“The fantastic initiative is not the first by Scottish communities. Last month The Record told how the New Abbey community, in Dumfries, converted a disused garage into a local swap box. Dorothy Combe, the brains behind the Hawksland cludgie, named it the ‘WC Reading Room’ after her husband Willie who sadly passed away.” I’m delighted by all of this. “As someone who loves to cook and spend time in the kitchen, I’ve appreciated the nudge to slow down while preparing and enjoying our meals. My cookbooks are getting lots of love lately as we revisit favorite recipes and find new ones to try. I’m also finding fresh inspiration in one of my favorite literary genres: food memoir. Food is full of stories, from the family history behind a handed-down dish to juicy kitchen drama at a high-end restaurant to a culture’s roots and traditions.” Gimme aaaall the food books. “The phrase ‘dad book’ may bring to mind any number of 500-plus-page World War II history tomes, but true dad lit is of course as varied as the many kinds of dads out there. Is he an environmentalist dad who emails you the latest on climate change every week? Did he start watching My Brilliant Friend with you in quarantine and now has late-onset Ferrante fever? Does he go straight for the poetry section at the bookstore? To find the best books to give this Father’s Day (and one he probably doesn’t already have), we perused the fiction and nonfiction releases from the past year, and found a book for many multitudes of dad.” As a former bookseller who was constantly asked for “dad books,” love to see a post of this kind of variety.
