Your eyes do not deceive you: These colossal hotel swimming pools are as gigantic as they look. They are each property’s main attraction, letting swimmers, divers and paddleboarders live out their aquatic fantasies. Some are historic, some are modern wonders; all are architectural marvels.

The Biltmore, Coral Gables, Florida

Guests have been diving into The Biltmore’s massive pool — it covers 23,000 square feet and holds 600,000 gallons of water — since 1926. Surrounded by “grand Mediterranean architecture and classical statues,” the pool is an opulent spot for “doing laps or having a leisurely float,” said Secret Miami. Esther Williams once used it as her stage, putting on aquatic shows before starstruck crowds, and Tarzan himself, Johnny Weissmuller, spent time here as a swimming instructor.

Diamante Cabo San Lucas, Mexico

Spanning 10 acres, the saltwater Crystal Lagoons pool offers something for everyone. Guests can go swimming, sailing, kayaking and paddleboarding, stopping whenever they’d like for a refreshing drink at the swim-up bar. While lounging poolside, you can soak up views of the Pacific Ocean and the sand dunes of the Diamante Golf Club, ranked by Golf Digest as the top course in Mexico.

Fontainebleau Las Vegas, Nevada

Fontainebleau Las Vegas’ six-acre Oasis Pool Deck fits right in with the city’s “glitz and glamour,” said Time Out. Take your pick from seven different pool experiences, like hanging out at the “high-energy” LIV Beach day club or relaxing in the blissful La Mer enclave.

On certain nights, the Oasis Pool Deck turns into an outdoor theater, with “Black Panther,” “The Secret Life of Pets” and other popular movies screened poolside. Swimming is not only allowed during the movies but encouraged.

Marina Bay Sands, Singapore

Think of Singapore, and its distinctive Marina Bay Sands hotel will likely come to mind. The property — three towers with a rooftop infinity pool “balanced” across the 57th floors — is a “fixture of every postcard rack and travel brochure,” said Travel and Leisure.

The swimming pool is part of Marina Bay Sands’ claim to fame: At 492-feet long, it’s the world’s largest infinity pool. Only open to hotel guests, the views from the deck are phenomenal, and it’s “obligatory” to take a selfie with the skyscrapers behind you.

The Oberoi Udaivilas, Udaipur, India

At the “glamorous” Oberoi Udaivilas, the long pool that stretches past its suites is an “architectural work of wonder,” said Condé Nast Traveler. Guests can slip into the water from their patios or relax on a lounger, gazing out at the pool “sandwiched between views of the garden and ocean.” For the ultimate stay, book one of the extravagant accommodations that comes with its own private pool.

Perfect Day at CocoCay, Bahamas

There’s only one way to get to Oasis Lagoon, the Caribbean’s largest freshwater pool, and that’s by Royal Caribbean ship. Oasis Lagoon is located on a private island used exclusively by the cruise line and caters to all interests.

Families usually stay in the far end of the pool, with its “sloping entry and gentle fountains,” while adults in party mode assemble by the swim-up bar, said The Points Guy. There are “numerous little nooks” where you can find “in-the-water seats” and “undulating loungers in the shallows.”

San Alfonso del Mar, Algarrobo, Chile

To see San Alfonso del Mar’s “jaw-dropping” swimming pool is to believe it, said Islands. The 3,000-foot-long pool holds 66 million gallons of water and is a “breathtaking feat of craftsmanship.”

When the property opened in 2006, it earned the Guinness World Record title for largest swimming pool on Earth, overshadowing even its closest competition. Today, it’s the “perfect” playground for sailors and kayakers, with a sustainable filtration system that “minimizes energy use” while ensuring water remains in “crystal-clear condition.”

Robot carers sound grim but Diane Morgan and her co-writer Sarah Kendall offer another, more “intriguing perspective” in their new BBC comedy, said Hannah J Davies in The Guardian. What if they were “incompetent and socially inept” but “also considerate, compassionate and lovable”?

This “wonderfully fresh and funny” show follows Sue (Sue Johnston), an elderly widow whose “whiny” son Michael (Paul Ready) has bought her a second-hand robot carer called Linda. It’s “not much of a spoiler” to reveal that Sue develops an “unlikely bond” with Linda (played by Morgan with a “perfect level of unblinking stiffness”).

Cleverly, “Ann Droid” is set in an “entirely normal suburban Britain”, where robots just happen to be helping out with the gardening or the supermarket shop, said Anita Singh in The Telegraph. “They don’t feel out of place.” As Sue’s friendship with Linda blossoms, the show unfurls into an “unexpectedly poignant sitcom” that looks at “the challenges of growing old”.

In its more “slapstick moments”, there are echoes of Morgan’s earlier show, “Mandy”, about a jobless woman’s bizarre money-making schemes, said Rebecca Nicholson in the Financial Times. Both shows revel in the “offbeat and surreal” but this one is “softer, less outrageous, more observational”.

Linda’s “bluntness” prevents the show from slipping into “sentimentality”. When she realises Sue is grieving her late husband, the robot must “research why it is that humans feel sad when someone dies” but her findings are “lightened” by the fact she can only call Sue’s partner “Dead David”. “This is a sly sitcom, then: silly on the outside but, when you look closer, smart and heartfelt.”

With her “terrible wig” and “strange head tilts”, Morgan plays Linda “uncannily well”, said Carol Midgley in The Times. Not much about the concept is new but, at its core, the show “isn’t really about robots”. Often more of a “sadcom than a sitcom”, it delves into the “profundity of grief”. But there are “plenty of funny moments”, too, as Linda “proves her worth” through a series of “escapades” that suggest having a robot carer might not be such a bad thing. “It is daft, but deceptively deep.”

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The heat is very on, but that doesn’t mean you have to sweat it out. When you don’t have an air conditioner or the temperature is so high that AC isn’t enough, turn to these items to reinvigorate yourself.

Avène thermal spring water

One spray of this “soothing” mist on a hot day gives you a “quick refresh,” said Glamour. The pure thermal spring water contains postbiotic microflora, which can calm the skin and reduce redness. It’s also free of fragrance, paraben, alcohol, silicone, mineral oil, aluminum and sulfate, a mist ideal for most skin types and safe for use throughout the day. ($15, Ulta)

Cozy Earth bamboo sheet set

These sheets are made from 100% bamboo viscose, which is temperature-regulating and “next-level soft,” said Architectural Digest. Snoozing on the fabric feels like being “draped in a luxuriously lightweight silk,” and because it is thin, air passes “easily through the layer,” keeping you cool and comfortable overnight. Choose from more than a dozen solid colors and limited edition patterns, from twin/twin XL to split king. (starting at $258, Cozy Earth)

Green Pet Shop cool pet pad

As soon as your dog or cat sits on this pressure-activated gel mat, they’ll feel instant relief. It stays cool for up to three hours and recharges on its own after 20 minutes of nonuse, without the need for water or electricity. Mats come in five sizes (extra small to extra large) and are portable for travel. Tip: Putting a mat inside the refrigerator first will “make it even more refreshing,” said Forbes. (starting at $25, Amazon)

Harbor House cooling reversible Tencel comforter blanket

If you need a blanket to sleep even on the hottest nights, this one’s for you. Harbor House’s comforter is filled with sustainable, eucalyptus-based Tencel fibers that are breathable and moisture-wicking. It adapts to your body temperature, helping to reduce overheating and ease you into a good night’s sleep. (starting at $160, Harbor House)

Hydro Flask 24 oz Wide Mouth with Flex Chug Cap

During a heat wave, staying hydrated should be at the top of your to-do list. Having a water bottle within arm’s reach is a “helpful reminder to keep on chugging,” and Hydro Flask’s Wide Mouth with Flex Chug Cap allows for “spill-free sipping,” said Wirecutter. Its double-wall vacuum insulation makes this bottle “particularly adept” at keeping water cold for 24 hours, and the “slim spout” ensures a controlled flow. ($40, Amazon)

Pure & Gentle Arctic Wave cooling body bar

Turn your shower into a frosty retreat with this cooling body bar. Refreshing ingredients like eucalyptus and hydrating spearmint wake up the skin, while coconut oil softens it. The bar is plant-based and cruelty-free, and one is the equivalent of 16 12-ounce bottles of liquid body wash. ($10, Pure & Gentle)

Purple DreamLayer pillow

The foam inside this supportive pillow is “firm, yet squishy enough” to mold to and cradle your head, said Real Simple. An outer gel grid layer promotes “great” airflow, so you won’t “wake up feeling sweaty.” You can also add or remove foam to “easily” adjust the pillow’s height. The price makes it “definitely a splurge,” but it’s a “worthy investment.” (starting at $209, Amazon)

Torras Coolify 2S neck air conditioner

This “easy to use” neck air conditioner delivers an arctic blast whenever you need it, said Wirecutter. A “decadent” array of advanced semiconductor plates lines the device, and when pressed against your skin feel like a refreshingly “cold can of soda.”

