The Bedside Guardian 2020

Science fiction would have struggled to imagine 2020. A pandemic rocked the world in ways few could have predicted even as the first reports of a mysterious new virus emerged from Wuhan. Beyond the personal stories of lost lives, it has revealed the scale of both our inequalities and our interconnectedness.

It was the year too when the Black Lives Matter movement gained revolutionary momentum across the globe. The Trump soap opera unravelled further. And Boris Johnson, high on a pre-Christmas landslide, led the UK out of Europe and into a future that mirrors our personal self-isolation.

In a year this seismic, journalism needs to report extraordinary events, make sense of them and offer hope. This anthology of some of the best Guardian writing of the last 12 months does all three. From Lily Kuo’s China dispatches to David Olusoga’s thoughtful response to the toppling of the Colston statue; John Crace’s majestic takedown of Dominic Cummings’ Barnard Castle jaunt to Rob Delaney’s bracing account of his vasectomy, this is a fearless, intelligent and essential guide to a year like no other.