The award-winning food writer chooses the books that have most affected her. Her audiobook, "Around the Table, 52 Essays on Food and Life" is on Audible and Spotify now, and published by Mitchell Beazley in October.
Revolutionary Road
Richard Yates, 1961
I would need to live several lives before I'd have the insight to write this. A collapsing marriage – the resentment, the longing for more, the imagined conversations – and the shattering of the American Dream in 1950s suburbia. This shook my soul.
Foster
Claire Keegan, 2010
Claire Keegan's writing is spare, small scale. She leads you into what you think is a small world – a young girl is taken to stay with a childless couple while her mother has another baby – but it's a huge world where love brings hope and disappointments are made bearable. A perfect novel.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
A Thousand Acres
Jane Smiley, 1991
Sisters in Iowa fight over the inheritance of their father's farm when he decides to retire. A brutal story about what families are capable of, with more than an echo of "King Lear". I read it in one sitting.
Say Nothing
Patrick Radden Keefe, 2018
An account of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, with the actions of IRA volunteer Dolours Price (she tried to blow up the Old Bailey) and the kidnap and murder of mother Jean McConville at its centre. The structure of such a complex narrative is breathtaking, as is the way Radden Keefe inhabits the minds of those involved. I grew up in the Troubles and could almost smell the Northern Irish countryside.
A Well-Seasoned Appetite
Molly O'Neill, 1995
Molly O'Neill writes about food better than anyone else. It's not her recipes but her prose. A granita is a "shale of glassy crystals", and her first taste of aubergines is like a short story: she eats the smoky flesh while listening to the local radio station and news of Watergate.
-
Film reviews: ‘Send Help’ and ‘Private Life’Feature An office doormat is stranded alone with her awful boss and a frazzled therapist turns amateur murder investigator
-
Movies to watch in Februarythe week recommends Time travelers, multiverse hoppers and an Iraqi parable highlight this month’s offerings during the depths of winter
-
ICE’s facial scanning is the tip of the surveillance icebergIN THE SPOTLIGHT Federal troops are increasingly turning to high-tech tracking tools that push the boundaries of personal privacy
-
Film reviews: ‘Send Help’ and ‘Private Life’
Feature An office doormat is stranded alone with her awful boss and a frazzled therapist turns amateur murder investigator
-
The Beckhams: the feud dividing BritainIn the Spotlight ‘Civil war’ between the Beckhams and their estranged son ‘resonates’ with families across the country
-
6 homes with incredible balconiesFeature Featuring a graceful terrace above the trees in Utah and a posh wraparound in New York City
-
The Flower Bearers: a ‘visceral depiction of violence, loss and emotional destruction’The Week Recommends Rachel Eliza Griffiths’ ‘open wound of a memoir’ is also a powerful ‘love story’ and a ‘portrait of sisterhood’
-
Steal: ‘glossy’ Amazon Prime thriller starring Sophie TurnerThe Week Recommends The Game of Thrones alumna dazzles as a ‘disillusioned twentysomething’ whose life takes a dramatic turn during a financial heist
-
Anna Ancher: Painting Light – a ‘moving’ exhibitionThe Week Recommends Dulwich Picture Gallery show celebrates the Danish artist’s ‘virtuosic handling of the shifting Nordic light’
-
H is for Hawk: Claire Foy is ‘terrific’ in tender grief dramaThe Week Recommends Moving adaptation of Helen Macdonald’s bestselling memoir
-
Our Town: Michael Sheen stars in ‘beautiful’ Thornton Wilder classicThe Week Recommends Opening show at the Welsh National Theatre promises a ‘bright’ future
