The writer and broadcaster chooses five of his favourites. His new book, "Your Journey, Your Way" – a guide to the mental health system, based on the author’s own experiences – is out this week.
In Praise of Older Women
This reads like an outrageously frank autobiography but is a novel about a man, like the author, who flees Soviet Hungary in 1956, eventually to Canada. Various aspects of sex and romance are encountered in a paean to the joys and complexities of relationships. The scene which explains how to seduce a stunning girl in an empty café with a battered ashtray is an all-time classic.
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A.A Gill is Away
A.A. Gill, 2002
The great A.A. Gill is at his extraordinary best throughout this masterclass in the art of travel essays. Colleagues on the Sunday Times thought it tasteless to send a restaurant and TV critic to cover a Sudanese famine until Gill filed a dispatch so exquisitely honest and telling that it made them cry. He was a phrasemaker of genius.
Available on The Week Bookshop
Thunderstone
Nancy Campbell, 2022
A modern classic, this is a story of love, solitude and community set in the edgelands of Oxford. Sings with life – thought, felt and hymned.
Available on The Week Bookshop
Anima
Kapka Kassabova, 2024
My generation’s great travel writer moves to the wild highlands of Bulgaria and lives with the shepherds. Kapka Kassabova loses her relationship, her non-smoking and nearly her life and sanity to the mountains, the bears and alcoholic madmen she writes about, scoring another triumph in her Bulgarian quartet.
Available on The Week Bookshop
Wild Twin
Jeff Young, 2024
A sequel to the Costa-shortlisted "Ghost Town" – a haunted meditation on Liverpool which explores time and memory with a lyrical and shamanic intensity. "Wild Twin" (published on 18 September) follows the artist as a young man to Amsterdam, then at its counter-cultural peak. The two books are a profoundly serious attempt to see time afresh.
Available on The Week Bookshop
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Jessica Francis Kane's 6 favorite books that prove less is moreFeature The author recommends works by Penelope Fitzgerald, Marie-Helene Bertino, and more
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Book reviews: 'Baldwin: A Love Story' and 'The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces'Feature A loving James Baldwin biography and the drug crimes of two special ops veterans
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Don't fly by the seat of your pants. Do it the healthy way with these airborne tips.The Week Recommends Yes to stretching. Even more yesses to hydration.
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'The Office' spinoff, a 'Mare of Easttown' follow-up and the Guinness family royalty in September TVthe week recommends This month's new television releases include 'The Paper,' 'Task' and 'House of Guinness'
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Rigatoni with 'no-vodka sauce' recipeThe Week Recommends Comfort food meets a clever alcohol-free twist on a classic
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One great cookbook: 'Jam Bakes'The Week Recommends A guide to pristine jam-making, plus the baked goods that love them
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September's books tell of friendship in middle age, teachers versus fascists, and Covid psychosisthe week recommends September books include Angela Flournoy's 'The Wilderness,' Randi Weingarten's 'Why Fascists Fear Teachers' and Patricia Lockwood's 'Will There Ever Be Another You'
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6 blooming homes for gardenersFeature Featuring a greenhouse in Illinois and 13 raised garden beds in New Mexico
