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Telegraph
4 hours ago
- Telegraph
The surprising rules – and hefty fines – to beware of on your summer holiday
This summer, rail travellers making the Eurostar shuffle from Gare du Nord to whichever station from which they plan to continue their journeys should watch out: news has broken of Parisian transport inspectors enforcing a little known rule about taking large luggage on the Metro. It means that a suitcase innocuously packed with swimwear and sunscreen could net you a €200 (£170) fine. And it's not the only strange law that savvy travellers should be aware of. Across the Continent and beyond, rules exist regarding fashion choices, food items and cultural habits – all seemingly designed specifically to catch out the British holidaymaker abroad. Below, we outline ten of the lesser-known regulations of which it might pay to be aware. 1. Step away from that Gucci knock-off in Italy Beside practically every Italian stretch of sand, you'll likely find a parade of traders selling imitation designer handbags, wallets and belts. But no matter how much like the real deal they look, it's best to avoid temptation and head straight for the water. Why? Because it's illegal to buy counterfeit goods in the country. Doing so could result in a fine of up to £10,000, meaning they won't be such a bargain after all. 2. Ditch the camo shorts in the Caribbean You've worn them on every holiday since Tenerife 1996, but they'll have to stay at home if you're venturing to Jamaica, Barbados or many other nearby islands, where the camouflage pattern is reserved for serving members of the police or military. In Dominica, even bringing the shorts with you would be an offence, whether they make it out of the suitcase or not. Disobey the rule at your peril: in Barbados, it could mean a $2,000 (£1,470) fine or even a year in jail. 3. Don't sneakily reserve space on the sand in Spain It goes against everything we've been taught in the UK, but an early trip to the beach to secure a prime spot gets a big thumbs down in parts of Spain. In Calpe, on the Costa Blanca, the authorities are reportedly fighting back against those who reserve places with sun beds or chairs, removing any put in place before 9.30am or left unattended for more than three hours. 4. Don't wear flip flops in the Cinque Terre or Capri In the notoriously busy Cinque Terre in Italy, flip flops and sandals are banned on the area's over-crowded hiking trails as part of a plan to make them safer. Anyone flouting the rules could be fined up to €2,500 (£2,130). Meanwhile in chi chi Capri, where 'clogs' have been banned since the 1960s, tourists could face a furore over noisy footwear that clatters on the island's atmospheric pebbles. Although it's somewhat hard to verify, that law now seems to stretch to flip flops too. 5. …Or high heels at Greece's ancient sites Influencers beware: dressing up to explore some of this country's historic landmarks could get you a severe dressing down – as well as a fine of up to €900 (£767), according to Travel and Tour World. It's not just to prevent people tripping over columns or stumbling around statues. Lawmakers are concerned that the shoes could damage already vulnerable attractions, causing cracking, scratching or erosion. 6. Don't wee in the Portuguese sea… As if having to go for a surreptitious tinkle in the Atlantic wasn't bad enough, imagine doing so, then being caught and slapped with a €750 (£640) fine. Technically, that could happen in Portugal, where urinating both on and off shore on public beaches is illegal – although quite how the latter is enforced is another matter. 7. …Or take a time out on the German Autobahn Stopping unnecessarily on the motorway, except in an emergency, is deemed unlawful, so it won't do to be caught short. Running out of petrol will also get you in hot water, as it's viewed as an entirely preventable breakdown. 7. Keep your shirt on in the hire car in Spain Although temperatures can reach 35 degrees in August in Spain, topless driving isn't an option. The country's authorities have the power to fine anyone who compromises car safety, and having nothing between skin and seatbelt is viewed as one such issue, incurring a fine of up to €200 (£170). Heading off to the beach in just a bikini or board shorts? You risk being slapped with a penalty of up to €500 (£425) in some areas. 8. Don't eat on the street in Italian cities Or, more specifically, Florence. In an effort to clear up a litter problem, the city has banned crunching on cannoli or munching on pizza on certain city centre streets at peak times. Rules are also in place in several areas across Rome, including the Coliseum and the Spanish Steps: back in 2019, an American tourist was reportedly fined €450 (£380) after scoffing an ill-advised late-night gelato on the steps of the Fontana dei Catecumeni. 9. Leave the bucket and spade at home in Spain and Italy The fun police have their sirens on both in the little Italian town of Eraclea, and on Benidorm's Levante Beach. Sandcastle building is banned in both. In the former, where the structures allegedly get in the way of waterside strolls, little constructors and their parents could face €250 (£210) fines. Meanwhile at Levante, parents with a serious approach to sandcastle-making should be aware that they must seek a municipal permit before embarking on any elaborate beach builds, or pay a penalty of up to €150 (£130). 10. Be careful how you reply in Dubai Cat-sitter gone rogue or left-behind teenager thrown a wild party? Watch your tone on WhatsApp. Swearing both in public and online is forbidden in the UAE (especially with malicious intent), so any angry rants could land you in serious trouble. In a worst case scenario, it could even mean imprisonment or a fine of up to AED500,000 (£100,100).
Times
a day ago
- Times
25 of the most tempting weekends in Europe — all reached by train
The first time I travelled by train in Europe was on a sleeper to the Pyrenees for a school trip when I was 14. It felt impossibly glamorous eating homemade ham sandwiches while the French countryside slipped by outside. Four years later I returned to Interrail around the continent, deciding on a whim each morning whether to travel on to Germany, Slovenia, Italy or Spain. I was thrilled by how simple it was to speed over borders, passing coastlines and cathedrals, vineyards and villages, on the way to somewhere new. Now it's easier than ever to travel across mainland Europe by train. There are new high-speed routes between London and Amsterdam, Brussels and Prague, and Paris and Milan, while swish trains, straightforward international connections and regular Eurostar services from London mean more countries are within reach, even for a weekend. Earlier this month the operator announced its intention to run services to Frankfurt and Geneva, although not until the 'early 2030s'. Flying might seem quicker, but often isn't once you've factored in check-in time, security queues, delays and transfers from out-of-town airports on arrival. And, of course, trains are a far better option for the environment, with one 2024 study from Eurostar finding that travelling by train between London and Paris cuts carbon emissions by 97 per cent compared with flying. • Eurostar guide: everything you need to know before you travel There are other bonuses too. Trains offer access to smaller towns, away from overtouristed capitals, and usually run more frequently so you can choose a schedule to suit rather than dragging yourself to the airport at 3am and spending the first day in a delirious haze (just me?). Plus, there are barely any luggage restrictions, particularly on liquids. I've brought lavish train picnics on board when travelling with my children to Disneyland Paris, travelled back with several bottles of fizz from the Champagne region and lugged home a pharmacy-load of French face cream from Lille. The main Eurostar destinations of Brussels and Amsterdam and spots across France feature on this list, but we've also included some lesser-visited places in western Europe to inspire you to venture beyond those cities, plus some further afield where the journey crossing countries is all part of the holiday. Times given are all from London, using the quickest available route without including any connections. You'll be surprised how far you can go. Though ham sandwiches are strictly optional. This article contains affiliate links that can earn us revenue Time 3 hours 42 minutesNormandy is an hour and a half west of Paris and an easily reached gateway to rural France ( Mortagne au Perche, in Orne, is a postcard-pretty market town with café-lined medieval streets and a 16th-century convent inside the 161-acre Perche Regional Nature Park, which has hiking trails and horse riding (£13 for half an hour; Boudin noir — a French black pudding and the local speciality — can be tried at La Brasserie (mains from £10; Place du Général de Gaulle). Stay in the old quarter in Trama en Perche, an upmarket four-room guesthouse which opened in April in a tastefully refurbished 18th-century B&B doubles from £142, two-night minimum ( Take the train to L'Aigle via Paris Time 6 hours 30 minutesDevote the whole weekend to slow travel with a cycling tour