UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — For the fifth consecutive year, the Pennsylvania Center for the Book will participate in Route One Reads, a road trip-inspired reading list that explores various genres through the network of state Center for the Book affiliates located along U.S. Route 1.

This year, the theme of the reading will be cookbooks and other food-related books. Whether readers are at home or on the road this summer, this list of must-read cookbooks will keep everyone turning pages until Labor Day.

The selected book to represent Pennsylvania is "The Cheesy Vegan" by John Schlimm. Schlimm satisfies vegans' cheese cravings with do-it-yourself vegan cheese recipes and more than 100 vegan cheese-inspired recipes for breakfast and brunch, soups and suppers, and every course in between. Schlimm, who has family ties to Pennsylvania’s historic Straub Brewery, devotes a bonus chapter to vegan cheese pairings for wine, beer and cocktails.

The diverse reading list created by Route One Reads highlights each individual state Center for the Book while celebrating the East Coast as a whole. By participating in Route One Reads, readers can travel across 15 states and the District of Columbia without taking a single footstep, or load selected books into the car for a literary road trip. The full list of featured books for the 2019 Route One Reads initiative is available, along with a map of participating states, at Route1Reads.org.

Route One Reads is a partnership between the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress and its affiliates in Connecticut; Delaware; Florida; Georgia; Maine; Maryland; Massachusetts; New Hampshire; New Jersey; New York; North Carolina; Pennsylvania; Rhode Island; South Carolina; Virginia; and Washington, D.C. The initiative was launched at the 2015 National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. 

The Pennsylvania Center for the Book, an affiliate of the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress, encourages Pennsylvania’s citizens and residents to study, honor, celebrate and promote books, reading, libraries and literacy. In addition to Route One Reads, it also administers the Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize; Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award; Public Poetry Project; Letters about Literature; A Baker’s Dozen: The Best Children’s Books for Family Literacy; Poems from Life; Words of Art; and the interactive Literary & Cultural Heritage Map of Pennsylvania.

The Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, established by Congress in 1977 to “stimulate public interest in books and reading,” is a national force for reading and literacy promotion. A public-private partnership, it sponsors educational programs that reach readers of all ages through its affiliated state centers, collaborations with nonprofit reading-promotion partners, and through its Poetry and Literature Center at the Library of Congress. For more information, visit Read.gov.

For more information about Route One Reads in Pennsylvania, contact Nicole Miyashiro, editor for Pennsylvania Center for the Book, at nmm16@psu.edu.