Research Center Guides: My Perfect Read: Letitia Van Campen

Letitia Van Campen

All recommendations have been updated to digitally available books for social isolation. Check out the recommended reading tab if you are looking for cookbooks, food memoirs or culinary fiction.

I'm reading.

From my perspective, the only thing better than finding the perfect book is helping someone else find the perfect book!

Trying out recipes from a new cookbook is a little like trying to solve a mystery. Maybe it will all come together as described, but maybe I am missing a crucial piece of information, an important technique, or I’ve just overlooked something. Perhaps I will learn something about a culture I knew nothing about, perhaps I’ll view something I thought I knew through new eyes. Great chefs don’t necessarily make great cookbook authors, but it’s always interesting to find out if their ideas translate to the home kitchen. Two of my favorite recent cookbooks are The Adobo Road by Marvin Gapultos and Smoke and Pickles by Edward Lee

I enjoy mysteries that take me into a different time or a different place,but most of all, I enjoy being surprised. Some of my favorite mystery titles include: Bad Things Happen by Harry Dolan; Devotion of Suspect X by Kiego Higashino; Before the Poison by Peter Robinson and The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson. Local(ish) authors I enjoy are Art Taylor and Laura Lippman.

Audio books are wonderful because I can do other things (like cook or drive) while reading. A good audiobook transports me in a different way than a print book does. Maybe the book will be so good that I don’t mind doing dishes, accidentally clean my whole house, or finish a project or painting without noticing.

Genres of Interest:

literary fiction
mysteries
mythology (especially in audiobook format)
cookbooks

Mysteries:

Bad Things Happen by Harry Dolan, audiobook
The Likeness by Tana French, other Dublin Murder Squad books such as The Trespasser are also available.
Devotion of Suspect X by Kiego Higashino
No Good Deeds by Laura Lippman
Conviction by Denise Mina, audiobook
Lock In by John Scalzi
The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson. If you enjoyed The Kind Worth Killing, Swanson's new book, Eight Perfect Murders, is now out on audio.
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters, audiobook. If you enjoyed Fingersmith, The Paying Guests is also available.

Audiobooks:

The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York by Deborah Blum (read by Coleen Marlo), ebook
American Housewife by Helen Ellis (read by Kathleen McInerney), ebook
Inkheart by Cornelia Funke (read by Lynn Redgrave), ebook
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett (read by Martin Jarvis), ebook
A is for Alibi by Sue Grafton (read by Mary Peiffer), ebook
The Bishop's Wife by Mette Ivie Harrison (read by Kirsten Potter), ebook
Uprooted by Naomi Novik (read by Julia Emelin), ebook
Before the Poison by Peter Robinson
A Study in Scarlet Women * by Sherry Thomas (read by Kate Reading), ebook
Maisie Dobbs * by Jacqueline Winspear (read by Rita Barrington), ebook

Audiobookcloud is another library resource for always available audiobooks. This collection is available for streaming listening through August 2020. Audiobookcloud features classics & popular books from authors such as: Geraldine Brooks, T.C. Boyle, M.C. Beaton, Henning Mankell, Stephen King and many more.

