In the ruminations about reading resolutions and challenges appearing here over the past two weeks was a link to a counterpoint article from the blog Broke by Books in which the blogger makes many great points, but when she talks about cookbooks (albeit lovingly) she says “I didn’t feel like I could legitimately say I ‘read’ a cookbook.” While she goes on to say that cookbooks will be part of her reading goals for 2016, she still doesn’t justify adding them to her Goodreads list as being “read.” As someone who has proudly and enthusiastically added cookbooks to her Goodreads “Read” list, I heartily declare the reading of cookbooks as “legitimate” reading.

I understand where the idea of not really “reading” a cookbook can stem from. While Julia Child, Irma Rombauer and their counterparts blazed a trail for standby recipes, tips, hints and a certain amount of “foolproof-ness” to their extensive works, their books aren’t necessarily the type of tome one wants to cozy up with in front of a fire. This is, of course, unless you’re like me and consider the listing of ingredients (6 tablespoons unsalted butter / 2 c. yellow cornmeal / 1 tsp baking powder / 1 tsp baking soda … etc.) to be pure poetry. Modern cookbooks owe a great deal to their venerated predecessors, but have added so much more to the cookbook, and as a result, the cooking process.

Cookbooks are now generally accompanied by glossy photos, which to some may only add a bit of sparkle to the production value, but I maintain is an important, possibly essential part of cookbookery. Anyone who has made a dish and said “it tastes good, but is it really supposed to look like that?” will likely understand where I’m coming from, here. Modern cookbooks also often have a theme that functions very nearly as a storyline. Some are more abstract than others, but some take the combination of personal history and recipes to new heights, adding paragraphs about the history of the recipe, why it was included in the cookbook and/or why it is an important recipe to the author. I can’t express how much I’ve learned about flavor combinations, kitchen experimentation and other cultures by taking time to really examine (i.e. read) a cookbook. The tidbits embedded among the ingredients and instructions often make for a compelling tale in which the reader can get to know the author and the food. And learning about food, its history and its importance to people can provide that essential, but often ineffable quality of truly good food.

This week I’m offering you a very small selection among many possibilities that can make for legitimate cookbook reading. If you happen to gloss over the ingredients lists or instructions in the process, let’s all remember the time-honored reading tradition of “skimming.” Skimming over a passage of lengthy description that’s not holding your attention in a novel is no different from reading the parts of a cookbook that bring the food to life and skimming over the lists in the middle. In either case, you’re going through a book cover-to-cover and getting something out of the text you’ve read. So if you’ve gone through an entire cookbook, even if you have no intention of making a single dish from the book, don’t let it stop you from calling it legitimate reading and checking it off your list!

New England Open House Cookbook by Sarah Leah Chase

While the tag-line for this book is “300 recipes inspired by the bounty of New England” and this book certainly lives up to that promise, each recipe is introduced with a thoughtful paragraph or two bringing each entry to life in a way a isolated recipe could never accomplish. Chase infuses history, delightful anecdotes or background on how the recipe came to be a New England or family favorite into each offering making this book so much more than a cookbook. The essays in the beginning of the book will give the reader a great sense of what a labor of love it was to bring this tome about.

Everyday Easy by Lorraine Pascale

Pascale’s cookbook is another that introduces each recipe with a paragraph that gives the reader a solid sense of what’s to come. With recipe introductions like “Pancetta. It’s that porky, tasty yumminess that I love so very much,” I defy anyone not to be at least a little tempted to make something from this book. Full-page images of what every dish should look like (in its best form, anyway) will leave the reader with no doubt about the mouthwatering potential of Pascale’s recipes.

Mediterranean Cookbook: Fast, Fresh and Easy Recipes by Marie-Pierre Moine

This is a DK published book, which is pretty much a guarantee that even just browsing the pictures in this book will give you an eye-popping experience. But this book does so much more. The popular Mediterranean style of cooking is highlighted by course with interludes about the regions (North African, Middle Eastern, Italian, Iberian, Greek) that create the Mediterranean cooking experience. These interludes give the reader an introduction to the food culture of that region along with menu suggestions that will pull from the sections in the book (with page references, naturally). It works well to give the reader a sense of how different flavors will work and meld together.

Wintersweet by Tammy Donroe

This book has a fascinating focus, using ingredients found during the late fall/winter harvest and making delectable desserts with a combination of that harvest and pantry staples. What results is an amazing, successful effort by Food on the Food blogger Donroe to create a book that has a sense of place (most ingredients are regional to and/or sourced from New England) and sense of history as Donroe includes some wonderful family anecdotes and recipes from her family’s own cache of trustworthy gems. You’d be hard-pressed to find a cookbook infused with more personality and genuine charm than this one.

Food52 Genius Recipes by Kristen Miglore

I’ve mentioned this book before. I will likely mention it again. The subtitle for this book is “100 recipes that will change the way you cook”; I’d venture to say it will change the way you view cookbooks in general, particularly in terms of reading them. This book is set up with an introduction to each recipe that gives the reader a mouth-watering sense of why it was included in the book, why the recipe works the way it does and often suggestions for variations so you can adapt the recipe to your personal style. I’ve yet to find a picture that doesn’t make my mouth water. They have a great philosophy of unfussy preparation and presentation which makes the recipes completely accessible and the blurbs before the recipes as relatable and interesting as any food memoir. If ever there was a page-turner of a cookbook, this is it. (And if you’re as hooked on this book as I am, you’ll also want to check out Food52 Baking.)

