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Bedside Table

Tamasin Day-Lewis

From Issue 36 ◊ Jan/Feb/Mar 2008

Reading at the moment

On top of the pile of books at my bedside is the new Booker winner, The Gathering by Anne Enright. I think her writing is amazing. Underneath that is a book by this incredible writer called Per Petterson, called In the Wake. And under that is Iris and Ruby by Rosie Thomas which was an interesting read. And under that is a book called With Mystics and Magicians in Tibet, written by some indomitable woman in the ’30s called Alexandra David-Neel. That one I haven’t attempted yet. It’s in a little plastic bag as it’s a very old paperback copy given to me by a chef when I was giving some masterclasses in New Zealand this year.

And then, I gave a reading last night in Toppings Bookshop and did the fatal thing of asking a really good assistant what I should read. So I’ve just been unpacking this bag by the bed: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, Peripheral Vision by Patricia Ferguson, Transit of Venus and The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard, the new Salley Vickers, and one I hadn’t heard of at all by Laura Restrepo called Delirium. So you can imagine I’m quite walled in by books at the moment.

I’m also reading Nigel Slater’s new book, Eating for England, and the only reason it’s not by the bed is – hang on! It’s because it’s on the bed. I was reading that last night.

Couldn’t put down

Per Petterson’s Out Stealing Horses which won the IMPAC Award. He’s a really astonishing writer. I love the foreignness of Horses, and it’s such a beautifully crafted story. The characters and the plotting are brilliant, and it’s such a fantastic evocation of childhood. It brings a place to life in such a way that you can actually feel that you’re there. The other best thing I’ve read in the last year is John McGahern’s Memoir. It’s the most beautifully written book. The best food writers to my mind are the ones I learned to cook with, Jane Grigson and Elizabeth David – the greats, the real greats of their time. And I enjoy Claudia Roden and Anna Del Conte because they are scholar-cooks: one learns huge amounts about culture from them. Also MFK Fisher and Patience Gray.

I don’t really read science fiction and I don’t really read historical biographies just because time is so short. I would just miss novels and poetry and short stories too much.

Covered with dust

Somebody just writing a book is such a monumental achievement, that if I don’t particularly like it, it’s probably not their fault. I would hate to single someone out and say I hate their writing.

Secret indulgence

I don’t feel guilty about any of my pleasures.

TAMASIN DAY-LEWIS is the author of several cookery books, including Tamasin’s Kitchen Bible, The Art of the Tart and Tamasin’s Kitchen Classics, and has had three television series, which are regularly repeated on UKTV Food. Her latest book, Where Shall We Go For Dinner? (Weidenfeld and Nicholson, £16.99), is a canny combination of memoir, love story, travelogue and homage to the most wonderful foods in the world. She lives in Somerset.

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