Lunch with the FT: the best interviews of 2017Who gave a giant tip? Who had 12 courses? Who admired the ‘brutality’ of Game of Thrones? Have lunch again with Ecclestone, Huppert and Mantel . . .Novelist Hilary Mantel on truth and Thomas CromwellThe writer discusses the Tudors and why Prince Charles would be an ‘interesting’ kingGene genius Siddhartha Mukherjee on why ‘doctors shouldn’t be gods’The philosophical physician and Pulitzer Prize-winning author talks about life, death, and lamb chopsLena Dunham on ‘Girls’, gender politics and growing upOne of the world’s most famous — and outspoken — millennials talks about Trump’s America and life beyond the show that made her famousBernie Ecclestone on mischief-making and why Putin should run EuropeThe Formula One supremo reflects on expensive divorces and his life in the fast laneSheryl Sandberg: fighting fake news and Facebook’s futureOne of the world’s most powerful executives on the new challenges for social networks and the sudden death of her husbandCult Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg on Brexit, ‘Moggmania’ and why nanny’s always rightHe vowed to be rich by 40, PM by 70. Over oxheart, the fogeyish Brexiter talks about May’s mistakes and his chances of being a future PMMore from this SeriesSeven-year-old Bana al-Abed, the ‘face of Aleppo’Over burgers and ice cream, the girl and her mother discuss her being a pint-sized player in the geopolitical struggle over SyriaTop divorce lawyer Sandra Davis on break-ups and pre-nupsOver salmon, the attorney talks about why she’s a ‘very expensive shoulder to cry on’Nicholas Coleridge on Le Caprice, chauffeurs and glossy magsEx-Condé Nast tsar talks about royal ties and being ‘rather better’ at theology than Archbishop of CanterburyUS senator Bernie Sanders on socialism and Donald TrumpOver cakes in Dublin, he talks about the GOP, the left, and why Trump is ‘actually quite smart’‘Where is the salmon?’ 12 courses with actress Isabelle HuppertThe arthouse star on politics, people-watching and why she has ‘unlimited self-confidence’Karl Ove Knausgaard on fiction, football and a family laid bareOver turbot and cigarette breaks, the Norwegian literary sensation talks about his autobiographical epic ‘My Struggle’Novelist Edna O’Brien on sex, books and a lifetime of defianceShe battled her mother, a country and a religion to put female sexuality on the page. Now 86, the great Irish writer warns: ‘For all my affability, I am also cold’Poet Claudia Rankine on studying whiteness, and the age of protestOver sea bass in New York, the writer and activist discusses the president, protests and why black artists lose outEric Cantona on seagulls, fixing Man Utd and why you can’t buy passionAfter a sporting career marked by genius and lunacy, does ‘The King’ have any regrets?Return to the Best of 2017