The Emperors of Chocolate Inside the Secret World of Hershey and Mars by Joel Glenn Brenner

I've read about 100 pages of this book so far and I'm really enjoying it. However it sure not helping me stay away from the sweets I still have left in my house left over from the holidays.
The book tells the story of Forrest Mars and Milton Hershey who built empires out of chocolate. It reads like a book of fiction, but is full of fascinating history and intriguing facts. My family is even enjoying my daily "chocolate" trivia items I dole out to them like what the two "m's" stand for on the M&M candies.




Happy reading to you all and thank you Carolyn for organizing the club!

Karen

Even though I did have a book for the "We Must Eat Too" category, I don't know if I could resist reading "The Emperors of Chocolate" that you are reading, Karen. The Mars candy company is such a part of my childhood. My mother, her friends and a couple of my aunts worked there. Besides always having limitless amounts of candy bars, I also remember stories about Mr. Mars and what a great company it was to work for. Maybe I will overachieve that month.
Looking forward to your final review.
Dorothy

That's so interesting, Mrs. Schroeder.
Former employees say that Forrest Mars Sr. was a little eccentric to work for, but they gladly put up with his ways for the amount of money he paid his "associates."
Bill was wondering if the factory was still there?
Take care.
Karen

Karen,
I did a little research and found out the Mars Candy Company is still in Chicago on Oak Park Avenue (don't know the address number). Hope you checked this post again to get this reply. I am definitely going to read the book, I don't know what year it goes to, but I did look up online the history of Mars and found it interesting the other products they got into (dog food for one).
Take care and happy reading.
Dorothy

I just finished The Emperors of Chocolate and would highly recommend it for anyone who is curious about the workings of a candy factory like Hershey and Mars as well as the lives of these two candy giants. There is a lot of information packed into this book, but I thought the author did a fine job of weaving interesting historical and statistical information of the candy business with intriguing personal accounts of the candy players. I really enjoyed learning a lot about some of my favorite candies.

I told a friend of mine that the neat thing about this book club is that I probably would never have just picked this book up to read on my own, but I'm really glad to have a mission of reading different genres of books this year and turning into a well rounded reader.

Karen

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I couldn't resist reading this book for this topic. Not only because of the family connection (relatives who worked for Mars) but because of my love of chocolate. So far I am enjoying the book and learning quite a bit about the candy industry. I am only a couple of chapters in and I really want to taste all the candies they are talking about. Amazing how just mentioning Pez for example makes me want some :-)

Lori

I couldn't resist reading this book for this topic. Not only because of the family connection (relatives who worked for Mars) but because of my love of chocolate. So far I am enjoying the book and learning quite a bit about the candy industry. I am only a couple of chapters in and I really want to taste all the candies they are talking about. Amazing how just mentioning Pez for example makes me want some :-)

Lori

I really enjoyed this book. The author did a good job of taking a complicated subject and making it interesting and easy to follow. I realize I didn't know much about the candy industry. I would recommend this book with a warning - it's hard not to want candy while reading this book.

4 out of 5 stars.

Lori