Explore Essays and memoir
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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.’
Best Book of 1965: Everything That Rises Must Converge
April Ayers Lawson
‘O’Conner has for me the effect of nailing and then blowing up one’s most casual illusions’
Best Book of 1970: Moominvalley in November
Aleksi Pöyry
‘This is a book I always return to for its melancholy tone, warm humour and psychological insight.’
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby: Best Book of 1995
Ted Robinson
‘It was a story about music and relationships.’
Words and the Word
Miranda France
Miranda France on how C.S. Lewis and T.S. Eliot redrafted the Anglican Book of Common Prayer.
The Best Books of Any Year: Three Variations on Post-Truth
Astrid Alben
‘2016 is almost over but the impact of this year’s political events will reverberate around the globe for decades.’
Best Book of 1991: Mao II by Don DeLillo
Colin Barrett
‘The ultimate goal of each act of art, each work of terror, is to demolish the old, incumbent reality, and create a new one.’
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.’
The Cult of the Hindu Cowboy
Snigdha Poonam
‘The Hindu cowboy accords to the cow the holiest status in his imagination: of mother. It is his duty to protect her honour; it is his privilege to kill for her.’
