Issue No. 13

Owen Wilson, the movie star, loves to read. His mind is filled with quotes from favourite books, which he is able to recall at a moment’s notice. In this rare interview he invites The Happy Reader to get to know him while perusing the classic and not-so-classic titles stacked up around his home.

Our Book of the Season for summer is an eternal bestseller by the Stoic philosopher, imperial life coach and Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. The book is his secret diary that everyone is reading, the Meditations. With contributions from writers including Geoff Dyer and Deborah Levy and the photographer Martin Parr, the second half of the magazine tells you all you may ever need to know about nature, exercise, philosophy and love.

CONTENTS

PART 1

On the cover, film star OWEN WILSON, photographed at home and in the garden by Milan Zrnic

Hold me

Snippets

The interview: OWEN WILSON by Amanda Fortini – ‘I’m going to take this, this and this and I’m going to stack ’em up, and I’m going to read a little bit.’

Wilson’s re-reading list

PART 2

The Book of the Season is MEDITATIONS by Marcus Aurelius, handwritten in Koine Greek in the second century AD and first appearing in print in 1559

Prologues: Self-help for all by Seb Emina

Gymnasium: The Stoic work-out by Massimo Pigliucci – Get some exercise

Roma: Memory is a souvenir by Geoff Dyer – Reading to a statue

Tourisms

Insectum: The truth about bees by Harriet Alida Lye – Actually, hives are not dictatorships

Universal Nature

Helter-skelter by Deborah Levy – Sex, fish and palmistry

Momentum: Leave me alone by Sadie Stein – Getting up is dying out

Twelve self-help gurus in need of help

Alumnus: At the movies by Lex Paulson – The time Gladiator changed my life

Letters

The book of hibernation

Directory