Memoir
To Salman Rushdie, a dream before his attempted murder ‘felt like a premonition’
Though premonitions are not things he believes in, Rushdie notes the many spooky coincidences surrounding the attack – which he describes in gripping, terrifying detail
Murder in the dark: The Eighth House, by Linda Segtnan, reviewed
Motherhood prompts Segtnan to research the cold case of Birgitta Sivander, a nine-year-old found murdered in a Swedish forest in 1948
A magnificent set of dentures still leaves little to smile about
After undergoing prolonged cosmetic dentistry, 50-year-old John Patrick Higgins reluctantly acknowledges that he’ll never be the stylish man about town of his dreams
‘Now I have been made whole’: Lucy Sante’s experience of transition
Until the age of 66, Sante lived as a deeply divided man. In this story of self-realisation, she describes how transitioning finally ‘lifted the veil’ over her existence
My prep school scarred me for life
‘A part of me died at school’, Charles Spencer writes in his shockingly stark account of sadism and sexual abuse at Maidwell Hall, Northamptonshire, in the 1970s
Stories of the Sussex Downs
Focusing on a 20-mile square of West Sussex, Alexandra Harris explores its rich history, from the wreck of a Viking longboat to a refuge for French Resistance agents
On the road with Danny Lyon
The celebrated photojournalist describes his peripatetic youth recording revolution in Haiti, hunger and homelessness in Mexico and the civil rights movement in the US
The true valour needed to go on pilgrimage in Britain
Oliver Smith finds sanctity in remote peninsulas and holy islands, but is less impressed by the tacky ephemera that decorate our more accessible shrines
The healing power of Grasmere
Following in Wordsworth’s footsteps, Esther Rutter finds new self-confidence and happiness in the entrancing surroundings of Dove Cottage
A war reporter bravely faces death – but not from sniper fire
As a foreign correspondent for the New York Times, Rod Nordland learned to expect many dangers, but a brain tumour wasn’t one of them
A mother-daughter love story
In her latest memoir, Leslie Jamison describes her pregnancy, experience of childbirth and devotion to her baby, returning repeatedly to the dilemmas of a working mother
The summer I dwelt in marble halls
Gill Johnson recalls the glorious months she once spent in the ‘gilded labyrinth’ of a Venetian palazzo, employed as an English tutor to an aristocratic Italian family
The mystery of Werner Herzog
The film director treats us to a dervish dance of anecdotes but still keeps his real life secret, says Peter Bradshaw
Robyn Davidson explores yet another foreign country – the past
Now in her seventies, the travel writer returns to her childhood in Australia, and the trauma of losing her mother at the age of 11
Too many tales of Mrs Tiggy-Winkle
Contemplating ‘hedgehog philosophy’ with Sarah Sands, Rowan Williams, Greta Thunberg and other luminaries would test anyone’s patience after 150 pages
Another tragic case involving medical incompetence and cover-up
John Niven had to fight hard to discover why his suicidal brother was left alone and unmonitored in an Ayrshire hospital, with fatal consequences
Who would be a farmer’s wife?
‘Some days I feel like I’m drowning,’ admits Helen Rebanks, caught between cooking, housework, admin, tagging lambs and the school run at the Lake District family farm
Sticky, slithery, squelchy, smacky: the authentic Chinese food experience
Fuchsia Dunlop enjoys a rich variety of dishes throughout China, including drunken hairy crabs, crisp pig’s ears, giant carp’s tails and delicate ducks’ tongues
The man who loves volcanoes
Clive Oppenheimer feels a deep kinship with the many volcanoes he has studied. When he is airlifted from Mount Erebus, he suffers ‘the heartache of leaving a lover’
Tales of the Midwest: The Collected Works of Jo Ann Beard, reviewed
Violence and death are balanced by hard-won, transcendent joy in Beard’s remarkable stories that merge fiction and memoir
The waking nightmare
After years of insomnia, Marie Darrieussecq derives some comfort from finding herself in the company of Kafka, Kant, Proust, Dostoevsky, Borges and Plath
Violence overshadowed my Yorkshire childhood
Catherine Taylor describes her anxiety growing up in Sheffield against an ‘uneasy backdrop’ of picketing miners, the Hillsborough disaster and a serial killer on the loose
Beware of pity
In her powerful memoir-cum-manifesto, Selina Mills tells us what she misses most, what irritates her most and why she won’t have a guide dog
Nostalgia for old, rundown coastal Sussex
Despite the seediness and threat of violence, Littlehampton was a place of neighbourly camaraderie, fondly evoked in Sally Bayley’s latest memoir
Man for hire
Shoji Morimoto offers himself to strangers in Tokyo to queue on their behalf, make a fuss of their dogs or simply provide a human presence
