The Times Companion to 2017: The best writing from The Times. Ian Brunskill
Being offended is often the best medicine — David Aaronovitch
Our magical Wembley moments — George Caulkin
Spinal column: I keep seeing the ghost of Melanie past — Melanie Reid
Scraps, storms and trench hand all in a 23ft boat — Damian Whitworth
We all need to learn how to talk about death — Alice Thomson
What’s a nice Asian boy doing in a place like this? — Sathnam Sanghera
Giving birth is a lethal gamble in Venezuela — Lucinda Elliott
Chuck Berry was a political revolutionary — Daniel Finkelstein
On Westminster Bridge — Leading Article
It’s time to reclaim our rights from big tech — Iain Martin
Our addicts turn blue, then they die: the town at the centre of new US drugs epidemic — Rhys Blakely
This is the end of democracy, cry protesters as nation splits in two — Hannah Lucinda Smith
Drought casts the shadow of death — Catherine Philp
Nepal is back: ancient temples, mountains and Bengal tigers —Tom Chesshyre
Le Pen can be president if she plays the long game — Giles Whittell
Duke retires rather than grow frail in public — Valentine Low
Landslide for Macron — Charles Bremner, Adam Sage
Giving a voice to the lost girls of Rochdale — Andrew Norfolk
Queer City by Peter Ackroyd — Review by Robbie Millen
Watch out — here come the Bridezillas — David Emanuel interviewed by Hilary Rose
The 10 worst crimes in horticulture — Ann Treneman
Shock poll predicts Tory losses — Sam Coates
Investors priced out by the bank — Alistair Osborne
Election 2017 — Leading Article
Saved by friends from across the water — Patrick Kidd
US banned tower cladding — Alexi Mostrous, David Brown, Sean O’Neill, John Simpson, Sam Joiner
Food and service in a time machine — Giles Coren reviews Assaggi
Sovereign wealth — Leading Article
The primitive lost society of love island — Ben Macintyre
Small acts of kindness that can save a life — Libby Purves
People thought I was mad to offer my spare room to a homeless stranger — Alexandra Frean
Pocket money, phone, rambo knife — Rachel Sylvester
The Dunkirk myth never told our real story — David Aaronovitch
My career’s in reverse and I couldn’t be happier — Emma Duncan
The conservatives are criminally incompetent — Matthew Parris
Justin Gatlin reminds us that sport is not a fairytale — Matt Dickinson
Starting nuclear war is president’s decision alone — Rhys Blakely
‘We’ll never be able to stop the hunger for revenge here’ — Anthony Loyd
Like its predecessor this volume brings together outstanding writing, photography and graphics from a year in the life of the world’s most famous newspaper. It covers an eventful, unsettled 12 months, from September 2016 to August 2017. In a new-year editorial on December 30, 2016 (reprinted here on p125), The Times took stock. If 2016 had been a year of “shocks, setbacks and slaughter”, the paper thought it would also seem with hindsight “a year of revolution … part of a rolling transformation of political institutions, and of geopolitical shifts”. Britain’s EU referendum and the election of Donald Trump had been manifestations of a populist rejection of established elites. They expressed the deep-rooted grievance of millions of voters who felt ill-served by representative democracy and to whom the rapid expansion of global trade had not brought prosperity.
The Times viewed the year ahead with trepidation, predicting that “the many cracks opened up in 2016 will widen