Anna Katharina Schaffner on the cultural history of fat and fat phobia; the TLS's travel editor Catharine Morris on why Paris will always be disappointing, the solitude of open spaces, and the problem with "Victor" the archetypal travel writer; an extract from the 2019 Man Booker International prize-winning Celestial Bodies by Jokha al-Harthi, read by the novel's translator Marilyn Booth
Books
Fat: A cultural history of the stuff of life by Christopher E. Forth
The Truth About Fat by Anthony Warner
Fearing the Black Body: The racial origins of fat phobia by Sabrina Strings
We’ll Never Have Paris, edited by Andrew Gallix
The Solace of Open Spaces by Gretel Ehrlich
Heida: A shepherd at the edge of the world by Steinunn Sigurðardóttir and Heiða Ásgeirsdóttír, translated by Philip Roughton
Where the Hornbeam Grows: A journey in search of a garden by Beth Lynch
The Cambridge History of Travel Writing, edited by Nandini Das and Tim Youngs
Celestial Bodies by Jokha al-Harthi, translated by Marilyn Booth
The TLS, rewind #3
The TLS, rewind #2
The TLS, rewind #1
Climate change, from 'doomism' to optimism
Life as a Roman emperor
How the West was written
Romance versus realism
The Pet Shop Boys paradox
Bernardine Evaristo wins again
Holiday in the living room
Don’t forget Edward Earl Johnson
Finding art in lockdown
Slave driver, the table is turn
How to be alone
Townies and gownies
‘How does it smell?’
Grotesquely good
Easy as ABC?
Godzilla, the plague, etc
‘It’s not him, it’s us’
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