Maigret’s Room
This story covering Georges Simenon’s prolific career, and his most well-known creation Commissaire Maigret, serves as a helpful primer for writing compelling fiction.
Number One Id
A 1998 story about The Last King of Scotlland and Idi Amin, written by the novelist Hillary Mantel.
The Communal Mind
An unusual, powerful, essay about the author’s experience of living with and in the internet, featuring a roster of famous memes and “moments”.
Shockwave : The World Goes Bust
A compelling piece examining the potential global economic impact of the coronavirus crisis.
A nice girl like Simone
A profile of the French intellectual Simone De Beauvoir examines her complicated life and legacy.
How do we know her?
Hillary Mantel displays her trademark historical insight, deftness of touch, and ability to create a sense of immediacy in this review of a 2017 book about the wealthy and influential 16th century noblewoman Margaret Pole.
Imperial Graveyard
This dissection of a biography of the prominent American diplomatic Richard Holbrooke deals with a complex figure (“an exceptional shit of a human being, even aside from the defects born of extreme ambition”) who served in the Balkans under Clinton and Afghanistan under Obama, and stood for a very particular vision of America’s place in the world.
Consider the Hermit Crab
A story marvelling at the hermit crab, possibly responsible for eating Amelia Earhart on an island in the West Pacific, a species of which the oldest “live to more than a hundred, and grow to be wider than three feet across: too large to fit in a bathtub, exactly the right size for a nightmare.”
Conspire Slowly, Act Quickly
David Runciman reviews a volume of Margaret Thatcher’s biography and compares her political moment with the present, and Boris Johnson’s government.
Flight to the Forest
A story of a Swiss man who lived amongst the Penan in Sarawak, Malaysia – “one of the last populations of genuine nomads in the world”. Following run-ins with the Malaysian government and logging companies, and a brief repatriation to Switzerland, he returned to Sarawak undercover, only to go missing whilst trekking. Nearly 20 years later, he has never been found.