<p><b>With an introduction by John Banville</b><br><b><br>Winner of the Whitbread First Novel Award 1996.<br></b><br><i>To like something is to want to ingest it and, in that sense, is to submit to the world; to like something is to succumb, in a small but contentful way, to death.</i><br><br>Tarquin Winot - hedonist, food obsessive, ironist and snob - travels a circuitous route from the Hotel Splendide in Portsmouth to his cottage in Provence. Along the way he tells the story of his childhood and beyond through a series of delectable menus, organized by season. But this is no ordinary cookbook, and as we are drawn into Tarquin's world, a far more sinister mission slowly reveals itself . . .<br><br>Winner of the 1996 Whitbread First Novel Award, John Lanchester's <i>The Debt to </i><i>Pleasure</i> is a wickedly funny ode to food; an erotic and sensual culinary journ
