J ANE R IDLEY The book that has given my family most
pleasure this year is Simon Hopkinson’s Second Helpings of Roast Chicken (Ebury Press, £12). Cooking usually defeats and depresses me, but more and more I find that producing large quantities of comforting food is the only way to my ravenous sons’ hearts. Hopkinson’s book has been family therapy. His recipes are unpompous, original and meaty, which makes them especially well-suited to male appetites, as well as being good to read.
Of the books I reviewed this year the one I most enjoyed reading was Juliet Nicolson’s The Perfect Summer (John Murray, £20). It’s a cleverly crafted story of the hot, frenetic summer of 1911 which works because of the sparkling writing.
William St Clair’s The Grand Slave Emporium: Cape Castle and the British Slave Trade (Profile Books, £16.95) vividly recreates the horrors of the slave trade which operated from Cape Coast Castle on the Ghanaian coast, drawing on a newly discovered archive.
For children aged between about eight and twelve Emily Smith’s witty mystery book set in an Oxford college, A Stain on the Stone (Orchard Books, £9.99), is a cracker.
Previous page