This week, dear readers, I highly recommend that you cozy up in whatever spot is most comfortable to you (especially if your book fort is still up), with whatever hot drink you find most tempting (tea, coffee, hot chocolate, mulled cider) and discover the possibilities a new cookbook can offer. You might even find it as engrossing as your usual reading material, in which case, once you’re done you should proudly claim that you did, indeed “read” a cookbook!

This past week, various social media channels exploded over a controversy about the representation of marginalized children in literature. Some were saying that there are plenty of books out there about diversity, while many others decried that, despite what is out there already, there are not nearly enough. I won’t reproduce the arguments or participants here, as some of the links I provide will give you some background so you can decide for yourself how you feel about it. What I’d like to focus on instead is the concept of voices in literature and the rights of all readers to relate to someone in a story. This isn’t the same as banning books. Banning means stifling voices that are already out there. Today’s post is about voices that haven’t been heard yet, voices that often don’t appear on people’s radar to prompt a challenge.

Earlier this year, Myles Johnson, not finding quite the right story already out there, and instead of waiting for the world of literature to catch up, created his own story. Johnson led a successful Kickstarter campaign to publish his book Large Fears about a young African-American boy who loves pink and in an attempt to seek acceptance wants to journey to Mars. Many are finding this story a breakthrough because it’s a unique voice that hasn’t been represented (or if it has, it hasn’t been represented enough) in books. Blogger Crazy Quilt Edi was one of them and wrote an impassioned entry about what this book meant to her and her community at large. And she talked about voices and young people not having the tools to sustain themselves during tough times because books with relatable voices weren’t there to help them.

Voices in literature are important. Regardless of who they represent, they are the voices we cling to when we need comfort  or need to see something of ourselves in the world when it seems like the world doesn’t recognize who we are. I’ve been extremely lucky in my reading life to have found voices that seem like they speak directly to me, or offer to take me away into a world where it didn’t matter that I was different because differences either didn’t matter or were celebrated in that book’s world. Sometimes those voices were from people just like me; other times they were from characters who were nothing like me, but still somehow seemed like they understood me just the same. These were the books that sustained me, the stories that helped me through the difficult times in my life and the voices that carried me across the threshold of difficulty into something more hopeful. I am fortunate because I found these voices and every bit as fortunate to know that these voices were already out there for me to find.

Not everyone is as lucky as I have been to find voices who sympathize, who understand or who simply echo some of your own thoughts. These are the voices that give us the tools to deal with some of the joys and hardships that life throws our way. The world is vast and despite technology making it smaller, that doesn’t mean that every voice has been heard. The world of literature is almost as vast, but that doesn’t mean that every voice has spoken. People are entitled to a vast array of opinions, but that doesn’t mean that every voice has been recognized. Readers have the right to find a piece of themselves inside a book. Children deserve to see a face they recognize in a picture book. Teens deserve to recognize their own problems in characters’ struggles. Adults deserve to recognize pieces of their life in literature. If that voice isn’t out there yet or isn’t spread far enough for people to hear it, then somewhere there’s a reader who hasn’t found their literary connection and that’s tragic. Not necessarily because that reader hasn’t found a favorite book (although that is heartbreaking to me) but because that reader hasn’t been able to find an emotional tool to sustain themselves when they truly need it the most.

Some of us are lucky to be sustained by voices in books that have already been heard or accepted, but that doesn’t mean that everyone can find relatable literature out there. We need diverse books because we owe it to ourselves and to everyone to encourage new voices to be heard. Literature doesn’t need to have an agenda to connect with readers. It only needs to have a voice that others can share or use for themselves when they feel like they have no voice of their own.

In the spirit of unique and underrepresented voices and diversity in literature, here are some selections to consider that are in no way definitive or exhaustive:

A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James

This 2015 Man Booker Prize-winning novel presents a different perspective in award-winning literature, becoming the first Caribbean writer to win the esteemed and coveted prize. James’s epic novel looks at Jamaica over the last three decades, giving a new, modern voice to to the Kingston of the 1970s, 80s and 90s.

Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson

In this collection of honest essays, Jenny Lawson becomes a new voice for mental illness, expounding upon her philosophy to live live “furiously happy” enjoying the moments when she can live life to the fullest and forgiving herself when that can’t happen. She looks unflinchingly at her problems in the hopes that others might benefit from her struggles and be able to “come out the other side” but does so in an irreverent, hysterically funny way that forces anyone reading it to reconsider the stigma of mental illness. In laughing and encouraging us to laugh with her she creates a safe, palatable space to consider some of life’s darkest thoughts.

Jacob’s New Dress by Sarah and Ian Hoffman

This empowering picture book of a little boy who likes traditional “girl things” in addition to traditional “boy things” speaks not only to those who are gender nonconformists, but also to those who don’t understand some of the struggles they face. It takes a realistic look at those who want everyone to conform to their ideas of what people “should” be and those who want to be free to explore their individual tastes unencumbered by stereotypes.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz

This heartfelt tale of identity tackles issues of family, homosexuality and Mexican heritage, while giving voices to those still struggling to find their place in the world. Saenz writes “to be careful with people and words was a rare and beautiful thing.” This is precisely why diversity in books needs to be encouraged and why this multiple award-winning book should be recognized for it.

Code Talker: A novel about the Navajo Marines of World War II  by Joseph Brunchac

This novel takes the view of two Navajo teens enlisted by the Marines to become Code Talkers, using their native, ancestral language that was disparaged throughout much of their youth, to send secret messages during World War II. Though this story is fiction, it’s based on the real Code Talkers who helped end the war in the Pacific with their uncrackable code.

This weekend, dear readers, I encourage you to seek out a book that has an unexpected or underrepresented voice. The recognition of diversity breeds understanding and compassion and those are qualities we can never have enough of. You never know, you may find something in that new voice you didn’t even know was within yourself.