The Coolify has a dual-axis hinge design, expanding to accommodate most neck sizes. Don’t pack it up when summer’s over. The thermal chips can be used as heaters. ($199, Amazon)

The romance of Prague is enthralling, from its pretty winding lanes to its skyline of rising spires. Over the past few decades it has become one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe, with more than eight million visitors a year, and with its history and heritage it is easy to see why.

But at the same time, the Czech capital has grown into a sophisticated and refined luxury option for the discerning traveller, with world-class galleries and a dynamic food scene. Michelin recognised this with the Czech Republic’s first national guide in December 2025, including five Prague restaurants that have earned stars.

Things to do

The Prague Visitor Pass makes things easy, offering access to most of the city’s big sights as well as public transport (including a vintage tram). I started with a morning at Prague Castle, the largest castle complex in Europe, where you could probably spend days exploring.

After that head down the hill a little to the Baroque terraced Vrtba Garden, an oasis in the heart of the tourist area, or head further west to the Eiffel-inspired Petrin Tower, built in 1891, where you will find some of the best views of the city.

Of course, everyone wants to see the renowned Astronomical Clock of the Old Town Hall, but the crowds really are changing the experience. Head inside to the Old Town Hall Museum for a different perspective on it, but a great tip is to try the new Mozart Museum directly opposite. It not only has a fascinating interactive display on the composer and his connection to Prague, but also the best views of the clock.

The National Gallery is spread over several locations in the city, but my favourite was the Trade Fair Palace, which has a spectacular collection of works from Picasso, Monet and Van Gogh. Head to the Kunsthalle, which opened in 2022, or Dox, with its eyecatching airship shape, which hosts art, literature, performance and architecture.

Get on the water and explore the River Vltava with a boat trip. With Prague Boats, a two-hour trip takes you out into the suburbs for a leisurely journey through a different side of Prague. If time is tighter, the Prague Venice River Cruise lasts 45 minutes and takes you off the river and into the canals. It is also connected to the small but interesting Charles Bridge Museum.

Eating and drinking

If you’re going to splash out on one Michelin meal while you’re there then make it La Degustation Bohême Bourgeoise. This fine dining restaurant is a little out of the centre and takes you away from the crowds. You can expect a seasonal multi-course tasting menu inspired by Czech cuisine and made with local ingredients.

The Vietnamese community is one of the largest immigrant populations in the Czech Republic, and therefore you can find some of the best pho this far west of Hanoi. But at Taro, a pair of first-generation Vietnamese-Czech brothers are taking things a step further with a tasting menu that merges the two cultures beautifully. Nothing feels expected, but you will leave with a smile on your face.

Hidden behind the tourist options across from the Astronomical Clock is Restaurant 420, a bright welcoming space that is packed with locals, with products are made in the basement bakery and butchery. Expect elevated Czech and central European classics like pork with Szegedin sauce or veal schnitzel.

Bjukitchen is a chic little cafe that’s a perfect stop on a busy day. Start the morning with a hearty brunch, like the scrambled eggs with pecorino, black pepper, and chives on freshly baked sourdough, or a grilled cheese with roasted pepper pesto, sun-dried tomatoes and basil pesto. Definitely don’t miss their home-made soft-serve ice cream.

Myšák is a pastry shop that dates back to 1911, and is still one of Prague’s favourites. Check out the original shop on Vodičkova Street, or one of the newer branches. The sweet buns with vanilla custard are a particular speciality, and the ice cream sundae has been a local staple for 80 years.

Le Petit Beefbar au Grand Cafe, in the W Hotel, serves some of the city’s best steaks in the timeless art nouveau setting of the former Grand Café. The fillet steak and the namesake Beefbar signature sauce were utterly divine.

Forbina, across from the National Theatre, offers delicious crafted cocktails inspired by its neighbour’s theatre productions. Bokovka has a wonderful courtyard to pause for a glass of wine, and U Kunštátů serves a wide selection of craft beers.

Where to stay

Following a stunning renovation, W Prague opened in December 2024 to much fanfare. It is a glorious example of how classic Prague Secession architecture can be modernised sympathetically and stylishly, and you can expect the signature W attention to detail throughout. There are 161 guestrooms and suites, some overlooking Wenceslas Square in the heart of the city, while the Above Rooftop has panoramic views and a menu that changes seasonally.

The Away Spa offers an escape from the urban bustle with a series of pools, jacuzzis, saunas and steam rooms. Try the all-season water journey, which takes you through warm and cold experiences and ends with a refreshing snow shower, or indulge in a treatment customised to your needs. I left feeling like a new woman.

Jaymi McCann was a guest of Czech Tourism, Prague City Tourism and W Prague

The Lake District has so much to offer beyond its “spectacular panoramic views”, said Condé Nast Traveller. Famed for its impressive lakes and rugged mountains, the Unesco World Heritage site also has a “fantastic culinary scene” and “activities galore” to keep the whole family entertained, come rain or shine.

Things to do

For some historical sightseeing, visit the “turreted grey knuckle” of Wray Castle, a masterclass in Victorian Gothic Revival architecture built in 1840, said Condé Nast Traveller. It is also worth visiting 17th-century Holker Hall whose gardens are a mix of “manicured borders and lawns” and “untamed areas of wildflowers and woodlands”,

“William Wordsworth is the Lake District’s ‘literary leviathan’”, said Sean Newsom in The Times. He “transformed our appreciation of the natural world” with his poems, and by visiting his old home, Dove Cottage, you’ll “get a thrilling sense of his early, heroic years”. Next door, the Wordsworth Museum has handwritten journals and letters on display.

For a mix of history and nature, take a boat tour with Ullswater Steamers, which have been operating for over 160 years. Ullswater, England’s second-largest lake, is a must-see with a landscape of “rolling green hills”, “ancient woodland”, and “plunging crags”.

Thrill-seekers can try ghyll scrambling – a ghyll is a “short, sharp mountain gully cut by a thundering stream”. At Stoneycroft Ghyll, put on a wetsuit while you “scramble upstream”, then “abseil back down”, and then jump into the “deeps beneath the waterfalls”.

Eating and drinking

In the Lake District, it is “hard to go wrong with food”, said Condé Nast Traveller. Try the “deservedly famous” sticky toffee pudding in Cartmel or enjoy “seasonal deliciousness” with “exceptional views of Skiddaw” at Lingholm Kitchen in Keswick.

Cranstons Cumbrian Food Hall is a recently renovated butchery that is great for picking up a “huge variety” of locally sourced produce or enjoying sausage rolls, pies, meal boxes, and salad at the hot-food counter. The Lake District also has a number of Michelin-starred dining options including The Cottage in The Wood, above Keswick, and Forest Side in Grasmere, said The Telegraph.

Where to stay

If you want “indulgence with a capital I”, stay at the Gilpin Hotel & Lake House, just 10 minutes from Lake Windermere’s shore, said Helen Pickles in The Independent. This “modern country-house hotel” has a variety of room styles that ranges from the “lavishly cossetting” to stand-alone chalets with personal spas.

For a more family-friendly option, The Swan Hotel & Spa, at Windermere’s southern tip, is “away from the crowds” in a lovely “riverside setting”. It “ticks plenty of boxes” with a range of amenities including a spa, pool, gym, and adventure playground. The place “goes big on colour” with public areas decorated in “clashing pinks and hot oranges” or “dazzling floral wallpapers”.

Creole and Cajun food both hail from Louisiana, but only one was born in New Orleans. Rich and soulful, Creole cuisine emerged from the city’s kitchens during the 1700s, influenced by French, African, Indigenous, Spanish and Caribbean cooking styles.

Tomatoes, roux and the Holy Trinity of diced onions, celery and green bell peppers are the foundation for many a Creole dish. When you then add shrimp, crab, oysters, sausage and okra, the magic commences, and classics local dishes like gumbo, crawfish étouffée and red beans and rice spring to life. Ready for a taste? In New Orleans, no one does authentic Creole better than these eight treasured spots.

Clancy’s

Clancy’s is the “paradigmatic” Uptown New Orleans bistro, where the menu is “Paris-at-the-mouth-of-the-Mississippi,” said The New York Times. This was the “life project” of waiter turned longtime owner Brad Hollingsworth, who died in 2024, and is still owned by his wife and stepson. Executive Chef Jerry Harkins Jr. and his team have “mastered” both the French-Creole standards of turtle soup and shrimp remoulade and “idiosyncratic” specialties like fried oysters covered in melted Brie and Clancy’s smoked duck with dirty rice.

Dooky Chase’s Restaurant

Dooky Chase is not just a restaurant. A Tremé institution for more than 80 years, it opened during segregation and gave Black diners with few options a place to convene over a warm and comforting bowl of gumbo or crawfish étouffée.

