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Telegraph
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
The 12 most memorable summer reads chosen by our writers
As temperatures soar across Europe many are taking shelter with a cool drink and a good book. As Iris Apfel, the American businesswoman and designer once said: 'A good book is the best accessory.' But what are the best reads for your summer? We asked Telegraph writers and readers which books they would recommend for your next holiday or sunny afternoon in the garden. Lucky Jim Somewhat jammily, I grew up in St Ives, Cornwall. I first read Kingsley Amis 's debut novel on the beach there when I was 13 or 14. And again the next summer. And the next, probably. I thought it was the funniest thing ever written. On some level I still do. Admittedly, the setting doesn't scream 'holiday': a provincial university in the 1950s, where our hero Jim Dixon works as a junior lecturer in medieval history. He doesn't love his subject ('The hydrogen bomb... [seemed] a light price to pay for no longer being in the Middle Ages.') He doesn't love his colleagues, reserving his least charitable thoughts for his boss, Professor Welch. He does, conveniently, fall in love with the girlfriend of Welch's preening son (the novel's chief antagonist). The slapstick parts are justly famous: Dixon accidentally setting fire to his bedsheets, pulling faces ('Sex Life in Ancient Rome', 'Evelyn Waugh') and giving a lecture while both drunk and black-eyed. But Lucky Jim is also a portrait of a changing Britain, alive with closely observed social comedy. Amis – who writes about booze, inebriation and hangovers better than anyone – would want you to read it with something cold to hand. Just be careful when you take your sips. Buy the book Five Decembers It used to be that you were allowed to delude yourself into thinking you could tackle a 'proper' book on holiday. Someone rocking up to the lounger with Stalingrad was to be admired rather than heckled. Mercifully, smartphones have put paid to all of that nonsense. Although beach reads still need to be respectable enough not to invite ridicule, today they must compete with the box of delights in your pocket. This means books must be short, interesting and funny; and in that order. Of this year's new fiction, I'd say David Szalay's Flesh and Vincenzo Latronico's Perfection fit the bill. But the only book I have ever had a 100 per cent hit rate with recommending is Five Decembers by James Kestrel, a perfect and bafflingly under-appreciated thriller set in the Second World War. A Certain Idea of France by Julian Jackson Charles de Gaulle changed the course of modern history; Julian Jackson will do the same for how you see historical biography. I once spent a week in Mallorca with a stack of books to hand, and I read just one, day after day: A Certain Idea of France. It was spellbinding, like being shown a vision of someone's soul. Over 900 patient and elegant pages, le Général emerged in all his contradictions. He could be haughty, silent, bombastic, jovial, often downright weird; he was a decolonising conservative, an anti-fascist with authoritarian tendencies. More than two metres tall and oddly proportioned, he dominated most rooms, and made sure of it. Roosevelt despised him; Churchill found him exasperating but unignorable. After de Gaulle, initially a mere brigadier general, escaped to London in 1940, turned against the Vichy regime and declared a 'Free France' – as if he were answering destiny's call – he spent his remaining three decades in tireless combat with not only Nazi Germany, but also America ('rootless'), Britain ('perfidious'), and most everybody else. He left politics soon after the war, but returned to save France in 1958, and his decade of rule made that nation, for better or worse, what it is today. He was never a moderate, nor sought to be. 'How can you govern a country,' he once quipped, 'that has 246 varieties of cheese?' Jackson's book is a masterpiece: it will fill a week by the pool, at least. And if you're a faster reader than that, never fear. You can chase it with his 2023 book France on Trial, a brilliant study of Philippe Pétain – the Maréchal whose surrender de Gaulle refused to obey. To me, William Boyd is a master storyteller, whose books fuse all the attributes of literary fiction – style, characterisation and intellectual rigour – with compelling narratives and what you might call the unputdownable factor. None are more unputdownable than Any Human Heart, a meditation on luck and chance which spans the 20th century, told in one glorious sweep through the personal journals of Logan Mountstuart, whose extraordinarily rich and eventful life sees him crossing paths with Virginia Woolf and Ernest Hemingway, recruited as a spy by Ian Fleming, dining with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and hanging out with Jackson Pollock. I first read it on holiday in Corsica, and in the days spent sightseeing, walking and swimming found myself actively yearning to get back to the villa and the crucial business of finding out what happened next. You couldn't ask for anything more. Bryant and May I use my holidays to completely unwind so I avoid all non-fiction; political books are an absolute no no, and as for royal biographies, forget it. Instead, I usually opt for crime, thrillers and mystery books. I've read all of Lee Child's Jack Reacher series and everything Michael Connelly has ever written featuring Harry Bosch. But during my most recent period of annual leave, I made a new discovery: Bryant & May by Christopher Fowler. Golden Age Detectives in a modern world, Arthur Bryant and John May head the Peculiar Crimes Unit, London's most venerable specialist police team, a division founded during the Second World War to investigate cases that cause national scandal or public unrest. These beautifully written whodunnits have got everything a great holiday page-turner needs: compelling dialogue, plot twists and most importantly: a sense of humour. by