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

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