Lunch With the FT: 52 Classic Interviews (43 page)
Read Lunch With the FT: 52 Classic Interviews Online
Authors: Lionel Barber
Tags: #General, #Biography & Autobiography
MARTIN WOLF, CBE
Martin is the
Financial Times
’s chief economics commentator and an associate editor. He was awarded the CBE in 2000 ‘for services to financial journalism’. He was a member of the UK government’s Independent Commission on Banking in 2010–11. Martin’s most recent publications are
Why Globalization Works
and
Fixing Global Finance
.
A number of colleagues helped to turn a good idea into a real book. I would like to thank Caroline Daniel, editor of the
FT Weekend, Life & Arts
editor Lucy Tuck and her deputy Neil O’Sullivan, not to mention all their predecessors who have commissioned and edited more than 800 lunches since the series was launched on 23 April 1994. Bhavna Patel and Peter Cheek, the
FT
’s ever patient librarians, helped to retrieve full versions of the older articles. Sally Gainsbury, Richard Pigden, Christina Brown and Hannah Bishop tracked down contributors who had long lost touch with the
FT
. Cristina Vere-Nicoll and Alexandra Boulton provided important background research, under the guidance of Leyla Boulton. Emma Gilpin-Jacobs and her communications team worked hard to make the book one of the highlights of the
Financial Times
’s 125th anniversary celebrations. I am grateful to all for their support on a project even more rewarding than a five-course lunch.
Lionel Barber
Not too much to ask, is it? It was in 1935 when Allen Lane, Managing Director of Bodley Head Publishers, stood on a platform at Exeter railway station looking for something good to read on his journey back to London. His choice was limited to popular magazines and poor-quality paperbacks – the same choice faced every day by the vast majority of readers, few of whom could afford hardbacks. Lane’s disappointment and subsequent anger at the range of books generally available led him to found a company – and change the world.
We believed in the existence in this country of a vast reading public for intelligent books at a low price, and staked everything on it’
Sir Allen Lane, 1902–1970, founder of Penguin Books
The quality paperback had arrived – and not just in bookshops. Lane was adamant that his Penguins should appear in chain stores and tobacconists, and should cost no more than a packet of cigarettes.
Reading habits (and cigarette prices) have changed since 1935, but Penguin still believes in publishing the best books for everybody to enjoy.We still believe that good design costs no more than bad design, and we still believe that quality books published passionately and responsibly make the world a better place.
So wherever you see the little bird – whether it’s on a piece of prize-winning literary fiction or a celebrity autobiography, political tour de force or historical masterpiece, a serial-killer thriller, reference book, world classic or a piece of pure escapism – you can bet that it represents the very best that the genre has to offer.
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
Penguin Group (Australia), 707 Collins Street, Melbourne, Victoria 3008, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, Block D, Rosebank Office Park, 181 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parktown North, Gauteng 2193, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published 2013
Copyright ©
Financial Times
, 2013
Articles by Rob Blackhurst, Kieran Cooke, Andrew Davidson, Beverley Doole,
Amity Shlaes and Nigel Spivey are reprinted by permission of the respective authors.
Illustrations by James Ferguson reproduced by arrangement with the illustrator.
David Hockney,
Self Portrait Using Three Mirrors
, watercolour on paper 24 x 18 1/8",
2003, Collection The David Hockney Foundation. Copyright © David Hockney, 2003
Photo Credit: Richard Schmidt
All rights reserved
The moral right of the authors has been asserted
ISBN: 978-1-101-63452-3
