Simon Majumdar: Go Everywhere, Eat Everything

I travel and eat. Who says you can’t love your job?

Hadrian and the Triumph of Rome by Anthony Everitt. I am slightly obsessed with the ancient world.

It is more a series of books. At Junior school we would often read abridged editions of classics and I just ate them up. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas and David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. They sparked off a love of literature that has never left me.

An Anglican priest. I even studied Theology for three years at King’s College London to that aim.

I was a rather unhappy school child, so I think I would be pleased to hear that I had carved out two relatively successful careers in my life (twenty years in book publishing, and now my second life in the food business), was in love, and married to an amazing woman with whom I had the chance to travel the globe.

Revelations of Divine Love by Mother Julian of Norwich.

Not really. Although I cannot imagine ever getting on a plane on one of my dozens of flights a year without something to read. That would be Hell.

Interesting question. In terms of books I have read, it would be Paper Lion by George Plimpton, which really informed the immersive style I have aspired for with my own books. If I can mention one of my own books then Eat My Globe was very important for me as it was on the journey to research that book that I met my wife, which led to my move to the US and my second career.

I always tell young writers “if you want to be a writer, write”. It’s a muscle and needs to be used to grow. Even if it’s a blog with two readers, it’s still worth doing.

Selected Poems by Rabindranath Tagore. My father comes from quite a well-known Bengali family from Calcutta and Tagore, now an often shamefully neglected polymath, was very much part of their social scene. His poems still move me like no others. Particularly one called “Endless Love” which is a poem about man’s love for God.

Rebel Angels by Robertson Davies.

Right now, it would definitely be non-fiction.

It is more than important, it is vital. Obviously it’s a bit of a generalization, but I find that people who don’t read, or were not given access to books when younger have a much more insular view of the world than those who were.

I have been rather fixated on the US Civil War of late, and have been working my way through James McPherson’s magnificent Battle Cry of Freedom.

I don’t have a preference. I love the fact that I can travel with an entire library to access on my phone or tablet when needed, but at the same time, like most avid readers, I love the feel of a traditional book. I still feel the same excitement as I did as a publisher when I would get the first edition of a book we were publishing and moved it around in my hands enjoying its heft and shine before I even opened the pages.

I really don’t think there is one. Books are such a personal matter that to specify one would be unfair and potentially dangerous.

May I mention my own book Eat My Globe again? Not because I am holding it up as being of particular artistic merit, but simply because the act of researching and writing it changed my life in ways that I could never have imagined when I began working on it.

Very many. But, to pick out just a few that have really stayed with me over the years

The Naked and The Dead by Norman Mailer.

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins.

If this is a Man by Primo Levi.

City of God by St. Augustine.

Hawksmoor by Peter Ackroyd.

I am fascinated by food history. How it impacted our lives and culture, and how our lives and culture impacted it. I plan to launch a podcast about it soon, so am already ploughing through books, websites and archives as I come up with potential episodes.

More Hungry Than Suicidal.