Number 8
The Paris issue. Ali Smith, Geoff Dyer, Susan Sontag, Albert Camus, Lauren Elkin, Paul Davis, Truman Capote, John Updike, Joe Dunthorne, Hugo Vickers and Sybille Bedford.
Five Dials
Number 7
Memoir and memory. Featuring the incomparable Diana Athill, poetry by Paul Farley, Elna Baker on Mormonism, Saïd Sayrafiezadeh at the airport, Jamie Brisick, Bernardine Evaristo and Paul Ewen.
Number 6
The Obscenity Issue. Featuring John Mortimer, Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys, NWA, Jerry Heller, Art Spiegelman, Arundhati Roy, Steve Toltz, Bobby Gillespie and four Danish cartoons.
Number 5
On translation and Sebald. The collected maxims of Sebald, Joe Dunthorne, Roger Deakin, Anthea Bell, Kurt Weill, Alain de Botton and poetry from the one and only Stephen Dunn.
Number 4
Eleven writers predict the future of American politics. Featuring Lydia Millet, Suketu Mehta, Kevin Brockmeier, and Harry Shearer. Plus Noam Chomsky's wisdom.
Number 3
Cheryl Wagner from rebuilt New Orleans, David Rakoff on Annie Hall, Jonathan Safran Foer on R.B. Kitaj, plus Sheila Heti, Luke Wright, Jean-Paul Sartre and Bob and Roberta Smith.
Number 2
Nature writing, but not the kind you'd expect. Robert Macfarlane, Jay Griffiths, Benjamin Markovits, Arthur Bradford, Roger Deakin, Alison Macleod and even Raymond Chandler.
Number 1
The first. Featuring Iain Sinclair on Turgenev, poetry by Joe Dunthorne, fiction by Hari Kunzru, Robin Yassin-Kassab in Syria and some letters by Flaubert. Plus: a nun vaults a wall.
On Tess
'But the bit that gets me is when Tess writes her letter. She just spills out the truth about herself and the next day she’s trying to figure out if Angel Clare has read the thing and if he’ll still marry her.'