Working through Kafka would seem to be an irresistible temptation or maybe even a rite of passage for every kind of writer. You can trace the tradition through the archives of the London Review of Books, and the chain of contributors who have used his hands in its pages, over the years: Alan Bennett, Judith Butler, Amit Chaudhuri, Rivka Galchen, Nadine Gordimer, Anne Hollander, Gabriel Josipovici, Adam Phillips, Philip Roth, Michael Wood and, translating the man himself, Michael Hofmann - among many others.

To mark the centenary of his death, the LRB invites you to spend 2024 thinking about Kafka in the company of some of the most original writers of our time, with a dazzling thought or pellucid observation for each new week of the year - and plenty of space to record your own plans on the facing pages.

In addition to a host of useful features you may also stumble upon an occasional entry by Kafka himself, to encourage concise diary-keeping: '2 August. Germany has declared war on Russia. Swimming in the afternoon.'