Author Guide · Participatory Journalism
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While he was editing the literary magazine Granta in the 1980s, Bill Buford started travelling with Manchester United's hooligans, to Turin and to Sardinia, and stayed with them for years. Two decades later, at the age of forty-something, he talked his way into the kitchen of a famous New York restaurant as an unpaid helper, then went to Italy to learn pasta and butchery. After that he moved his family to Lyon. This guide covers all three of his books in order, and where to start.
By Lisanne Swart · 3 books · Participatory journalism · 1991–2020 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Bill Buford has published three books: Among the Thugs (1991), about English football hooligans; Heat (2006), about learning to cook in a New York restaurant kitchen and in Italy; and Dirt (2020), about training as a chef in Lyon. All three use the same method, joining in rather than looking on, and the subject decides where to start.
Where to Start with Bill Buford
If you want food
→ Heat (2006).
If you want something darker
→ Among the Thugs (1991).
If you want French cooking
→ Dirt (2020).
All 3 Bill Buford Books, in Order
Among the Thugs
Over several years in the 1980s Buford travelled with groups of English football supporters, many of them Manchester United fans, to matches at home and abroad, and found himself inside the violence he had set out to understand. It is a study of how crowds turn, written from within the crowd.
Heat
Buford left The New Yorker's fiction desk to work as an unpaid helper in the kitchen of Babbo, Mario Batali's restaurant in New York, then went to Italy to learn to make pasta by hand and to apprentice with the butcher Dario Cecchini in Panzano, in Tuscany.
Dirt
Buford moved with his wife and young twin sons to Lyon to learn French cooking, enrolled in a cooking school, worked in restaurant kitchens and baked bread, and tried to find out where French cuisine really came from.
How Many Books Did Bill Buford Write?
Three books between 1991 and 2020, besides the anthologies he edited during his years at Granta.
- Crowds — Among the Thugs (1991). Read the entries →
- Kitchens — Heat (2006) and Dirt (2020). Read the entries →
In What Order to Read Bill Buford
His books are not a series, but Heat and Dirt read as two halves of one project: the first ends in Italy, the second picks up the question of where Italian and French cooking meet.
A reading path
1. Heat (2006)
2. Dirt (2020)
3. Among the Thugs (1991)
Quick facts about Bill Buford
- Born
- 1954, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
- Grew up
- Los Angeles
- Granta
- Editor from 1979 to 1995, after reviving the magazine as a student at Cambridge
- The New Yorker
- Literary and fiction editor from 1995 to 2002
- Method
- Participation: he joins the world he writes about
- Books
- 3, from Among the Thugs (1991) to Dirt (2020)
How Bill Buford Writes: Joining In
Buford's method is apprenticeship. In Among the Thugs he travels with the supporters on their trains and into the streets; in Heat and Dirt he starts at the bottom of a kitchen, chopping and cleaning, and learns the work by doing it, with all the mistakes left in.
That participation is also what readers argue about: in Among the Thugs he admits to being swept up in what he was watching, and the book is as much about the pull of the crowd on him as on anyone else.
Frequently asked questions about Bill Buford's books
How many books has Bill Buford written?
Bill Buford has published three books: Among the Thugs (1991), Heat (2006) and Dirt (2020).
What is Heat by Bill Buford about?
Heat (2006) follows Buford as he works in the kitchen of Babbo, Mario Batali's restaurant in New York, and then in Italy, learning to make pasta and apprenticing with the butcher Dario Cecchini in Tuscany.
What is Among the Thugs about?
Among the Thugs (1991) is about the years Buford spent travelling with English football hooligans in the 1980s, and about how crowds become violent.
What is Dirt by Bill Buford about?
Dirt (2020) is about the years Buford spent in Lyon with his family, training as a chef and trying to understand the roots of French cooking.
Footnotes
Bibliography last verified 1 October 2026.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
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