Looking for a LOT of Books. :)

[Rapturer]

Hey everyone! I joined this forum just to ask this question. Anyways, I'm in my late teens and I really wanted to find a lot of books that I am interested in. I have a wonderful boyfriend and we are probably going to get engaged later this year and I am really excited to spend the rest of my life with him. Also, I might be moving out from my parents' house if I get a full time job this year! Okay, so the reason I am asking here is beause I am the type of person who wants to do everything right and I love to have reference books to learn how to do stuff and keep easily accessible...and also just to have some interesting reading. I'll start off very general at first then get more specific in the types of books I like. First, I want to read books that tell me basically how to do everything I need to do to be a homeowner/wife/parent/cook/etc. I know I'm a little early for the child stuff, but I still find it very interesting and I babysit a lot of kids so it might be helpful anyways.

 

Okay...so now I'll get more specific:

 

Traveling:

 

I want to read some books that are about really interesting places around the USA. Like, for example, road trips, awesome places to visit, travel tips, etc. My aunt has a book about all of the "biggest" places in the world (biggest ball of yarn, biggest chicken, etc.) I think books like that are soooo interesting and just fun to read.

 

Home:

 

I'm looking for books about how to clean stuff, take care of stuff, decorate, etc. I think there is a book about how to "clean virtually everything" or something like that. Anything like that would be really interesting.

 

Cook:

 

Anything really! What are your favorite cook books? I love books with a lot of pictures that show what the meal "should" look like. Again, I'm looking for more unique books such as (some examples that I do own) baking using candy bars, cooking using cake mixes, crazy cupcake books, etc.

 

Children:

 

I read a book that I thought was really interesting that had a "list for everything" for children. I'm not a parent yet, but I stayed there like 20 minutes just reading the book because it just had so much info that was interesting to me. It had like questions to ask babysitters, best cereal for kids, best meals for lunchboxes, etc. It just had so many lists of stuff it told you everything! Basically, any book that has info about kids and how to take care of them, their learning styles and abilities, what to do when "this" happens, etc. (Also, I want to be a teacher or school psychologist so this info will be helpful to me when I'm a parent and also will help me understand children for my career).

 

Okay, so you guys probably think I'm really weird asking about all this stuff right now, but I just love learning and I love reading unique and interesting books! Also, anything else that you might have that would be a good "coffeetable" book.

 

Thanks in advance, I really appreciate any answers I get. I tried looking some of these books up on Amazon and other sites and couldn't really find anything so I'm hoping you guys might know first hand what some good books are.

[Jonathon]

Cook book:

 

Mums Know Best: The Hairy Bikers' Family Cookbook

 

A truly brilliant cook book. With each page turn you'll discover a new regain of Britain and further a fields' individual and unique culinary talents.

[BookJumper]

Mary Berry's Complete Cookbook is an amazing tome that contains gazillions of recipes, every single one of which is illustrated in colour; they range from easy-peasy to astoundingly complex and the book itself contains very handy how-to guides from boiling eggs to carving game the only cookbook you'll ever need, pretty much.

 

There's a lot of Mums on the forum so they're better qualified than me to answer that part of your question, but I would urge you to take anything you find in parenting books with several pinches of salt. Educational psychology is an ever-evolving field; for instance, if my parents had listened to the advice contained in the parenting books of 25 years ago, I would not have been raised speaking two languages (back then it was thought to 'confuse' children, whereas it is now actively encouraged and thank goodness for that).

[BrainFreeze]

There's a lot of Mums on the forum so they're better qualified than me to answer that part of your question, but I would urge you to take anything you find in parenting books with several pinches of salt. Educational psychology is an ever-evolving field; for instance, if my parents had listened to the advice contained in the parenting books of 25 years ago, I would not have been raised speaking two languages (back then it was thought to 'confuse' children, whereas it is now actively encouraged and thank goodness for that).

 

This is very, very true. In my opinion no book can 'teach' you about parenting - it only comes with experience and relying on your instincts and basic common sense. I have 3 children and each of them is vastly different, what works for one doesn't work for the other and that's regarding everything - food, discipline, teaching...the works. There are books out there that can guide you step-by-step through things such as how to bath a baby (but your baby may like being held in a particular way that's not shown in the book as they only show a 'standard' way), how to feed a baby (again, will show you one way and nearly all babies have a way/position they like being held while being fed) etc etc.

 

Cook books - if you're a total novice to cooking, you could do worse than getting Delia's How To...books which do teach you the basics. Jamie Oliver books are good too I think - very often he has quite a lot of basic recipes that can be built on and tweaked (some of his books, he's written the recipes specifically for that). As a previous person said too, The Hairy Bikers are very good too.

 

Cleaning/home - there is a book that covers 'how to clean everything' and I can't remember if that's the actual name or not so I'm going to go off and see if I can find it for you.

[CornflowerBlue]

Cookbooks: I read Nigel Slater's 'Real Cooking' as a teenager, and when I moved out, bought my own copy. I love cook books a scary amount, but Nigel is still my favourite. The recipes are honest, tasty, brilliant food, and there's rarely an ingredient you can't buy locally. I don't feel like most of them need special preparation or extra shopping. His pumpkin soup recipe is my staple throughout winter, and the best cake I have ever tasted is his chocolate beetroot cake from 'Tender'. The photography is always lovely, unfussy but beautiful.

I have books by Jamie, Nigella and HFW, along with Two Fat Ladies and so on, but I always go back to Nigel. For a totally different style of cooking, 'Indian Food Made Easy' is fantastic, easy and exciting and very tasty.

If you like quirky books, Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World is brilliant, and useful if you have an obsessive love for cake (I do, yes I do), as they're made with oils rather than eggs and butter, so less saturated fat. The Hummingbird Bakery cook book is so beautiful it's indecent, and the recipes I've tried have all worked out absolutely perfectly. The carrot cake is to die for. One of my go-to cookbooks is Mama Cherri's Soul in a Bowl cookbook. It's 'soul food', lots of deep south USA recipes like succotash, peach cobbler and pecan pie. The recipe for American pancakes is well-loved here, but the recipes generally are fantastic, easy to source, and very satisfying.

 

Books on travel: I love a bit of Bryson, especially 'A Walk in the Woods' which is about walking the Appalachian trail. I read a wonderful book a few years back called 'Hell of a Place to Lose a Cow', which was a guy hitching across the USA. It was funny and enjoyable but there were also some really poignant moments; what sticks in my head is him flipping through a map in the cab of a truck and finding some gay pornographic playing cards, and never finding the right words to ask the trucker who'd picked him up what it was like to be a gay trucker.

 

A totally, completely different kind of travel writing is the utterly wonderful 'River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze' by Peter Hessler. Hessler is the Beijing correspondent for the New Yorker and contributes to National Geographic, but this book is about his time as a young graduate, teaching English in an isolated Chinese city on the Yangtze. Hessler writes gorgeously, with a mixture of awe and affection, but he is also clearly a very informed and intelligent man, and the book gives you an incredible view of a China just entering the common market. I'm not a huge reader of travel writing (though I ran the section at two different Borders stores), but this book really blew me away. I have his next one, 'Oracle Bones', to read in the gap between my MA and PhD, and I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to it.