Over time, Dooky Chase — and its talented late co-owner and chef, Leah Chase — gained a reputation for “specializing in the seasoned flavors of Black Creole culture,” said New Orleans Magazine. During the 1950s and ’60s, civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Thurgood Marshall sat down and strategized over the same dishes that Dooky Chase still serves today — shrimp Clemenceau, red beans and rice, oyster po’boys and Creole-seasoned fried chicken.

Galatoire’s 

At Galatoire’s, jackets are required, tank tops and flip flops are verboten and you must order an “impeccable Sazerac, soufflé potatoes and shrimp remoulade for the table,” said Bon Appétit. Founded in 1905, Galatoire’s is one of the most “elegant” restaurants in the country, with “tuxedoed waiters” who present with a flourish plates of shrimp Creole, crab ravigote and trout meunière amandine. End your meal in true New Orleans fashion with a cup of café brûlot, a spicy, alcoholic beverage that is — whoosh! — flambéed tableside.

Guy’s Po-Boys

New Orleans and po’boys “go hand in hand,” said Southern Living. The “simple, hearty” sandwich was created in the 1920s for striking railroad workers (“poor boys”) and requires bread with a crusty exterior and pillowy interior that can handle a protein like roast beef and fried oysters, plus all the fixins.

Guy’s excels at crafting the “classics,” such as golden fried shrimp and blackened catfish, as well as its own creations, like The Bomb, said Tasting Table. This “eclectic” po’boy brings together the shrimp and catfish that put Guy’s “on the map” along with melted Swiss and cheddar cheeses.

Li’l Dizzy’s Cafe

Plan accordingly for a visit to Li’l Dizzy’s Cafe. Only open for lunch, diners line up early for a seat at this “cherished” Tremé restaurant that’s “keeping Creole soul food alive,” said Mashed. The “deliciously juicy” fried chicken is regularly heralded as the best in New Orleans, and the gumbo is thick and luscious.

If you find yourself at Li’l Dizzy’s on a Friday, you’re in luck: The day’s special, catfish jourdain — fried catfish topped with shrimp and crabmeat in a lemon butter sauce — is a local favorite. You don’t have to be from the neighborhood to feel the love. The cafe’s owners “welcome everyone as if they’re family.”

Neyow’s Creole Cafe

Tanya Dubuclet was her grandmother’s faithful sidekick in the kitchen, and now those “secret recipes” she learned growing up are staples on the menu at Neyow’s Creole Cafe, said Essence. Favorites like the rich filé gumbo, crawfish balls, chargrilled oysters and carrot soufflé are all “cooked with love” and keep Dubuclet’s late grandmother’s “memory alive.” For a taste of pretty much everything, order the Neyow’s Extravaganza Dinner for two, featuring gumbo, stuffed crab, stuffed shrimp, steak, fish, two sides and two desserts.

Vaucresson’s Creole Café

When the steaming bowls of gumbo and plates of savory yakamein start coming out of the kitchen at Vaucresson’s Creole Café, “heads turn,” said NOLA.com. That’s because Chef Bunny Young’s style of “New Orleans home cooking” is “increasingly rare” to find at restaurants and always a welcome sight.

Vaucresson’s started decades ago as a butcher stall, evolving into a butcher shop and restaurant now operated by third-generation owner Vance Vaucresson and Julie Frederick Vaucresson. Try one of the restaurant’s famous sausages in a po’boy or the smothered okra plate, which is “every bit as much about the Creole sausage, crab and shrimp as the namesake vegetable.”

Vyoone’s

The “gratifying” French-Creole fare at Vyoone’s — escargot in bone marrow, “delicate” duck l’orange with mushroom bread pudding, les galettes de crabes — matches the cafe’s “warm ambiance,” said Resy. The French onion soup is “excellent,” as are the crawfish beignets and crevettes et gruau, a generous helping of large barbecue shrimp over grits, topped with bacon and smoked gouda. Vyoone’s, named after its founder Vyoone Segué, has an inviting indoor space, but dinner tastes even better when eaten outside in the “marvelous” courtyard.

By African standards, Malawi is a small country (a bit smaller than England, in fact), but with its diverse landscapes and vast lakes, it can offer a wide variety of experiences in a single safari holiday, says Ben Lerwill in National Geographic Traveller. For a gentle start, head to the Shire Highlands, in the southeast, where forested hills rise above 2,000 metres, and tea plantations have flourished for more than a century.

Among these estates is Satemwa, which was founded in 1923 and later became the first in Malawi to be Fairtrade-certified. Guests stay in a 1930s bungalow, Huntingdon House, with “roaring” log fires, clawed bathtubs, antique furniture and “luxuriant” plants in silver vases. Satemwa’s 3,700 acres are interspersed with swathes of mahogany woods that shelter creatures including antelopes, porcupines and more than 600 avian species, some of them spectacular, making birdwatching trips “a joy”. Coffee is also grown on the estate, but tea tastings are particularly delightful, with black, green, oolong and white varieties to sample, some of which are served at Claridge’s.

Next, you might visit Liwonde National Park, a 212-square-mile expanse of mopane woodland three hours to the north. Poaching once devastated the park, but in the past decade, 40,000 wire snares have been removed, and black rhinos, cheetahs, lions and wild dogs have been reintroduced. I stayed at Mvuu – one of just a few lodges here, with “spacious” tented chalets and “excellent” food – and went on wonderful game drives and walking safaris, spotting lions, elephants, hippos and other species.

The country’s true “marvel”, however, is Lake Malawi – one of the world’s largest and deepest lakes, home to at least 1,000 freshwater fish species (more than Europe and North America combined). I stayed at Pumulani Lodge, which has steps down to a beach. Kayaking along the wooded shore, I spotted fish eagles and hamerkops, and the snorkelling was dazzling.

With its “sorbet-coloured” hillside towns, the Amalfi Coast is one of Italy’s most beautiful places – but its high prices and traffic-clogged roads can be a pain. If you visit in the high season, you might do better to stay in Salerno, says Jessica Furseth in The Guardian, the “relaxed” port city just to its east. Restaurants and hotels there are much cheaper, there are regular ferries to places such as the town of Amalfi, and the city has attractions of its own, including a lively seaside promenade and an old town with an impressive medieval cathedral. It also sits on a main coastal rail line from Naples, offering quick, easy access to Pompeii (back towards Naples) and to Paestum (further south), with its ancient Greek tomb frescoes and temples of “golden” stone (“inexpressibly grand”, according to Shelley).

An idyllic escape from Melbourne

Set in the “gentle” hills of the Macedon Ranges, a 90-minute drive north of Melbourne, the little Australian town of Daylesford is “a hotbed of farm-led fabulousness”, much like the village in the Cotswolds after which it was named in the mid-19th century, says Sarah Turner in The Sunday Times. Daylesford has a great Sunday market and some “posh” boutiques, but is best known for Lake House, a hotel and restaurant that has driven the town’s evolution from “hippyish” to (appealingly) “haute” in recent decades. Run by Alla WolfTasker – now one of Australia’s most “revered” chefs – and her husband Allan, it offers wonderful five-course tasting menus for £130, which is a “fine-dining bargain” by Cotswolds standards. Stay if you can in one of its 33 hotel rooms, or at the “very luxurious” six-suite lodge set on its own farm, where kookaburras and cockatoos flit about the mineral-water-fed swimming pool.

A charming Victorian seaside resort

“The sweet, sensible sister of brassy Scarborough”, the Yorkshire seaside resort of Filey is “almost absurdly nice”, says Helen Pickles in The Daily Telegraph. Home to just 7,000 people, the town is “elegant” and quite unspoiled, with just one amusement arcade, a small “child-friendly” funfair, and no “flashy attractions” – and the five-mile beach it sits on is “gorgeous”. Recent years have seen the opening of a small gin distillery and the launch of a spring literary festival, but most of Filey’s shops and cafés are long-established. For instance, Sterchi’s Chocolatiers opened in 1916. Wherever you stay (the White Lodge Hotel is “the place for treats and celebrations”), don’t miss the town’s pretty boating lake, the Sunday concerts at the bandstand, or the RSPB’s Bempton Cliffs reserve, which is home to spectacular seabirds.

Pulling up at Son Xotano, after driving to the centre of rural Mallorca, feels a bit like arriving at a friend’s big place in the country that you have always been a little jealous of.

At the heart of this 12-century estate is a honey-hued manor, with pastel-blue wooden shutters and a sun-drenched terrace. A grand Mediterranean finca, it invites exploration.

In the grounds, a large pool is framed by striped sunloungers, cabanas and daybeds. The message to spend as much time as possible horizontal is a splendid idea. This is not a hotel for energetic daytime activities or rowdy nights at the bar. It is a place of calm, next to vineyards within a rural landscape where guests are encouraged to find a quiet corner, perhaps among the cypress trees or lavender, and slow right down.

Why stay here?

Son Xotano is one of the newest additions to the Annua Signature Hotels group founded by brothers Álvaro and Iñaki Sasiambarrena. Their philosophy is to create design-forward retreats across the Mediterranean, combining the natural surroundings and heritage of each property with high-end service and amenities.