Elif Shafak The summer read that comes to mind for me is The Island of Missing Trees, by Elif Shafak. It's stayed with me long after I read it a couple of summers ago, and everyone I've recommended it to has since also lapped it up. Set between a divided Cyprus in the 1970s and London in the 2010s, it follows the clandestine relationship between Kostas, a Greek Cypriot, and Defne, a Turkish Cypriot. Their love, shadowed by the island's conflict, finds an echo decades later as their daughter Ada, living in London, unearths the story of her family's past for a school summer project. It's part love story, part vivid portrait of Cyprus – the island of fig trees and sun-drenched tavernas – yet the novel never shies away from the pain of the civil war (which the book does a good job teaching you about). Some chapters are hard to read; but Shafak's writing is poetic and easy to follow, making for a perfect pool or beach-side page-turner that still has a bit of grit – whether that be in Nicosia or elsewhere. Buy the book Educated by Tara Westover This memoir, published in 2018, is pure escapism. Westover reflects on her childhood growing up in the mountains of Idaho in a deeply religious Mormon family, where she spent much of her time preparing for the world's end. Mental health is at the book's forefront: her brother is often violent and her father is descending into an increasing pit of radicalism. Westover never shies away from the uncomfortable crossover between illness and extreme religion in her parents. Eventually, at 16, she escapes – on a journey that takes her far from Idaho to Cambridge University, where she grapples with the dynamics of family life both in and out of the home. Her experiences both haunt and inform her later decisions and stay with you long afterwards. It's an excellent read to get lost in. H Wilbor, reader Buy the book The Professor by Charlotte Brontë I've just been to a wonderfully peaceful and beautiful Greek island, where I enjoyed my book group's selection of The Professor by Charlotte Brontë – hardly her best-known novel – which follows a love story, mostly set in Brussels. I found it profound, and delicately paced. Jane Dee, Reader Buy the book Mr Einstein's Secretary by Matthew Reilly What a refreshing change to read a well-written novel where fact meets fiction. We all know a little about Einstein but in this historical tale, we have a wonderful picture of his life, his love and his neighbour Hanna. During Hanna's early years, Einstein encourages her inquisitiveness: soon, she only wants to become a brilliant physicist. Because of the war and the loss of her parents (and for her safety), Einstein ships her off to America where she meets successful businessmen, gangsters and leading figures of the Nazi concentration camps. There's also a twin sister, who crops up in the most extreme of situations – at times, one is frightened of what the book's outcome might be. Hanna herself is well characterised by Reilly: I was rooting for her throughout her trials, tribulations and successes. Throughout this novel I felt enlightened and entertained – it's one to fire up all your emotions. Helen Smith, Reader Buy the book The Climb by Chris Froome Chris Froome's book, The Climb, is one of the best sports autobiographies I have ever read, and makes a particularly good summer read. I've since read it twice, and it's spurred on my love for cycling and all things sport. I definitely recommend it for any keen cyclist, gymmer, runner, swimmer or triathlete. Natasha Poole, reader Buy the book
The Guardian
30-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The death of my friend inspired me to follow my standup dreams
There's nothing funny about your co-worker being assassinated. But it was the death of my beloved colleague and friend Hisham al-Hashimi that led me into the world of standup comedy. I knew it would trash my hard-won career in international security, but I didn't care any more. Hisham had run a workshop with me in Iraq six months prior to his death, and I'd taken everything so seriously, marching around the hotel yelling about how everything was going wrong. But Hisham always had a lightness in his step, a smile on his face. Every evening, he'd take me to a café, order me my favourite shisha and proceed to tell the most disgusting jokes. One morning, a group of tribal leaders we'd convened refused to check out of the hotel unless we paid them. I freaked out, called head office, read compliance regulations, tried jamming my own credit card into ATMs, while Hisham laughed until tears streamed down his face. 'I warned you about the Anbaris,' he cackled. 'They make love to money!' I could hardly conceive of a worse nightmare than this, but Hisham had lived the life of a real Iraqi. He'd witnessed Saddam's crimes, the invasion, the civil war, then Islamic State. Hundreds of thousands of people killed every few years. And I was worried about an awkward end to my workshop, when Hisham had survived all that. He was shot outside his home in July 2020, while his wife and young children were inside. He'd been receiving threats for months from militias who were angry about his journalism. But he refused to be cowed, wouldn't stop telling the truth, gave up multiple opportunities to move abroad. Even with the pressure bearing down on him, he still found joy everywhere and was able to excavate the humour from the bleakest of situations. I partied in his honour the night after his death, a wake he would have adored, toasting him as I danced with my friends, crying the entire time. He would have been thrilled to see me finally let loose. I'd been so uptight until that moment. I was a brown woman from a completely average home in the north of England, and forging a career in international security felt like a relentless fight. I studied insanely hard and wore my academic accolades like a suit of armour: Oxford, a PhD, Harvard. Still, I was constantly undermined and disrespected. At the age of just 28, I'd made it to a senior fellowship at a thinktank in