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Explore Essays and memoir

Best Book of 2003: The Curious Life of Robert Hooke

Daisy Hildyard

Daisy Hildyard on why Lisa Jardine's The Curious Life of Robert Hooke is the best book of 2003.

Best Book of 1981: Lanark

Lorna Gibb

Lorna Gibb on why Alasdair Gray's Lanark is the best book of 1981.

Barnby Dun

Colin Grant

‘Restored nature would be a phantom of its former self. The experience would be akin to visiting a wildlife park.’

Whale Fall

Rebecca Giggs

‘The whale as landfill. It was a metaphor, and then it wasn’t.’

Upriver

Kathleen Jamie

‘I liked the way she travelled: with her iPod in one pocket, her traditional Yup’ik woman’s knife, or ulu, in the other.’

An (almost) perfect day

Anne De Gelas

‘I think of the self-portrait as a mirror of all the violence that befalls us.’

Greg Jackson | First Sentence

Greg Jackson

‘I am being, I believe, about as forthright as I am being coy.’

(nostalgia)

Juliet Jacques

‘I ended up piecing my life together through other people.’

The Cage of You

Kerry Howley

‘They treated their bodies like some exotic animal they’d found fast asleep, beings they needed to wake to truly know.’

A Brief Guide to Gender in India

Minal Hajratwala

‘Please be creative. This is only the beginning.’

After Zero Hour

Janine di Giovanni

‘It seemed there was a little piece of Iraqi earth inside me that refused to let me go.’

The Battle for Kessab

Charles Glass

‘No Armenian can forget 1915.’

Introduction: India – Another Way of Seeing

Ian Jack

Ian Jack's introduction to Granta 130: India.

Anjali Joseph | First Sentence

Anjali Joseph

‘I kept returning to the Beckett stories, a favourite since I came upon them in my late teens.’