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August 17, 2006
The Dumchurch letters 17 August: Cookery Books
Dear Mrs Sideloader and Ron
The Mayor and Councillors of Dumchurch believe that no one wants to use the libraries any longer and they propose to close a number down. Their evidence for this is the steep decline in the numbers of visits and book loans. They do know that adding more computers to the libraries has brought in a few regulars who use them for a variety of purposes, not all connected with the general notion of a library.
I wanted to explain to them that the reason for people not using the libraries as much as they did even last year, might be because of what is on offer.
In order to better understand this I went to visit the branch library at Drizzle and I made a list of the books in the 'Cookery Books' section. I have put the list below here, in the order they are on display.
At the same time I sent the list to Bollikins the Bookseller and asked them these questions:
1. What percentage of national demand for books in the UK is met by cookery books (including diet,. food and wine, chefs, healthy eating etc)?
2. If you add together the national hardback and paperback sales for each of the titles on the list, what percentage of the national demand for cookery books, would they satisfy?
3. If you put the most popular 77 titles from your national sales pattern, what percentage of national demand for cookery books would they satisfy?
4. If you had 100pounds to spend by how much would you increase the popularity/ usefulness of the section? Ditto for 200 pounds etc
5. Should the section be bigger or smaller?
Discuss!
Drizzle Library
Cookery, includes Food and Wine, Chefs, Party food, Healthy eating , Diet etc
2 shelves- about 6ft of display space; no shelf edge markers; all spine out
1 A-Z of food Bissell
2 Turning up the Heat Smith
3 Man Walks into a Pub Brown
4 It must be something I ate Steingarten
5 Cook's guide to Asian Ingredients Morris
6 Ma Cuisine Escoffier
7 Entertaining with Katie Stewart
8 Ready Steady Cook 3
9 Ready Steady Cook 4
10 Classic Home Cooking Wadey
11 Cook's Handbook Prue Leith
12 Jenny Bristow's everyday cook book
13 Brian Turner : A Yorkshire Lad
14 Cooking for Kings Kelly
15 Floyd on Spain
16 Natural Born Fillers
17 Weight Watchers Carefree Cooking (NEL)
18 Fast and Fresh Cooking Schwarz Bonino
19 Teatime treats Day
20 Fish Cook Zilli
21 Macrobiotics An invitation to Health and happiness
22 Super Food Pratt Matthews
23 Everyday light hearted cookbook Lindsay
24 Detox Dieting graimes
25 Dairy Free Lactose Free Diet Plan
26 Cooking for Arthritis Berriedale
27 Allergy Free Cooking Pannell
28 Eat to beat Arthritis Marguerite Patten
29 Healthy heart cookbook Schwartz
30 Healthy Heart Elspeth Smith
31 Cooking for Diabetics Berriedale
32 Diabetes Eat Enjoy Christine Roberts
33 Delicious food for Diabetes
34 Life without nuts Caroline Jackson
35 Diabetes Cookbook DK
36 Dr Atkins new diet cookbook
37 Broader than Beans Lesley Waters
38 Feeding the Imagination Vegetarian Society
39 Leith's Contemporary Cooking Prue Leith
40 Vegan recipes Leneman
41 Vegetarian Cookery Rose Elliot
42 Kind hearted cooking Sonia Allison
43 Rosemary Conley Low Fat Cookbook
44 Entertaining with Food and Drink Michael Barry
45 Quick and Easy Wok Cookbook DK
46 The Wok Cookbook Gina Steer
47 Les Halles cookbook Bourdain
48 Tony and Giorgio BBC
49 Japanese Cookery Ortiz
50 Flavours of India Pathak
51 Ken Hom Cooks Thai
52 Risotto risotto Valentina Harris
53 A taste of Africa Hafner
54 Real Chocolate Coady
55 Farmers' market guide to Vegetables James
56 Ken Hom's vegetable cookery
57 Perfect Poultry Readers Digest
58 Taste of the Sea Rick Stein
59 Everything tastes better with bacon Perry
60 Dear Francesca Mary Contini
61 Complete Cookery Course Delia Smith
62 Easy bread machine baking Holmes
63 Quick Breads Franklin
64 The Bread Book Sarah Lewis
65 Making bread at home Jaino
66 Noodle Lorenz
67 Sweets Tim Richardson
68 Vegetarian 4 Seasons Rose Elliot
69 Cakes for fun Jane Asher
70 Fresh Vegetarian Cookery Sarah Brown
71 Sweet Food Murdoch
72 Puddings and Deserts Kitchen Library
73 Fairy Cakes Farrow Hamlyn
74 Gingerbread Houses Morgan and Gilchrist
75 County Fruits and Flowers Claire Webb
76 Christmas Figures Linda Pewsey
77 Cocktails and Punches Michalski
Posted by Tim Coates at August 17, 2006 9:36 AM
Comments
Hmmmmmm, with such a comprehensive selection of cookery books available, who actually reads them?
As a nation we spend more on ready prepared meals and convenience foods, than fresh produce.
Running a close second in the obesity stakes to the USA.
Tim, perhaps it would be a good idea just to have a few select cookery books on the shelves.Thus freeing up more cash to spend on other, much needed books.
Posted by: Margo Harker at August 17, 2006 7:58 PM
Peg
I think you will find, when Bollikins report back to Mr Grimsdyke, that this selection of cookery books is pretty old, out of date and not very useful. A trip to your local book store will provide a very tempting selection.
Let's wait and see what they say.
Posted by: Tim Coates at August 18, 2006 9:19 AM