Jill A. Tardiff is the manager and buyer at Lucy's Whey Artisanal Cheese at Chelsea Market in New York City. She is a member of the American Cheese Society and serves on its member services committee. Tardiff is the National Reading Group Month chair for the Women's National Book Association (WNBA), and serves as WNBA's NGO main representative at the United Nations Department of Public Information. An active WNBA member since 1996, Tardiff was New York City chapter president (2000-2006) and national president (2004-2006). She is affiliated with Culinary Historians of New York, Food Tank and Slow Food NYC. Find her on Twitter and Facebook.
On your nightstand now:
I manage two stacks. On my nightstand: To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey. I enjoyed Ivey's debut, The Snow Child, which was a Great Group Reads 2012 Selection. The interweaving of local mythologies with reality is the hook.
Colorless Tsukuru and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami, translated by Philip Gabriel. I am a real Murakami fan, as you will see.
Just Kids and M Train, both by Patti Smith. Courageous, compelling.
Swing Time by Zadie Smith. Newest addition.
Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears by Pema Chödrön, whose work is always on my nightstand. Challenging--smack in the moment. I highly recommend the audio editions.
A Place of My Own: The Architecture of Daydreams by Michael Pollan. Tripped across this little-known Pollan title as I was preparing for a spring 2016 conference on sustainable development.
On my day-table: Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality by Edward Frenkel. Frenkel's autobiographical approach to a complex subject includes discussion of the visual arts and music with formulas and illustrations that break down the math angst.
Mastering Cheese: Lessons for Connoisseurship from a Maître Fromager by Max McCalman and David Gibbons. There is always at least one cheese title on my day-table. This go-to reference for cheese enthusiasts and professionals alike is a must. And I am looking forward to The Oxford Companion to Cheese, edited by Catherine Donnelly, with foreword by Mateo Kehler. I have many friends and colleagues who have contributed to this book.
SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard. Gripped by the intrigues so deftly accounted by Robert Graves in I, Claudius, I have been a student of the Roman Empire for some time.
The Wild Places by Robert Macfarlane and The Edge of the World: A Cultural History of the North Sea and the Transformation of Europe by Michael Pye. Planning my in-the-near-future adventure to Scotland and the Orkney Islands.
Favorite book when you were a child:
The Adventures of Puss-in-Boots, Jr., Further Adventures of Puss-in-Boots, Jr., and Puss-in-Boots, Jr. in Fairyland by American poet David Cory. I met my paternal grandmother only once. I was four, maybe five, years old. I spent most of the time hiding under her kitchen table, but at the end of the visit--and as my father and mother and I were ready to leave--she handed me these three books, along with a copy of When We Were Very Young by A.A. Milne.
Also, Silver Birch by Dorothy Lyons, from the Connie McGuire series set in America's Great Depression era. Synopsis: girl befriends abused then abandoned Arabian mare. The ultimate for any young girl in love with horses.
Your top five authors:
Haruki Murakami, especially The Wind-Up Bird, South of the Border, West of the Sun and Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche; Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse and The Waves; Reynolds Price, Kate Vaiden; Nina Berberova, The Tattered Cloak and Other Stories; Toni Morrison, Beloved.
Book you have faked reading:
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. I have tried (really tried) to read--and finish--this book. I just can't get past the 100-plus pages on wheat production in Czarist Russia.
Book you are an evangelist for:
De Profundis and Other Prison Writings by Oscar Wilde, edited by Colm Tóibín. Beyond wit and wisdom, these writings are in a different realm altogether. I had to put the book down at times to simply catch breath and contemplate what I had just read. If you enjoy Wilde as writer, then get to know Wilde as person through this collection.
Book you have bought for the cover:
Excluding art books? Milk: The Surprising Story of Milk Through the Ages by Anne Mendelson. And A Well-Tempered Heart by Jan-Philipp Sendker.
Book you hid from your parents:
The obvious one--Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence. Borrowed from the local library. Bless the person at the checkout desk. And The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. Catch the passage between main characters Howard Roark and Dominique Francon, which involves an emerald necklace. Very racy.
Book that changed your life:
Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy by Susan Neiman. Read at a point in my life when coming to terms with evil within a philosophical construct was important.
Favorite line from a book:
"The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes." Sherlock Holmes to Doctor Watson, The Hound of the Baskervilles, as quoted by Christopher John Francis Boone in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.
Five books you will never part with:
Magister Ludi (The Glass Bead Game) by Hermann Hesse, translated by Richard and Clara Winston. I still have the edition I purchased in 1970; I make a habit of reading it at the start of each new decade.
Moments of Rising Mist: A Collection of Sung Landscape Poetry compiled and translated by Amitendranath Tagore. First book purchased as an adult, first book of poetry. Probably the book that has had the greatest influence on my own perception of nature, expression and perception of beauty.
PK in the Terrarium: A Life in Books by Paul Kozlowski, edited by Martin Kozlowski. Holds a very special place.
The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture by William Irwin Thompson. Lots of William Blake.
The Silent Traveller in Japan, written and illustrated by Chiang Yee. A gift from a favorite college professor as a reciprocal token for a painting I did for her.
Book you want to read again for the first time:
The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu. My first reading was that of the Seidensticker translation, but with each new translation (and there are many), it is like reading the story fresh--a point of discovery in every chapter. So influenced I named my publishing consultancy after one of the book's chapters, Bamboo River, which I might add has been very helpful towards breaking the ice to formal business introductions in Japan.
Your favorite genres:
I love the tradition of illustrated fiction in publishing. My favorite writer who falls into this category is the late John Gardner, original hardcover editions like Mickelsson's Ghosts and October Light.
I enjoy reading in pairs, like Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre with Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea; or The Little Red Chairs and Country Girl: A Memoir, both by Edna O'Brien; or Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney and Grendel by John Gardner.
I am hooked on serial mystery/adventure/science fiction/fantasy, such as Aimee Leduc Investigation by Cara Black, Tales of the Otori by Lian Hearn, the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon--and, yes, Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs.
