Peter Ross's weekly articles from around Scotland have been a sterling attraction for the readers of Scotland on Sunday for years. A selection of the best are collected here, for the first time. Each a gem of insight and wit, they provide a piece-by-piece portrait of a nation as it changes. Always with his eye on the individual, Peter Ross presents some of the less well known aspects of the country, including the latex-clad patrons of a fetish club, as well as a new look at some of the more familiar, such as the painters of the Forth Rail Bridge. It is a look from the inside, one you are likely to recognise although one you will not have read about before, not in quite this way. The Anatomy Rooms is an exotic mix indeed, Scotland as she really is, a hopeful country not without problems and pain, but a nation made great by the people who live, love, laugh and graft there. From anatomists who find dissection beautiful to chip-shop owners who sing arias while serving fish suppers, the Scots in these pages come over as eccentric, humorous, moving and extraordinary.

In July 1917, a young man in the 12th East Surrey Regiment kept a journal of his experiences at the front. This poignant and moving account is narrated with a keen sense of observation, bringing to life the sights, sounds, smells, and horrors of war. The anonymous author candidly describes his daily life: dodging shells to fetch meals from the rations cart; his regiment lost on a march, straying perilously near enemy lines; the selfishness of his commanding officer; the daily distribution of rum; the soar of shells ('whiz bangs') above his head, communicating by sign with a captured German soldier living in his trench; catching sleep in snatches 10 or fifteen minutes; and always, the endless mud. He begins understatedly: 'The first night passed uneventfully, except that we were shelled,' describing his journey to the front: 'It was nothing unusual to come across a dead horse sometimes two with great holes in their sides caused by shells, and now and then a dead comrade would be lying waiting for burial.' Amid the horrors of war, there is humour, for example, in his pithy description of breakfast: 'Bread and jam and mud but no drink,' or in the account of the menacing shapes which advance slowly one foggy evening over a period of several hours. 'In the morning we discovered that a good many of these Germans were nothing more than a few short willow shrubs waving about in the breeze. We had a good laugh.' Gradually, he describes how one by one, his fellow soldiers in his beloved 12th East Surreys fall until he is left with just three of his mates. Trapped in a hole in the ground, he sees an enemy soldier lob a grenade at him and turns face down in the mud to receive the blow: 'This I thought is the end, so far as I am concerned.' Landing on his back, the grenade failed to explode. The narrative ends abruptly, as he is taken prisoner by the Enemy. This brief, highly personal and compelling account of one soldier's experience, with a short introduction, will appeal to anyone with an interest in the human condition.

A trailblazing collection of writing from Binyavanga Wainaina's extraordinary life 'In your text, treat Africa as if it were one country. It is hot and dusty with rolling grasslands and huge herds of animals and tall, thin people who are starving. Or it is hot and steamy with very short people who eat primates. Don't get bogged down with precise descriptions.' Binyavanga Wainaina was a seminal author and activist, remembered as one of the greatest chroniclers of contemporary African life. After his death in 2019, this ground-breaking collection brings together his pioneering writing on the African continent for the first time. A rule-breaker full of wry satire and piercing wisdom, this collection includes many of Binyavanga's most critically acclaimed pieces, including the viral satirical sensation How to Write About Africa. Writing fearlessly across a range of topics - from politics to international aid, cultural heritage and redefining sexuality, this is a remarkable illustration of a writer at the height of his power. FEATURING AN INTRODUCTION BY HIS LONG-TIME FRIEND CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE

Between 1925 and 1951, Kent Cooper transformed the Associated Press, making it the world's dominant news agency while changing the kind of journalism that millions of readers in the United States and other countries relied on. Gene Allen's biography is a globe-spanning account of how Cooper led and reshaped the most important institution in American--and eventually international--journalism in the mid-twentieth century. Allen critically assesses the many new approaches and causes that Cooper championed: introducing celebrity news and colorful features to a service previously known for stodgy reliability, pushing through disruptive technological innovations like the instantaneous transmission of news photos, and leading a crusade to bring American-style press freedom--inseparable from private ownership, in Cooper's view--to every country. His insistence on truthfulness and impartiality presents a sharp contrast to much of today's fractured journalistic landscape. Deeply researched and engagingly written, Mr. Associated Press traces Cooper's career as he built a new foundation for the modern AP and shaped the twentieth-century world of news.

