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Best Book of 1967: A Touch of Mistletoe by Barbara Comyns

Camilla Grudova

‘I bought my copy for a few dollars from a second hand bookshop so stuffy I often faint on the doorstep after browsing inside, my hands swollen and red from dust mites.’

Best Book of 1766: Strange Tales From a Chinese Studio by Pu Songling

Dave Haysom

Dave Haysom on why Strange Tales From a Chinese Studio by Pu Songling is the best book of 1766.

Best Book of 1967: Ice by Anna Kavan

Eli Goldstone

‘What a writer, and what a vision. What a perfect book to read in preparation for the end of the world.’

Best book of 1947: L’Écume des Jours by Boris Vian

Xiaolu Guo

‘In those spring nights, I sat by barbecue stalls in the streets of Beijing, reading this novel under dim streetlights while eating lamb skewers.’

Words and the Word

Miranda France

Miranda France on how C.S. Lewis and T.S. Eliot redrafted the Anglican Book of Common Prayer.

Best Book of 1993: Written on the Body

Melissa Febos

‘Influences imprint themselves on our consciousness as light does a photograph, or trauma the psyche’

The Binoculars of Jah

Colin Grant

‘No matter how I attempted to interpret the email, it could only be read in one way: I was out of the Bunny Wailer club. Jah Bunny had put a curse on me.’

Five Things Right Now: Cynan Jones

Cynan Jones

‘A pair of seagulls. I say a pair. They might just be good friends.’

The Shepherds

Lauren Hough

‘Our pasts are so unbelievable we need a witness for our own memory.’

Bad Faith

Ken Follett

‘Every sect needs jargon. We did not have churches, we had halls; services were called meetings; the congregation was the assembly; elders were overseers’

Going Diamond

Sarah Gerard

‘In Amway, there’s no such thing as contentment.’

Teaching After Trump

Melissa Febos

‘In a country whose government we do not trust, who do we need more than writers and teachers? And what is more powerful than an inspired youth?’

The Day After Trump Won

Leslie Jamison

‘I feel afraid, and I do not know what to make of yesterday’s belief. I can see that belief like an object shimmering underwater, a kind of relic.’