grows into a tree, Thor Hanson's The Triumph of Seeds is more about how seeds have shaped human history, from coffee in the Enlightenment, to growing cotton, and the importance of peppercorn to the way we understand food and politics today. [Available on Amazon]
Take a deep dive into the stories behind 40 cuisines and 100 recipes. Whether you're an avid traveler, or prefer to travel from the comfort of an armchair, Mina Holland's book is made for food lovers and trivia geeks alike. [Available on Amazon]