It was on show from the start as we strolled up the path to check in to be greeted by a mass flutter of butterflies dancing around our ankles.

When choosing a place to stay, it is tempting to head to Mallorca’s dinking coastline, but head inland and the gentler pace is beguiling. And if you crave the beach or Palma’s twisty shopping streets, they are just a short, 25-minute drive away.

There are 22 rooms here, a variety of suites and doubles, with views of the gardens or countryside in the distance. Some come with their own private terrace or garden. There is no beige or grey palette here. Instead, our room was a delightful mix of soft creams and pastels, and on the wall behind the bed some specially commissioned artwork – a giant mural depicting trees and peacocks in vivid blues and greens.

All rooms come with air conditioning, coffee machine, safe, Wi-Fi, robes, slippers, Aesop products and a minibar. I needed to ask for a kettle and teabags, and there is no TV – but one can be wheeled in on request.

The shower was enormous. I popped my head into one of the bigger suites that had a free-standing bath, but one of the many delights of staying in such a unique building is that no two rooms are the same. All have the particular quirks – wooden beams or quaint tiny windows – of a centuries-old property.

Eating and drinking

Situated next to the pool and providing sustenance from early morning to late at night is the Son Xotano restaurant. Under the shade of olive and cypress trees, we started the day with breakfast – a huge buffet supplemented by table service. The fruit platters were a thing of beauty. As guests flop after a swim, lunch – from small plates to classics like salads and hamburgers – can be brought over.

In the evening the restaurant becomes the focal point of the hotel. As the sun sets tables are laid out on a terrace, or you can do as we did and choose a romantic table set apart among the trees. The menu features local, seasonal ingredients and is Mediterranean and Mallorcan with a contemporary approach. The porc negre loin had the crispiest skin and was delicious. Order a bottle of César wine – a lively dry white produced for the sister hotel in Lanzarote and only available through this collection of hotels.

Things to do

Yoga, massages, horse-riding and much more can all be arranged if you can drag yourself away from the pool. A car is definitely a good idea so you can explore nearby towns and beaches.

In Palma, wander the cobbled lanes of the Old Town and call in at the wondrous gothic cathedral. The island’s finest beaches are also within easy reach, from the sweeping white sands of Playa de Muro to the tranquil coves of Cala Tuent and Cala Deià, while the nearby Serra de Tramuntana offers some of Mallorca’s most scenic drives and hilltop villages, including Valldemossa and Deià.

Closer to the hotel, don’t miss the charming market town of Sineu or a wine tasting at one of the vineyards around Binissalem, Mallorca’s best-known wine region.

The verdict

If you are looking for an alternative to the coast and want to truly unwind, Son Xotano is a gem. Don’t expect a packed programme of activities – there isn’t even a gym.

You will, however, come away feeling relaxed and refreshed.

Jonathan was a guest of Son Xotano Hotel; annuahotels.com

South Korea is having a moment. K-pop superstars BTS are one of the biggest bands on the planet while “KPop Demon Hunters” has racked up more than 500 million views as the most-watched film in the history of Netflix.

From kimchi to must-have skincare, we can’t get enough of all things Korean, evidenced by UK visitor numbers increasing 17% between 2024 and 2025. Now that figure looks set to rocket with Virgin Atlantic, the only British airline to fly to the country, having recently launched a daily, direct flight to Seoul from Heathrow. It puts the South Korean capital firmly on the city-break map, offering a thrilling mix of skyscrapers, temples, neon-lit shopping streets, easy-reach mountains and fantastic food.

Things to do

It is easy to feel bamboozled by options when you arrive in Seoul. The city is vast, a jigsaw of distinctive neighbourhoods spread over more than 200 square miles. Luckily, the Metro is easy to use and very efficient, and Ubers are cheap, though traffic can be heavy.

Get a feel for the city's history first by touring one of its five Joseon Dynasty palaces. The 14th-century Gyeongbokgung is the largest, with a traditional twice-daily changing-of-the-guard ceremony, but Changdeokgung is the loveliest, a UNESCO-listed former royal residence with a cherry blossom-filled secret garden. Admission is free if you come wearing traditional Korean dress, as many tourists choose to do. Afterwards, wander the narrow streets of nearby Bukchon Hanok Village, lined with traditional homes with curved tiled roofs, tea houses and craft shops.

If you come seeking trends, and shops, head to Hongdae shopping district packed with department stores, street food stalls and entire shops filled with photo booths and props to pose with. Make a beeline for the flagship Olive Young store, the country’s biggest cosmetics retailer, where there’s a whole wall devoted to sheet masks, testing stations and a vending machine that doles out free skincare samples.

Myeong-dong is even hipper, with cat cafés, independent boutiques, galleries and bars. Book a slot at Colorize to try out the TikTok trend of having your colours analysed to discover which suit you best, or sign up for a K-Pop dance class near Hongik University to rate your chances of making the next BTS video.

Over in Gangnam, there are upmarket stores, a sprawling underground mall, the 8th-century Bongeunsa Temple and a giant golden statue honouring “Gangnam Style”, the famously catchy song about the area.

For a total change of pace, it’s worth taking a day trip to the DMZ, the 160-mile Demilitarized Zone that separates North and South Korea. It’s around an hour from Seoul, through rigorous passport checks, walls of barbed wire and signs warning of possible landmines in the area. Only pre-booked guided tours are allowed, which include a walk along the mile-long Third Infiltration Tunnel, an eerie, narrow underground passage carved into the granite 73m below ground. Discovered in 1978, it was built by North Korea for up to 30,000 soldiers an hour to pass through and potentially launch a surprise attack on the south.

From the adjacent Dora Observatory, it’s even possible to look into North Korea itself, spotting military watchtowers, the skyline of Kaesong city, a solitary tractor working the fields and a huge flag billowing in the wind on one of the world’s tallest flagpoles. More sobering still, in the DMZ’s small museum, it’s possible to sit down with a North Korean defector to learn how they escaped the country and what life was really like there.

Eating and drinking

Need a quick meal in Seoul? Look no further than the humble 7-Eleven stores all over the city. Many of these have huge (and cheap) eat-on-the-spot food options, including fresh kimbap, design-your-own ramen, kimchi-flavoured everything and even bento boxes, plus sitting areas to wolf it down.

Check out chimaek – chicken and beer – shops for crispy Korean fried chicken. There’s a whole street of them in Myeong-dong or for an elevated take on the classic, head to Kyochon Pilbang in Itaewon – if you can find it. Pull on the large paintbrush hanging on the wall close to Itaewon station to gain access to this unmarked speakeasy-style basement restaurant, where chicken is served with sauces you can paint on with the supplied paintbrush.

Korean BBQ has to be tried at least once. In Bongsan in Seogyo-dong, there are built-in barbecues in the middle of tables for diners to grill their own beef brisket, wagyu and pork belly with sides, sauces, yet more kimchi and shots of soju, a vodka-style spirit made from fermented rice. Don’t wear your best clothes though, the smell lingers long after dinner. Afterwards, stroll the busy surrounding neon-lit streets for caricature and portrait shops, karaoke bars and ice-cream parlours, including the popular 32 Parfait, known for its whopping 32cm soft-serve cones.

Where to stay

The design-driven Mondrian Seoul Itaewon is a trendy spot with a buzzy hotel entrance full of locals having coffee, a second-floor lobby inspired by a fairy-tale forest with towering plants and illuminated swings hanging from the ceiling, and an outdoor pool overlooking the city. Standard rooms are small but sleek in shades of grey with dark wooden furniture and statement armchairs. Don’t miss the rooftop bar with its panoramic views of Seoul. Namsan Botanical Garden and the lively Itaewon-dong strip, with its restaurants and clubs, are both within walking distance.

Siobhan Grogan was a guest of Virgin Atlantic and Mondrian Seoul Itaewon. For more information, go to English.visitkorea.or.kr

In his 1960 novel “Rabbit, Run,” John Updike wrote that growing up means joining, whether you like it or not, a “sky of adults” that hangs over the next generation. The messy, confusing, glorious process of becoming an adult has been the backbone of countless wonderful movies, with some of them, like the underrated 1986 drama “Lucas,” currently lost to the streaming world. While everyone surely has their favorite, these eight beautiful films capture the highs and lows of moving from one phase of life to the next.

‘Breaking Away’ (1979)

In “Breaking Away,” Dave (Dennis Christopher) is a recent high school graduate in Bloomington, Indiana, who becomes obsessed with becoming an Italian cycling champion and passes himself off as an exchange student to his crush, a college student named Kathy (Robyn Douglass). He convinces his townie friends, including Mike (Dennis Quaid), to join him in an informal cycling competition against a group of privileged University of Indiana students.