The Best American Magazine Writing 2022 presents a range of outstanding writing on timely topics, from in-depth reporting to incisive criticism: Kristin Canning calls for a change in how we talk about abortion (Women's Health), and Ed Yong warns us about the next pandemic (The Atlantic). Matthieu Aikins provides a gripping eyewitness account of the Taliban's seizure of Kabul (New York Times Magazine). Heidi Blake and Katie J. M. Baker's "Beyond Britney" examines how people placed under legal guardianship are deprived of their autonomy (BuzzFeed News). Rachel Aviv profiles a psychologist who studies the fallibility of memory-and has testified for defendants including Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby (The New Yorker). The anthology includes dispatches from the frontiers of science, exploring why Venus turned out so hellishly unlike Earth (Popular Science) and detailing the potential of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (Quanta). It features celebrated writers, including Harper's magazine pieces by Ann Patchett, whose "These Precious Days" is a powerful story of friendship during the pandemic, and Vivian Gornick, who offers "notes on humiliation." Carina del Valle Schorske depicts the power of public dance after pandemic isolation (New York Times Magazine). And the NBA icon Kareem Abdul-Jabbar lauds the Black athletes who fought for social justice (AARP the Magazine). Amid the continuing reckoning with racism, authors reconsider tarnished figures. The Black ornithologist and birder J. Drew Lanham assesses the legacy of John James Audubon in the magazine that bears his name, and Jeremy Atherton Lin questions his youthful enthusiasm for Morrissey (Yale Review). Jennifer Senior writes about memory and the lingering grief felt for a friend killed on 9/11 (The Atlantic). The collection concludes with Nishanth Injam's story of queer first love across religious boundaries, "Come with Me" (Georgia Review).

'Revisiting this selection of diaries and essay-reviews from the London Review of Books is restorative, an extended spa treatment that stretches tired brains and unkinks the usual habitual responses where Hitchens is concerned.' James Wolcott in his introduction Christopher Hitchens was a star writer wherever he wrote, and the same was true of the London Review of Books, to which he contributed sixty pieces over two decades. Anthologised here for the first time, this selection of his finest LRB reviews, diaries and essays (along with a smattering of ferocious letters) finds Hitchens at his very best. Familiar betes noires - Kennedy, Nixon, Kissinger, Clinton - rub shoulders with lesser-known preoccupations: P.G. Wodehouse, Princess Margaret and, magisterially, Isaiah Berlin. Here is Hitchens on the (first) Gulf War and the 'Salman Rushdie Acid Test', on being spanked by Mrs Thatcher in the House of Lords and taking his son to the Oscars, on America's homegrown Nazis and 'Acts of Violence in Grosvenor Square' in 1968. Edited by the London Review of Books, with an introduction by James Wolcott, this collection recaptures, ten years after his death, 'a Hitch in time': barnstorming, cauterising, and ultimately uncontainable.

G K Chesterton (1874-1936) was an important figure in the Edwardian literary world. He engaged closely with the vibrant new influences in literature and reviewed a stream of new editions, biographies, and memoirs for the Daily News. This critical edition includes all of his contributions to the Daily News from 1901 to 1913.

G K Chesterton (1874-1936) was an important figure in the Edwardian literary world. He engaged closely with the vibrant new influences in literature and reviewed a stream of new editions, biographies, and memoirs for the Daily News. This critical edition includes all of his contributions to the Daily News from 1901 to 1913.

'This is a must read!' Vince Cable, former leader of the Liberal Democrats 'Reads like a rip roaring tale of a corporate high wire act' John McDonnell, former Shadow Chancellor 'Should be sold with a bottle of blood-pressure pills' Edward Lucas, The Times The proud owner of a sprawling GBP14m estate in the Cotswolds, boasting a stable of eventing horses, a fleet of supercars and neighbouring the royal family, Neil Woodford was the most celebrated and successful British investor of his generation. He spent years beating the market; betting against the dot com bubble in the 1990s and the banks before the financial crash in 2008, making blockbuster returns for his investors and earning himself a reputation of 'the man who made Middle England rich'. But, in 2019, after a stream of poorly-judged investments, Woodford's asset management company collapsed, trapping hundreds of thousands of rainy-day savers in his flagship fund and hanging GBP3.6 billion in the balance. In Built on a Lie, Financial Times reporter Owen Walker reveals the disastrous failings of Woodford, the greed at the heart of his operation, the flaws of an industry in thrall to its star performers and the dangers of limited regulation. With exclusive access to Woodford's inner circle, Walker will reveal the full, jaw-dropping story of Europe's biggest investment scandal in a decade. 'Vital financial journalism with heart' Emma Barnett, broadcaster

This is the third volume of the First of the Year annual series. Contributors such as Armond White, Philip Levine, Charles O'Brien, Uri Avnery, Donna Gaines, Tom Smucker, Scott Spencer, and Amiri Baraka are back (and fractious as ever). And First's family of writers keeps growing. This volume includes vital new voices such as A. B. Spellman, Bernard Avishai, Rudolph Wurlitzer, and Diane di Prima.