* always available audiobooks

How to Bake Everything by Mark Bittman
Call Number: ebook via Overdrive
ISBN: 9780544798861
Publication Date: 2016-10-04
In the most comprehensive book of its kind, Mark Bittman offers the ultimate baker's resource. Finally, here is the simplest way to bake everything, from American favorites (Crunchy Toffee Cookies, Baked Alaska) to of-the-moment updates (Gingerbread Whoopie Pies). It explores global baking, too: Nordic ruis, New Orleans beignets, Afghan snowshoe naan. The recipes satisfy every flavor craving thanks to more than 2,000 recipes and variations: a pound cake can incorporate polenta, yogurt, ricotta, citrus, hazelnuts, ginger, and more. New bakers will appreciate Bittman's opinionated advice on essential equipment and ingredient substitutions, plus extensive technique illustrations. The pros will find their creativity unleashed with guidance on how to adapt recipes to become vegan, incorporate new grains, improvise tarts, or create customized icebox cakes using a mix-and-match chart. Demystified, deconstructed, and debunked—baking is simpler and more flexible than you ever imagined.
Dirt Candy - A Cookbook by Ryan Dunlavey; Grady Hendrix; Amanda Cohen
Call Number: ebook via Overdrive
ISBN: 9780307952172
Publication Date: 2012-08-21
Amanda Cohen does not play by the rules. Her vegetable recipes are sophisticated and daring, beloved by omnivore, vegetarian, and vegan diners alike. Dirt Candy: A Cookbook shares the secrets to making her flavorful dishes--from indulgent Stone-Ground Grits with Pickled Shiitakes and Tempura Poached Egg, to hearty Smoked Cauliflower and Waffles with Horseradish Cream Sauce, to playfully addictive Popcorn Pudding with Caramel Popcorn. It also details Amanda's crazy story of building a restaurant from the ground up to its success, becoming one of the most popular restaurants in New York City--all illustrated as a brilliant graphic novel. Both a great read and a source of kitchen inspiration, Dirt Candy: A Cookbook is a must-have for any home cook looking to push the boundaries of vegetable cooking.
Dorie's Cookies by Dorie Greenspan; Davide Luciano (By (photographer))
Call Number: ebook via Overdrive
ISBN: 9780547614847
Publication Date: 2016-10-25
James Beard Award-winner for Best Baking and Dessert Book 2017
All-new collection from a "revered icon" and "culinary guru" (New York Times).
Over the course of her baking career, Dorie Greenspan has created more than 300 cookie recipes. Yet she has never written a book about them—until now. To merit her "three purple stars of approval," every cookie had to be so special that it begged to be made again and again. Cookies for every taste and occasion are here. There are company treats like Portofignos, with chocolate dough and port-soaked figs, and lunch-box Blueberry Buttermilk Pie Bars. They Might Be Breakfast Cookies are packed with goodies—raisins, dried apples, dried cranberries, and oats— while Almond Crackle Cookies have just three ingredients. There are dozens of choices for the Christmas cookie swaps, including Little Rascals (German jam sandwich cookies with walnuts), Italian Saucissons (chocolate log cookies studded with dried fruit), and Snowy-Topped Brownie Drops. And who but America's favorite baker could devise a cookie as intriguing as Pink-Peppercorn Thumbprints or as popular as the World Peace Cookie, with its 59 million Internet fans?
Smoke and Pickles by Edward Lee
Call Number: ebook via Overdrive
ISBN: 9781579654924
Publication Date: 2013-05-01
Chef Edward Lee's story and his food could only happen in America. Raised in Brooklyn by a family of Korean immigrants, he eventually settled down in his adopted hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, where he owns the acclaimed restaurant 610 Magnolia. A multiple James Beard Award nominee for his unique patchwork cuisine, Edward creates recipes—filled with pickling, fermenting, frying, curing, and smoking—that reflect the overlapping flavors and techniques that led this Korean-American boy to feel right at home in the South. Dishes like Chicken-Fried Pork Steak with Ramen Crust and Buttermilk Pepper Gravy; Collards and Kimchi; Braised Beef Kalbi with Soft Grits and Scallions; and Miso-Smothered Chicken all share a place on his table. Born with the storytelling gene of a true Southerner, Lee fills his debut cookbook with tales of the restaurant world, New York City, Kentucky, and his time competing on Top Chef, plus more than 130 exceptional recipes for food with Korean roots and Southern soul.
Food52 Genius Recipes by Kristen Miglore; Amanda Hesser (Foreword by); Merrill Stubbs (Foreword by)
Call Number: ebook via Overdrive
ISBN: 9781607747970
Publication Date: 2015-04-07