The friends, all in the process of figuring out who they want to be, spend their last summer together training for the thrillingly staged race. A “treasure,” the film is a “wonderfully sunny, funny, goofy, intelligent movie that makes you feel about as good as any movie in a long time,” said Roger Ebert at the time. (Prime Video)

‘The Breakfast Club’ (1985)

In “The Breakfast Club,” a group of suburban Chicago high school malcontents from rival cliques, including a bullying John (Judd Nelson) and the stuck-up Claire (Molly Ringwald), are forced to spend a long Saturday detention together, supervised by vice principal Mr. Vernon (Paul Gleason). They are tasked with writing an essay about who they think they are, which they delegate to the group nerd, Brian (Anthony Michael Hall), and over the course of the day everyone, including the overbearing authority figure, gets a chance to share and humanize their struggles. Director John Hughes’ “simple, one-location talkie” brings Generation X’s “submerged angst to the surface” in a movie that is “still the definitive ’80s teen movie,” said Simon Crook at Empire. (Netflix)

‘Stand By Me’ (1986)

The beloved “Stand By Me,” based on a Stephen King novella, follows 12-year-old Gordie (Wil Wheaton) and three of his friends, Chris (River Phoenix), Teddy (Corey Feldman) and Vern (Jerry O’Connell), as they take an unauthorized hike searching for the body of a missing teenager. Narrated by a grown-up Gordie (Richard Dreyfuss) decades later, director Rob Reiner’s film is a masterclass in atmosphere and character-building. Met with underwhelming reviews when it was released, “Stand By Me” has “aged into a staple of youthful nostalgia for its deft straddling of the line between childhood and adulthood,” said Charles Bramesco at Rolling Stone. (MGM+)

‘Mermaids’ (1990)

Cher plays Rachel Flax, a single mom raising two daughters, 15-year-old Charlotte (Winona Ryder) and her younger sister, Kate (Christina Ricci). Rachel is a free spirit who has moved her kids around every time a relationship goes south, and the film opens with a move to a small town in Massachusetts.

Rachel dates a shoe store operator named Lou (Bob Hoskins), while Charlotte nurses a crush on her handsome young school bus driver and flirts with Catholicism to the chagrin of her Jewish mother. Narrated by Charlotte’s “droll inner monologue,” it is a “fun, heartfelt, well-directed film that still holds up pretty damn well” decades later, said Nadine J. Cohen at The Guardian. (MGM+)

‘Pariah’ (2011)

Adepero Oduye is Alike, a 17-year-old girl whose conservative parents’ marriage is falling apart around her in their Brooklyn apartment. Alike knows she’s a lesbian but hasn’t told anyone, including her father, Arthur (Charles Parnell), a police officer, and her mother, Audrey (Kim Wayans). Her best friend, Laura (Pernell Walker), is already out, and helps Alike navigate the minefield at home, as Alike explores her identity and ultimately faces a heartbreaking choice.

A tremendous turn from the then-unknown Oduye helps carry this quietly powerful film. It’s a “tender, sporadically goofy, yet candid examination of emergent identity,” making it the “finest coming-of-age movie I've seen in years,” said Ella Taylor at NPR. (Netflix)

‘Boyhood’ (2014)

There may never be another film like director Richard Linklater’s stunning ‘Boyhood.” Linklater followed the same group of actors over the course of 12 years, with a total of just 39 days of filming. Mason (Ellar Coltrane) is 6 when the film begins as his dad (Ethan Hawke), a musician, splits from his college professor mom (Patricia Arquette). Lorelei Linklater, the director’s daughter, plays Mason’s older sister, Samantha.

In a series of vignettes, we see Mason growing up, his dad stumbling toward maturity and a more consistent presence in his life and his mom moving around Texas and seeking stability and happiness. Through its unique structure, this “beautiful, simple and ambitious film” lovingly “creates the closest thing to a real experience as few motion pictures ever have,” said Brian Eggert at Deep Focus Review. (Netflix)

‘Moonlight’ (2016)

The haunting masterpiece by director Barry Jenkins (“The Underground Railroad”) follows a young Black Miami man named Chiron through three distinct phases of his life. As a lonely, bullied elementary student he’s played by Alex R. Hibbert and goes by Little. His mother, Paula (Naomie Harris), is a drug addict and Little falls under the tutelage of a drug kingpin named Juan (Mahershala Ali) and his girlfriend, Teresa (Janelle Monáe).

Ashton Sanders plays Chiron as a high school student who develops a taboo romantic relationship with Kevin (Jharrel Jerome); Trevante Rhodes is Chiron as a fully grown man who goes by Black, who follows in Juan’s drug-dealing footsteps and reconnects with Kevin (André Holland). A “moving and mysterious” film, it is “about masculinity, the wounds and crises of which are the same for all sexualities but conditioned by the background weather of race and class,” said Peter Bradshaw at The Guardian. (Hulu)

‘Eighth Grade’ (2018)

Director Bo Burnham’s “Eighth Grade” stars Elsie Fisher (“The Bear”) as Kayla, a shy 13-year-old who produces a YouTube show whose only fan seems to be her awkward single father, Mark (Josh Hamilton). Anchored by an extraordinary performance from Fisher, the film’s centerpiece is a pool party thrown by the popular Kennedy (Catherine Oliviere), where Kayla sees her crush, Aiden (Luke Prael).

It is both a universal story about trying to fit in and also a quietly searing commentary about the Gen Z milieu, including active shooter drills and ubiquitous smartphones. Burnham’s film “reflects arguably the worst stretch of growing up in America’s education system,” said Andy Crump at Paste magazine, but is nevertheless “compassionate, radiating retroactive kindness for the children we all were to soothe the adults we are now.” (Prime Video)

Based on the Kei car – Japan’s smallest motorway-legal vehicle – the Super-N has been part-developed on British roads and, at just 3,599mm long, it’s the marque’s smallest car in the UK, said What Car? The electric motor delivers just 63bhp in regular driving mode, and it takes 14.5secs to get from 0-62mph, but push the purple boost button and a total of 94bhp is unleashed, allowing you to do 0-62mph in a “more respectable” 10 seconds.

A virtual seven-speed gearbox, coupled with a “futuristic four-cylinder sound”, gives the Super-N “proper character”, said Top Gear. It’s easy to drive smoothly and, though the 128-mile WLTP range isn’t huge, you’ll get nearer to 200 miles in the city, so it’s efficient too. With a low centre of gravity, the car is pretty agile on the road; suspension is on the stiff side and there’s a bit of body roll, but the steering has decent feel.

With four seats, the “characterful” Super-N is “surprisingly spacious”, said Auto Express. There’s no underfloor storage, and the boot is a tiny 162 litres, but the “magic seats” go flat, giving a whopping 967 litres. And while there is a lot of scratchy plastic, the things you touch “feel more premium”. The front seats are comfy with good visibility. There’s only one trim; the standard kit includes two screens, rear camera and Bose stereo.

“I wanted to walk out of ‘Life Support’ many times,” said Danny Leigh in the Financial Times, and “I mean that as the highest recommendation.” This “essential” documentary, told from the perspective of international doctors who volunteered to help civilians in Gaza between October 2023 and September 2025, offers a rare glimpse into life – and death – in the besieged enclave.

It is particularly vital considering that, since the war began, no independent foreign journalists have been allowed into Gaza. Using interviews and video footage, director Daniele Rugo weaves together the testimonies of surgeons, paediatricians and other medical staff as they confront “nightmarish wounds” in hospitals that double up as shelters, while bombs fall. In its “stark simplicity” it is “deeply racking”.

Doctors tend to be careful with their words and don’t reach for “overstatement or exaggeration”, said Cath Clarke in The Guardian. But their “measured accounts of hell on earth” make this “devastating film almost unbearable to watch”. The doctors pay tribute to their Palestinian colleagues, who work marathon shifts, often while grieving personal losses. One surgeon takes sitting-down breaks during an operation to avoid blacking out from hunger. Another brings her teenage children to work, reasoning that, if they die, they will die together.

We see “the erosion of life” in Gaza first-hand, said India Lawrence on Time Out, from the “heartbreaking footage” of people relaxing and lounging under beach umbrellas in 2022, to the nightmarish reality of life in wartime. There is no dramatic climax, just the slow, relentless descent towards Gaza’s “total devastation”. “Life Support” is “not a happy watch”, but it is “an urgent and essential piece of reportage”.

The blowing up of the Nord Stream gas pipeline in the Baltic in September 2022 “has been called the greatest act of sabotage in modern times”, said Robert F. Worth in The New York Times. In one blow, the explosions ended Germany’s energy dependence on Russia – where the gas originated – and “set off a year-long argument about who was responsible”, with Russia, the US and Ukraine all identified as possible culprits.

Partly thanks to a “meticulous German police investigation, and partly because of some very dogged reporters”, we now know that Ukraine’s SBU intelligence agency was responsible. Their motive was to “stop Germany from feeding Russia’s war machine with billions of dollars in annual gas payments”.

Bojan Pancevski, a US-based reporter who “spent years untangling the plot”, has now written a “spectacular book” about the bombings, which reads like a “police procedural”.

