Wayward Things

A twelfth century philosophical tale about a boy brought up by a gazelle.

‘This is not a tragedy,’ my partner said as she was dying. It was a hard lesson to learn. But life is better when you give up on tragedy.

Some advice on controlling mouse populations… but only if the mice speak Burmese.

Starting a newsletter is not always about marketing. It can also be about seeking out the pleasure in writing and connecting.

How I studied the Burmese language, in the hope of finding a real-life wizard to talk to.

Travel writing makes everything exotic. Anthropology makes everything mundane. Both are equally right. And both are equally wrong.

A true story about hubris, language-learning, robot rabbits and politics from present-day China.

What would ancient philosophers like Socrates and Confucius make of academic philosophy today?

A strange tale from 11th century China about unusual apparitions in the skies above Yangzhou.