Genius recipes surprise us and make us rethink the way we cook. They might involve an unexpectedly simple technique, debunk a kitchen myth, or apply a familiar ingredient in a new way. They're handed down by luminaries of the food world and become their legacies. And, once we've folded them into our repertoires, they make us feel pretty genius too. In this collection are 100 of the smartest and most remarkable ones.
Eat Cake by Jeanne Ray
Call Number: ebook via Overdrive
ISBN: 060961004X
Publication Date: 2003-05-27
Ruth loves to bake cakes. When she is alone, she dreams up variations on recipes. When she meditates, she imagines herself in the warm, comforting center of a gigantic bundt cake. If there is a crisis, she bakes a cake; if there is a reason to celebrate, she bakes a cake. Ruth sees it as an outward manifestation of an inner need to nurture her family--which is a good thing, because all of a sudden that family is rapidly expanding. First, her mother moves in after robbers kick in her front door in broad daylight. Then Ruth's father, a lounge singer, who she's seen only occasionally throughout her life, shatters both wrists and, having nowhere else to go, moves in, too. Her mother and father just happen to hate each other with a deep and poisonous emotion reserved only for life-long enemies. Oh, yes indeed!
Delicious! by Ruth Reichl
Call Number: eaudiobook via Overdrive
ISBN: 9781400069620
Publication Date: 2014-05-06
Billie Breslin has travelled far from her California home to take a job at Delicious, the most iconic food magazine in New York and, thus, the world. When the publication is suddenly shut down, the colourful staff, who have become an extended family for Billie, must pick up their lives and move on. Not Billie, though. She is offered a new job: staying behind in the magazine's deserted downtown mansion offices to uphold the "Delicious Guarantee"--a public relations hotline for complaints and recipe inquiries--until further notice. What she doesn't know is that this boring, lonely job will be the portal to a life-changing discovery.
What She Ate by Laura Shapiro
Call Number: audiobook via Overdrive
ISBN: 9780525427643
Publication Date: 2017-07-25
A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2017
One of NPR Fresh Air's "Books to Close Out a Chaotic 2017"
NPR's Book Concierge Guide To 2017's Great Reads Air
Everyone eats, and food touches on every aspect of our lives—social and cultural, personal and political. Yet most biographers pay little attention to people's attitudes toward food, as if the great and notable never bothered to think about what was on the plate in front of them. Once we ask how somebody relates to food, we find a whole world of different and provocative ways to understand her. Food stories can be as intimate and revealing as stories of love, work, or coming-of-age. Each of the six women in this entertaining group portrait was famous in her time, and most are still famous in ours; but until now, nobody has told their lives from the point of view of the kitchen and the table.
What She Ate by Laura Shapiro
Call Number: ebook via Overdrive
ISBN: 9780525427643
Publication Date: 2017-07-25
Sourdough by Robin Sloan
Call Number: eaudiobook via Overdrive
ISBN: 9780374203108
Publication Date: 2017-09-05
Lois Clary is a software engineer at General Dexterity, a San Francisco robotics company with world-changing ambitions. She codes all day and collapses at night, her human contact limited to the two brothers who run the neighborhood hole-in-the-wall from which she orders dinner every evening. Then, disaster! Visa issues. The brothers close up shop, and fast. But they have one last delivery for Lois: their culture, the sourdough starter used to bake their bread. She must keep it alive, they tell her—feed it daily, play it music, and learn to bake with it.
Sourdough by Robin Sloan
Call Number: ebook via Overdrive
ISBN: 9780374203108
Publication Date: 2017-09-05
Vegan Soul Kitchen by Bryant Terry
Call Number: ebook via Overdrive
ISBN: 9780738212289
Publication Date: 2009-03-03
One of the foremost voices in food activism and justice, Bryant Terry brings soul food back to its roots with plant-based, farm-to-table, real food recipes that leave out heavy salt and refined sugar, "bad" fats, and unhealthy cooking techniques, and leave in the down-home flavor. Vegan Soul Kitchen recipes use fresh, whole, healthy ingredients and cooking methods with a focus on local, seasonal, sustainably raised food. Bryant developed these vegan recipes through the prism of the African Diaspora-cutting, pasting, reworking, and remixing African, Caribbean, African-American, Native American, and European staples, cooking techniques, and distinctive dishes to create something familiar, comforting, and deliciously unique.
The Cooking Gene by Michael W. Twitty
Call Number: ebook via Overdrive
ISBN: 9780062379290
Publication Date: 2017-08-01
2018 James Beard Foundation Book of the Year | 2018 James Beard Foundation Book Award Winner inWriting | Nominee for the 2018 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in Nonfiction | #75 on The Root100 2018

