Anthony Bourdain’s reading pleasure

The author of Kitchen Confidential says one of the benchmarks of great food writing is to be very knowledgeable but never a snob

WHAT BOOKS ARE ON YOUR NIGHTSTAND?

I’m currently reading Thomas Ricks’s

Graham Greene’s memoir, is a book I’ve read many times but keep coming back to. John Williams’s is on top of the stack of To Be Read books, next to Mark Lanegan’s I Am the Wolf, Moravia’s and ,an overview of the films of Takashi Miike.

WHAT IS THE LAST GREAT BOOK YOU READ?

Truly great? Charles Portis’s

is a masterpiece. Don’t settle for seeing the film versions. One of the great heroines of all time and a magnificent book filled with great dialogue.

WHAT’S THE MOST

INTERESTING THING YOU

LEARNT FROM A BOOK RECENTLY? Orwell’s fastidiousness about smell is of interest. And to read of his anti-Semitism was dismaying.

WHAT’S THE BEST BOOK ABOUT FOOD YOU’VE EVER READ?

A. J. Liebling’s is his memoir of meals in Paris before and after the war, and it’s fantastic. He was an enthusiastic lover of food and wine, very knowledgeable but never a snob. It’s the benchmark for great food writing. THE LAST BOOK THAT MADE YOU CRY?

It’s been a while. But maybe

gets me.

That always

THE LAST BOOK THAT MADE YOU FURIOUS?

James Frey’s It was such an obvious, transparent, steaming heap of falsehood from the first page that I was enraged that anyone on earth would believe a word. As a former addict, I found this fake redemption memoir to be morally repugnant.

WHAT BOOK MIGHT PEOPLE BE SURPRISED TO FIND ON YOUR SHELVES?

I don’t know. I’m a big Eve Babitz fan. I have everything she ever wrote. Sarah Bakewell’s on the life and work of Montaigne, is a book I love. I stole a tattoo design from it. The collected works of Milton Caniff and a classic I loved as a child.

WHOISYOURFAVOURITEHEROOR HEROINE? YOUR FAVOURITE ANTIHERO OR VILLAIN?

Fictional hero? Maybe Fowler from

Or the Consul from Favourite anti-hero? Maybe Eddie from The Friends of Eddie Coyle or Vaughn from Villain? You can hardly do better than Karla from le Carre’s and lurid horror. Poe loomed large — particularly

and

I also loved Treasure

IF YOU COULD REQUIRE THE PRESIDENT TO READ ONE BOOK, WHAT WOULD IT BE?

His daily intelligence brief would be a great start.

YOU’RE ORGANISING A LITERARY DINNER PARTY. WHICH THREE WRITERS, DEAD OR ALIVE, DO YOU INVITE?

George Orwell, William S. Burroughs and Joan Didion.

IFYOUCOULD TELLSOMEONEELSE’S LIFE STORY, WHOSE WOULD IT BE?

B. Traven. But first I’d need to know something about him. He remains a mystery.

WHAT DO YOU PLAN TO READ NEXT? Tolstoy is a big, gaping hole in my education. I’d like to read I’m ashamed I haven’t yet. And I’ve got a pile of manuscripts I’m considering for my imprint.

WHO WOULD YOU WANT TO WRITE

YOUR LIFE STORY?

I already wrote it. And though I don’t really care about what people say about me when I’m gone, I guess Jerry Stahl would make an entertaining — if not necessarily flattering — story of the gruesome details.