The team of divers – four men and one woman – who headed to Germany’s Baltic coast had “possibly the daftest cover story in the history of espionage”, said Colin Freeman in The Telegraph. If stopped, they were “ready to claim that they were making an aquatic-themed pornographic film”. But they weren’t, and “the bombs went like clockwork”, damaging three of the four pipelines beyond repair.

Because the pipelines lay 80 metres below the surface, beyond the reach of “even the best-trained special-forces divers”, the organisers recruited “civilian deep-sea divers” from Ukraine’s Black Sea diving fraternity, who practised for months in disused Ukrainian quarries. They escaped from Germany by van, and only one has been arrested (he’s to stand trial in Germany later this year).

These days, it is common for current affairs to be trumpeted with the phrase “reads like a thriller”. “‘The Nord Stream Conspiracy’ genuinely does.”

Waterfalls are a gift of both sight and sound. They look magnificent, elegantly cascading into canyons and tumbling roughly over cliffs. The steady din of rushing water and booming splashes only adds to their beauty. These awe-inspiring waterfalls are reminders of how, sometimes, Mother Nature loves to show off.

Ban Gioc-Detian Falls, China and Vietnam

These multi-tiered falls straddle the border between China and Vietnam, surrounded by lush greenery and towering karst hills. Visitors can take in the calming sight from land, or hop on a bamboo raft and see it from the river below. On the Vietnam side (Ban Gioc), several smaller waterfalls to the side add to the majesty.

Havasu Falls, Arizona

This legendary waterfall, which “topples off fiery red rock and drops into a turquoise pool,” is so vibrant it almost doesn’t look real, said Travel and Leisure. It is on the Havasupai Reservation near the Grand Canyon, and to get here, you must have a permit, book a stay at the Havasupai Campground or Havasupai Lodge and then hike (or helicopter) in. Havasu Falls is the star of the show, but the nearby Navajo Falls, Mooney Falls and Beaver Falls are “similarly spectacular.”

Helmcken Falls, Canada

You’re going to want to see British Columbia’s Helmcken Falls during the summer and winter, when it shines in two incredibly different ways. During the warmer months, the water freely cascades down, as expected. Once the temperatures drop and days get shorter, the falls become “truly epic,” said the BBC. As the water tumbles over into the canyon, a “huge cone of ice begins to form,” creating an “awe-inspiring structure” that over the winter can grow to “almost half as tall as the waterfall itself.”

Iguazu Falls, Argentina and Brazil

You hear Iguazu Falls before you see it. The “low, thunderous rumble” rises from “deep within the jungle,” signaling that just around the bend the incredible falls await, said Travel and Leisure.

Hundreds of cascades, “some gentle and ribbonlike, others violent and towering,” make up the falls, and the sight is a sheer “spectacle.” If you have time, view Iguazu from both the Argentinian side, where an “incredible” network of walking paths drops you off close to the falls, and the Brazilian side, which provides a “panoramic view from farther back.”

Kalandula Falls, Angola

The roaring Kalandula Falls are considered sacred, a place where locals once performed rituals to ask the gods for health and wealth. Today, visitors come to witness the majesty of one of Africa’s largest waterfalls by volume, tucked far from the beaten path. To get here, you’ll have to hike down a rocky trail that snakes past the mighty Lucala River.

Kuang Si Falls, Laos

Kuang Si Falls starts off easy, with shallow pools that spill into wider pools. From there, the main waterfall brings the drama, with a 200-foot drop. During the dry season, visitors can cool off by swimming in the turquoise waters. If you don’t want to get wet, there are several bridges and viewing platforms to soak in the gorgeous views of the water and surrounding forest.

Langfossen, Norway

Wild and rugged Langfossen drops more than 2,000 feet, crashing down the mountainside and under the E134 highway. This is one of Norway’s tallest waterfalls, and while most others in the country are used for hydroelectric power generation, Langfossen is still in its natural state. Visitors can take a strenuous hike up an old farm path to be close to the waterfall and soak up panoramic views of the surrounding fjords and mountains, or marvel while on a boat ride across the fjord.

Seljalandsfoss, Iceland

Seljalandsfoss offers a rare opportunity to walk behind a waterfall. A path takes visitors around the back of it, into a small cave; tread carefully, as this area can be wet and slippery. Seljalandsfoss’ “beautiful high falls” are a sight to behold from the front, tumbling down over a “rocky scarp into a deep, green pool,” said Lonely Planet. North of Seljalandsfoss is its sister waterfall, Gljúfrabúi, which “gushes into a hidden canyon.”

Sutherland Falls, New Zealand

It takes “some effort” to reach Sutherland Falls, but your reward for making the trek is “jaw-dropping” views of the natural wonder, said Afar. New Zealand’s tallest waterfall is close to Milford Sound in Fiordland National Park, and “intrepid” hikers can reach it via the 33-mile Milford Track. Otherwise, book a helicopter tour to get an aerial look at Sutherland, which “escapes through a gap in a glacial cirque” before plunging more than 1,900 feet over three cascades.

Victoria Falls, Zambia and Zimbabwe

The Lozi name for Victoria Falls, Mosi-oa-Tunya, translates to “the smoke that thunders” and aptly describes the loud and misty scene. The falls change “dramatically” over the year, and are at their most “powerful” after the summer rains, when “enormous clouds of spray” carry over the gorge, “drifting across the surrounding rainforest,” said Forbes.

When the water levels are lower, the falls look “clearer,” and it’s easier to “better appreciate the geological scale” of the area. This is also your chance to take a “high-adrenaline” swim in Devil’s Pool, a natural pool right on the edge of the falls on the Zambian side.

Wailua Falls, Kauai

You don’t have to go far to get to Wailua Falls. This double-tiered waterfall can be seen from the road, making it accessible for those who can’t hike or have small children in tow. Set amid lush tropical foliage, Wailua is the quintessential Hawaiian waterfall, and likely looks familiar to fans of 1970s television — it appeared in the opening credits of “Fantasy Island.”

This year, the world’s largest performing arts festival will stage 3,649 shows from 71 countries across 258 venues, culminating in a “mammoth” 53,884 performances, said Annie Lewis in Luxury London.

The festival has helped turbocharge the careers of Rowan Atkinson, Steve Coogan, Judi Dench and countless other names in the creative industries, and gives newcomers the chance for their big break. Here’s all you need to know about the nation’s favourite celebration of the arts.

What is the Fringe?

The event began unofficially in 1947 as an addition to the Edinburgh International Festival, set up to celebrate European culture after the Second World War. Eight small theatre companies made the trip to the capital that year to perform after the main festival closed, and the official Fringe Festival Society was created in 1958.

Now in its 79th year, the Fringe has “become so vastly bigger that it’s no longer the fringe of anything”, said Andrzej Lukowski, theatre editor at Time Out. It always runs for three weeks in August – this year from 7 to 31 August – though in reality shows will often preview on a day or two before the official start.

Why go?

“Truly, all human life is here,” said Tristram Fane Saunders in The Telegraph. Nowhere else in the world would you find performances of “Endometriosis: The Musical!”, “Robot Wars with Roombas” or “Chekhov in Flemish Sign Language”. Some of the biggest names in the comedy industry continue to return, with Frank Skinner, Nish Kumar and Catherine Bohart, James Acaster and Sara Pascoe all making appearances this year.

But the main appeal of the Fringe is that it’s not “awash with big names”. This is the place where people “go to see the comedy stars of the future before they’re famous”. Traditionally, many of the performances have been free, operating a pay-as-you-feel policy. If ticketed, shows are generally under £20 across the city's theatres, pubs and streets.

There are many other fascinating festivals in the city running at the same time. There’s the aforementioned Edinburgh International Festival and the “hugely popular” Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo, which involves a “series of fancy military parades”, said Lukowski in Time Out. If any more reason is needed to flock to the city, the Edinburgh International Film Festival, Edinburgh Art Festival and the Edinburgh International Book Festival are taking place close by.

What should you see?

“Comedy is king,” said Saunders in The Telegraph. Perhaps the festival’s most “controversial” stand-up show this year will be Amanda Knox’s “Cartwheel”. Wrongfully convicted in 2007 of the murder of Meredith Kercher, Knox wrestles with how to “explain her life-story to her young daughter”. Tickets are also almost sold out for “rising star” of “Saturday Night Live UK” Ania Magliano and her show “Peach Fuzz”, as well as previous Edinburgh Comedy Award winner Ahir Shah, “one of the most intelligent voices in stand-up”, back with “Golden”.

There’s a “great mix” of “returning shows, debuts and even some world premiere runs” in drama too, said Kevin Quinn in Edinburgh Evening News. Director Emma Howlett’s “ambitious” female-led “The Plot” is a tragi-comic “fast-paced, imaginative exploration of power, truth and the stories” set in the aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot. Writer and actress Hannah Reilly’s acclaimed “Roleplay” also serves up a “bold, provocative and darkly funny” depiction of a “broke feminist podcaster who rebrands as a provocative ‘slutfluencer’ in pursuit of fame”.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the tomes piling up on your bedside table, try reaching for a novella instead. These slim, punchy books can be finished in a single day – and might just reignite your love of reading. Here are some of our favourites.

