The Most Influential Cookbooks of the Century

Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more.

Whatcha Got Cookin’?

The best cookbooks are about so much more than delicious dishes. Good food writing can capture moments, shape culture, and expand our understanding of how what we eat is connected to who we are and how we live. The good folks at the New York Times tasked a panel of five experts—including Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat author Samin Nosrat, a former Bon Appétit editor, and the owner of a cookbook shop—to identify the 25 most influential cookbooks of the last 100 years, and the resulting list is a smorgasbord of goodness. I’m an avid home cook and a devoted reader of food writing, and several of the titles they identified were new to me. Whatever your preferred flavors, you’ll find something to spice up your kitchen shelves. More like this, please.

The Year’s Best Historical Fiction

Now that the first wave of general Best Books of the Year lists has broken, we’re getting into genre-specific highlight reels. Romantasy gets all the attention these days, but historical fiction continues to be a mainstay of bestseller lists, and the Washington Post has named the 10 best historical novels of the year. Looking for a gift for someone who loves Kristin Hannah? Here you go.

Martin Scorcese to Adapt Marilynne Robinson’s Home?

This is a weird one. Martin Scorcese, the legendary director of films mostly set in gritty New York milieus, has said there is a “very strong possibility” that, barring a scheduling a conflict, he will adapt Marilynne Robinson’s novel Home. Hard to imagine a vibe further from Scorcese’s usual fare than Robinson’s quiet, contemplative story set in a small town in Iowa in the 1950s. Home is the second book in Robinson’s Gilead quadrilogy, which follows the family lives of two aging pastors who are lifelong friends. Gilead, which came in at #10 on the New York Times’s list of the 100 best books of the century, is undeniably the star of the series, but I can see why a filmmaker would be drawn to Home first. While Gilead is one of my five favorite books and a pretty perfect novel, not much happens. Additionally, it is told in letters from 76-year-old Reverend Ames to his young son, the product of a surprising, late-in-life marriage. Home has more action, mostly family drama, and is told in the third person. I’m honestly not sure what to hope for here.

Amazon’s Best Books of 2024, Goodreads Choice Voting, and More Bookish News

On today’s episode of the Book Riot Podcast, Jeff O’Neal and I discuss Amazon’s surprising pick for #1 book of the year, the regression-to-the-mean of the Goodreads Choice Awards, the results of PW‘s annual salary survey, and more.