Books
Formgiving by BIG, Naomi Pollock’s Japanese Design Since 1945, and Vegan Interior Design by Aline Dürr look at how we shape, and are shaped by, the world around us.
As the coronavirus forces desk jockeys worldwide to work from home, in his latest book, The Momentous, Uneventful Day, Australian author Gideon Haigh explores the pros and cons of being freed from the office.
The Charmed Wife by Olga Grushin, Claudia Schwabe’s Craving Supernatural Creatures, and Gender: A World History by Susan Kingsley Kent offer different takes on traditional tales.
In Gender Swapped Fairy Tales, Karrie Fransman and Jonathan Plackett, hope to raise awareness of the complex and subconscious associations of gender.
If the trend for Gothic novels reflected the revolutions of the era, what does our appetite for psychological thrillers say about the fears and complex reality of the 21st century?
Katherine May argues the benefits of ‘wintering’ in her book of the same name, James Nestor experiments with the ‘lost art’ of breathing in Breath, and The Best of Brevity presents a collection of snappy non-fiction.
In the Covid-19 era even classic Christmas stories, such as Dickens’ three seasonal tales, take on new connotations.
Gloria Chao’s latest novel tells the story of Chloe Wang, a student who hires a fake partner to divert her parents’ attention from her single status.
In Coolie Ships of the Chinese Diaspora (1846-1874), John Asome explores the trade of indentured labourers from Chinese ports to Cuba, Peru and the West Indies.
Telling the history of China in fewer than 600 pages inevitably involves compromises, but Michael Wood’s evocative and readable book swoops through the dynasties with both broad strokes and personal stories.
Caitlin Moran gets serious in More Than A Woman, abortion provider Dr Meera Shah takes on the stigma surrounding the procedure in You’re the Only One I’ve Told, and with Untamed, Glennon Doyle details the deconstruction and reconstruction of her family.
Pauline Harmange’s polemic against men, with all its contradictions and incompleteness, would not have come to the world’s attention had it not been for a man intent on taking offence without even reading it.
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, by Shoshana Zuboff, explores how our data is used for corporate profit, Sarah E. Igo’s The Known Citizen looks at Americans’ perception of privacy, and The Lost Family, by Libby Copeland, studies the ethics of genetic testing.
In her latest book, Oxford professor Carissa Véliz explains why ‘data-hungry institutions’ hoover up our personal information – and how to regain control.
Chief executive Marlene Taschen on her love of ‘the Asian spirit’, her unconventional upbringing and how Taschen is celebrating its anniversary.
Drawn from a prodigious career of poetry and advocacy, A Portrait of the Self as Nation is a masterclass in formal play, allusion and wit.
Mexico City-born writer Jazmina Barrera explores lighthouses around the world and in literature, while Nancy Jooyoun Kim’s debut novel takes the reader through grief, racism, the Korean war, family separation and more.
Longlisted for the Booker Prize, American-Chinese author C Pam Zhang’s novel takes a timely look at racism in the US through the eyes of two Chinese orphans.
Yan Ge’s novel, translated from Chinese by Jeremy Tiang, follows a cryptozoologist who is tasked with learning about the beasts of a fictional city and in uncovering their stories, discovers more about herself, too.