Assembly by Natasha Brown

Inspired by her career working in finance, Brown’s thrilling debut is just a hundred pages long and “written in vignettes that leave a lot of white space on the page”, said The Guardian. The story follows a young Black woman who “seems to have it all”: a great job, money, and a “loving, liberal, generationally wealthy boyfriend”. But simmering beneath the surface is a “desperate rage” at the racism and misogyny she navigates every day.

Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner

This “deeply strange” novel begins “conventionally enough”, with a quiet young woman leaving London to start afresh in a rural village, said The Guardian. But Townsend Warner “gleefully” changes tack when her heroine, Lolly Willowes, becomes a witch. “Smashing together” an array of genres from folk horror to nature writing, it’s a short but mighty book that helped cement its author as “one of the true originals of 20th-century English literature”.

Orbital by Samantha Harvey

Harvey’s “otherworldly” 140-page novel scooped the Booker Prize in 2024, proving longer doesn’t necessarily mean better, said Good Housekeeping. Set aboard the International Space Station, her “gorgeously written” book follows six astronauts orbiting Earth over 24 hours. Filled with beautiful prose and breathtaking imagery, she offers an “intriguing perspective on the human race’s treatment of our planet”. It’s a must-read.

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

Set in a small Irish town in the 1980s, this is a “quiet but deeply moving” story, said Daisy Lester in The Independent. It follows a “duteous father” who is confronted with the harrowing treatment of unmarried young women at the hands of the church at one of the country’s infamous Magdalene Laundries. “Haunting yet hopeful”, I devoured the entire book in “one short afternoon, but have been reflecting on it for far longer”.

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

Rhys’ “chilling, dreamlike” prequel to “Jane Eyre” explores another side to Charlotte Brontë’s “madwoman in the attic”, said Adrienne Westenfeld in Esquire. We meet the white Creole heiress, Antoinette Cosway, in Jamaica years before the events of Thornfield Hall. Isolated and lonely, she is soon “driven to despair” by the cruelty of her new husband Edward Rochester. Rhys’ book is just 176 pages long; packed with “gorgeous imagery and turbulent emotions”, it will roll over you like a “hazy island fever dream”.

Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? by Lorrie Moore

Moore expertly captures “female adolescence and the intensity of its friendships” in her “luscious and funny” book, said The Economist. The action follows Berie as she looks back at the “small, wild joys of her teenage years”, and tries to figure out how her life has become so “staid and unfulfilling”. She begins to see the “mockery and rebellion” she and her best friend had loved as “callow answers to teenage insecurities” – but her story still “vibrates with regret for what she has lost”.

Christopher Nolan’s much-anticipated mythic action epic “The Odyssey” is out this week. Count down to its release by watching or rewatching some of the director’s greatest hits.

Oppenheimer (2023)

The word of the summer in 2023 was “Barbenheimer”, as the blockbusters “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” both hit the big screen. “Oppenheimer”, definitely the darker half of the double feature, is Nolan’s “profoundly unnerving” retelling of the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) and the part he played in developing the atomic bomb, said Clarisse Loughrey in The Independent. Nolan is “committed to understanding the inner workings of his subject”, observing the chapters of Oppenheimer’s life with “sickly wonder” and painting a picture of a “man deep in denial”. The film is carried by Murphy and Robert Downey Jr., who both earned Oscars for their performances.

Inception (2010)

The one thing to know about Nolan’s 2010 thriller, “Inception”, is that “it is not a trick”, said Nev Pierce in Empire. “It is ingenious but not crafty, knotty but not duplicitous.” There is no “‘ta-dah!’ moment” where you find out everything was only a dream. The starry cast of actors is led by Leonardo DiCaprio who plays Dom Cobb – a spy-for-hire who steals his targets’ ideas from their subconscious minds as they sleep. Visually breathtaking, with cities folding in on themselves and zero-gravity fight scenes, it’s an “exhilarating” watch that fully immerses you in Nolan’s imagination. But it’s more than just spectacle: “this is about life and death and what might be beyond and between”.

Dunkirk (2017)

Nolan’s 2017 Second World War film about the evacuation of British troops from the French town of Dunkirk in the face of the German advance has a “heart-hammering intensity”, said Robbie Collin at The Telegraph. The movie features separate narrative strands following soldiers, pilots and sailors to bring the “single pivotal historical moment” powerfully to life on land, air and sea. With the “crisp” landscape shots, “meticulous” period detail, “superb Hans Zimmer score” and all-star cast, Nolan is able to capture the true “British ‘Dunkirk spirit’”.

Interstellar (2014)

Despite being one of Nolan’s more scientifically ambitious movies, “Interstellar” still has a massive “gravitational pull”, said Mark Kermode at The Guardian. Our unlikely hero, Joseph Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) is “prompted by ghostly forces to lead an exploratory mission through a wormhole beyond the rings of Saturn, abandoning his family in search of a future for all humanity”. With stunning shots of space and imagined planets, “Interstellar” is a “futuristic fable” that leaves viewers “awestruck” and reaffirms Nolan as “cinema’s leading blockbuster auteur”.

The Dark Knight (2008)

The second instalment of Nolan’s Batman trilogy “leaps beyond its origin and becomes an engrossing tragedy”, said Roger Ebert. “The Dark Knight” picks up in the months after its predecessor, “Batman Begins” (2006), with Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) navigating the moral dilemmas that come with being the Gotham vigilante. Boundaries of good and evil are blurred even further with the introduction of Batman’s most iconic villain, The Joker, played by Heath Ledger, who died before the film was released. In his “key performance”, which earned him a posthumous Oscar, Ledger presented The Joker as “more than a villain”. Nolan’s gritty retelling of this iconic story redefined the “comic-book movie”.

Getting to Traena in Norway’s Arctic Circle is “a bit of a schlep”, said James Stewart in The Times. From Oslo, you can catch a flight to Bodo and then take a passenger ferry to Onoy, “a small island transit hub on the Helgeland coast”.

The “first indication” that it’s going to be “worth it” comes as the ferry “weaves south where north Norway shatters into 20,000 islands”. But it’s confirmed on the final leg of the journey as a “fist of peaks nears in the open sea” during the hour-long crossing from Onoy to Husoy island.

Here you’ll find Ytri: a new luxury hotel “billed as ‘Norway’s most remote island retreat’”. At first glance it appears more like an “elongated village of small barns, their wooden cladding silvering nicely or painted rust-red, black and the green of oxidised copper”.

The little “fishing island with 450 residents” doesn’t seem like an “obvious” choice for a swanky new retreat. But faced with “squeezed incomes and an ageing population”, the islanders voted “almost unanimously to create a hotel”.

This is a place made for “edge-of-the-map escapism”, said Chloe Frost-Smith in Vogue. Ytri has been built like a “contemporary coastal hamlet” with 38 rooms and suites, a boathouse, a restaurant serving “traditional open sandwiches” and a yoga and wellness area complete with saunas. Days are easy to fill with “hikes to ancient caves” and “candlelit dinners of seafood pulled from the water just metres from the hotel”.

Consider taking a shuttle boat to the nearby island of Sanna which “boasts three peaks”, said Worldcrunch. To reach the top of one of them, adventurous travellers must go through “what locals call ‘the tunnel of love’, an 800m-stretch dug inside the mountain”. The reward is the view: on your right stretches the “endless sea”, and on your left “the impressive contour of the continent dotted by white glaciers”.

Nothing feels better on a blazing hot day than a cold blast of AC, especially when it isn’t you paying the bill. Instead of going to the usual air-conditioned spots like the mall or movie theater, go for an immersive adventure. You can cool off while exploring a new artsy world, learning about the galaxy or sinking a hole-in-one.

Dorrance Dome, Phoenix

Explore our galaxy and beyond without having to leave your seat. The Arizona Science Center’s new Dorrance Dome gives visitors a “360-degree immersive experience,” said the Phoenix New Times. The planetarium dome is covered in 44 million LED lights that shine 100 times brighter than traditional bulbs, delivering a “‘wow’ factor.” The additional wattage turns the usual 2-D projection into a 3-D production.

Multiple shows are presented at the dome, including “Worlds Beyond Earth,” narrated by Lupita Nyong’o, “Moonbase: The Next Step” and “Orbital,” an animated look at life on Earth and what it’s like for astronauts to look down at the world below. Check for after-hour shows and special events too, like yoga and sound healing held inside the dome.

Hijinx Hotel, Irvine, California

Leave your suitcase at home because the Hijinx Hotel isn’t for spending the night. It is instead a place to “play, not stay,” filled with 15 challenge rooms, each offering a different interactive, whimsical experience. The games test your memory, speed and aim, and scores are tracked electronically with a key card so you can see how your performance stacks up compared to other groups. The hotel’s theming is impeccable, with workers dressed like bellhops and housekeepers and a grand lobby library featuring eclectic paintings and sculptures.

