How do you read? 鈥淪omething very strange has happened over the last few years鈥�, says Taylor. 鈥淚 have gradually started reading more than one book at a time.鈥� One, next to her armchair, is her husband Francis Pryor鈥檚 Britain AD (HarperCollins, 2004). For the past 10 years she has been 鈥渆njoying hugely鈥� Marcel Proust鈥檚 Remembrance of Things Past (Penguin, 1982). And since Christmas she has been soaking up chapters on Jain philosophy in Satish Kumar鈥檚 You are, Therefore I am (Green Books, 2002).
Nicholas Orme鈥檚 Medieval Children (Yale, 2001) was the last book she read cover to cover. 鈥淚t was so brilliant that I was eventually reading ludicrously slowly trying to make it last as long as possible.鈥� And last year she found Crampton Hodnet by Barbara Pym (Macmillan, 1985) in a second-hand bookshop. 鈥淭hat was Saturday morning: I finished it shortly after Sunday lunch.鈥�
