Beautiful, bruising and complex: what I’ve learned about female friendship
Ahead of her new Virago book on women’s friendships, our writer reflects on two pivotal friendships of her own, as well as some notable literary ones
June 2024
Book of the day
War by Louis-Ferdinand Céline review – disturbing, compelling, incomplete
A shellshocked soldier in Flanders embarks on a dreamlike journey in this savage fragment of a tale written in the 1930s by the controversial author of Journey to the End of the Night
May 2024
The Girl With the Needle review – horrific drama based on Denmark’s 1921 baby-killer case
The right to acquit based on conscience is rooted in Quaker pacifism
April 2024
Heroism, sacrifice, defeat? The enduring mystery of George Mallory’s final Everest attempt
‘Poor Joe is gone’: the two brothers who fought and died together in Gallipoli
March 2024
Queensland teenager Claude Fraser got to France too late to fight in 1918 – but a fresh horror awaited
Other lives
Roy Bridge obituary
January 2024
Why Boris Johnson – and other men like him – love the idea of conscription
Zoe Williams
War memorials might be set in stone, but the debate to bring back conscription only serves those who shamelessly peddle the sacrifice of others as their own writes Zoe Williams
Brief letters
A skirt served my grandfather well in the first world war
Brief letters: Men in skirts | Government priorities | The misery of January | Harriet Beecher Stowe | Give pants a chance
The incredible story of Merlin the spaniel shows how little humans know about dogs
Richard Sugg
No technology can yet match the uncanny ability that dogs possess to find their way home, says Richard Sugg, author of Kali the Wonder Dog
November 2023
US army overturns 1917 convictions of 110 Black soldiers charged with mutiny
The rituals of Poppy Day are a vital antidote to extreme voices in British society
Sunder Katwala
Let’s play for peace on Remembrance Sunday
‘He is one of us’: 30 years on, Paul Keating’s eulogy to the unknown Australian soldier endures
First Edition newsletter
Wednesday briefing: Should a pro-Palestine march on Armistice Day be banned?
‘When is it too early to teach your kids about genocide?’ Inside the Imperial War Museum’s harrowing new galleries
October 2023
Royal British Legion gives poppy plastic-free makeover
Father and Soldier review – Omar Sy anchors first world war drama on France’s colonial legacy
September 2023
Book of the day
Great-Uncle Harry by Michael Palin review – a soldier’s life
The actor and comedian reconstructs the story of a relative who died at the Somme to quietly devastating effect
