The Atlantic Ocean

For over two decades, Andrew O'Hagan has been publishing critical essays in celebrated periodicals on both sides of the Atlantic, among them the London Review of Books, the New York Review of Books, and the Guardian. The Atlantic Ocean highlights the best of his clear-eyed, brilliant work, beginning with an essay tracing the "special relationship" between Britain and America since the days of Margaret Thatcher and ending with an extraordinary piece about the lives, and deaths, of Guardsman Anthony Wakefield and Marine Lieutenant Colonel John C. Spahr, both of whom died in Iraq on May 2, 2005. O'Hagan's subjects range from the rise of the tabloids to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, from the trajectory of the Beatles to the impossibility of not fancying Marilyn Monroe. The Atlantic Ocean is a fascinating, important, and timely collection.