The Books We Read Blog is conducting a series of interviews with contributors and friends of the blog to get a snapshot of our reading habits: the things we like to read, the circumstances in which we read, and more.
Becky Diamond is the Business Librarian at New Brunswick Libraries from the Carr Library on the Livingston Campus. She is an accomplished food writer, the author of Mrs. Goodfellow: The Story of America’s First Cooking School and The Thousand Dollar Dinner.
What kinds of books do you like to read?
Non-fiction (cooking, science, travel/geography, history), historical fiction, science fiction, memoirs.
Do you have format preferences (print, ebook, audiobook, abridged, original language/translated, etc.)?
Print (I’m old school lol).
How do you find new books to read?
I do book reviews for BookPage; reading other folks’ reviews in BookPage, Entertainment Weekly, NY Times, etc. Also what my friends are reading––either hearing about them directly from them or via Goodreads.
Where and when do you read? Outdoors or indoors? At home or out and about? Mornings, evenings, or just before bed?
At night before bed. Occasionally a weekend afternoon. Also when the weather is nice, I love reading outside, especially in the evenings before or after dinner.
Do you use any libraries or library resources for non-required reading?
Yes, my local public library and Rutgers library. If they don’t have what I want/need I try to get via ILL.
What do you get out of your non-required reading?
I like learning about new things and being entertained.
What are you currently reading, or what have you read and enjoyed most recently?
The World As We Knew It by Amy Brady; American Cuisine: And How It Got This Way by Paul Freedman; What on Earth Evolved?: 100 Species that Changed the World by Christopher Lloyd.
Recommend a book in one sentence that you think everyone should read:
I think everyone, especially children, should read The Long Winter (really the whole Little House series) to see how folks lived and struggled on the American frontier and the many things we take for granted.
Related blog posts
- Food Fiction at Carr
- What Food is Typically American?
- Finding Humor for Emotional Strength
- Poetry and Recipes
- All posts by Becky Diamond