I know the audacity of saying something like this since I edit a food blog, but here’s the truth of it–food books often leave me a little cold. There are just so many pitfalls that a volume of food writing can fall into, including:

• The tortured chef memoir. Boy, chefs do a lot of coke, or at least it seems that way from the explosion of depressing tell-all autobiographies. And, man, I really do not care to read about it.
• The restaurant cookbook. This can be nice, I guess, if you really love the restaurant. But then again, if you could really cook that stuff at home, why would you ever bother to go out to eat?
• The ultra-specific sourcebook. Truly, I sort of admire the geeked-out nature of this sub-genre, but I also find it hard to imagine staying interested in foraging or home brewing or pickling things for upwards of three hundred pages

But enough of the negatives. When I stopped by the Food Book Festival in Williamsburg last weekend, there were plenty of books to intrigue those who love both good food and good writing. Here are a few that I intend to read cover-to-cover:

Cooked by Michael Pollan
If ever there were a food writing superstar, it is Michael Pollan. He can research, he can write, and his books use lovely patterns that release some kind of pressure in my brain. In this new book, he goes back to the structure that he popularized in The Botany of Desire, with each of the four sections of the book devoted to one of the four classical elements (fire, water, air, earth) and how it has changed cooking.

Man with a Pan Ed. by John Donohue
Okay, I’m willing to admit that an anthology like this, comprised of writing by fathers who cook, could go horribly wrong. But with a line-up of really good writers, I think it can work. Stephen King sharing a recipe for “Pretty Good Cake” or Jack Hitt talking about how he was unmanned by celery leaves? Sure, I’ll bite.

Mycophilia by Eugenia Bone
Yes, I realize that this ode to mushrooms edges rather close to the ultra-specific problem I mentioned above, but come on: mushrooms really are mysterious and weird enough to merit an entire book. So if you’ve ever wanted to learn more about fungi, get excited—this one was praised by The New York Times Book Review as “delicious, surprising and dizzyingly informative.”

Day of Honey by Annia Ciezadlo
Ciezadlo spent six years covering the Iraq War for American newspapers and in this memoir, she marries the story of cooking and eating during those years with the larger story of conflict. It might seem like a strange blend, but knowing that sometimes it takes a personal perspective to make a time or place feel real on the page, I’m willing to give this one a chance.

Any delectable food books in your summer picnic basket? Share them with us in the comments section.