FAR AND AWAY: The Essential A. A. Gill

From investigations into Mexican refugees to visiting a nudist beach with Jeremy Clarkson or a review of the last ever night at iconic Spanish restaurant El Bulli, these pieces of travel reportage bear all the hallmarks of A.A. Gill's wit, irreverence, perceptiveness and the cascading virtuosity of his prose. Savage and compassionate in equal measure, Gill was always opinionated, original and often surprising. This second posthumous collection of his journalism brings together pieces from near and far. He was ferociously well travelled: '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.? Wherever he was, in London or the Kalahari, Benidorm or Beirut, with the glitterati in San Tropez or the nightclubs of Moscow, in the ruins of earthquake-struck Haiti or in a camp with the displaced Rohingya, Gill had the ability to pin down the heart of a story and render it unforgettable. He was a peerless writer about food, so we also get to join him at tables all around the world, from a motorway service station café to the sophisticated delights of El Bulli. Another opportunity to marvel at his work. 368pp, paperback.