Our much-used copy of Claudia Roden’s ‘Book of Middle Eastern Food’ has finally fallen apart, and we’ve bought a new, updated copy. In its honour, Bob made some lovely pastries filled with spinach, aubergine and onion with various cheeses, and a tabouli bursting with home-grown parsley.
We talked about how our favourite cookery books combine cultural [...]

My new book is mentioned in this week’s New Yorker magazine by the leading writer on music, Alex Ross. Alex’s column in the magazine this week is about ballet and its sometimes vexed relationship with the musical score.
Read the article in the New Yorker.
Order ‘Out of Silence’ from Amazon.
To order by phone from Boydell and Brewer’s US outlet in [...]

Two more reviews of my book ‘Out of Silence’ have appeared. As neither is online, here’s a glimpse of what they said:
‘In my experience, highly gifted musicians often find it extremely difficult to articulate their ideas about music and reveal the secrets of their craft through writing. Not so Susan Tomes. Her latest book, ‘Out [...]

I did an interview yesterday with Australian Radio’s ‘The Music Show’, hosted by composer Andrew Ford for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. It was broadcast in Australia a few hours ago and is now available via their website for downloading or to listen online. If you’d like to listen, or to read more about it, click [...]

An exciting moment this afternoon: a friend called to say that he’d just read a review – the first one, in fact – of my new book in the Times Literary Supplement. I couldn’t find it online, so I ran down the road to the newsagent’s to buy a hard copy. Here’s a snippet of John [...]