Washington DC. Soon I was running my own projects on the ground in Iraq. But there was another side to me, one that I kept hidden. I loved comedy. Popworld, presented by the hilarious Miquita Oliver and Simon Amstell, was appointment television for me when I was growing up. The first time I was dumped, I watched Monty Python's Life of Brian, and laughed so hard I couldn't summon a shred of sadness for my ex. I read Scoop by Evelyn Waugh, Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis, Heartburn by Nora Ephron and wondered why anyone bothered writing if they couldn't write humour. By the time I was working in Iraq, I was using every spare moment to watch standup. In passport control at Baghdad airport, I'd plug in my headphones and watch clips of Sara Pascoe, Sindhu Vee and Ali Wong, choking down my laughter as armed guards cast wary glances in my direction. I vividly remember one trip to Iraq in 2018 when I was investigating a disputed election. A close Iraqi friend and former student of mine had been working in his political party's offices when it had been shot at by an opposing party. I visited the offices, photographing bullet holes, my friend hyperventilating beside the shattered glass. When I returned to my hotel that night, scared and overwhelmed, I searched for comedy to watch. It had become my coping mechanism. I found videos of Michelle Wolf's comedy routine at the White House Correspondent's Dinner and fell in love with her, this whip-smart woman eviscerating the Trump administration while they were forced to watch. Though much of the comedy I'd enjoyed had been political, this was the most overt and it got me thinking about other ways I could make an impact with my life, perhaps one that integrated my love of comedy. After Hisham's death, I began to face up to the reality of how dangerous my work was in Iraq and I stopped dismissing my interest in comedy. In between trips to Iraq, I signed up for a standup course at the Bill Murray in London. It's a comedy club I had an abiding affection for, a place where established comedians come to try out new material on small crowds and where I'd watched comedy geniuses like Kevin Bridges and Jessica Fostekew perform to groups of less than 100 people. I began spending Sunday afternoons at the beginners' standup class where we were given prompts and asked to immediately perform jokes to one another. I absolutely loved it. The first joke I told was about sleeping with someone from Tinder in Iraq and finding out, post-coital, that he was an IS fighter. It wasn't true, but having worked in Iraq I could paint a very convincing picture. A choked, shocked laughter emerged from the class and I enjoyed the simultaneous sensations of mirth and discomfort I'd evoked. I realised that my unusual profession as a peacebuilding practitioner was a brilliant source of material, and I started searching for humour on my work trips to Iraq. And it was everywhere. The farcical Iraqi bureaucracy, the moronic expectations of Brussels-based donors, the absurdity of foreign efforts to build peace in a country we'd so recently destroyed. I'd fill the notes app on my phone with observations, then come back to London and perform them to my class. I missed the end-of-course showcase event. A meeting with the Iraqi president won out and I sat in the presidential palace in Baghdad wistfully thinking about my classmates performing their tight-fives to a packed audience of family and friends. There is an electricity to performing standup that is unlike any other feeling. When you make an audience laugh, your victory is so immediate, the thrill drenches you like an upturned bucket of dopamine and adrenaline. I can understand why standups find it addictive. But it's also nerve-racking. When a joke fails to land, the silence feels oppressive and humiliating. My knees would shake so hard sometimes I could feel them knocking together. Though my classmates protested that I always looked composed and confident, I slightly dreaded getting on stage. I'd known before I started that my comedy would find its ultimate outlet in a novel. My life had given me a big story to tell: from my devout Muslim upbringing to my search for meaning through aid work and then my efforts to build a programme to rehabilitate IS brides. I wanted to take my time with the story, to tell it in its richest and most nuanced form. More importantly, I wanted my jokes to land or fail without having to be in the room to witness it. But taking the standup course was crucial to my novel. It helped me write a tonne of properly funny, laugh-out-loud jokes and set-piece comic scenes that formed the backbone of my story. I did worry, when writing the novel, that focusing so much on humour would make literary critics sneer, that it wouldn't be considered a serious work. I forged ahead anyway; it would've been dishonest to write any other way and I was done with forcing myself to fit into a mould. The comedy turned out to be the novel's secret weapon, with people from all ends of the political spectrum unexpectedly engaging with – and enjoying – a story about IS brides. Since publication, my training as a standup has come into its own. As I sit in bookshops and libraries talking to audiences, I find myself performing a set, rather than boring everyone with talk of my writing process. It has been a lot of fun making an audience laugh again, though nervousness sometimes rears its head. Oddly, it's the novel that has made some of my longest-held comedy dreams come true. My all-time favourite comedian, Sara Pascoe, interviewed me on her podcast and I was invited to speak on a Radio 4 Friday night comedy show. But best of all, my Instagram DMs are filled with readers quoting jokes from the novel back to me, followed by strings of crying-face emojis. Perhaps this is my favourite way to be a comic. Safely behind my keyboard, enjoying the laughter of others, mediated through a screen. Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis is published by W&N at £16.99. Buy a copy for £15.29 at
