The eastern breakwater of Granton harbour is almost 1km long, and swimmers can follow its crooked finger, heading straight out into the Firth of Forth, while benefiting from its reassuring presence. One Thursday... Read more »
The adjoining villages of Easington and Easington Colliery in the coalfields of east Durham make the perfect case study of the shift from England’s industrial boomtime to terminal decline. Twenty miles from... Read more »
There is a growing literature of maternal flight: novels about women who leave not just their husbands but also the children they have made. In the real world, men are the more... Read more »
The AI ethicist Eleanor Drage believes that to thrive alongside artificial intelligence, humans need to recognise AI’s “humanity”. She means that while we often speak of AI as though it were some... Read more »
As an eight-year-old in comfortable, solid, suburban California, Michael Cunningham felt compelled to make art before he quite understood what it was, or could do: a painting of souls ascending to heaven,... Read more »
The latest novel from the Reasons to Stay Alive author Matt Haig begins with an octogenarian man having a heart attack. Former business magnate Wilbur Budd is already feeling a bit peculiar... Read more »
A reclusive interior designer named Paul travels from his home in Orkney to the Norwegian coastal city of Stavanger for a most unusual commission. A datacentre housing a vast internet server is located... Read more »
In the summer of 1977 a bolt of lightning struck a substation on the Hudson River, knocking out power across New York City. Two nights of darkness sparked a wave of looting... Read more »
When Sandra Forsyth began marching in support of the English Defence League, her daughter Nicola Wilding hoped it was a phase. The Cumbria-bred, Dover-dwelling Sandra was about to turn 60 and had... Read more »