Explore Essays and memoir
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Best Book of 1984: Amalgamemnon
Joanna Walsh
Joanna Walsh on why Christine Brooke-Rose's Amalgamemnon is the best book of 1984.
Best Book of 1987: The Door
Hannah Williams
‘Szabó offers a veneration of the rituals of the everyday, for how pride in what we do, in how we give to others, can elevate us.’ Hannah Williams on The Door by Magda Szabó, the best book of 1987.
Best Book of 1999: Ai’s Vice
Jillian Weise
‘I love Ai’s work because it gives me permission and reminds me that poetry invented fiction. I needed that in 1999 and I need it today.’
Best Book of 2010: Mr Chartwell, by Rebecca Hunt
Emma Jane Unsworth
‘Hunt writes with brio, the visceral often blooming into the mystical.’
Best Book of 2012: Unmastered: A Book on Desire, Most Difficult to Tell, by Katherine Angel
Rebecca Watson
Rebecca Watson on the best book of 2012: Unmastered, by Katherine Angel.
Body Snatchers
William T. Vollmann
‘The All-American Canal was now dark black with phosphorescent streaks where the border’s eyes stained it with yellow tears.’
Bush House
Mirza Waheed
‘I first stepped into Bush House on a dreary November day in 2001. It was a trepid walk.’
Clean
Matt Young
An excerpt from Matt Young's memoir Eat The Apple, which explores his three deployments to Iraq as a member of the US Marine Corps.
Common Cyborg
Jillian Weise
‘I’m nervous at night when I take off my leg. I wait until the last moment before sleep to un-tech because I am a woman who lives alone’
Cricket in Samoa
Gavin Young
‘Balls flew towards the beach or into dense jungle. Enthusiastic young fielders tumbled head over heels in the morning glories. Village elders, large, heavy-breasted, critical men, lay in the shade on cushions discussing the course of play like contented sea lions on their favourite rocks.’