First never shies away from hot button issues--Fredric Smoler, for example, offers a definitive consideration of America's recent history with torture. But First's approach to current political firestorms is often marked by a cool sense of the past. History is always in the mix when First writers examine the roots of Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin and contemporary right-wing pundits who falsely claim the mantle of Whittaker Chambers. First's refusal to toe "correct" lines is apparent in Benj DeMott's reconsideration of Chambers' work.

The new volume is also marked by its cultivation of radical imaginations. The ideas of the Situationists and Cornelius Castoriadis are revived. A young historian, David Waldstreicher, recovers the radical, useable past in the 60s work of Staughton Lynd. Amiri Baraka evokes the felt quality of Jesse Jackson's 1988 campaign and another poet remembers (in verse) long-forgotten, extreme political acts of American Renaissance poets.

A recent review of First of the Year: 2009 used a phrase of Kenneth Burke's--"perspective by incongruity"--to make sense of the method that shaped it. First is committed to thought-provoking incongruities. Faith that wonder is our best teacher informs this volume. First's music writing provides a high-low soundtrack of surprise. Beyond the section on Michael Jackson, there are serious responses to John Coltrane and Bach, World Saxophone Quartet and Mariah Carey, Sonny Rollins and Willie Mitchell. First's message is in the music.

In the spring of 2014, the Sunflower Movement's three-week occupation of the Legislative Yuan brought Taiwan back to international media attention. It was the culmination of a series of social movements that had been growing in strength since 2008 and have become even more salient since the spring of 2014. Social movements in Taiwan have emerged as a powerful new actor that needs to be understood alongside those players that have dominated the literature such as political parties, local factions, Taishang, China and the United States. This book offers readers an introduction to the development of these social movements in Taiwan by examining a number of important movement case studies that focus on the post 2008 period. The return of the Kuomintang (KMT) to power radically changed the political environment for Taiwan's civil society and so the book considers how social activists responded to this new political opportunity structure. The case chapters are based on extensive fieldwork and are written by authors from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds and methodological approaches; in some cases authors combine being both academics and activists themselves. Together, the chapters focus on a number of core issues, providing the book with four key aims. Firstly, it investigates the roots of the movements and considers how to best explain their emergence. Secondly, it examines the development trajectories of these movements. Thirdly, it looks at the best way to explain their impact and development patterns, and finally it assesses their overall impact, questioning whether they can be regarded as successes or failures. Covering a unique range of social movement cases, the book will be of interest to students and researchers interested in Taiwanese society and politics, as well as social movements and civil society.

Little magazines made modernism happen. These pioneering enterprises were typically founded by individuals or small groups intent on publishing the experimental works or radical opinions of untried, unpopular, or underrepresented writers. Recently, little magazines have re-emerged as an important critical tool for examining the local and material conditions that shaped modernism. This volume reflects the diversity of Anglo-American modernism, with essays on avant-garde, literary, political, regional, and African American little magazines. It also presents a diversity of approaches to these magazines: discussions of material practices and relations; analyses of the relationship between little magazines and popular or elite audiences; examinations of correspondences between texts and images; feminist modifications of the traditional canon or histories; and reflections on the emerging field of periodical studies. All emphasize the primacy and materiality of little magazines. With a preface by Mark Morrisson, an afterword by Robert Scholes, and an extensive bibliography of little magazine resources, the collection serves both as an introduction to little magazines and a reconsideration of their integral role in the development of modernism.

Tomaz Aquino de Braganca, a close adviser to former Mozambican president Samora Machel, dedicated his life to the liberation struggles of southern Africa. Before his death in a plane crash (along with President Machel) in 1986, he was a journalist, an academic, a diplomat, and a public intellectual known for his skill in sensitive and discreet political negotiation, most notably his role in Mozambique's revolution and independence from Portugal in 1975. Marco Mondaini and Colin Darch present a selection of Aquino's postindependence writings and interviews, many published here in English for the first time. They also provide a general introduction to Aquino's life and thought and short introductions to the texts. The result is both a compelling glimpse into the inner workings of several liberation movements and a window on the development of Aquino's thinking around issues of independence, nationalism, and the character of the struggles.