of the Côtes du Rhône in southern France, available until October. Starting in the Provençal village of Mazan, half an hour northeast of Avignon and nearly three hours south of Paris ( you'll pedal past vineyards, olive groves and fortress ruins, covering about 20 miles a day, as well as stopping in Châteauneuf du Pape to sample some of the region's famous red wine. After two nights in four-star castle hotels en route, you'll spend a final night at Crillon le Brave, a five-star hilltop hotel with traditional red floor tiles, vineyard views and a spa in vaulted 18th-century stables. Details Three nights' half-board from £1,115pp, including bike rental and luggage transfers ( Take the train to Avignon via Paris Time 3 hours, 30 minutesRaise a glass on the Eurostar as you whizz towards Paris, then onwards by TGV to the Champagne region for a weekend of fizz, in celebration of the area's ten years on the Unesco list ( It is packed with wine houses, vineyards and snug tasting bars for all-day sampling, from big names such as Taittinger with its historic cellars (£34; to the one-woman operation Baillette-Prudhomme (from £13; The harvest begins in late August, so you may witness it firsthand or even join in the grape-picking. The contemporary Royal Champagne hotel and spa is drop-dead gorgeous, with rooms overlooking the Marne Valley, ebikes to borrow and 900 champagnes on the B&B doubles from £535 ( Take the train to Épernay via Paris Time 1 hour 22 minutesYou'll barely have time to wolf down breakfast on the Eurostar before you pull into Lille in northern France. The Lille3000 arts festival, held every three years, runs until November and includes citywide cultural events, parades and performances, plus an exclusive exhibition of works from Paris's Pompidou Centre while it is closed for a five-year renovation ( Lille has the country's largest range of craft breweries and first brewery tourism agency, which offers tastings and even a beer-themed treasure hunt (£24; The four-star Grand Hôtel Bellevue is a 15-minute walk from the Eurostar terminal and the only hotel with a view of the Grand Two nights' room only from £334pp, including train travel ( Time 2 hours 40 minutesFor no-holds-barred opulence it is hard to beat the Palace of Versailles, which hosts musical fountain shows in its gardens every Saturday evening throughout summer (£27, until Oct 31; and is only a 20-minute train ride from Paris by the local TER train ( Blow the budget by staying at Le Grand Contrôle, a residence commissioned by Louis XIV and the only hotel in the grounds of the palace. It has 14 extravagant rooms furnished with authentic antiques, views over the Orangery gardens and a restaurant from Alain Ducasse. Stays include private after-hours tours of the château and its grounds, butler service and boat rides on Versailles' Grand B&B doubles from £1,708, including afternoon tea, minibar, butler service, boat use and daily tours of the Château de Versailles ( Take the train to Versailles-Chantiers via Paris Time 2 hours, 20 minutesJust an hour southwest of Lille by the regional TER train ( pretty Amiens has the largest gothic cathedral in France, a medieval centre, riverside restaurants and remarkable floating gardens, cultivated since the Middle Ages, that can be toured by traditional boat between April and October (£8; Visit Jules Verne's former home (£3; the first purpose-built museum in France at the Musée de Picardie (£8; or pick up local specialities including duck pâté and Amiens macarons at the Saturday market. The historic Hotel le Prieuré is a 15-minute walk from the station and has cathedral views, bikes to rent and a hidden courtyard. Details B&B doubles from £102, including half bottle of champagne ( Take the train to Amiens via Lille Time 5 hours, 20 minutesLaunched in mid-June, a new four-times-daily high-speed service from Paris to Marseilles from Trenitalia will have you sunbathing by the Med in no time, losing just an hour with the time difference ( France's oldest city has a thriving port, the 5th-century Abbey of St Victor, a clutch of Michelin-starred restaurants and Notre Dame du Mont, voted the world's coolest neighbourhood last year by Time Out. Over summer, there's a free programme of events across the city including a daily craft market in Canebière, late-night museum openings and weekly concerts on a floating stage in the port (until Sep 14; Book into the chic, all-white Les Bords De Mer for its rooftop pool, sea views and direct access to the sandy Catalans Room-only doubles from £160 ( Take the train to Marseilles via Paris Time 4 hours 45 minutesJust two hours southeast of Paris, Lyons has two rivers, a thriving art scene and France's largest urban park, with its own lake, botanical garden and zoo. The city is planning a giant free party this summer with more than 200 citywide cultural events including open-air cinema screenings, giant picnics and dance performances (Jul 8-Aug 31; For the first time, it will also offer free access to three air-conditioned museums and keep parks open until midnight during any heatwaves. Stay at the hip Hotel Chromatics, which has Scandi-sleek rooms, a California-inspired restaurant and a heritage listed street art faç Two nights' room only from £257pp, including train travel ( Time 4 hours 19 minutesEurostar reinstated its direct London to Amsterdam route this year in time for the city's 750th anniversary, operating at least 11 trains a day ( To mark the same birthday, Amsterdam's highest rooftop garden opened in May on the NEMO Science Museum (free; and a temporary platform on the medieval Nieuwe Kerk offers skyline views until November 2 (£13; Stay at the Rosewood Amsterdam, which opened in May in the former Palace of Justice in the Unesco-listed Canal District. It has a lavish spa with an indoor pool, a hip cocktail bar and elegant rooms in silver-grey with pale-oak Room-only doubles from £798 ( Take the train to Amsterdam Time 4 hours 44 minutesCanalside cafés, cycle paths and castles make this studenty city, 25 minutes south of Amsterdam by train, an underrated weekend treat. Stroll the cobbled streets of the old town, lined with gabled houses; climb 465 steps up the medieval Dom Tower (£12; explore the canals by kayak (£8 an hour; and hire a bike (£10 for three hours; to head to the Landgoed Rhijnauwen forest or the fairytale 19th-century Castle de Haar, with its moat and parkland (£7; Stay at the boutique Eye hotel, a converted 17th-century eye hospital with exposed beams, quirky artwork and an industrial feel. Details Two nights' B&B from £471pp, including train travel ( Time 3 hours 13 minutes Already connected by Eurostar, a new hourly high-speed service between Brussels and Rotterdam launched in December, making this cool Dutch city a weekend break no-brainer. In summer there are urban beaches, river cruises, waterfront bars and various lively festivals, including the free Caribbean street-party Rotterdam Summer Carnival (late Jul; and the foodie music festival CuliNesse (£37 for a one-day ticket, Aug 28-30; Take a bike tour to explore (£38; or see the city from its canals by renting a paddleboard (£13 for one hour; The nautical-themed Le Marin Hotel Rotterdam City is a ten-minute walk from the train station. Details Room-only doubles from £76 ( Take the train to Rotterdam via Brussels • 15 of the best things to do in Rotterdam Time 4 hours 28 minutesSlightly more than two hours northeast of Paris's Gare de l'Est by high-speed railway, Luxembourg City is easy to reach ( It has a Unesco-listed old town, ruined fortresses, seven world-class museums within a mile radius and free public transport. Go in August to witness both its Summer in the City festival, including free concerts, open-air plays and film screenings ( and the ten-acre Schueberfouer funfair (free, Aug 22-Sep 10; Stay opposite the train station at the Marriott Hotel Alfa, which opened last year in a 1930s building with art deco styling. It has a French brasserie and rooms with herringbone wooden floors, contemporary hanging lights and chic grey marble bathrooms. Details Room-only doubles from £176 ( Take the train to Luxembourg City via Paris Time 9 hours 11 minutesAfter a two-year closure caused by landslide damage, the direct seven-hour Paris to Milan route reopened in April, making travelling to Italy in a day (just) possible by train ( or Owned by the fashion house Ferragamo, Portrait Milano is a stylish special-occasion stay within Europe's oldest seminary, with a boutique-lined piazza and a swimming pool under a 16th-century vaulted ceiling. Look over the rooftops from the cathedral's terrace (from £13; then walk to the Naviglio district for a canal-side aperitivo. See another side of the city on a street-art tour (£41; or take a sun-soaked day trip to Lake Como, including a boat cruise (£86; Room-only doubles from £759 ( Take the train to Milan via Paris • Read more on Milan Time 3 hours 17 minutesOften overlooked for its better-known neighbour, Brussels, this port city makes a great weekend break with impressive museums, a trendy waterfront and open-air markets — plus you'll arrive into a station that's voted one of the world's most beautiful, either by regional train ( or on Eurostar ( Explore the busy port on a boat tour (£17; or visit the diamond museum DIVA (£10; Three-hour beer-themed walking tours reveal the city's boozy history (£38; or go for the free food and beer festival Bolleskesfeest (Aug 22-24; Botanic Sanctuary Antwerp is in a 13th-century monastery and has five restaurants with four Michelin stars, an apothecary and a 1,000 sq m spa. Details B&B doubles from £385 ( Take the train to Antwerp via Brussels Time 2 hours 2 minutesWith its high-end chocolatiers, antique markets and one of the most spectacular baroque squares in Europe, Brussels is more than just the home of the EU headquarters, and can be reached directly from London on Eurostar. Quirky attractions include a comic-strip mural trail, the world's largest art deco church and a new museum dedicated to Belgian fries (£12; Make the most of sunny days in the Bois de la Cambre park, with its forest trails, free-roaming deer and café only accessible by boat (£1 return; or in the city's alfresco bars including Rooftop 58, Europe's largest rooftop terrace ( The traditional Le Plaza Brussels is 15 minutes' walk from the Grand Two nights' room only from £307pp, including train travel ( Time 2 hours 49 minutesPop-up summer bars, lake swimming and open-air cultural events make this lesser-visited Flemish city in Belgium a surprisingly summery getaway, and it is only half an hour by train from Brussels. Time your visit to coincide with the Gent Jazz Festival (July 4-19, prices vary; or Bijloke Wonderland for free concerts and theatre shows (Aug 21-31; Or head to Blaarmeersen Sports and Recreation Park for kayaking, fishing and a sandy beach (£1; The best seasonal bars include Baraboire, in a converted American school bus (until Aug 31; Keiskantstraat), while the 40-room family-run Harmony hotel has its own waterfront terrace and an outdoor pool. Details Three nights' B&B from £568pp, including train travel and private car transfers ( • The lively overlooked alternative to Amsterdam — just two hours away by train Time 3 hours Known as the Venice of the north, Bruges is a Unesco-listed medieval city of gabled houses, baroque churches and cobbled squares an hour from Brussels on a regional train. Follow one of the free self-guided walks on the Visit Bruges app, then take in citywide views from the 13th-century Belfry or slink down pretty canals on a boat tour (£13; Try Belgium's famous beers on a brewery tour (£13; or enjoy a drink alfresco at one of Bruges' pop-up summer bars, including the Night with its beach area, food trucks and fairy-lit terrace (until August 22; The traditional Hotel Acacia is less than 20 minutes' walk from the station, close to the central Market Two nights' B&B from £378pp, including train travel ( Time 3 hours 10 minutesThere's history round every corner in Aachen, close to Germany's border with Belgium and an hour's train from Brussels. The Roman spa city with healing thermal waters was Emperor Charlemagne's 9th-century capital and hosted every German coronation for nearly 600 years. The Unesco-listed cathedral dates to the 9th century (free; while the Centre Charlemagne museum charts the city's extraordinary past (£8; Take a dip in the thermal baths (£15; and stock up on Printen gingerbread souvenirs at Nobis Printen ( The minimalist INNSiDE Aachen hotel is a ten-minute walk from the cathedral and has a rooftop restaurant with city views. Details Two nights' B&B from £377pp, including train travel ( Time 4 hoursBest known for its Christmas markets, Cologne is also a delight in summer with its riverside walks, Unesco-listed gothic cathedral and riverside beach clubs, and is less than two hours by train from Brussels. Saunter along the banks of the Rhine or take a boat trip (£15; then wander the 11.5-hectare Flora Park with its botanical garden and water-lily pond (free; The best spots for sundowners include the km 689 Cologne Beach Club with its white sand and cathedral views (free entry; and Blackfoot Beach for stand-up paddleboarding and barbecues (SUP rental £15 an hour; The five-star Excelsior Ernst is opposite the railway station and has a Michelin-starred Asian Three nights' B&B from £978pp, including train travel ( Time 10 hours, 20 minutesA high-speed train linking Paris and Berlin launched late last year and runs once daily in each direction, on a route that whizzes through Champagne's vineyards and the Vosges mountains in France then along the Spree River in Germany ( Tour the five museums on Museum Island, which celebrates its 200th anniversary this year (day tickets £20; or try city-centre swimming at Ku'damm Beach on Halensee Lake. During summer, the 519-acre Tiergarten Park has boat rentals, shady picnic spots and a lakeside beer garden strung with fairy lights. Stay at the Radisson Collection Hotel Berlin, which reopened in February after a two-year closure and is a five-minute stroll from Museum Island. Details Room-only doubles from £120 ( Take the train to Berlin via Paris • Berlin, Germany travel guide | The Times and The Sunday Times Time 5 hours 20 minutes No city does summer quite like Basel, three hours from Paris by TGV. Bathing in the historic fountains of the 15th-century old town is a long-standing tradition, as is floating two miles down the Rhine with your belongings in a colourful waterproof bag called a Wickelfisch (£9 for 24-hour rental from the tourist office; There's a three-mile sculpture trail between Switzerland and Germany, 40 museums and galleries, and open-air film screenings during August in the historic Münsterplatz courtyard (£14; Stay a ten-minute walk from the Rhine in Aparthotel Adagia Basel City, which has modern apartments with kitchenettes and a communal gym. Details Two nights' B&B from £880pp, including train travel ( Time 5 hours 38 minutesOnce the Alpine skiing season is over, Geneva shifts its focus to its 45-mile-long lake, which has watersports, beaches and alfresco bars, and is just over three hours by high-speed train from Paris ( Try windsurfing (£29 an hour; cruise across the lake on a belle époque steamer (£17; or head to Geneva Plage to take a dip (£6; There are also hiking trails just outside the city, or you can join a tuk-tuk tour of local vineyards (£343 for up to four people; Ruby Claire Hotel Geneva is steps from the waterfront and has two roof terraces for drinks on warm Room-only doubles from £249 ( Take the train to Geneva via Paris Time 10 hoursWhizz through France on high-speed TGV from Paris and you'll be in Spain by dinner. You can book up to 11 months ahead for a table at three-Michelin-star El Celler de Can Roca, run by the three Roca brothers 15 minutes from town ( or waltz straight into Rocambolesc, a gelateria from the youngest sibling Jordi ( Burn it off by strolling the medieval city walls, signing up for a walking tour of Game of Thrones filming locations (£25; or hiring a bike to explore the foothills of the Pyrenees (£67; Stay in the 19th-century Hotel Peninsular, less than ten minutes' walk from the city walls. Details Four nights' B&B from £1,085pp, including train travel and private transfers ( Time 9 hours 10 minutesSit back and watch France's Rhône Valley and the Pyrenees fly by on a high-speed double-decker TGV from Paris, which runs up to four times a day and takes less than seven hours, so you'll be sipping sangria come sundown ( Go for the free week-long La Fiesta de Gracia's street parties and food stalls (Aug 15-21; for open-air cinema screenings and live music at Sala Montjuic (£6; Jun 27-Aug 6; or to lounge on Sant Sebastia beach, in walking distance of the city centre. Moxy Barcelona opened late last year and is right next to the main train station, with a rooftop pool and burger-serving Room-only doubles from £170 ( Take the train to Barcelona via Paris • 22 of the best things to do in Barcelona Time 15 hoursIt's not the quickest journey, but if you travel overnight each way, Prague is doable in a long weekend on the direct thrice-weekly sleeper train from Brussels that launched last year ( Almanac X Alcron Prague is ten minutes' walk from the station and has a new package to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the passenger train this year, including a picnic for the return journey and extras like silk sleep masks. The Old Town is on the doorstep with its new Mucha Museum that showcases the work of the Czech painter Alphonse Mucha (£10; or walk half an hour to Letna Park for the Letni Letna circus and theatre festival (prices vary, Aug 13-31; Details Two nights' B&B from £620 for two, including one dinner and a train picnic ( Take the train to Prague via Brussels • 15 of the best hotels in Prague
France 24
2 days ago
- Business
- France 24
South Korea's Lee urges parliament to approve 'supplementary budget' to boost economy
05:18 From the show South Korean President Lee Jae-myung spoke to parliament this Thursday for the first time since taking office, and asked the legislature to approve a 30.5 trillion won (€19.2 billion) supplementary budget aimed at reviving the economy. US President Donald Trump's tariff war has hit South Korea's export-driven economy hard, with GDP growth forecasts for 2025 recently slashed from 1.5 percent to 0.8 percent. Also in this edition: cabling thefts in northern France severely disrupt train services, including the Eurostar between London and Paris.
Roya News
2 days ago
- Roya News
Eurostar trains resume operations after major cable theft
Eurostar has resumed normal operations after a large-scale theft of signal cable in northern France severely disrupted services between the UK and mainland Europe, stranding thousands of travelers and sparking concerns about potential sabotage. The incident unfolded early Wednesday when 600 meters of essential signaling cable was discovered either stolen or deliberately severed near Lille Europe station, a critical hub linking London with Paris, Brussels, and Amsterdam. The damage prompted widespread delays and cancellations, with passengers advised to cancel or postpone their journeys. 'Due to the theft, our trains were likely to be subject to severe delays and last-minute cancellations,' Eurostar said in a morning alert to customers. 'Our stations are very busy, and we advise you to cancel or postpone your trip.' Eurostar offered full refunds and free exchanges as technicians rushed to the scene. By the afternoon, a team of 15 engineers had completed emergency repairs, and services slowly began returning to normal. The disruption triggered chaos at London's St Pancras station, where confused and frustrated passengers gathered, many unsure of the status of their trips. 'It has been a nightmare. It's been pretty shocking,' said Ed, a 41-year-old renewable energy worker who was traveling with his colleague Paul, 37, to a meeting in Paris. 'The app basically said: 'Your journey is being disrupted', but they didn't say: 'Your train is definitely cancelled', so it's been quite confusing and we're wondering if we will still get our money back.' A couple in their 70s from Coventry, whose holiday plans were thrown into disarray, described waiting all day for updates. 'We had our train cancelled this morning and we've been waiting most of the day for Eurostar to make alternative arrangements,' they said, adding that they were planning to fly to Spain from Gatwick instead. By 4 PM, some semblance of order had returned to the station, with one train to Brussels departing with only a 35-minute delay. French police have launched a formal investigation. Forensic teams were deployed near Mont-de-Terre station, where the theft occurred along tracks between Lille and Lezennes. The French regional rail network, TER Hauts-de-France, confirmed that cable specialists worked throughout the day to install replacements. According to SNCF, the national rail operator, the repairs required reconnecting approximately 15 wires within each cable, 'meticulous work,' a spokesperson noted. The disruption comes on the heels of another incident in the Netherlands, where a power outage affecting around 30 rail cables disrupted service near Schiphol Airport, just 50km from the NATO summit in The Hague. Dutch Justice Minister David van Weel suggested the possibility of sabotage, telling reporters: 'The question is who is behind it. It can be an activist group, it can be a country.' Wednesday's incident follows a deadly Tuesday on the same Lille-Paris route, when two unrelated fatalities led to day-long shutdowns. Similar rail sabotage was reported in Spain last month, where stolen signal cable disrupted tens of thousands of journeys during a busy holiday weekend. As investigations continue, security concerns are mounting around key infrastructure, particularly with international events such as the NATO summit drawing geopolitical attention.
Times
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Times
80 best books to take on holiday this summer — chosen by the experts
Whether you're jetting off to Bali, hopping on the Eurostar to the Continent or planning a staycation to make the most of our balmy British summer, you're going to want a holiday read. Luckily, the books team have put their heads together to come up with the best novels and non-fiction titles to accompany you on the sun lounger. There are gripping thrillers, steamy romances, big fat histories and engrossing memoirs, both brand new hardbacks and some more lounge-friendly paperbacks. What are you planning to read this summer? Let us know in the comments below. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's first novel in 12 years is a big, ambitious, scintillating ensemble piece about four African women living on both sides of the Atlantic who are connected by blood, friendship and employment. It's a comedy of manners about female experience, from bad boyfriends to genital mutilation. But for all its moments of darkness, the novel has an irresistible vitality that hooks you from the first page. It reads like a feminist War and Peace.4th Estate £20 pp416Buy a copy of Dream Count Kaliane Bradley's fish-out-of-water rom-com has a winning premise. A group of refugees from different eras are dragged into a laboratory in 21st-century London, where a new ministry is testing the limits of time travel. The narrator, a young British-Cambodian civil servant, is paired with Commander Gore, a cigar-smoking polar explorer from the Victorian era who must get to grips with everything from feminism to falafels. The book's combination of whimsy and seriousness works £9.99 pp368Buy a copy of The Ministry of Time In My Father's House, Joseph O'Connor brought to life the world of Nazi-occupied Rome, as an Irish priest, Hugh O'Flaherty, smuggled fugitives out to safety. In this follow-up, set a few months later, the tension doesn't slack an inch. When a parachutist descends into the Colosseum, it sets off a chain reaction involving a widowed young aristocrat, a singer and the head of the Gestapo. It is haunting, sensuous and immaculately constructed — without sacrificing any Secker £20 pp384Buy a copy of The Ghosts of Rome Miranda July practically invented a new genre of perimenopause fiction with this deliriously playful novel about midlife transformation. An artist in her mid-forties leaves her husband and child to embark on a three-week road trip to New York, but only makes it to a motel outside Los Angeles, where she lusts after a young Hertz rental car employee, whose wife she employs to redecorate her room. A strangely touching tale about a woman prepared to pay a high price for her sexual £9.99 pp400Buy a copy of All Fours A powerful account of the aftermath of the 1958 Munich air disaster that killed half of a brilliant young Manchester United team. The author of The Damned United, who can squeeze more poetry and tension out of a team sheet than any other living writer, reveals the details of what happened in the fabled crash. Faithful to the language of the place and time, David Peace gives a sense of the distinctive communities out of which Manchester United was £9.99 pp480Buy a copy of Munichs Sally Rooney made her name as the master of complicated, yearning romantic entanglements between people with terrible communication skills. There's still plenty of that in her latest novel, Intermezzo, but the focus is on two brothers, Peter and Ivan, who have recently lost their father. Peter is a high-achieving lawyer while Ivan is a socially awkward chess whizz — they must navigate their tricky relationship with each other, while also handling some typically Rooneyan £9.99 pp448Buy a copy of Intermezzo • Sally Rooney in her own words: 'I'm fighting a cultural battle' In Killybegs in 1973, a man can do three things: be a fisherman, work in a fish factory or drive the fish to buyers. But when a baby boy is discovered in a barrel floating close to shore, the place acquires an air of magic. In Garrett Carr's wise and witty debut we follow that boy, Brendan, and his adoptive family. But the book is expansive, too, with a chorus for a narrator and delightfully well-rounded minor characters. It's an ode to Donegal and its no-nonsense £16.99 pp336Buy a copy of The Boy from the Sea With a greasy fried egg flopped on to the cover, Gunk is the It novel to be seen with on the beach this summer. But it's more than its aesthetic. Written by the 29-year-old Brit (and mother of three) Saba Sams, it's a tale of unconventional parenthood and the fuzzy lines between friend and lover. Set around a grotty Brighton nightclub (the eponymous 'Gunk'), it follows thirtysomething Jules as she navigates working with her loser ex-husband, Leon, and the new, enigmatic barmaid £16.99 pp240Buy a copy of Gunk David Nicholls's most satisfying love story yet is full of longing and doubt, of crap English B&Bs and soggy hikes. It centres on two lonely people thrown together on Alfred Wainwright's famous coast-to-coast walk. Michael, a geography teacher mourning the end of his marriage, and Marnie, a divorced copy editor, are given a second chance at love when a mutual friend invites them on a group holiday, only to abandon them. Nicholls hits the sweet spot between pathos and £9.99 pp368Buy a copy of You Are Here • How I wrote One Day — the bestseller that changed my life After the phenomenal success of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Rachel Joyce has been widely appreciated as an author of quiet, often older lives. In The Homemade God she changes tack, instead following the family holiday of Vic Kemp, a popular but ageing artist, and his children: Goose, Susan, Iris and Netta. As the sun beats down on their mansion on an Italian lake, the holiday threatens to spoil — particularly with the appearance of Vic's young new wife, £20 pp384Buy a copy of The Homemade God If you're looking for literary value, Dream State is basically three novels for the price of one. We start off in 2004 as Cece plans her wedding to Charlie, with the help of his best friend Garrett. But what begins as a high-stakes love triangle tale transforms into an engrossing family saga, spanning 50 years. The magnetic pull between the three characters is enough to sustain a third plotline: the devastating effect of climate change on Montana and the life they have built £18.99 pp448Buy a copy of Dream State Shy Creatures contains many of the same winning ingredients as Clare Chambers's whirlwind 2020 bestseller, Small Pleasures: a hardworking heroine in her thirties, an extramarital affair, a freakish real-life mystery and an undercurrent of sex and danger. Set in 1960s Croydon, it tells the story of an art therapist working in a psychiatric hospital who is trying to help a young man whose spinster aunts have kept him locked away for several & Nicolson £9.99 pp400Buy a copy of Shy Creatures How do you write a ghost story for Gen Z? Make it about the horrors of London's housing market, of course. In Róisín Lanigan's smart, pacey debut, a young couple, Áine and Elliot, are shocked when they find a one-bed flat to rent at a reasonable price. But then mould begins to bloom across the walls, the heating is terrible and Áine becomes afraid of glaring neighbours whom Elliot can never seem to see. This is a sharp and witty read, best enjoyed far from damp and oversized Tree £16.99 pp288Buy a copy of I Want to Go Home but I'm Already There This is a fantastically original revenge drama about Cumbrian sheep farmers. Set during the foot-and-mouth disease crisis in 2001, this dark, visceral debut is a blood-soaked 'English western' narrated by Steve Elliman, a brooding truck driver who is drawn back to his father's farm. The novel begins bloodily: Steve and his neighbouring farmer, William Herne, are forced to slaughter and burn all livestock within three miles of the outbreak. A thrilling, cinematic book full of black Murray £10.99 pp272Buy a copy of The Borrowed Hills Looking for something a little bit … filthy? Try Paperboy, the Scottish crime writer Callum McSorley's follow-up to Squeaky Clean, where the (slightly incompetent) detective Ali McCoist has to solve the murder of a lawyer. Meanwhile, she's bumping up against some of Glasgow's worst gangsters — and trying to make it out alive. This energetic novel from a rising star of crime is full of black comedy, gore, slapstick and street Vertigo £16.99 pp384Buy a copy of Paperboy The video game designer Holly Gramazio has produced a satire on the Tinder generation's commitment issues that takes a clever concept and turns it into one of the most inventive debut novels in years. Thirtysomething Lauren returns home drunk from a hen do to discover that her flat has a magical attic that generates a revolving door of husbands. When she tires of one spouse, she can summon another, just as long as she can coax the rejected man into the £9.99 pp368Buy a copy of The Husbands • The Sunday Times Bestsellers List — the UK's definitive book chart There was a lot of scepticism in the air when Nick Harkaway, the son of John le Carré, announced that he was resurrecting George Smiley, but he has pulled it off with brio and an air of effortlessness. Karla's Choice is set in the ten-year gap between The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. A Russian agent arrives to kill a Hungarian publisher in Primrose Hill but realises he can't do it. All roads, Smiley discovers, lead to his KGB nemesis, £9.99 pp320Buy a copy of Karla's Choice Jessica Stanley's novel combines romance with brutal realism as it follows Coralie, an Aussie expat in London, as she falls in love with Adam. It's all going well until Adam gets his dream job as political sketch writer at The Times and their life is taken over by Brexit, squabbles and appearances on The Andrew Marr Show. Coralie, meanwhile, feels 'like a widow without the sympathy'. A wickedly funny tale about ambition, parenthood and long-term Heinemann £16.99 pp352Buy a copy of Consider Yourself Kissed • The best books of 2025 so far — our critics' picks Vincenzo Latronico's ingenious satire on Insta-friendly millennial living has become one of the buzziest books of 2025 — and it's only 120 pages. Anna and Tom are members of the 21st-century creative class living in a fashionable Berlin neighbourhood in the early 2010s. We learn about them through the images they present and the items they own — a Japanese teapot, a Berber rug and houseplants. So many houseplants. It's a horribly compelling tale of commodity £12.99 pp120Buy a copy of Perfection The first book in a crime series by the granddaughter of Kim Philby, who is celebrated for her espionage novels. Dirty Money features a winning duo in DS Madeleine Farrow, a successful operative in a government agency, and Ramona Chang, a former investigative journalist trying to make it as a private detective. In this story, which spans dingy east London and upmarket Marylebone, Farrow is investigating the wife of an oligarch from Kazakhstan and Chang is getting to the bottom of a dodgy dating site. Baskerville £16.99 pp320Buy a copy of Dirty Money A radical and funny reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain that was shortlisted for the Booker prize. It's told from the perspective of the seemingly placid slave, Jim, who we discover is only pretending to be superstitious and illiterate so his white masters aren't threatened by him. Percival Everett subverts and enlarges Twain's classic to produce a thrilling, canon-shattering £9.99 pp320Buy a copy of James If you don't mind crying on the beach then pack a copy of The Names. In this (deservedly) hyped debut Cora must take her baby boy to be registered. Her abusive husband wants him to be named Gordon, after himself. Their daughter, Maia, likes Bear as a name, while Cora is drawn to Julian. Florence Knapp's novel then splits into three, following the family through the twists of fate set in motion by each name. Prepare to be irritated by anyone who interrupts your £16.99 pp352Buy a copy of The Names It's 1891 in the mining town of Butte, Montana. A young Irish immigrant called Tom Rourke works as a photographer by day and prowls the town's bars and brothels by night. But when he has to photograph Polly Gillespie, the mail-order bride of the mine captain, it's love at first sight. The pair soon decide to get the hell out of Dodge. The Heart in Winter is a hot-blooded, chaotic wonder of a novel, written in Kevin Barry's typically inventive £9.99 pp224Buy a copy of The Heart in Winter 'Bridget Jones goes to Iraq' is probably the simplest way to explain this hilarious debut novel. Thirtysomething Nadia is heading up a UN programme to deradicalise Isis brides in Iraq. That sounds pretty harrowing, but this is an utterly riotous satire as our hapless protagonist runs into a sweary east London Isis bride (who jokes about the sexual proclivities of Osama bin Laden). When you're not giggling you'll find yourself thinking differently about this most divisive of & Nicolson £16.99 pp336Buy a copy of Fundamentally • 'I could have been an Isis bride': Nussaibah Younis on making fun of extremism Colm Tóibín's enthralling sequel to his acclaimed novel Brooklyn reunites us with Eilis 20 years later, in the 1970s. The girl from Co Wexford is now a middle-aged woman living in Long Island, New York, with her children and husband, whom she learns has made another woman pregnant. The revelation causes Eilis to head back to Ireland, where she goes in search of Jim, a shy publican whom she once loved. Tóibín dramatises secrecy and its consequences better than almost any other contemporary £9.99 pp368Buy a copy of Long Island • Colm Tóibín: a writer's last work has a special intensity This is a novel about Yugoslavia's civil war but seen through a specific lens. In 1989 a teenage girl, Silva, disappears from a village on the Dalmatian coast. But the fall of communism and the rise of unrest means that the investigation to find her slows to a halt. It is fascinating how Jurica Pavicic, who is from Split, tracks the impact of the missing girl and of the political situation on ordinary people in the village — her parents, a friend, the Lemon £9.99 pp402Buy a copy of Red Water If you're searching for proper escapism, why not head to the 1480s? John Collan, a peasant boy, has his life upended when an aristocrat sweeps him away to Oxford, claiming that John is really the Earl of Warwick, with a claim to the throne. Based on the real life of Lambert Simnel, a pretender to the throne, Jo Harkin's novel is touching and hilarious. She has immense sympathy for John as he tries to figure out who he really £18.99 pp464Buy a copy of The Pretender Robert Harris's 16th novel is a riveting tale of politics, war and erotic obsession centred on the prime minister HH Asquith and his vivacious aristocratic mistress Venetia Stanley. At the time of their all-consuming intimacy in 1914, he was 61 and she was 26 and, extraordinarily, Stanley became Asquith's 'most darling counsellor' as his Liberal government faced devastating battle losses and ammunition shortages. Penguin £9.99 pp544Buy a copy of Precipice Yael van der Wouden's steamy, twisty debut about forbidden love and the heavy burden of history has just won the Women's Prize for Fiction. It follows Isabel, a young woman living alone in her deceased mother's home in 1960s Holland. Her quiet, controlled life is interrupted by Eva, her brother's girlfriend, who comes to stay for a month and disrupts everything Isabel thinks about herself, her family and the country she lives in. There's an incredible twist about halfway £9.99 pp272Buy a copy of The Safekeep Management consulting and tidal energy start-ups … I know, I know, it doesn't scream 'beach read'. But Alexander Starritt's third novel will have you hooked. It's a tale of two promising young men, James Drayton and Roland McKenzie, who graduate from Oxford in the early 2000s and enjoy the promises and pitfalls of 21st-century capitalism, from the recession to Covid, from Brexit to Trump. More than that it's an ode to the enduring power of male £16.99 pp512Buy a copy of Drayton and Mackenzie Butter is a feminist crime novel with a delicious premise. Manako Kajii is sitting in prison, convicted of murdering men whom she had dated and swindled out of millions of yen before poisoning them with beef stew. To get close to Manako, the reporter Rika Machida agrees to start cooking all her favourite recipes. This is a full-fat, Michelin-starred treat that moves seamlessly between an angry young woman narrative and an engrossing detective drama and back again.4th Estate £9.99 pp464Buy a copy of Butter David Szalay, the author of Booker-shortlisted All That Man Is, has adopted a leaner, sparer style of writing for his latest beguiling novel, which tracks one man's life over 50 years. He follows an inscrutable Hungarian called Istvan from awkward adolescence, when he had an affair with an older neighbour, into middle-age as an intensely wealthy man in London. It's tense, unnerving and charged throughout with a sense of the fragility of our Cape £18.99 pp368Buy a copy of Flesh A quietly powerful story of a woman searching for the daughter she gave up for adoption. Dawn, a recently divorced Londoner who grew up in Trinidad, has spent years trying to track down the daughter she secretly gave birth to as a teenager. She became pregnant in 1980 and was smuggled to a convent in Venezuela, where she handed the baby over to nuns. A tender story about a woman trying to make sense of her life, it reads like a Claire Keegan story expanded by Elizabeth £16.99 pp304Buy a copy of Love Forms Moses McKenzkie's vivid, witty, exuberant novel goes back to 1980, to a defining moment in Bristol's history, when many of the residents of St Pauls were clashing with the police over the treatment of the Afro-Caribbean community. It's narrated in a propulsive patois by 14-year-old Jabari, whose father, a Rastafarian community leader, has been thrown in a police cell. It's an electric novel about black £10.99 pp256Buy a copy of Fast by the Horns • The Sunday Times Young Writer award: meet our shortlisted authors If you're heading to Capri, why not pack this superlative crime novel, which contrasts the area's rugged landscapes and high-end visitors? It centres on the wealthy Lingate family, who have been holidaying there for ever, even though Richard Lingate's wife died there 30 years ago, falling from a cliff. When his wife's necklace reappears (with a blackmail note demanding millions), long-buried secrets threaten to float to the £16.99 pp336Buy a copy of The Vipers Gail's daughter is about to get married despite significant qualms, and her annoying ex-husband has forgotten to book a hotel (and brought along a cat). All that would be manageable if she hadn't just quit her job (or been sacked, depending on who you ask). Anne Tyler's latest novel is a joy to read as she once again transforms the problems of ordinary people living ordinary lives into something funny, touching and real. It's also short — you could get through it on a long-haul & Windus £14.99 pp176Buy a copy of Three Days in June This darkly funny book about power, manipulation and complicity in the 1930s feels very relevant to the present-day political climate. It's about the small compromises that led the Austrian film director GW Pabst to accept fascism. Having fled the shadow of the German Reich to Hollywood, he was forced to return to Germany to create propaganda films for the Nazis. Daniel Kehlmann is strong on how quickly fear and corruption become £22 pp352Buy a copy of The Director This powerful portrayal of coercive control follows Ciara, who decides to leave her husband, Ryan, one afternoon after years of emotional and sexual abuse. At the time she flees her daughters are two and four and she has just discovered she's pregnant again. But she doesn't get very far after Ryan manages to block her children's passports. With skill and economy Roisín O'Donnell puts you inside the dilemmas of a woman who is constantly doubting herself. Scribner £16.99 pp400Buy a copy of Nesting The set-up of Louise Hegarty's debut seems simple: Abigail is hosting an annual murder mystery party held on New Year's Eve to celebrate the birthday of her brother, Benjamin. As morning dawns Benjamin, of course, is dead. Cue the arrival of Auguste Bell, a private detective plucked straight from the pages of an Agatha Christie novel. We flick between a meta murder-mystery comedy and the very real grief of Abigail. A great read for any murder mystery £16.99 pp288Buy a copy of Fair Play It's the summer of 1989 in rural 'horses-and-beeswax' New England and after convening at the house of their childless Aunt Frankie, nine children must find their cousin, three-year-old Abi, who has chased a wild creature. This short, ambitious, surreal debut novel is written in the first person plural, representing the gulf between a motley group of young cousins and their bickering parents, who harbour secrets and Heinemann £16.99 pp192Buy a copy of Idle Grounds Geoff Dyer's memoir of growing up in 1960s and 1970s Cheltenham as part of an ordinary working-class family is wonderfully evocative, ranging from his love of Eagle and Beezer comics to The Generation Game playing on television and the 'slop' of school dinners. Dyer writes especially movingly about his parents, and how his life became 'incommunicable' to them after he passed the 11-plus and later left home. 'If you've read Dyer before then you'll need no persuasion to read this book. If you haven't, it's the perfect place to start,' John Self said in his review. Canongate £20 pp288Buy a copy of Homework Max Hastings first wrote about the world-changing events of June 6, 1944, in his book Overlord, in 1984. This new one approaches the Allied invasion of Normandy from the bottom up; it's less interested in generals and geopolitics and instead focuses on individual soldiers, in particular the British men who landed on Sword Beach. He carefully sketches their characters, often by describing the things they carried. Lieutenant Alan Jefferson, for instance, took a tuning fork and a copy of Hamlet. Signaller Finlay Campbell carried a fountain pen — given to him for his 21st birthday. A thoroughly moving history. William Collins £25 pp400Buy a copy of Sword When 29-year-old Lamorna Ash heard that two of her university pals had given up their careers in stand-up comedy to become Anglican priests, it prompted her to undertake a nationwide search for other young people who were turning (or returning) to religion. Ash throws herself fully into this investigation of faith, saying yes to everything from a Bible course to a silent retreat. 'It is not only a fascinating sociological study and religious memoir, but a profound look at the power of ritual and communion with others,' Laura Hackett said in her review. Bloomsbury Circus £22 pp352Buy a copy of Don't Forget We're Here Forever Muriel Spark knew as a schoolgirl that she was 'destined' to write, that she had to take up her pen 'or else burst'. In a new biography of the great 20th-century author, known best for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Frances Wilson reveals that Spark had a life almost as strange and offbeat as her novels. At 19 she moved from Edinburgh and got married in southern Rhodesia, but within two years, she'd run off to London to be general secretary of the Poetry Society, abandoning her young son. There she had a breakdown — partly brought about by diet pills — and became convinced that TS Eliot was stalking her. A woman with a brilliant, uncanny Circus £25 pp432Buy a copy of Electric Spark 'So it's you. Here you are.' That's what crossed Salman Rushdie's mind as a man in black climbed on to the stage at a literary event in New York state in 2022 and stabbed him many times. His 'almost murder' lasted 27 seconds, but Rushdie had been anticipating it for decades, ever since the Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Khomeini called for his death in 1989. This affecting memoir chronicles exactly what happened that day, as well as Rushdie's long, arduous recovery. Vintage £10.99 pp224Buy a copy of Knife • Salman Rushdie: I am 'over my attack' and have found closure This history investigates pop's greatest bromance: John Lennon and Paul McCartney. It begins in 1957, when 16-year-old Lennon invited McCartney, a year and a half his junior, to get involved with his skiffle group. The journey from there to global domination is familiar, but there's a freshness to this most recent telling, and Ian Leslie is particularly knowledgeable when it comes to the key songs and records. 'This is a wonderful contribution to the ever-growing Beatles library,' our reviewer £25 pp432Buy a copy of John and Paul This is both a memoir of a divorce and a sweeping cultural commentary. Starting with the enormous heart-shaped tin she used to bake her wedding cake — now a painful reminder of her separation from her husband after 23 years of marriage — Bee Wilson proves that it's not unusual for the things we keep in our kitchens to develop outsized sentimental value. Melon ballers, milk jugs and vegetable corers all have something to tell us. A fascinating and heartwarming read.4th Estate £18.99 pp320Buy a copy of The Heart-Shaped Tin Hares are too often dismissed as big ugly rabbits, but with her gentle yet remarkably detached memoir, telling how she found an abandoned leveret during lockdown and raised the little beast inside her home, Chloe Dalton sets the record straight in her unexpected bestseller. The supposedly untameable creature gets so comfortable in human company that Dalton even installs a hare-flap in her back door. It reads like a love letter to the natural world. Canongate £10.99 pp304Buy a copy of Raising Hare • Chloe Dalton: My father read Joseph Conrad to us at the kitchen table Few motherhood memoirs start with coke dealers and edibles, but Sarah Hoover's curious contribution to the canon is different. It opens with a candid admission that 'the last line of my baby shower invitation said no gifts unless it's drugs', and proceeds to repeatedly flip the bird at a society that expects women to be natural mothers and believe their children are the most precious things that exist. When Hoover's son arrived in October 2017, she admits with refreshing candour, she just thought he was ugly. A frank, often funny account of a reluctant & Schuster £20 pp352Buy a copy of The Motherload In this eccentric mash-up of biography, history and memoir, Philip Hoare reveals how the Romantic visionary William Blake made the world a more strange and beautiful place. If you're after a straight-up account of the poet-artist's life, this isn't for you. But if you want an account that pinballs from his influence on Oscar Wilde, to David Bowie's pop videos, then on to the author getting drunk with Peter Ackroyd, then onwards to an account of looking at the world through Blake's spectacles, then this is the book for you. Robert Douglas-Fairhurst in his review described it 'as one of the most original and uncategorisable works I've read for a long time … Get ready to see it on some important prize shortlists this year.'4th Estate £22 pp464Buy a copy of William Blake and the Sea Monsters of Love Between 1964 and 1973, the psychiatrist William Sargant was in charge of the in-patient psychiatric unit in St Thomas's Hospital, London. The unit came to be known as 'The Sleep Room', because Sargant drugged his female patients so they would be unconscious for up to 20 hours a day, waking them up only to administer electroconvulsive therapy. In this shocking yet thorough investigation, Jon Stock speaks to some of the women who were admitted to the ward, uncovering the truth about this abuse of power. Bridge Street £25 pp432Buy a copy of The Sleep Room By all accounts, Eric Tucker's life didn't amount to much. Born in Warrington, Lancashire, he left school at 14 and spent his life drifting between jobs, including labouring, sign painting and, for a little while, grave digging. It was only after he died that his nephew Joe discovered a treasure trove of impressive paintings, which Tucker had completed across many years. In this loving memoir, Joe paints a portrait of his uncle, who would later be labelled as 'the secret Lowry'.Canongate £18.99 pp224Buy a copy of The Secret Painter Except for their literary prowess, what do Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Townsend Warner and Rosamond Lehmann have in common? Each moved to rural England after personal tragedy. In this charming, vivid portrait of the three 20th-century figures, which won this year's Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, Harriet Baker explains how the countryside was, more than just an escape, a means of carrying out 'new experiments in form, and feeling'. Penguin £10.99 pp384Buy a copy of Rural Hours Worldwide, nearly twice as many adolescents reported loneliness in 2018 compared with 2012. In England, NHS records show that more than 10,000 girls under 18 were treated in hospital for self-harm in 2010 and that by 2016 it was nearly 15,000. In The Anxious Generation, the American psychologist Jonathan Haidt makes the almost unanswerable case that the root of such tragic trends is the spread (and constant use) of smartphones. Rather than hanging out with friends, the youth of today are isolated in their bedrooms, scrolling through social media content that frequently includes toxic information. This is a dispiriting but essential read about a large and looming social £10.99 pp464Buy a copy of The Anxious Generation • Jonathan Haidt: How we can save our children from smartphones In her jaw-dropping memoir, the self-confessed sociopath Patric Gagne explains what it's like to experience emotions differently to the average person, piecing together the events from her early life that first made her think that she might be immune to the pangs of guilt, remorse and affection that guide most ordinary people's actions. Cat-strangling, carjacking, lock picking and a party at Hugh Hefner's Playboy mansion feature in this eye-opening cocktail of pop psychology and shocking personal £10.99 pp368Buy a copy of Sociopath The author best known for The Buddha of Suburbia had his life changed by an unlikely accident in 2022, when he passed out, slumped off his sofa and snapped his spinal cord. It left him paralysed, unable to walk or even to wash himself. In just a few weeks, however, his writing impulse returned. This memoir combines the notes he took in hospital, dictated to family members, and post-accident reflections on becoming a 'near vegetable'. It makes for uncomfortable reading, but is full of wisdom about freedom and self-renewal. Penguin, £10.99 pp336Buy a copy of Shattered • Hanif Kureishi: The accident left me 'like a turtle on its back' In 2011 Sarah Wynn-Williams joined Facebook as an optimistic young New Zealander. She left seven years later, disillusioned by what she sees as the tech company's moral corruption. In Careless People she turns whistleblower, alleging that Facebook has crept up to dictatorships and manipulated algorithms to prey on the insecurities of its users in its ruthless pursuit of money and power. 'It started as a hopeful comedy and ended up in darkness and regret,' she writes. The book, our reviewer said, is at once 'compelling and depressing'.Macmillan £22 pp400Buy a copy of Careless People The world's oceans contain 97 per cent of all water on the planet, and yet us landlubberly humans only glimpse the top of them. Except for the marine biologist Drew Harvell, that is, who has spent a lifetime donning scuba gear and risking the unseen dangers beneath the surface to get up close and personal with the creatures that live there. In this enchanting book she uses the complex histories of eight underwater creatures to showcase the mind-boggling variety of marine life, from nine-brained octopuses to phosphorescent sea gooseberries and gunge-busting sponges. Bodley Head £20 pp288Buy a copy of The Ocean's Menagerie New York jazz, London punk, hip-hop: Neneh Cherry has moved through enough music scenes to have material for a dozen books. But in this, her first memoir, the 61-year-old Swedish singer offers a brilliant insight into the joys — and the perils — of a creative life. The influences of her mother, the bohemian artist Moki, and her stepfather, the jazz trumpeter Don Cherry, are key — and explain why, as a child, she was given a Toblerone by Miles Davis — but she proves with gusto that she has her own tales to £10.99 pp336Buy a copy of A Thousand Threads This quirky biography tells the story of Louis Wain, the troubled artist who carved out a career as a cat cartoonist for the illustrated press, before ending up in a lunatic asylum where he drew bright, kaleidoscopic kittens decades before they became popular (Sixties pop artists loved them). Alongside this, Kathryn Hughes gives us a social history of the cat, how it went from unloved mouse catcher to the most pampered of pets. One thing we learnt: there is a long tradition of giving felines lamentable names — Thomas Hardy, who really ought to have known better, had one called Kiddlewinkpoops-Trot. 4th Estate £10.99 pp416Buy a copy of Catland Many books about the world wars are depressingly inelegant, but Jonathan Dimbleby's works are in a different league. This titanic account of the Eastern Front in 1944 covers an enormous canvas from the Baltic to the Black Sea, but it's the human details that linger in the mind, from the panic of German soldiers driven back through the snow to the doomed heroism of Warsaw's resistance fighters. Despite the harrowing subject matter, Dimbleby handles his material with such skill and wisdom that his book is a pleasure to £10.99 pp640Buy a copy of Endgame The paperback of this Baillie Gifford-shortlisted book comes out on July 3. It's timely. It's a non-fiction, tick-tocking thriller that imagines how a nuclear war might start and then unfold. Well, at least the end will be quick: it could take as little as 26 minutes and 40 seconds before the Earth becomes uninhabitable once the rockets start flying. Annie Jacobsen's account isn't based on fancy; she has interviewed dozens of military experts to make her various scenarios as plausible as possible. Mark Urban described it as an 'undeniably gripping narrative', which perhaps explains why Denis Villeneuve, the Dune director, is adapting it for the screen. Penguin £10.99 pp400Buy a copy of Nuclear War Why did the French Revolution happen? One could examine bread prices or the manoeuverings in conventions and assemblies — or maybe it would be more fruitful to get a sense of the national mood. The distinguished historian Robert Darnton does just that — he casts his eye over poems, gossip, scandal sheets, the bonnets that women wore and the songs that were sung to get a sense of the 'revolutionary temper'. He juxtaposes highfalutin philosophy with low rumour, showing how one blended into the other, to explain how revolution erupted in 1789. 'This book is, quite simply, a feast, but one that, thanks to superb storytelling, is easy to digest,' Gerard DeGroot £16.99 pp576Buy a copy of The Revolutionary Temper For sheer entertainment, this rollicking account of Britain before the Great War is hard to beat, brimming as it is with swindlers, murderers and charlatans, imperialist fantasies and saucy innuendos. The scope is vast, covering everything from the suffragettes to The Wind in the Willows, and the social historian Alwyn Turner proves a wonderfully enthusiastic narrator. Profile £11.99 pp400Buy a copy of Little Englanders The comedian Al Murray is a serious history buff and the battle of Arnhem has been an obsession since childhood, 'present in my imagination for as long as I can remember, a peculiar and powerful singularity'. He has read everything there is to read, walked the streets of the old town and stood on the bridge across the Rhine — that bridge too far. He does a terrific job of evoking the chaos of one day — Tuesday, September 19, 1944 — as the men of 1st Airborne tried to secure that bridge against fierce German opposition. It was bloody chaos. 