The Heart-Shaped Tin

‘Bee Wilson’s study of kitchen objects passed down through generations, The Heart-Shaped Tin, offers an intimate new way of telling a life … This is a wonderful and original book, which has made me look at ‘stuff’ in a different way. I didn’t think I would love it as much as I did’ Telegraph 5-star review

‘Wilson has managed to strike the perfect (and rare) balance between historical and sociological survey — investigating other people’s fondness for their utensils — and memoir, weaving in rich personal anecdotes that show why her own kitchen is full of ghosts … thoroughly enjoyable book’ The Times

‘Warmly thoughtful, engaging and often erudite riffs on the strange potency of everyday things … Like those great food writers Margaret Visser and M F K Fisher, Wilson knows that everyday objects are the living echo of the great human rituals of labour, consolation, civilisation and, sometimes, subversion’ Literary Review

‘Bee Wilson is one of my favourite writers and this may be her best book. It is about love, and loss, life and death … It covers superstition, magic and more than anything it is a manual for recovery. Toast racks, pressure cookers, baby food scissors – these are some of the tools that Wilson uses to reckon with, and answer, the most profound questions about the human condition. Full of joy and hope, this book will be an antidote to sadness in any reader’ Chris van Tulleken

‘Bee Wilson’s beautiful, melancholy book gave me permission to get out and enjoy the breadboard I took from my beloved late aunt’s kitchen. Her generous understanding of why stuff matters to us is a humane rebuke to the declutterers, and she shows just how a melon baller, a toast-rack and a charity-shop platter can indeed bring joy’ Emma Smith

‘In this delightful book, part memoir, part anthropological investigation, food writer Wilson explores the way that kitchen objects have the power to move, soothe and even reproach us’ Kathryn Hughes, Guardian

Bee is an award-winning food writer, reviewer and journalist, currently author of ‘The Kitchen Thinker’ food column for The Sunday Telegraph’s Stella magazine (for which she has been named food journalist of the year three times by the Guild of Food Writers). She is the author of four previous books, most notably THE HIVE (John Murray), SWINDLED (John Murray) and CONSIDER THE FORK, published by Particular Books/Penguin Press and by Basic Books/Perseus in the US. Before she became a food writer, she was a Research Fellow in the History of ideas at St John’s College Cambridge. Many years ago, she was a Masterchef semi-finalist. She is married with three children and lives in Cambridge.