Winner of the Hay Festival Award for Prose Winner of the 2016 IWMF Courage in Journalism Award Shortlisted for the New York Public Library's Helen Bernstein Excellence in Journalism Award Shortlisted for the 2017 Moore Prize for Non-Fiction Literature In May of 2012, Janine di Giovanni travelled to Syria, marking the beginning of a long relationship with the country, as she began reporting from both sides of the conflict, witnessing its descent into one of the most brutal, internecine conflicts in recent history. Drawn to the stories of ordinary people caught up in the fighting, Syria came to consume her every moment, her every emotion. Speaking to those directly involved in the war, di Giovanni relays the personal stories of rebel fighters thrown in jail at the least provocation; of children and families forced to watch loved ones taken and killed by regime forces with dubious justifications; and the stories of the elite, holding pool parties in Damascus hotels, trying to deny the human consequences of the nearby shelling. Delivered with passion, fearlessness and sensitivity, The Morning They Came for Us is an unflinching account of a nation on the brink of disintegration, charting an apocalyptic but at times tender story of life in a jihadist war - and an unforgettable testament to human resilience in the face of devastating, unimaginable horrors.

'Well . . .yes, and here we go again' Dr Hunter S. Thompson Indeed we do. Here, in one chunky volume, is the best of gonzo. From Private Thompson in trouble with the air force, to the devastating portrait of the ageing Muhammad Ali. Taking in the Kentucky Derby, Freak Power in the Rockies, Nixon in '68, McGovern in '72, Fear and Loathing at the Watergate, Jimmy Carter and the Great Leap of Faith - and much more. An indispensable compendium of decadence, depravity and horse-sense. 'Hunter Thompson elicits the same kind of admiration one would feel for a streaker at Queen Victoria's funeral' William F. Buckley 'No other reporter reveals how much we have to fear and loathe, yet does it so hilariously. Now that the dust of the sixties has settled, his hallucinated vision strikes one as having been the sanest' Nelson Algren

Rafah, a town at the southernmost tip of the Gaza Strip, is a squalid place. Raw concrete buildings front rubbish-strewn alleys. The narrow streets are crowded with young children and unemployed men. Situated on the border with Egypt, swaths of Rafah have been reduced to rubble. Rafah is today and has always been a notorious flashpoint in this most bitter of conflicts.

Buried deep in the archives is one bloody incident, in 1956, that left 111 Palestinian refugees dead, shot by Israeli soldiers. Seemingly a footnote to a long history of killing, that day in Rafah - coldblooded massacre or dreadful mistake - reveals the competing truths that have come to define an intractable war. In a quest to get to the heart of what happened, Joe Sacco arrives in Gaza and, immersing himself in daily life, uncovers Rafah, past and present. Spanning fifty years, moving fluidly between one war and the next, alive with the voices of fugitives and schoolchildren, widows and sheikhs, Footnotes in Gaza captures the essence of a tragedy.

As in Palestine and Safe Area Goražde, Joe Sacco's unique visual journalism has rendered a contested landscape in brilliant, meticulous detail. Footnotes in Gaza, his most ambitious work to date, transforms a critical conflict of our age into intimate and immediate experience.

The Times on Cinema opens The Times' and the Sunday Times' vast archives of reviews and coverage of Hollywood's most treasured films. Featuring many of cinema's most revered critics, including Philip French, Dilys Powell, Tom Shone and Kate Muir, whose award-winning journalism has often determined the success or failure of a film, the book spans seven decades of film criticism. Editor and critic Brian Pendreigh also complies a selection of the most infamously scathing reviews ever to grace the pages of The Times, as well as a collection of legendary interviews with iconic actors, actresses, directors and producers, who lay bare the secrets to their successes. Featuring a range of rare film stills from The Times' collection, The Times on Cinema is the first book of its kind to make use of such an extensive archive, and is the perfect gift for all cinephiles.

George Julian Harney was one of the half-dozen most important leaders of Chartism. This selection from the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle is the first book to reprint any of his journalism. Harney is a key figure in the history of English radicalism. His long life witnessed the Chartist movement from 1830s through to the beginnings of socialism from the 1880s. He wrote about literature, foreign affairs and politics, subjects that should interest anyone with an interest in Victorian Studies. In his youth Harney was an admirer of the most radical figures of the French Revolution. The youngest member of the first Chartist Convention, he was an advocate of physical-force Chartism in 1838-9. His interest to historians has tended to be as the friend of Marx and Engels, the publisher of the first English translation of the Communist Manifesto and leader, with Ernest Jones, of the Chartist left in the early 1850s. Yet his finest period had been 1843-50, when he worked on the Northern Star: for five years he was an outstanding editor of a great newspaper. Almost everyone will be astonished to discover that not only did he live until as late as 1897, but also that in the 1890s he was producing a weekly column for the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle edited by W.E. Adams, another old Chartist and his younger admirer. The column was superbly written, politically challenging, and vigorously polymathic. This is the first selection of Harney's writings to be published.

