CONTRIBUTORS IN THIS ISSUE

• Alan Bennett
• Dinah Birch
• Richard Fortey
• Michael Gilsenan
• Ian Hamilton
• Geoffrey Hawthorn
• Edward Luttwak
• Andrew Motion
• John Mullan
• Ian Sansom
• Charles Simic
• John Sutherland
• John Tranter
• Marina Warner
• Nigel Wheale
• A.N. Wilson
• Michael Wood
• James Wood

Contents

• Michael Wood

  • Primo Levi: The Tragedy of an Optimist by Myriam Anissimov, translated by Steve Cox

• Letters
  Bruce Bucknell, Christopher Price, Don Miller, James Wood, H.V.F. Winstone, Rosemary Seton, Graham Mitchell

• John Tranter
  Poem: ‘Trastevere’

• Marina Warner

  • Bodies of Law by Alan Hyde

• John Mullan

  • The Giant, O'Brien by Hilary Mantel

• Charles Simic
  Three Poems

• Alan Bennett
  Nights in the Gardens of Spain

• John Sutherland
  The Fight for Eyeballs reports on the Drudge Report

• Edward Luttwak
  After Monica

• Geoffrey Hawthorn

  • The Wealth and Poverty of Nations by David Landes
  • The Commanding Heights by Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw

• Richard Fortey

  • The Crucible of Creation: The Burgess Shale and the Rise of Animals by Simon Conway Morris

• Andrew Motion
  Poem: ‘In Memory of Ruby Yates’

• Dinah Birch

  • Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon: Feminist, Artist and Rebel by Pam Hirsch

• A.N. Wilson

  • The Warden by John Lowe

• Ian Hamilton

  • Osbert Sitwell by Philip Ziegler

• Ian Sansom

  • England, England by Julian Barnes

• James Wood

  • Damascus Gate by Robert Stone

• Nigel Wheale

  • The Book of Demons by Barry MacSweeney
  • Poems 1980-94 by John Kinsella
  • The Silo: A Pastoral Symphony by John Kinsella
  • The Kangaroo Farm by Martin Harrison

• Michael Gilsenan
  Diary in Yemen