A renowned culinary historian offers a fresh perspective on our most divisive cultural issue, race, in this illuminating memoir of Southern cuisine and food culture that traces his ancestry—both black and white—through food, from Africa to America and slavery to freedom.
The Cooking Gene by Michael W. Twitty
Call Number: eaudio via RBdigital
ISBN: 9780062379290
Publication Date: 2017-08-01
Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking by Anya von Bremzen
Call Number: eaudiobook via Overdrive w/ recipe pdf
ISBN: 9780307886811
Publication Date: 2013-09-17
A James Beard Award-winning writer captures life under the Red socialist banner in this wildly inventive, tragicomic memoir of feasts, famines, and three generations
Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking by Anya von Bremzen
Call Number: ebook via Overdrive
ISBN: 9780307886811
Publication Date: 2013-09-17

The Proudest Blue by Ibtihaj Muhammad; Hatem Aly (Illustrator); S. K. Ali (As told to)
Call Number: JP MU
ISBN: 9780316519007
Publication Date: 2019-09-10
With her new backpack and light-up shoes, Faizah knows the first day of school is going to be special. It's the start of a brand new year and, best of all, it's her older sister Asiya's first day of hijab--a hijab of beautiful blue fabric, like the ocean waving to the sky. But not everyone sees hijab as beautiful, and in the face of hurtful, confusing words, Faizah will find new ways to be strong.
The Proudest Blue by Ibtihaj Muhammad; Hatem Aly (Illustrator); S. K. Ali (As told to)
Call Number: eaudiobook via Overdrive
ISBN: 9780316519007
Publication Date: 2019-09-10
My Papi Has a Motorcycle by Isabel Quintero; Zeke Peña (Illustrator)
Call Number: JP QUI
ISBN: 9780525553410
Publication Date: 2019-05-14
A celebration of the love between a father and daughter, and of a vibrant immigrant neighborhood, by an award-winning author and illustrator duo.
Sofia Valdez, Future Prez by Andrea Beaty; David Roberts (Illustrator)
Call Number: JP BEA
ISBN: 9781419737046
Publication Date: 2019-11-05
When her abuelo is injured at the local landfill, second-grader Sofia is determined to transform the dangerous Mount Trashmore into a park, taking on City Hall in the process.
Sofia Valdez, Future Prez by Andrea Beaty; David Roberts (Illustrator)
Call Number: eaudiobook via Overdrive
ISBN: 9781419737046
Publication Date: 2019-11-05
The Titanosaur by Diego Pol; Florencia Gigena (Illustrator); Jose Luis Carballido
Call Number: 567.913 C 2019
ISBN: 9781338207392
Publication Date: 2019-02-26
Get ready to meet the Titanosaur -- the biggest, heaviest creature to ever walk the Earth! This book tells the story of the discovery of this new dinosaur from the mouths of the paleontologists who led the dig! From its discovery by a local herder, to the organization and completion of the excavation, this riveting story will have readers on the edge of their seats, and the beautifully painted illustrations will mesmerize.
A Place to Land by Barry Wittenstein; Jerry Pinkney (Illustrator)
Call Number: J323.1 W 2019
ISBN: 9780823443314
Publication Date: 2019-08-27
Martin Luther King, Jr. was once asked if the hardest part of preaching was knowing where to begin. No, he said. The hardest part is knowing where to end. "It's terrible to be circling up there without a place to land."
Finding this place to land was what Martin Luther King, Jr. struggled with, alongside advisors and fellow speech writers, in the Willard Hotel the night before the March on Washington, where he gave his historic "I Have a Dream" speech. But those famous words were never intended to be heard on that day, not even written down for that day, not even once.
The Undefeated by Kwame Alexander; Kadir Nelson (Illustrator)
Call Number: 811 A 2019
ISBN: 9781328780966
Publication Date: 2019-04-02
Originally performed for ESPN's The Undefeated, this poem is a love letter to black life in the United States. It highlights the unspeakable trauma of slavery, the faith and fire of the civil rights movement, and the grit, passion, and perseverance of some of the world's greatest heroes. The text is also peppered with references to the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, and others, offering deeper insights into the accomplishments of the past, while bringing stark attention to the endurance and spirit of those surviving and thriving in the present.
Queen of Physics by Teresa Robeson; Rebecca Huang (Illustrator)
Call Number: JB WU 2019
ISBN: 9781454932208
Publication Date: 2019-10-08
When Wu Chien Shiung was born in China 100 years ago, most girls did not attend school; no one considered them as smart as boys. But her parents felt differently. Giving her a name meaning "Courageous Hero," they encouraged her love of learning and science. This engaging biography follows Wu Chien Shiung as she battles sexism and racism to become what Newsweek magazine called the "Queen of Physics" for her work on beta decay. Along the way, she earned the admiration of famous scientists like Enrico Fermi and Robert Oppenheimer and became the first woman hired as an instructor by Princeton University, the first woman elected President of the American Physical Society, the first scientist to have an asteroid named after her when she was still alive, and many other honors.
Crumbled! by Lisa Harkrader
Call Number: JFIC HAR
ISBN: 9781499809718
Publication Date: 2019-08-27
For Nobbin Swill, life is no fairy tale. His family has been the king's royal dung farmers for generations. It's a stinky job and someone has to do it, but Nobbin doesn't want to spend his whole life as a dung farmer.

