Food book series in reading order

by Jory John

Anthony Bourdain

23 books• 3 series

Anthony Bourdain (June 25, 1956 – June 8, 2018) was an American celebrity chef, author and travel documentarian. A 1978 graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, Bourdain spent several years as executive chef at Brasserie Les Halles in Manhattan, and an essay in The New Yorker in the late 1990s launched the writing career. The catalogue opens with Bone in the Throat (1995) and Gone Bamboo (1997), then Kitchen Confidential (2000), A Cook's Tour (2001) and Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook (2004). The Anthony Bourdain Reader (2025) is the newest title, and Hungry Ghosts and Get Jiro Graphic Novels are the listed series. Cooking, restaurants and food share the subjects with mystery and detective fiction.

Jory John is an American author of children's books, known for dark humour and for taking on difficult topics. Jory John titles have reached the New York Times bestseller list, with The Good Egg at number one and The Bad Seed at number two, and John has twice received an E.B. White Read-Aloud Honor. The catalogue lists 40 books from Thanks and Have Fun Running the Country (2009) to This Is Not a Christmas Book (2026). Series include Food Group, Bear & Duck and Animal Problems, and bears, ducks, friendship and kindness appear among the subjects.

Alexander McCall Smith

165 books• 25 series

Sir Alexander McCall Smith, born 24 August 1948, is a Scottish legal scholar and novelist who created The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. Born and raised in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), McCall Smith was Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh and worked on medical law and bioethics committees. English-language sales passed 40 million by 2010, with translations into 46 languages. The catalogue lists 165 books from White Hippo (1980) to 2026, including 44 Scotland Street, Isabel Dalhousie, Detective Varg and children's titles.

Michael Pollan

12 books

Michael Pollan writes non-fiction about plants, food and what people do with both. The catalogue holds 12 titles: Second Nature (1991), A Place of My Own (1997), The Botany of Desire (2001), The Omnivore's Dilemma (2006), In Defense of Food and Food Rules (2008), Cooked (2013), How to Change Your Mind (2018), Caffeine (2020) and This Is Your Mind on Plants (2021). Gardening, ethnobotany and food habits are the recurring subjects, and A World Appears is the most recent title.

Eric Carle

165 books• 6 series

Eric Carle (25 June 1929 to 23 May 2021) was an American author, designer and illustrator of children's books. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, a picture book first published in 1969, has sold more than 55 million copies in over 70 languages. Carle illustrated more than 70 children's books and wrote most of them, and sales across the Carle books exceed 170 million copies. Catalogued titles begin with 1, 2, 3 to the Zoo (1968), followed by The Very Hungry Caterpillar (1969), Pancakes, Pancakes! (1970), The Tiny Seed (1970) and Do You Want to Be My Friend? (1971). Subjects include board books, counting, color, animals and caterpillars.

Mary Berry is an English food writer, chef, baker and television presenter, born on 24 March 1935. Berry trained in catering at college and went to France at 22 to attend Le Cordon Bleu. The Hamlyn All Colour Cookbook (1970) was the first Mary Berry book, and the Baking Bible followed in 2009 among more than 75 cookery titles. Berry has presented television series for the BBC and Thames Television. The catalogue opens with Mary Berry's Cookbook (1970) and covers baking, cakes, desserts, freezer cooking and make-ahead cooking, with titles such as Popular Freezer Cookery (1972) and Family Cooking (1978).

Nigella Lawson, born 6 January 1960, is an English food writer and television cook. After Oxford, Lawson became deputy literary editor of The Sunday Times in 1986 and later worked as a freelance journalist. How to Eat (1998), the first cookbook, sold 300,000 copies, and How to Be a Domestic Goddess won the British Book Award for Author of the Year. The Channel 4 series Nigella Bites began in 1999 and won Lawson a Guild of Food Writers Award. The catalogue lists 14 books through Cook, Eat, Repeat (2021), including Feast (2004) and Nigella Express (2007).