Since 1979, the quarterly arrival of Granta has provided great joy for anyone who loves reading and takes delight in superb, cutting-edge writing. This year, the magazine is celebrating 21 years of excellence with the publication of the anthology Twenty-One: The Best of Granta Magazine. Choosing what to include was "a maddening task", editor Ian Jack admits in the introduction. The collection, the "primary purpose" of which is "to be enjoyed", concentrates on fiction, with magnificent examples from writers such as Raymond Carver, Nadine Gordimer, Seamus Deane, Lorrie Moore and others. There are also superb essays on the death of the British novel by Bill Buford, a haunting fragment entitled "Weightless" written by Primo Levi shortly before his suicide, Linda Grant's distressing portrayal of her mother's descent into Multi-Infarct Dementia and Diana Athill's account of editing V.S. Naipaul's work while director at AndrΘ Deutsch. Anyone with a passion for stimulating good writing should have this book on their bedside table.