Under the pseudonym Myles na Gopaleen, Flann O' Brien wrote a daily column in the 'Irish Times' called 'Cruiskeen Lawn' for over twenty years which hilariously satirised the absurdities and solemnities of Dublin life. With shameless irony and relentless high spirits Myles' 'Cruiskeen Lawn' became the most feared, respected and uproarious newspaper column in the whole of Ireland from its first appearance in 1940 until his death in 1966. This wonderful selection from the 'Cruiskeen Lawn' columns is a modern classic that will appeal to lovers of absurdity and sharp comic observation everywhere.

George Bernard Shaw's public career began in arts journalism-as an art critic, a music critic, and, most famously, a drama critic-and he continued writing on cultural and artistic matters throughout his life. His total output of essays and reviews numbers in the hundreds, dwarfing even his prolific playwriting career. This volume of Shaw's Major Cultural Essays introduces readers to the wealth and diversity of Shaw's cultural writings from across the breadth of his professional life, beginning around 1890 and ending in 1950. Topics covered include the theatre, of course, but also music, opera, poetry, the novel, the visual arts, philosophy, censorship, and education. Major figures discussed at length in these works include Ibsen, Wagner, Nietzsche, Shakespeare, Wilde, Mozart, Beethoven, Keats, Rodin, Zola, Ruskin, Dickens, Tolstoy, and Poe, among many others. Coursing with Shavian flair and vigor, these essays showcase the author's broad aesthetic sensibilities, trace the intersection of culture and politics in Shaw's worldview, and provide a fascinating window into the vibrant cultural moment of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

For over twenty-five years, The Best American Sports Writing has built a solid reputation by showcasing the greatest sports journalism of the previous year, culled from hundreds of national, regional, and specialty print and digital publications. Each year, the series editor and guest editor curate a truly exceptional collection. The only shared traits among all these diverse styles, voices, and stories are the extraordinarily high caliber of writing, and the pure passion they tap into that can only come from sports.

'Delightfully insightful and intensely readable [...] There is an energy and drama to Rory's writing which nonetheless leaves space for us, the reader, to make up our minds' - Stephen Fry We live at a time when billions have access to unbelievably powerful technology. The most extraordinary tool that has been invented in the last century, the smartphone, is forcing radical changes in the way we live and work - and unlike previous technologies it is in the hands of just about everyone. Coupled with the rise of social media, this has ushered in a new era of deeply personal technology, where individuals now have the ability to work, create and communicate on their own terms, rather than wait for permission from giant corporations or governments. At least that is the optimistic view. This book takes readers on an entertaining ride through this turbulent era, as related by an author with a ringside seat to the key moments of the technology revolution. We remember the excitement and wonder that came with the arrival of Apple's iPhone with all the promise it offered. We see tech empires rise and fall as these devices send shockwaves through every industry and leave the corporate titans of the analogue era floundering in their wake. We see that early utopianism about the potential of the mobile social revolution to transform society for the better fade, as criminals, bullies and predators poison the well of social media. And we hear from those at the forefront of the tech revolution, including Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, Tim Berners-Lee, Martha Lane-Fox and Jimmy Wales, to gain their unique insights and predictions for what may be to come. Always On immerses the reader in the most important story of our times - the dramatic impact of hyperconnectivity, the smartphone and social media on everything from our democracy to our employment and our health. The final section of the book draws on the author's own personal experience with technology and medicine, considering how COVID-19 made us look again to computing in our battle to confront the greatest challenge of modern times.

A brilliantly wide-ranging essay collection from the author of My Struggle, spanning literature, philosophy, art and how our daily and creative lives intertwine. In the Land of the Cyclops is Karl Ove Knausgaard's first collection of essays to be published in English, and these brilliant and wide-ranging pieces meditate on themes familiar from his groundbreaking fiction. Here, Knausgaard discusses Madame Bovary, the Northern Lights, Ingmar Bergman, and the work of an array of writers and visual artists, including Knut Hamsun, Michel Houellebecq, Anselm Kiefer and Cindy Sherman. These essays beautifully capture Knausgaard's ability to mediate between the deeply personal and the universal, demonstrating his trademark self-scrutiny and his deep longing to authentically see, understand, and experience the world. 'Knausgaard is among the finest writers alive' New York Times