Hello, Stranger
Books

Hello, Stranger: Stories of Connections in a Divided World was published by Granta in 2021, when it was BBC Radio4 Book of the Week. It came out in paperback in 2022.
Reviews
Humane and heart-warming
— Bookseller Editor’s Choice
An elegant and moving exploration of what it means to connect with strangers turns into an elegy for a much-missed way of life… while Hello, Stranger is a beautiful meditation on the pleasures and pains of a world to which many of us yearn to return, it may also be an elegy for a world that is lost to us for some time to come.
— The Guardian
Will Buckingham has written a moving memoir of finding solace, after the death of his life partner, in travelling and talking in lands such as Myanmar that are culturally distant from his native England.
— The Economist
A wonderful mix of history, anthropology and psychology
— The Herald
A treasure trove of all the possibilities strangers can be to each other. Read, learn and savour.
— Madeleine Bunting, author of Labours of Love: The Crisis of Care
A glorious book, fabulously learned and funny, and filled with all manner of stirring stories.
— Philip Marsden, author of The Summer Isles
Buckingham provides a map for others to follow, showing that when we show kindness to strangers, we may be entertaining angels unawares
— John Paul Flintoff, author of How to Change the World (School of Life)
Hello, Stranger links a personal story with a wider consideration of how humans and other primates make connection beyond their home communities. It explores loneliness and loss, and why welcome matters… I was gripped.
— The Friend