On a dark, cloudy night, Nobbin catches a flicker of moonlight glimmering off something in the dung. It could be a button or a buckle, something that might fetch him a coin from the shoemaker. But it turns out to be a very valuable ring--the king's ring, and one that could offer Nobbin a life free from dung!
Pay Attention, Carter Jones by Gary D. Schmidt
Call Number: JFIC SCH
ISBN: 9780544790858
Publication Date: 2019-02-05
Bestselling author Gary D. Schmidt tells a coming-of-age story with the light touch of The Wednesday Wars, the heart of Okay for Now, and the unique presence of a wise and witty butler.
Carter Jones is astonished early one morning when he finds a real English butler, bowler hat and all, on the doorstep--one who stays to help the Jones family, which is a little bit broken.
In addition to figuring out middle school, Carter has to adjust to the unwelcome presence of this new know-it-all adult in his life and navigate the butler's notions of decorum. And ultimately, when his burden of grief and anger from the past can no longer be ignored, Carter learns that a burden becomes lighter when it is shared.
Mistakes Were Made by Stephan Pastis (Illustrator)
Call Number: eaudiobook via RBdigital
ISBN: 9780763660505
Publication Date: 2013-02-26
The New York Times bestselling cartoonist behind the nationally acclaimed comic strip Pearls Before Swine, Stephan Pastis has won raves for Timmy Failure, the hilarious first book in a new series for young readers. With the help of a polar bear named Total, Timmy Failure hopes to strike it rich by running the best detective agency around. The only problem is that our supremely confident hero is often more bumbling than brainy.
Mistakes Were Made by Stephan Pastis (Illustrator)
Call Number: JMYS PAS
ISBN: 9780763660505
Publication Date: 2013-02-26
The Runaway Princess by Johan Troïanowski
Call Number: JFIC TRO
ISBN: 9780593118405
Publication Date: 2020-01-21
Robin? Robin? Robin?! Where are you? She couldn't have gone far... Right? Princesses don't run away to have their own adventures. Princesses stay quietly and obediently at home. They would never want mermaids and swamps and pirates and getting kidnapped to be a part of their lives. Not this princess! Adventures await when Robin (bored of princess-ing all the time) embarks on the best adventure of her life-meeting friends along the way as she travels through the magical landscape of her country. But her parents aren't so pleased-and they're coming to find her and bring her back to the castle, no matter how she feels about it!
Pay Attention, Carter Jones by Gary D. Schmidt
Call Number: eaudiobook via RBdigital
ISBN: 9780544790858
Publication Date: 2019-02-05
Greystone Secrets #1: the Strangers by Margaret Peterson Haddix; Anne Lambelet (Illustrator)
Call Number: JFIC HAD
ISBN: 9780062838377
Publication Date: 2019-04-02
The Greystone kids thought they knew. Chess has always been the protector over his younger siblings, Emma loves math, and Finn does what Finn does best--acting silly and being adored. They've been a happy family, just the three of them and their mom.But everything changes when reports of three kidnapped children reach the Greystone kids, and they're shocked by the startling similarities between themselves and these complete strangers. The other kids share their same first and middle names. They're the same ages. They even have identical birthdays. Who, exactly, are these strangers? Before Chess, Emma, and Finn can question their mom about it, she takes off on a sudden work trip and leaves them in the care of Ms. Morales and her daughter, Natalie. But puzzling clues left behind lead to complex codes, hidden rooms, and a dangerous secret that will turn their world upside down.
Monstrous by Carlyn Beccia (Illustrator)
Call Number: 001.944 B 2019
ISBN: 9781512449167
Publication Date: 2019-09-03
