Jamie Oliver read first book aged 38 – and it’s now an | UK News

TV chef Jamie Oliver didn’t read his first book until he was 38 years outdated – but the novel he ultimately selected was later made into an iconic Hollywood movie. Diagnosed with extreme dyslexia, the first book Jamie ever read was Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins – the sequel to her dystopian hit The Hunger Games, made into a movie starring Jennifer Lawrence.

Jamie confessed that he used to “get bored easily” and struggled to read, admitting: “I’ve never read a book in my life, which I know sounds incredibly ignorant but I’m dyslexic and get bored easily. The one book I nearly finished was Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain.”

But Jamie confessed he “threw the book in the fire” after the “author came to Britain and didn’t stop slagging me off for five years”. He joked: “So on principle I threw it on the fire. He’s since apologised and we’ve made up. I should probably read the rest now!”

The first books, he recorded on a Dictaphone to keep away from having to write, admitting on BBC Breakfast that he “always had a chip on my shoulder” after his experiences at college.

But when he began working on a sequence of easy-to-read novels for youthful readers, he “sat down for 10 minutes a day” – which he branded “as long as I can focus” – and wrote the 14-chapter book, Billy and the Giant Adventure.

He said: “It was that weird time in lockdown, and I started thinking, as a growing adult, how do I develop myself.”