'Everything was happening everywhere, all at once.'Penguin £10.99 pp432Buy a copy of Arnhem Britain had waited centuries for a landscape artist of genius and suddenly in the early 19th century two came along at once — John Constable and JMW Turner. Little wonder, that in art history they tend to be stereotyped as rivals, as polar opposites. Nicola Moorby in this dual biography counsels against seeing them as such. Both men had a bigger problem — that most English of themes, the countryside, was not seen as a fitting subject for artists. To Constable's despair, the aristocracy — the source of patronage — preferred 'the shaggy posteriors of a Satyr to the moral feeling of landscape'. Yale £25 pp352Buy a copy of Turner and Constable Homo sapiens is on the edge of extinction — we'll probably die off within the next ten millennia; a blink of an eye in the deep time of the Earth. Henry Gee, a palaeontologist, takes the long view. He looks at what might kill us off — famine, war, climate change, pandemics and so on — but the most fascinating parts of the book look at our distant past, when Homo sapiens was one of a number of different hominids before we drove our competitors into oblivion (bye bye Neanderthals, Denisovans and so on). In his description, 100,000 years ago we lived in a real Middle-earth alongside giants, troglodytes, hobbits and so on. Gee has a knack for making science come alive with a vivid image and witty £18.99 pp288Buy a copy of The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire James I had serious affairs with at least six men. 'He loves indiscreetly and obstinately,' a contemporary observer remarked, 'despite the disapprobation of his subjects.' These favourites he showered with favours, land, titles and slobbering kisses. In Queen James, the historian Gareth Russell foregrounds the intimate side of the king. It's seriously researched history, though, rather than salacious speculation. The man that emerges is clever, educated, filthy-tongued with a talent for languages, unpleasant, a lover of dirty jokes and luxury. It's good to know that he had a pet otter, which he would take for walks on a jewel-encrusted leash. William Collins £25 pp496Buy a copy of Queen James Two bright young journalists on this paper give us the inside story of how Keir Starmer and Morgan McSweeney, his chief of staff and the most interesting character in this account, fought the battle to win Labour back from the Corbynistas. Starmer emerges as a ruthless, deeply pragmatic and strangely apolitical politician, a man 'forever uninterested in the politics of politics itself'. Bodley Head £25 pp480Buy a copy of Get In Thomas More, like Henry VIII's other chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, has always divided historians. Was he a heresy-hunting Catholic zealot, a torturer and murderer of Protestants? Or a martyr of saintly, spotless conscience, the cultivated author of Utopia? Joanne Paul in this biography errs towards the more sympathetic camp. Our reviewer Alice Hunt wrote: 'Paul is brilliant at bringing the swirl of Catholic England to life: its candlelit rituals, Latin prayers and saints' days, punctuated by tinkling royal processions.' Michael Joseph £30 pp644Buy a copy of Thomas More In December 2011 a young male wolf left his territory in Slovenia and began an arduous journey of several thousand miles across the Alps. He was wearing a GPS collar, so we know which rivers he swam, motorways he crossed and Alpine passes he loped along, on his travels across Austria and down into Italy. The nature writer Adam Weymouth follows in his pawprints, describing what he sees, as well as musing on our changing attitudes to the wolf. Hutchinson Heinemann £18.99 pp384Buy a copy of Lone Wolf Barbara Demick won the Baillie Gifford prize for her book Nothing to Envy, an extraordinary piece of reportage about ordinary lives in the totalitarian state of North Korea. Daughters of the Bamboo Grove is a similarly impressive journalistic exercise, an investigation into how corrupt officials in China, especially the goons who enforced the brutal one-child policy, started stealing children and passing them off as orphans who could be adopted, for a fee (of course), by western couples. She focuses on the story of twins, separated as toddlers, and remarkably reunited 20 years later thanks to her sleuthing. Granta £20 pp336Buy a copy of Daughters of the Bamboo Grove The subtitle gives a clue to the large cast of characters involved in this lively, vivid history of Budapest during the Second World War. We meet glamorous actresses working for the anti-Nazi resistance, a Jewish teenage draughtsman who became a brilliant forger of passports, a Polish aristocrat who turned out, perhaps to her surprise, to be rather skilled at blowing things up … But, of course, this is a horrible story. The cosmopolitan city of Budapest descended into barbarism — and as the Red Army neared its walls, the fascist Arrow Cross government started to deport and murder the surviving Jews. Head of Zeus £27.99 pp512Buy a copy of The Last Days of Budapest If you're bored of history books that entomb you in dates, extraneous details and footnotes, then The Golden Throne might be the answer. This account of the middle years of the reign of the Ottoman sultan Suleyman the Magnificent reads like a novel (the early years are recounted in The Lion House). The world of the 16th century — of eunuchs, diplomats, pirates and princes, of sea battles, stranglings and perfumed goings-on in harems — pops to life. Christopher de Bellaigue's writing is confident and playful. If only more historians wrote with such verve. Bodley Head £22 pp272Buy a copy of The Golden Throne Suzanne O'Sullivan, an NHS neurologist, is a humane and thoughtful observer of the oddities of the human mind, especially psychosomatic conditions. Her 2015 book It's All in Your Head: True Stories of Imaginary Illness and the 2021 follow-up The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness are full of intriguing case studies and wise observations. The Age of Diagnosis ranges widely, taking in the drawbacks of mass screening for illnesses as well as the perils of overextending mental health categories so that what was once simply unusual behaviour earns itself a medical label of ADHD or autism. We make people sicker by the simple act of diagnosing them with a medical problem, she says. A fascinating & Stoughton £22 pp320Buy a copy of The Age of Diagnosis • ADHD, autism, cancer: this doctor says overdiagnosis is the issue The eerie tale of how in the early 20th century, Dr Hawley Crippen fell in love with his typist, murdered his second wife and then fled across the Atlantic, triggering one of the most celebrated pursuits in modern history, is well known. But the historian Hallie Rubenhold thinks we have been telling it all wrong. Too often the wicked doctor is put at the heart of the story, while the women whose lives he touched are ignored or caricatured. She puts the victims centre stage. 'Even though we know where the story is leading,' Dominic Sandbrook wrote in his review, 'Rubenhold makes it tremendously exciting.'Doubleday £25 pp512Buy a copy of Story of a Murder The rising young historian Tim Bouverie made a name for himself with Appeasing Hitler (2019), a compelling study of the disastrous British diplomacy of the 1930s. This ambitious follow-up dissects the 'improbable and incongruous Alliance' that defeated Hitler. Well-trodden ground, you might think, but it goes far beyond the British-Soviet-American troika, so we learn about Britain's relationship with France (before and after its fall in 1940), nationalist China, Spain, Ireland, Italy, Yugoslavia and Greece. It's full of fascinating nuggets, character sketches and peppery judgments. Saul David called the book 'a fine reassessment of Allied politics and diplomacy during the Second World War: impeccably researched, elegantly written and compellingly argued.'Bodley Head £25 pp688Buy a copy of Allies at War In 1919 four teams of aviators battled to become the first to cross the Atlantic — and win a £10,000 prize (about £660,000 in today's money) posted by the Daily Mail. These men were driven by the purest form of heroic adventure — what one journalist called 'sublime insanity'. The Big Hop is a glorious romp through an overlooked part of aviation history, stuffed full of intriguing characters and white-knuckle & Windus £22 pp320Buy a copy of The Big Hop Edmund White died this year aged 85 — but the grand old man of gay literature was writing up until the end. This 'sex memoir' has all the unfiltered candour you'd expect of an octogenarian who was too old to care what anyone else thought. We learn everything — penis size, favoured positions — as well as meeting dozens of the thousands of men he fell in love with, ever so briefly and untenderly. It's the rather touching last hurrah of a writer who never believed in something being 'too much information'.Bloomsbury £20 pp256Buy a copy of The Loves of My Life Vasili Mitrokhin didn't fit the Hollywood image of a secret agent. He was a scruffy oddball who had been demoted from fieldwork to the dreary backwater of the KGB's archives. But the information he gleaned from burrowing in the shelves and boxes — and then passed on to the West — was described as 'the biggest counterintelligence bonanza of the postwar period'. Gordon Corera, formerly the BBC's security correspondent and now a co-presenter of the intelligence podcast The Rest Is Classified, tells the story of this irascible, unlikely spy and his trove of Collins £25 pp336Buy a copy of The Spy in the Archive
