Sunday, August 15, 2010

Day 5: What non-fiction book did you actually enjoy?

Okay, so I hate this question. What does it mean? That as a reader I'm not supposed to enjoy non-fiction? And this riled me up so much it took me a VERY LONG TIME to come up with a non-fiction book I "actually" enjoyed.

But first. Non-fiction is a broad that pretty much means anything that's not fiction. I checked out a few definitions and decided to go with Wikipedia's definition...after ready the section on major types of non-fiction, I finally decided on a book.

It was hard. And there were a few others, but some I've already mentioned on this blog and others I'll be mentioning later on in this challenge.

The book I decided on was Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution.

Even though this a cookbook, I actually read it. From cover to cover. Now, I didn't read every word, but I did read it. It has a longer introduction than most cookbooks and it talks about Jamie Oliver's project and his goals with this cookbook, in particular his challenge to teach some of the recipes to someone else. It also has numerous anecdotes throughout from people who have participated in his programs. And it has recipes.

Recipes that made my tummy grumble even though I read it one evening after dinner. So I wasn't actually hungry. Mmmmm...

While we haven't cooked anything from here yet (just waiting for it to cool off a bit so we can use the oven again), I'm very excited to use this book. J and I gave it to Alex for his birthday because come September and a change in routine for all of us, Alex will be doing a lot of the cooking. The first section, 20 minute meals, was the real selling point! We'll see how it goes!

Have you ever read a cookbook? Have you made anything out of this particular cookbook? What work(s) of non-fiction did you "actually" enjoy?

2 comments:

  1. I actually tend to prefer non-fiction to fiction so this question really bothers me as well. I actually enjoy quite a lot of non-fiction, thank you very much. I haven't read Food Revolution, but I have read Jamie's Kitchen (before giving it to a friend for Christmas) and I own Jamie at Home, both of which I loved for the recipies and all the background information he gives. The 'at Home' is an awesome book for anyone wanting to start a garden. I love to cook and I love to try new things in the kitchen which means I am a single person who owns 18 cook books (mostly ethnic themed books)... and has cooked at least one thing from all of them.

    As for other non-fiction that I might have dared to *gasp* actually enjoy, there's far too many to name in a comment but I do pretty much insist that everyone I know reads Shake Hands with the Devil and at least one of Michael Palin's books.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I've written your suggestions down - maybe they'll make it on next month's list...we'll see! Non-fiction is interesting (the subject of non-fiction that is, of course non-fiction is interesting...) because so many people seem scared of it and others will ONLY read it. My grandma rarely reads fiction anymore. She figures every plot line known to man has been used ad nauseum and she'll never read a new story ever again.

    I would like to read more non-fiction (more about this in a later challenge post...)

    ReplyDelete