Category Archives: Non fiction

Cooking by Jeremy Lee (Fourth Estate)

“The simple truth I’ve learned from a lifetime of cooking is that good food is honed from fine ingredients”. THAT opening sentence may not sound so radical, so revolutionary but it is a statement of courage and intent, the kernel … Continue reading

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Ireland’s Green Larder by Margaret Hickey (Unbound) “The island of Ireland is so small you can drive across it in a few hours…yet it became the cradle of literature, music and dance, of politicians and soldiers, of philosophers and saints, … Continue reading

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The Value of Everything by Mariana Mazzucato (Penguin)

“The barbarous gold barons – they did not find the gold, they did not mine the gold, they did not mill the gold, but by some weird alchemy all the gold belonged to them.” THE quote is from 1929, Big … Continue reading

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Talking to my daughter, a brief history of capitalism by Yanis Varoufakis (Vintage)

“All babies are born naked, but soon some are dressed in expensive clothes bought at the best boutiques while the majority wear rags” THE very best way to write a book is to sit down on an idyllic Greek island … Continue reading

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The Order of the Day by Eric Vuillard (Picador)

“The sun is a cold star. Its heart, spines of ice. Its light unforgiving.” FROM this simple, fairy tale short opening, you may deduce that things we know are not all they seem. Let us open up the catastrophe that … Continue reading

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The vegetarian option by Simon Hopkinson (Quadrille)

“One evening in the late summer of 2007, and probably a Sunday, I found myself rummaging around in the salad drawer of my fridge.” I AM alarmed to see the historian Simon Schama pronouncing on the new reprint of MFK … Continue reading

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21 lessons for the 21st century by Yuval Noah Harari (Jonathan Cape)

“In a world deluged by irrelevant information, clarity is power” YUVAL – after three books I feel we are on first person terms – has a political yardstick of communism, liberalism and fascism, which is fair enough, although as he … Continue reading

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Colour by Victoria Finlay (Random)

“I had thought, when I set out on my travels – when I first tumbled through that paintbox – that I would somehow find, in the original stories of colours, something pure.” THE many journeys Finlay undertakes in search of … Continue reading

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The Hungry Empire by Lizzie Collingham (Bodley Head)

“Saturday 18 July 1545 was a fish day on the Mary Rose” I SUSPECT if you went back in time the most difficult thing you would encounter might be the food, an argument given more than a little weight by … Continue reading

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A long and messy business by Rowley Leigh (Unbound)

“I have been doing this sort of thing for quite a while now.” I am not sure anyone should write a cookery book until they reach a certain age. It is quite possible to open a food business with a … Continue reading

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