Even those who have never heard of Reynolds Stone (1909-1979) know a little of his work. The crest on every British passport, the masthead of The Times, the memorial to Winston Churchill in Westminster Abbey. The first time I remember paying attention to him was more than thirty years ago when I bought a first edition of Iris Murdoch’s The Italian Girl with its beautiful dust jacket by Stone. Murdoch and Stone were great friends and somewhere in my book collection I have a copy of the tribute she paid to him at his memorial service. Of course, Stone seemed to know everyone in Britain’s artistic community. Kenneth Clark, Benjamin Britten, John Piper, Kathleen Raine, and John Betjeman were just a few of the many friends who crowded into the Stones’s beautiful rectory at Litton Cheney in Dorset.

He was primarily a superb engraver, one of the very best and the equal of those more celebrated (like Gwen Raverat), but he was also a very accomplished typographer, letter cutter, and water colorist. His brilliance is fully reflected in this beautifully illustrated and touching tribute written by one of his sons.

James Lees-Milne, when asked to consider writing Stones’s biography, famously remarked “I can’t write about a saint”. He was deeply loved by his family and wide circle of friends and it’s clear there was a profound and sincere humility about him. His life stood securely on three pillars – work, friendship, and family – and it was a life that brought him great satisfaction and contentment. This memoir isn’t uncritical but it’s undeniably affectionate. The picture that emerges here is one of a good man and a great artist.

Chen Maoping (who took Sanmao as her nom de plume the name of a well-known cartoon character) was born in mainland China in 1943 and raised in Taiwan. She had a restless, nomadic spirit and spent many years in the 1960s and 70s wandering the world, arriving in the Spanish Sahara (as it was known in those days) in 1974. Stories of the Sahara, a collection of twenty essays first published in 1976, is Sanmao’s account of those years spent among the Sahrawi people.

Even today, Western Sahara is a rarely visited, remote, and quite inhospitable part of the world. Forty years ago, and especially for a young Chinese woman, it must have been a place of significant hardship and some danger. A little of that comes through in Sanmao’s memoir but what dominates the story is her strength, courage, humor, and an unusually distinctive voice. Direct, engaging, and deeply personal, Sanmao speaks across the decades. What an extraordinary person she must have been. It’s little wonder that she has become a cultural icon for those who are fascinated, as she was, by people living at the margins of the world.

Some of the essays, such as Night in the wasteland, Crying camels, and The mute slave, are perfect miniatures of the art of reportage. Vivid, urgent, and deeply compassionate, this is an unforgettable memoir and a must-read for those who love travel writing at its best.

Who hasn’t, at some time or another, studied a portrait in a gallery and wanted to know more about the subject? That multitude of mostly anonymous faces stares down at us, not just from the wall but down through the ages, and in most cases we know nothing about them. What made them pose for the artist, what were they feeling during the sittings, what did they think of the final result? In his latest book Julian Barnes uses Sargent’s famous portrait, Dr. Pozzi at home, as a jumping-off point to learn more about the extraordinary life of Samuel Pozzi, renowned French gynecologist, medical innovator, politician, and socialite. What a story it is. Pozzi seemed to know everyone in the Belle Epoque and was the trusted confidante of many of the leading figures of the day. Wealth, celebrity, and honors followed, but personal happiness in his family life eluded him. He died in 1918, struck down by four bullets fired by a disgruntled patient.

As fascinating as the story is in itself, Barnes has bigger ambitions: to give us a colorful portrait of a fascinating time in French history, to illuminate the French character, and to give us an explicit and necessary reminder in these insular, xenophobic times of how important and rewarding it is to immerse ourselves in the lives, language, and culture of other nations.  Brexit and its evangelists would have appalled Dr. Pozzi, just as they do a shrewd, urbane Francophile like Barnes.