A better quality national conversation? Conducted by clever people who know a thing or two? You're holding it in your hand. This annual journal of provocative, passionate and argumentative essays is made for anyone who thinks there's little to stimulate intelligent well-informed debate in the media anymore and who hungers for some brain food.

Featuring: Morgan Godfery on identity; Jess Berentson-Shaw on social investment; Andrew Judd on racism; Carys Goodwin on climate change; Conor Clarke on dirt; David Cohen on Popper, Plato, Hegel and Marx; Emma Espiner on a tikanga Maori world; Gilbert Wong on growing up Chinese; Giselle Byrnes on why universities matter; Jo Randerson on dying; Mamari Stephens on our threatened marae; Victor Rodger on being actually brown; Maria Majsa on Johnny Rotten; Max Harris on dreams; Mike Joy and Kyleisha Foote on dams; Raf Manji on a new progressive agenda; Sarah Laing on menstruation; Sylvia Nissen on youth and politics; Teena Brown Pulu on three Tongan funerals; Tim Watkin on explaining Trump; Simon Wilson on a radical centre.