1. Essays. Out of Kansas
The best of young British novelists
Angela Carter
Beirut blues
Arthur Miller at eighty
In defense of the novel, yet again
Notes on writing and the nation
Influence
Adapting Midnight's children
Reservoir frogs
Heavy threads
In the voodoo lounge
Rock music, a sleeve note
U2
An alternative career
On leavened bread
On being photographed
Crash
The people's game
Farming ostriches
A commencement address
"Imagine there's no heaven"
"Damme, this is the Oriental scene for you!"
India's fiftieth anniversary
Gandhi, now
The Taj Mahal
The Baburnama
A dream of glorious return
2. Messages from the plague years. 3. Columns. December 1998: Three leaders
January 1999: The millennium
February 1999: Ten years of the Fatwa
March 1999: Globalization
April 1999: Rock music
May 1999: Moron of the year
June 1999: Kashmir
July 1999: Northern Ireland
August 1999: Kosovo
September 1999: Darwin in Kansas
October 1999: Edward Said
November 1999: Pakistan
December 1999: Islam and the west
January 2000: Terror versus security
February 2000: Jörg Haider
March 2000: Amadou Diallo
April 2000: Elian Gonzalez
May 2000: J.M. Coetzee
June 2000: Fiji
July 2000: Sport
August 2000: Two crashes
September 2000: Senator Lieberman
October 2000: The Human Rights Act
November 2000: Going to electoral college
December 2000: A grand coalition?
January 2001: How the Grinch stole America
February 2001: Sleaze is back
March 2001: Crouching striker, hidden danger
April 2001: It wasn't me
May 2001: Abortion in India
June 2001: Reality TV
July 2001: The Release of the Bulger killers
August 2001: Arundhati Roy
September 2001: Telluride
October 2001: The attacks on America
November 2001: Not about Islam?
February 2002: Anti-Americanism
March 2002: God in Gujarat
4. Step across this line