Leslie Geddes-Brown (–2020)

If you’re the type to take the time to page through a cookbook, savoring the succulent images and collecting valuable tricks of the trade, you’ll devour this spectacular tribute to innovative and beautifully designed cookbooks. British food writer and ardent bibliophile Leslie Geddes-Brown presents 101 classics from the seventeenth century to the present, encompassing all kinds of cooking genres. From Eliza Acton’s groundbreaking Modern Cookery for Private Families (1845) and Lady show more Jekyll’s Kitchen Essays (1922) to Yan-kit So’s Yan-kit’s Classic Chinese Cookbook (1984) and Laura Santtini’s Flash Cooking (2011)--each entry features a lively history and description of the volume as well as images of the cover and some interior pages (often including recipes). A perfect coffee-table book for chefs and foodies, A Book for Cooks may just introduce you to your next favorite cookbook! show less

Some lovely photos and even a few new ideas. The author is opinionated, but I don't mind that. The major downside is that a remarkable number of shots -- maybe even half -- are of a generic room with a standard bookcase or two. Or maybe just a stack of books on the floor. Not very interesting or inspirational.

No surprises here why a book-lover and book-blogger like myself would pick up a book called: Books Do Furnish A Room by Leslie Geddes-Brown. For the pictures of course!

This beautiful coffee table type book is broken down into chapters along the lines of functionality and rooms of the house. There are some interesting interior design tidbits disbursed amongst a great deal of logical information and it makes for good reading.

It must be said that the hero of Books Do Furnish A Room though are show more the stunning photographs that feature on each page. The owners of the bookshelves and gorgeous libraries are mostly well to do, designers or architects, although I guess these are the types of people an author would come across when sourcing photographs of beautiful bookshelf designs and home libraries.

Books Do Furnish A Room is the perfect book for book-lovers to dip into and I enjoyed drooling over the various styles of bookshelves and dreaming about the day I have that much space for all of my bookish treasures. show less

One of my all-time favourite books is Chelsea Gold, so inspiring, I've looked at it over and over again (I live in Vancouver, BC, and have never made it to England for the gardens show in person). I was hoping this volume would help slate my thirst for all things Chelsea, but it was a rather dreary, uninspiring, repetitive tome about the process of putting Chelsea together ... so rather than the gardens, we would get a discussion of the drains, so to speak. Plumbing and electrical woes, the show more construction of the marquee, catering, etc., and while a good backstager can be fascinating, this was not that. Rather dull, and disappointing.

(Note: 5 stars = rare and amazing, 4 = quite good book, 3 = a decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. There are a lot of 4s and 3s in the world!) show less