French Women Don’t Get Fat: the Secret of Eating for Pleasure

By Mireille Guiliano

Place: Publisher & Year: New York: Alfred A. Knopf, c2005, 2007

Genres: Non-fiction, health & fitness, healthy living, women’s health, diet, nutrition

ISBN: 9781400042128

Intended audience: “Women throughout the developed world” (p. 7)

Number of pages: 264

Setting: France & USA

Time period: Written for the present, but includes narratives from various points in Guiliano’s life between the 1950’s and 2005.

Description: Written by a French woman who has lived and worked in the US for most of her life, this book examines the differences in culture between the two countries in relation to food, life, and pleasure.  Recipes are interspersed with personal narrative, observations, and much common sense.  This is not a diet book; it is a book about attaining a healthy relationship with food and enjoying oneself while doing it.

Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual

By Michael Pollan

Place: Publisher & Year: New York: Penguin Books, 2009

Genre: Non-fiction, health & fitness, healthy living, diet, nutrition

ISBN: 9780143116387

Intended audience: American adults

Number of pages: 140

Setting: USA

Time period: The era of obesity and processed “food-like substances”

Description: A practical guide for what and how to eat, written as a follow up to Pollan’s In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto. Following the Introduction, the book is divided into three sections based upon the key concepts from In Defense of Food – “Eat Food.  Not too much.  Mostly plants.”