March's top 5 reads

1. Dusking

Would you join a 'dusking' party? Rachel Dixon did. The Guardian writer attended the UK’s first dusking event – a gathering of about 20 people in a glasshouse at twilight to watch darkness descend – and came back with a renewed appreciation for light-free evenings. "In the Netherlands, dusking, or schemeren, was once an everyday ritual," Dixon writes, "with families sitting together to observe the end of the day and the coming of night. The custom had all but died out until it was revived by Dutch poet and author Marjolijn van Heemstra a few years ago. Now she is encouraging other countries to adopt dusking, running events in Ireland, Germany and here in Yorkshire."

Dusking isn't the same as watching the sunset. “You need a horizon for a sunset, and a lot of people don’t have that, especially in urban places,” Heemstra explains. “There is a grandeur with sunset, but it’s still a spectacle of light. Dusking is much more subtle: it asks more of your attention, but triggers your imagination. Twilight has always been that way – it’s a time of shape-shifting.”