Winds of Change

Occupy Wall Street Protesters Could Use a Few Good Cookbooks

It's slim pickings for food books here.
It’s slim pickings for food books here. Photo: Courtesy of Betsy Fagin

The New Yorker’s Book Bench brings word of an actual bench in Zuccotti Park, focal point of the Occupy Wall Street protesters, that has swelled with donated books over the last few days and become a makeshift library. One of the “self-appointed librarians minding the stacks,” Betsy Fagin (who’s a librarian in real life too) tells the Book Bench that she’s seen people reading Allen Ginsberg and Walt Whitman, and that when things calm down a little at night many turn to novels. And while numerous reports say food is plentiful and shared, there have been reports that there’s been too much pizza. So much, in fact, that organizers had to tell a nearby restaurant to stop delivering. Naturally, we wanted to know if the monotony was driving protesters to indulge in some cookbook escapism.

Via e-mail, Betsy Fagin tells us that while the library has doubled in size this week, food and cooking books are still somewhat scarce. She recalls seeing Frances Moore Lappe’s Diet for a Small Planet and The Galaxy Global Eatery Hemp Cookbook , but that’s about it. So, if you’re of mind, take a few minutes and liberate some printed material from your shelves, or donate via Occupy Wall Street’s official site. It is fall cookbook season, after all.

The Occupy Wall Street Library [Book Bench/NYer]
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Occupy Wall Street Protesters Could Use a Few Good Cookbooks