Are dinner parties in again? TikTok users seem to think so, dubbing the renewed hunger for gathering hostingcore on the app. Forthcoming titles meet the moment, guiding readers through planning, cooking, and entertaining at home.
Get This Party Started
As Clarkson Potter readies a reissue of 1982's Entertaining (Nov.), the book that launched Martha Stewart's homemaking empire, several new offerings encourage readers to embrace their inner domestic deity. Rebecca Gardner's ethos is typified by one chapter title in A Screaming Blast (Rizzoli, Sept.): "If It's Worth Doing, It's Worth Overdoing." Gardner, the founder of an events and interior design firm, inspires with extravagant party ideas, photographed by longtime collaborator Adam Kuehl: luxurious lighting (dozens of hanging tasseled lanterns, an oversize mirrorball, etc.) sets the mood over lavish tablescapes; a quintet of synchronized swimmers entertains poolside guests.
Dan Pelosi, known online as GrossyPelosi, sets a more down-to-earth scene, aiming for his readers to become "natural entertainers," he says. "I want them to throw parties without knowing they're throwing a party." Pelosi follows 2023's Let's Eat, a love letter to his family and to Italian American cuisine, with Let's Party (Union Square, Sept.), a collection of more than 100 recipes organized into 16 themes, with notes on creating a guest list, menu planning, and cooking timelines. Among his favorites get-togethers: the Dips in the Pool party -- stone fruit salsa, peanut butter dip, labneh tzatziki, and more, served alongside crudites and crackers at poolside or elsewhere -- and Girls' Night In, a reimagined steakhouse dinner with a deconstructed wedge salad, roasted shrimp cocktail, and other accompaniments to the centerpiece, sheet pan steak frites.
Let's Party, Pelosi says, harnesses an "energy of creation and sharing" that he finds palpable online and among his followers. "This book helps take the pressure off your guests. You can say, Hey, do you want to make the tomato granita from this chapter? It makes entertaining a bit more approachable."
In She's a Host (DK, Oct.), The Real Housewives of New York City cast member Erin Dana Lichy showcases soirées with recipes that draw on her Cuban, Iraqi, Yemeni, Israeli, and Turkish heritages, such as lachuch (Yeminite pancakes), kubba shwandar (Iraqi meat dumplings in meat stew), Cuban-style flan, and labneh cheesecake. Lichy offers advice on enlisting children to help with planning and concocts several sample menus: a Christmas Eve dinner, a Rosh Hashanah feast, a Latin flavor fiesta. "My approach to food, entertaining, and life is part of my DNA," she writes. "My husband and I come from large, tight-knit families. We grew up in unique and powerful food cultures where flavors, family gatherings, and enjoying life were all interconnected. Where we come from, meals are a collective experience."
Dance the Night
Authors agree that pandemic lockdowns reshaped the way people think about entertaining at home. "It's no surprise that people now are like, Gosh, doesn't it feel good to look your besties in the eye and talk about your life?" says actor Brie Larson, who starred in the adaptation of Bonnie Garmus's Lessons in Chemistry. She and longtime friend Courtney McBroom, a chef and culinary producer who was also head food consultant on Lessons, coauthored Party People (DK, Oct.), with menus and hosting tips inspired by the pair's own gatherings. "Parties are a gateway into the soul," Larson says. "It's about celebrating and acknowledging the passing of time and the gift of being alive. Raise a glass, you know?"
Larson and McBroom invite controlled chaos, with ideas including the Perfect Mess party, in which everyone wears white and eats "really saucy, messy foods," Larson says, and the Brag and Complain party, in which "you basically have dinner and drink martinis and the only things you're allowed to talk about are brags or complaints -- no small talk, no filler." The authors give readers latitude to mess up and not take entertaining so seriously. "The ancient Egyptians had parties; the Mesopotamians had parties; the Romans had parties," McBroom says. "This is nothing new. We fell away from that, but our DNA remembers how important it is for us to get together in real life."
Irene Yoo, who co-owns Orion Bar in Bushwick, Brooklyn, delivers a primer on Korean food and drink culture in Soju Party (Knopf, Sept.). "Sure, you can go to a Korean barbecue spot, and there's a time and a place for that," she says. "But you could also recreate those experiences at home." Drinking Korean style, Yoo explains, involves multiple rounds enjoyed in multiple locales, and the book's chapters mimic that format: "1-Cha" (first round) explores the lighter side of soju; "2-Cha" serves up snacks (anju) meant to be eaten alongside alcohol; "3-Cha" introduces Korean riffs on American cocktails; "4-Cha" is a sool (alcohol) party, an all-night friend hang with drinking games and karaoke; and "5-Cha" eases the pain with next-day recipes like Grilled Kimcheeze and haejang guk (literally, hangover soup).
"I give all this context -- the rules and rituals that Koreans do, but also the permission to not do any of that at all," Yoo says. "Just get some bottles, make some cocktails, make some of this food, and have fun -- don't feel like there's a pressure that you need to execute it perfectly."
Vibe Shift
Jerrelle Guy's second cookbook, We Fancy (Simon Element, Feb. 2026), arrives after the author's yearslong retreat from the demands of social media. Guy, who has a master's in gastronomy, debuted with 2018's Black Girl Baking and photographed books by other authors, including Toni Tipton-Martin's James Beard-winning Jubilee, while maintaining an active online presence. The content-creation hamster wheel had a negative affect on her mental health, she says. "I got into cooking because I loved it. In turning food into work, I lost the play." With We Fancy, she reclaims the joy of cooking with and for others. "You feel that act of service, that feeling of wanting to be of service. It propels you into the kitchen and gets you thinking about something other than yourself and your own issues."
Recipes promote everyday fun; the Midnight Modelini, for instance, is a weeknight brunch punch "on a beer budget." Dishes like "ritzy" sweet potato lentil sheet pan meatballs, and lasagna made with no-boil noodles and slow-simmering walnut bolognese, are eminently shareable, but menu specifics are somewhat beside the point, Guy says. "The recipes aren't as important. Use them as a guideline for making the act of cooking your own and more enjoyable for yourself and others."
Jake Cohen (1.4 million TikTok followers) took to entertaining by hosting Shabbat dinners, which he highlighted in his first two books, Jew-ish (2021) and I Could Nosh (2023). "People are like, I'm so stressed by entertaining," he says. "And my response is always, When you go into a yoga class and you can't touch your toes, does it stress you out, or is it just something that you realize you're working toward? The goal is gathering people you love, and everything else is a journey that you're going to continue." Dinner Party Animal (Harvest, Sept.), billed as "a self-help cookbook," groups more than 100 recipes into 16 menus that vary in complexity and commitment. Ride or Pie is a multicourse pastry menu: caramelized onion, date, and brie hand pies; chicken and biscuit pot pie; banana cream pie; etc. Shtetl Chic nods to the author's Eastern European Jewish roots, dishing up kielbasa in a blanket, unstuffed cabbage, "zaftig" honey cake, and more.
Cohen and others who spoke with PW relish the return of entertaining. "We've seen this real transition over the last few years back into home cooking, back into prioritizing the kitchen as the center of the household," he says. "And now it's about welcoming people in, and really finding that agency to throw a party."
Read more from our Cooking & Entertaining Books Feature
In surveying the coming season's food and drink titles, PW found a generosity and curiosity of spirit. these new books encourage readers to embrace the joy in hospitality, offer ways to make drinkers and abstainers feel equally welcome, and present studied considerations of Traditional foodways and ever-evolving trends. there's room for everyone here, so dig in.