Explore Essays and memoir
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Best Book of 1818: The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr, by E.T.A. Hoffmann
Luke Neima
‘What sets Hoffmann’s work apart is the meeting of the joint impulses of Enlightenment and Romantic thought’
Best Book of 1982: Dictee by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha
Eleanor Chandler
‘While the terrible pain of speech is made clear, this book ultimately reminds us that we must not be silenced.’
Best Book of 1950: A Natural History of Trees by Donald Culross Peattie
James Pogue
‘Now more than ever environmentalists need to remember what it’s like to write for that real world.’
Best Book of 2016: Joanne Kyger’s On Time
Hoa Nguyen
Hoa Nguyen on why Joanne Kyger’s On Time is the best book of 2016.
Best Book of 2015: Thus Were Their Faces by Silvina Ocampo
Valerie Miles
‘Time is a rubber band, and in a single sentence, ghosts and alternative worlds superimpose’
Best Book of 1868: Dostoevsky’s The Idiot
Laurie Sheck
‘The beauty of The Idiot lies in its opposition to closed systems.’
Best Book of 1971: Malina by Ingeborg Bachmann
Kevin Breathnach
‘The novel submits to an internalized discipline: it is an observation machine’
Best Book of 1926: Red Cavalry by Isaac Babel
Sun Yisheng
His is a force more penetrative than all the bogus machismo of Hemingway.
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 2013: When the World Became White by Dalia Betolin-Sherman
Mira Rashty
‘New poetic expressions can still emerge and evolve in Hebrew – an ancient and almost prehistoric language, with its grumbling sound’
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 1900: The Autobiography of Dr William Henry Johnson
Jennifer Kabat
‘Johnson is now a ghost of history; he doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page, but I can’t let him disappear.’
