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A Great Lake

Nam Le

‘The system wants us to want to belong, at almost any price.’

A Language of Figs

Sema Kaygusuz

Sema Kaygusuz on the inheritances of genocide and historical memory, and what her own grandmother, a survivor of the Dersim Massacre in Turkey, taught her about life and language.

A Night in the Engadine

John Kaag

John Kaag, author of Hiking with Nietzsche, camps out in the mountains of the Engadine where Nietzsche wrote Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

Best Book of 1952: The Palm-Wine Drinkard

Sandra Newman

Sandra Newman on why Amos Tutuola’s The Palm-Wine Drinkard is the best book of 1952.

Best Book of 1993: The Smell of Apples

Magogodi oaMphela Makhene

Magogodi oaMphela Makhene on Mark Behr’s The Smell of Apples.

Best Book of 2013:
The Crocodiles

Noor Naga

Noor Naga on why The Crocodiles by Youssef Rakha is the best book of 2013.

Best Book of 2014: H is for Hawk

Chigozie Obioma

Chigozie Obioma on Helen Macdonald’s H is for Hawk, the best book of 2014.

Best book of 2015: The Argonauts

Lucia Osborne-Crowley

Lucia Osborne-Crowley on why The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson is the best book of 2015.

Best Book of Any Year: A Thousand and One Nights

Mazen Maarouf

Mazen Maarouf on why A Thousand and One Nights is the best book of any year.

Bookshelves: John Berger in My Family Album

Amitava Kumar

‘The contours of the family arranged on the bookshelf shifted.’

Boxing

Fatima Farheen Mirza

Fatima Farheen Mirza on navigating gender roles in a Muslim family, wearing hijab and learning how to box.

Confessions of a White Vampire

Jeremy Narby

‘Many of the people I was living with considered me a white vampire, who killed to extract human fat.’ Jeremy Narby on the Amazonian myth of the white vampire.

Dreams for Hire

Gabriel García Márquez

‘The wave had erupted with such force that it obliterated the glass lobby.‘ Translated from the Spanish by Nick Caistor.

Ghostlands

Jennifer Kabat

Jennifer Kabat on the Anti-Rent War, one of the earliest moments of rural populism in the US, and something few know about outside the Catskill Mountains.