LINES IN THE SAND: COLLECTED JOURNALISM by A. A. Gill, Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

Adrian Anthony Gill was far from the obvious choice to cover humanitarian disasters. Early on, an editor implored him not to go to a famine in South Sudan, saying sending a food critic “was just bad taste”. But this sophisticated, debonair man had a depth of compassion, clearsightedness, and a talent for putting his observations in writing. A chief of police in Greece is “a fat, incandescent bully who stomps around screaming, shoving and jabbing at the refugees”, who placate him “like small grandparents calming a huge, hysterical toddler.” It’s rare we see refugees as individuals, but in Lines In The Sand they’re never a mass of faceless humanity. A powerful book that demands to be read.