Werewolves, vampires, zombies and more as you've never seen them. Discover the origins of eight scream-worthy monsters, find out how major historical events shaped their creation, and delve into the science behind these fearful beasts. Engrossing (and gross!) timelines, maps, and infographics offer essential information--including the zombie virus life cycle and how to survive Godzilla's nuclear breath.
They Called Us Enemy by George Takei; Justin Eisinger; Steven Scott; Harmony Becker (Illustrator)
Call Number: JB Takei
ISBN: 9781603094504
Publication Date: 2019-07-16
Graphic novel memoir of George Takei's childhood imprisoned in American concentration camps for people of Japanese descent during World War II.
Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky by Kwame Mbalia
Call Number: JFIC MBA
ISBN: 9781368039932
Publication Date: 2019-10-15
Seventh-grader Tristan Strong feels anything but strong ever since he failed to save his best friend when they were in a bus accident together. All he has left of Eddie is the journal his friend wrote stories in. Tristan is dreading the month he's going to spend on his grandparents' farm. But on his first night there, a sticky creature shows up and steals Eddie's notebook. Tristan chases after it, and a tug-of-war ensues between them underneath a Bottle Tree. In a last attempt to get it away from the creature, Tristan punches the tree, accidentally ripping open a chasm into the MidPass, a volatile place with a burning sea, haunted bone ships, and iron monsters. Tristan finds himself in the middle of a battle that has left black American folk heroes John Henry and Brer Rabbit exhausted. In order to get back home, Tristan and these new allies will need to entice the god Anansi, the Weaver, to come out of hiding. Can Tristan save this world before he loses more of the things he loves?
Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky by Kwame Mbalia
Call Number: eaudiobook via Overdrive
ISBN: 9781368039932
Publication Date: 2019-10-15
Allies by Alan Gratz
Call Number: JFIC GRA
ISBN: 9781338245721
Publication Date: 2019-10-15
It is June 6, 1944, D-Day, and Dee Carpenter (true name Dietrich Zimmermann), an underage private in the United States Army, is headed for Omaha Beach, seeking revenge for his uncle, who was arrested by Nazis when Dee was a little boy; meanwhile, Samira Zidano, an eleven-year old French-Algerian girl is looking for the French resistance, desperate to deliver the message that the invasion is about to begin, and get their help in freeing her mother--this is the most important day of the twentieth century, and both children want to fight, and survive.
Allies by Alan Gratz
Call Number: eaudiobook via Overdrive
ISBN: 9781338245721
Publication Date: 2019-10-15
I'm Ok by Patti Kim
Call Number: JFIC KIM
ISBN: 9781534419308
Publication Date: 2019-10-15
Ok Lee is determined to find the perfect get-rich-quick scheme in this funny, uplifting novel for fans of Counting by 7s and Crenshaw
Look Both Ways by Jason Reynolds; Alexander Nabaum (Illustrator)
Call Number: JFIC REY
ISBN: 9781481438285
Publication Date: 2019-10-08
Jason Reynolds conjures ten tales (one per block) about what happens after the dismissal bell rings, and weaves them into one funny, poignant look at the detours we face on the walk home, and in life.
Look Both Ways by Jason Reynolds; Alexander Nabaum (Illustrator)
Call Number: eaudiobook via Overdrive
ISBN: 9781481438285
Publication Date: 2019-10-08

You can find me at Herndon Fortnightly Library Monday-Thursday during business hours. My Fridays and Saturdays vary, so please give me a day or two to get back to you. I'd like to help you find your perfect read, so complete the Let's Get Started form, and I will be in touch!

Let's Get Started!

Reserve Your Next Read

Browse the FCPL Catalog eBooks and Audiobooks on OverDrive Connect with an Advisor