Issue No. 9
A model who owns a bookshop. A movie actress who put it all on hold to clinch an art history degree. For every ounce — and there are many ounces — of celebrity possessed by the new Happy Reader cover star, there is at least one equal measure of bookishness. Photographed here by WOLFGANG TILLMANS, and interviewed by PENNY MARTIN, the whirlwind of entrepreneurial derring-do discusses an array of amazing authors from Vladimir Nabokov to Maggie Nelson.
Next, the issue sails off to TREASURE ISLAND by the towering master of the nineteenth-century page-turner, ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. This somewhat boyish yet universally cherished tale gives rise to curious news from the parrot world, a conversation with a singalong genius, and in-depth reportage examining the worldwide electoral surge of pirate political parties.
CONTENTS
PART 1
The book as sun block, perfume, and puzzle, then a wide-ranging literary ramble with LILY COLE
Self-improvement
Snippets
The Interview: LILY COLE by Penny Martin — An extensive get-together with the readerly supermodel
Lily’s utopian reads
PART 2
Our Book of the Season is TREASURE ISLAND by Robert Louis Stevenson, with littoral pubs, parliamentary buccaneers, and instructions for finding a valuable hoard
Introduction: Treasure everywhere by Seb Emina
Nightlife: Down the pub by Jeremy Allen — Penzance’s finest shipwreck-themed boozer
Music: Why aren’t you singing? by Daniel Rachel — Trade secrets of the yo-ho-ho-along
First time: Tales from a reader by Ishion Hutchinson — Treasure Island is not Jamaica but, to me, it is
Island of the impossible
Glossary: Difficult word list by Jean Hannah Edelstein — A handy short-cut to fluent pirate
Politics: Three cheers for piracy by Amelia Tait — How illegal downloading became an election-winning ideology
Flagorama
My parrot betrayed me by Yelena Moskovich — When songbirds turn into rats
Film: Long John Silver screen by Nicholas Rankin — They’ll never stop adapting it, will they?
Find the Happy Reader hoard
Letters
A great read for winter