Spice of Life Reading Challenge

July 1-December 31, 2009

This challenge is hosted by Rebecca Reid. Here is how she explains the challenge:

I like to read and I also like to cook. I’m quite the amateur when it comes to cooking, but I certainly appreciate a good meal. Nevertheless, I wanted to put my two hobbies together.

The Spice of Life Challenge, then, deals with something we all like, at least to some extent: food. Although it crosses over with some challenges that happened in the past, it is a new chance to read some of those books that you love to get to and to share them with others.

Here are the categories:

Cookbooks share recipes so we can recreate delicious meals. To count a cookbook for the challenge, please share a little bit about what types of recipes it contains, any of the favorites that you may have cooked, and what you liked or not about it. You obviously don’t have to read every page of a cook book or cook every recipe.

Nonfiction books are about food in general, including history of any food, cooking and diet guides, and reference books. For reference books, as for cookbooks, you may not need to read every word.

Memoirs, autobiographies, or essays are written by cooks or the everyday eater and are about learning to cook or about cooking or eating in general.

Fiction captures the significance of food in our lives by making food a main part of the story. Define this as you will: if food is important to the story, it counts!

Participants may choose from several levels of participation:

• A Taste: Joining the Spice of Life Challenge for “a taste” means that, although you love food and you love books about food, just a taste of food books will satisfy you right now. You’ll read and review just read two books from any of two of the above categories (different categories).
• A Sampler: Joining the Spice of Life Challenge for “a sampler” means that you want to balance your food book diet with variety, for variety is the spice of life. You will read and review a book from each category for a total of four books.
• A Feast: Joining the Spice of Life Challenge for “a feast” means that you want to fill yourself with good food books of all kinds this year! You will read and review six to eight books from at least three of the above categories.

To find out more or to participate go to, Spice of Life Reading Challenge.