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In Search of Beauty: Blackness as a Poem in Saudi Arabia

Sulaiman Addonia

Sulaiman Addonia on the slow process of rediscovering the beauty of black skin after moving to Saudi Arabia as a child.

Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones

Edoardo Albert

Edoardo Albert, author of Warrior, writes about five archaeological findings that brought the past to life.

Daddy Issues

Katherine Angel

‘We need to keep the modern, civilised father on the hook.’

Our Home Is Mortal Too

Katherine Angel

Katherine Angel on Stromae and Royal Museum for Central Africa in Belgium.

The Tension of Transience

Chloe Aridjis

‘How unusual that April night had been, yet how normal it had seemed at the time’

Julia Armfield | First Sentence

Julia Armfield

‘A first line is a threat, I think.’ Julia Armfield on the first sentence of her story ‘Longshore Drift’.

Best Book of 1963: The Group

Julia Armfield

‘Cigarettes, lorgnons, eggs benedict, cocktails mixed with maple syrup, long spills down Lanvin suits.’ Julia Armfield on why Mary McCarthy’s The Group is the best book of 1963.

Editing Vidia

Diana Athill

‘I thought so highly of Vidia’s writing and felt his presence on our list to be so important that I simply could not allow myself not to like him.’

Goat-Herd Errant: Jim Corbett and the American borderlands

William Atkins

‘The book is a manifesto for the revival of pastoral nomadism – leading goats from pasture to pasture and surviving on their milk and wild plants.’ William Atkins on Jim Corbett’s Goatwalking.

On the Island of the Black River

William Atkins

William Atkins visits the remote island of Sakhalin, following in the footsteps of Anton Chekhov.

Diana Athill

Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood on Diana Athill. ‘Diana was admired by all who knew her, and also by all who read her memoirs, for her honesty, her plain but elegant style, her lack of pretenses, and her stoicism in the face of ever-narrowing possibilities.’

On Being French and Chinese

Tash Aw

‘We were trapped in a sort of double prison: by poverty in Europe, and by China and its expectations of us.’

#TeamBaddiel vs #TeamBabel

David Baddiel

‘Social media has allowed everyone in the world to raise their own little flag of self’

Best Book of 2001: Natural Goodness

Julian Baggini

Julian Baggini on why Philippa Foot’s Natural Goodness is the best book of 2001.