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A Thousand Feasts
- Author
- Nigel Slater
- Narrator
- Nigel Slater
- Publisher
- HarperCollins Publishers
- Publish Date
- 26 September 2024
- Run Time
- 8 hours 24 minutes
- Format
- x-book®
- Genre
- Memoirs, Organic gardening / Sustainable gardening, Edible wild plants and foraging, National and regional cuisine / Cuisine of specific cultures or peoples, Ceramics, mosaic and glass: artworks, Travel writing, Traditional rituals and ceremonies, Pottery, ceramics and glass crafts, Cooking with specific gadgets, equipment, utensils or techniques
What to expect
THE INSTANT #1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
From award-winning writer Nigel Slater, comes a new and exquisitely written collection of notes, memoir, stories and small moments of joy.
'Nigel Slater’s prose is the rarest delicacy of all: exquisite yet effortless, filled with heart, tenderness, yearning and humour' ELIZABETH DAY
For years, Nigel Slater has kept notebooks of curiosities and wonderings, penned while at his kitchen table, soaked in a fisherman’s hut in Reykjavik, sitting calmly in a moss garden in Japan or sheltering from a blizzard in a Vienna Konditorei.
These are the small moments, events and happenings that gave pleasure before they disappeared. Miso soup for breakfast, packing a suitcase for a trip and watching a butterfly settle on a carpet, hiding in plain sight. He gives short stories of feasts such as a mango eaten in monsoon rain or a dish of restorative macaroni cheese and homes in on the scent of freshly picked sweet peas and the sound of water breathing at night in Japan.
This funny and sharply observed collection of the good bits of life, often things that pass many of us by, is utter joy from beginning to end.
‘I loved this. It is a secular book of hours – thoughts and pleasures beautifully cadenced and generously placed’ Edmund de Waal
‘Nigel Slater has a magical capacity to find beauty in the smallest moments. A nourishing, sustaining book’ Olivia Laing
‘His evocative, uplifting observations are a balm for life: a prose-poem for eaters and a spiritual companion for thoughtful cooks. A true and enduring joy’ Nigella Lawson
‘You can’t always feel buoyant and grateful but noticing – and getting pleasure from – the seemingly insignificant is a good way to live. As he says, feel the “small moments of joy”’ Diana Henry
Critics Review
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PRAISE FOR A THOUSAND FEASTS:
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‘Slater is at his best on food and travel: his ability to evoke a culture and a mood (and his food writing by itself does both) is remarkable … He is a purveyor of the good life, simplicity, cosiness and warmth’Sunday Times
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‘Slater’s greatest talent is making the ordinary extraordinary, showing us how to revel in a ripe fig or a piece of cheese … He may worry that he sounds trite and that his musings on diminutive pleasures are trivial, that he hasn’t answered any of the big questions about the universe, but as I leave I feel grateful for Slater, the god of small things’ The Times
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‘I loved this. It is a secular book of hours – thoughts and pleasures beautifully cadenced and generously placed’ Edmund de Waal, author of The Hare with Amber Eyes
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‘Nigel Slater has a magical capacity to find beauty in the smallest moments. A nourishing, sustaining book’ Olivia Laing, author of The Garden Against Time
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‘Nigel Slater’s prose is the rarest delicacy of all: exquisite yet effortless, filled with heart, tenderness, yearning and humour. I feel so lucky to exist in a time when Slater is writing about what it is to be alive' Elizabeth Day, author of Friendaholic
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‘The granular detail and the passion are obviously signature Slater, but this book feels different: a sort of timeless diary, with its glimpsed, generous offerings to the tired reader, who in days like ours might forget that there’s still so much beauty to be had’ Jessie Burton, author of The Miniaturist
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‘Toast brandished food as a weapon. Feasts provides a panacea, allowing the author the boyhood moments he was denied, whether sneaking bites of biscuit batter or fretting in Tokyo under the stern, schoolmistress glare of a “disapproving eel lady” … ephemeral and enriched by pathos’ Irish Times
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Details
- Author
- Nigel Slater
- Narrator
- Nigel Slater
- Duration
- 8 hours 24 minutes
- Release Date
- 26 September 2024
- ISBN
- 9780008670771
- Format
- x-book®
- Publisher
- HarperCollins Publishers
- Genre
- Memoirs, Organic gardening / Sustainable gardening, Edible wild plants and foraging, National and regional cuisine / Cuisine of specific cultures or peoples, Ceramics, mosaic and glass: artworks, Travel writing, Traditional rituals and ceremonies, Pottery, ceramics and glass crafts, Cooking with specific gadgets, equipment, utensils or techniques
Synopsis
THE INSTANT #1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER From award-winning writer Nigel Slater, comes a new and exquisitely written collection of notes, memoir, stories and small moments of joy. 'Nigel Slater’s prose is the rarest delicacy of all: exquisite yet effortless, filled with heart, tenderness, yearning and humour' ELIZABETH DAY For years, Nigel Slater has kept notebooks of curiosities and wonderings, penned while at his kitchen table, soaked in a fisherman’s hut in Reykjavik, sitting calmly in a moss garden in Japan or sheltering from a blizzard in a Vienna Konditorei. These are the small moments, events and happenings that gave pleasure before they disappeared. Miso soup for breakfast, packing a suitcase for a trip and watching a butterfly settle on a carpet, hiding in plain sight. He gives short stories of feasts such as a mango eaten in monsoon rain or a dish of restorative macaroni cheese and homes in on the scent of freshly picked sweet peas and the sound of water breathing at night in Japan. This funny and sharply observed collection of the good bits of life, often things that pass many of us by, is utter joy from beginning to end. ‘I loved this. It is a secular book of hours – thoughts and pleasures beautifully cadenced and generously placed’ Edmund de Waal ‘Nigel Slater has a magical capacity to find beauty in the smallest moments. A nourishing, sustaining book’ Olivia Laing ‘His evocative, uplifting observations are a balm for life: a prose-poem for eaters and a spiritual companion for thoughtful cooks. A true and enduring joy’ Nigella Lawson ‘You can’t always feel buoyant and grateful but noticing – and getting pleasure from – the seemingly insignificant is a good way to live. As he says, feel the “small moments of joy”’ Diana Henry
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