Prue Leith at Hay: A Life Measured in Books, Boldness and Brilliant Opinions
There are few people who can command a stage with the same effortless authority as Dame Prue Leith. Chef, businesswoman, novelist, Bake Off judge, serial board member, and wearer of the most enviable glasses in Britain — she’s a woman who has lived several lives before most of us have finished our morning coffee. At this year’s Hay Festival, she added another chapter: an hour‑long conversation with Steve Jones about the books that shaped her extraordinary journey.
Billed as My Life in Books: Hay Festival Exclusive, the event promised straight‑talking, strong opinions and a guided tour through the stories that have stayed with her. It delivered all that and more.
A Career Built on Appetite — For Food, For Work, For Life
Leith’s CV reads like the biography of three different people. She launched her first business at 20. By 30, she’d opened Leith’s, the Michelin‑starred restaurant that made her a culinary force. She went on to direct major companies — British Rail, Woolworths, Halifax Bank — and chaired the Royal Society of Arts. And somehow, in the middle of all that, she found time to read.
Books, she told the Hay audience, have been her compass: the place she returns to when she needs grounding, inspiration or a good shove in the right direction.
The Books That Built Prue
While the Festival listing keeps the exact titles under wraps, the theme was clear: these are not just books she enjoyed, but books that resonated. Stories that shaped her values, her work ethic, her sense of humour, her refusal to be anything other than unapologetically herself.
Expectations were set high — “straight‑talking and strong opinions” — and Leith did not disappoint. Whether discussing the authors who emboldened her or the narratives that challenged her, she spoke with the same clarity and candour that have made her a national treasure.
A Conversation with Spark
Steve Jones guided the discussion with warmth and curiosity, giving Leith the space to roam through memory, mischief and meaning. The result was a conversation that felt less like an interview and more like sitting in on a lively chat between two old friends — one of whom just happens to have run a Michelin‑starred restaurant, chaired national institutions and reinvented herself multiple times.
And yes, the glasses were fabulous.
A Festival That Knows Its Audience
The Hay Festival framed the event as part of the National Year of Reading, and it’s hard to imagine a better ambassador. Leith embodies the idea that reading is not a hobby but a lifelong companion — one that evolves with you, challenges you, and occasionally gives you the courage to leap into something new.
Why This Conversation Matters
In a cultural moment where attention spans are shrinking and the arts are fighting for space, Leith’s message lands with weight: books matter. Stories matter. And the act of reading — of sitting with someone else’s thoughts long enough to let them change you — is still one of the most radical things we can do.
Her life is proof.
