For this issue’s cover, inimitable actress TILDA SWINTON talks to the novelist Deborah Levy. In this landmark conversation Tilda looks into both the past and the future, seeking out the contours of how encounters with the work of writers such as Virginia Woolf and Muriel Spark shaped her worldview. We are invited to eavesdrop on two cultural giants connecting through the time-honoured method of literary exchange.

The Book of the Season is THE ODYSSEY, a singable story of heroes and gods inhabiting the world’s first archipelago and the perfect read for slow summer journeys, outbound or inbound. Contributors include: Justin E. H. Smith, Rebecca May Johnson, Nicholas Jubber, Eliot Haworth, Jeremy Lewis, Sabine Mirlesse and Rob Doyle.