A selection of the next best writing by A. A. Gill, 'by miles the most brilliant journalist of our age' (Lynn Barber).
A.A. Gill was an exceptional writer. Savage and compassionate in equal measure, he was always opinionated, always original, often surprising, and his writing illuminated from the page.
This book, the second posthumous collection of his journalism, brings together pieces from near and far. He was ferociously well travelled, and once wrote that for all our ability to cross the world at will, 'abroad is as foreign and funny and strange and shocking as it ever was, and our need to know our neighbours every bit as great'. This is a book about meeting those neighbours.
Wherever he was - in London or the Kalahari, Benidorm or Beirut, with the glitterati in St Tropez or the nightclubs of Moscow, in the ruins of earthquake-struck Haiti or in a camp with the displaced Rohingya, he had the ability to pin down the heart of a story and render it unforgettable. He was a peerless writer about food, and so we also get to join him at tables all around the world, from a motorway service station cafe to the sophisticated delights of El Bulli.
Fearless in his judgement, often provocative, and endlessly thought-provoking, he had the gift of making his readers see the world in a different way. And, always, of making them laugh. This collection is another opportunity to marvel at a master at work.
About the Author
A. A. Gill (1954-2016) was born in Edinburgh. He was the TV and restaurant critic and regular features-writer for the Sunday Times, a columnist for Esquire and contributor to Australian Gourmet Traveller. His books include A. A. Gill is Away, The Angry Island, Previous Convictions, Table Talk, Paper View, A. A. Gill is Further Away, The Golden Door and Lines in the Sand, as well as two novels and the memoir Pour Me, which was shortlisted for the 2016 PEN Ackerley Prize. The Best of A. A. Gill, a collection of his journalism, was published in 2017.
