WHAT BOOK would chef, author and television presenter Nadiya Hussain take to a desert island?
- UK chef Nadiya Hussain is currently reading Lessons In Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
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…are you reading now?
Lessons In Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus. I heard about this book through a book club. The main character is a woman who is a chemist-turned-TV cook!
That was it, the TV cook bit hooked me right in and it did not disappoint. This book is charming, witty and clever.
…would you take to a desert island?
A Cook’s Book by Nigel Slater. He is so eloquent in the way he writes and his style is very emotive. How he does that with recipes side-by-side is beyond me. A true wordsmith who writes great recipes.
Nadiya Hussain, pictured, says she is currently reading Lessons In Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
…first gave you the reading bug?
We never had books when I was growing up. My parents didn’t read at home. We had access to the library at school, but I had read through all the books.
One day, a mobile library came to our school and then it came once a week for the last year of primary school. We only had 20 minutes — it was not enough. I could have sat on that bus, reading in a corner for ever.
Nadiya would take A Cook’s Book by Nigel Slater with her on a desert island, as ‘he is so eloquent in the way he writes and his style is very emotive’
…left you cold?
Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. This was my first really dark book. It is narrated by the ghost of a girl who had been sexually abused and murdered.
This was the first time I had read about topics such as grief, sexual abuse and murder. While it left me cold, it really opened my eyes to the power of writing.
Nadiya’s Simple Spices by Nadiya Hussain (Michael Joseph, £26) is out now, and Nadiya’s Simple Spices TV series is coming to BBC2 soon.
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