Like what, exactly? Like always ready to surprise you on the stairs; like wishing you had only known; like wanting it to go on for rather longer. This issue of Granta contains lessons drawn from the muddle of experience. With:



Lynn Barber on the conman who seduced her, and then her parents



Kathryn Chetkovich on living with envy, bred by a partner who is more successful than she is



Simon Gray on smoking, absent friends, getting old, smoking, and why Gary Cooper walked the way he did



Graham Robb on how we tried to spot homosexuality, in ourselves and others.



And in fiction:



Nell Freudenberger: the tutor's story



J. Robert Lennon: look what the cat brought home (sex)



Jayne Anne Phillips: the Termite's birthday



and Paul Murray



Plus: 'The Steam People' , a picture essay by Robin Grierson on the glorious machines of old England, and their lovers.

Ian Jack edited Granta from 1995 to 2007, having previously edited the Independent on Sunday. He has written on many subjects, including the Titanic, Kathleen Ferrier, the Hatfield train crash and the three members of the IRA active-service unit who were killed on Gibraltar. He is the editor of The Granta Book of Reportage and The Granta Book of India, and the author of a collection of journalism, The Country Formerly Known as Great Britain. He lives in London and now writes for the Guardian.