Hijinx Hotel also has a full bar and restaurant that could rival any resort’s offerings, with drinks served in novelty glasses and a sweet-savory high tea, three karaoke rooms and a secret speakeasy where the party goes on and on.

Holey Moley, various locations

Holey Moley gives mini golf a makeover. These indoor courses are “full of unusual sets — think the moon landing and dinosaurs,” said the Daily Pilot. Each hole (there are 27 at each location) has its own theme, and while all are over-the-top, some go all-out, like Morning Tee. The goal at this hole is to guide your ball through your grandmother’s retro house, maneuvering obstacles like old furniture and radios.

Visitors can order Holey Moley’s “extravagant” cocktails, like the vodka, watermelon and lime Twinkle Toes served in a “unicorn chalice,” and then slurp it while on the course. Some locations also have karaoke rooms, and the Austin Holey Moley offers arcade games and interactive darts.

Meow Wolf, various locations

Each Meow Wolf is its own interactive world designed by dozens of artists. These large-scale installations in Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Texas (and coming soon to Los Angeles and New York) tell different stories, but all are “part art exhibit, part escape room, part scavenger hunt and completely wacky,” said Fodors.

The Santa Fe location, called House of Eternal Return, appears to be an ordinary Victorian-style house, but the “refrigerator door opens to a secret passage” and something “peculiar” is under the stairs, said Fodors. Houston’s Radio Tave is a mysterious “audiovisual extravaganza,” and at Las Vegas’ Omega Mart, visitors choose their own adventure in a surreal supermarket where nothing is as it seems.

Getting lost in the “labyrinthine pathways” and allowing your imagination to “run wild” is part of the fun, said Fodors. A visit to one of these destinations lets you “unlock a deeper appreciation for the creativity and ingenuity” displayed.

Paradox Museum, Miami

Prepare to spend your time at the Paradox Museum totally confused and feeling topsy-turvy — that’s the point. The 70 interactive exhibitions and illusions exist to “mess with your head,” challenging perceptions by “distorting or redirecting what you’re seeing,” said Time Out. One room is “literally upside-down,” while another makes it look like you are eating at a dining room table with “clones of yourself.” The trippiest area is the Zero Gravity Room, where it “seems like you’re floating in space.”

Don’t leave your phone in your pocket though. There are ample opportunities to snap photos that will “blow away” your friends on social media, said Time Out.

WNDR, Boston and Chicago

At WNDR, visitors go on a multi-sensory journey, making their way through mirrored spaces, interactive light exhibitions and a living gallery where the portraits on the wall come to life. There are 15 installations at the Chicago location and 20 in Boston; each taps into a sense of “curiosity, playfulness and — of course — wonder,” said Condé Nast Traveler.

The experiences are all “thoughtfully curated” and meant to make visitors stop and think about what they are looking at. Some take up entire rooms and follow a “particular storyline,” said Condé Nast Traveler, while others are “tiny reflections” that “bridge the gaps between multiple elements.”

As the heatwave burns on, “the last thing people want to do is turn on the oven”, said the BBC. Sweltering weather can suppress your appetite and make it harder to concentrate or sleep. Could tweaking your diet help?

Crucially, it’s important to “drink more” to replace the liquid lost through sweat. But there are other ways to rehydrate than keeping your bottle topped up. “We need to eat our water as well as drink it”, said Aisling Daly, senior lecturer in nutrition at Oxford Brookes University. Fruit and vegetables like watermelon, celery, cucumbers, grapes and tomatoes have a “very high water content” of over 90%, making them great to snack on.

Sweating also “depletes our electrolytes”, said The Telegraph, which play an important role in helping our nerves and muscles to work properly. Instead of relying on powders or gels, try stocking up on coconut water or the yoghurt-based drink lassi, which are both natural sources of electrolytes and packed with magnesium.

It’s worth making yourself a cup or two of mint tea, or mixing the fresh leaves through a salad. Mint contains menthol, which scientists have found activates your mouth’s cold sensitive receptors and “triggers the same response as touching ice”.

Spicy foods can also be beneficial as peppers and chillies contain capsaicin – a compound that “tricks the nervous system into thinking the body is hot, encouraging you to sweat and cool down”. Avoid heating up the kitchen by having a barbecue outside instead and marinating your kebabs in a spicy marinade.

And what should you steer clear of? Salty nuts and crisps, caffeinated artificially sweetened drinks like Diet Coke, or a glass of wine might sound appealing in the heat but they “won’t leave you feeling your best”, said Metro. Their high salt content can “encourage water retention” and make you “bloated and uncomfortable”, said nutritionist Lola Biggs. Instead, for a “satisfying crunch”, try whipping up a batch of paprika-roasted chickpeas.

While everything from algebra to essay writing may have been covered in school, a subject area often left off the curriculum is personal finance. Unfortunately, most people are far more likely to run into questions of budgeting and investing than, say, calculating the area of a triangle (some professions aside).

The good news: It is never too late to play catch-up. And with these personal finance books, doing so does not have to feel like homework.

‘Get Good with Money: Ten Simple Steps to Becoming Financially Whole’ by Tiffany Aliche

This book by financial educator Tiffany Aliche, aka “The Budgetnista,” offers a breakdown of financial foundations and daily money habits. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given her moniker, the book helps with establishing a baseline budget, but it also offers guidance on other staples like saving, investing, insurance coverage, credit scores and more. Ultimately, Aliche succeeds in presenting an “ethos of financial wholeness that rejects the unnecessary complexity and unrealistic nature of traditional financial advice,” said U.S. News & World Report.

‘Your Money or Your Life’ by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin

This book encourages readers to get clear about their personal values around money. “The simple premise: How much money are you willing to trade your life for? Whenever you’re working, you’re trading your life and energy for money. What does that mean to you?” said Grant Sabatier, a personal finance blogger, to The Strategist. The idea is that “once you’re clear on the ‘why’ behind your saving and spending, making decisions about investing and budgeting becomes much easier,” said the outlet.

‘The Intelligent Investor’ by Benjamin Graham and Jason Zweig

Once your budget and debts are ironed out, you are in a good place to start investing, a practice foundational to building wealth. This book was originally published in 1949, though it has since been updated and now remains a classic for a reason. It provides a guide to “investing for individuals looking to develop sensible strategies and protect their investments,” said GOBankingRates. Business magnate Warren Buffett has called it “by far the best book about investing ever written.”

‘The Psychology of Money’ by Morgan Housel

The “biggest impediment for most people building wealth is their emotional decisions that get in the way of doing what should provide the greatest outcomes,” said Mitchell Kraus, a financial planner with Capital Intelligence, to The Wall Street Journal. This book helps readers learn the signs of those pitfalls so they can better steer clear of them. Think of it less as a how-to guide and more as a psychological unpacking and broader money mindset shift.

‘Broke Millennial: Stop Scraping By and Get Your Financial Life Together’ by Erin Lowry

This book is for the millennials out there (though there is a good chance other generations may relate — looking at you, Gen Z). It is “aimed at 20- and 30-somethings who are dealing with both paying off debt and beginning to plan for the future,” said The Strategist. There are chapters on everything from navigating the decision of whether to move back in with your parents to making preparations for retirement.

The southwesternmost of Japan’s four main islands, Kyushu receives relatively few foreign visitors, but it is rich in history and lush natural beauty. It was through here that early travellers from China and Korea usually arrived in Japan, bringing Confucian thought, Buddhism, writing, tea and, later, Zen teachings.

Still later, Portuguese and Dutch merchants arrived (in 1543 and 1600, respectively), staying on in the ports of Hirado and Nagasaki – which during the closed Edo period were Japan’s only gateways to the outside world. Their influence can be seen in the region’s food, architecture, and more, says Christopher P. Hill on DestinAsian – which adds an extra layer of interest to a tour of this western corner of the island, such as Walk Japan’s 10-day group walking trip.

One of the more easygoing of Walk Japan’s options, our tour only involved about five kilometres of walking per day, with other travel by coach, train and ferry. We stayed in a mix of hotels and traditional inns, or ryokans, often in towns centred around onsens (natural hot springs). My favourite was Yoyokaku, an “elegant” family-owned ryokan in the town of Karatsu, with a garden of “meticulously pruned” pines.

The food on the trip was “outstanding”, from meals in simple izakayas (taverns) to multi-course kaiseki dinners with “seasonal dishes almost too pretty to eat”. We saw the “luminous”, Korean-influenced pottery produced in the “picturesque” towns of Okawachiyama and Arita, and visited the Takatori Residence in Karatsu, a fin-de-siècle industrialist’s house with a “sublime” Noh theatre and Western conveniences including electric lights and a grand piano.

Nagasaki was “fascinating”, but I particularly loved the smaller port of Hirado. Its attractions include the Matsura Historical Museum (which preserves 17th-century tea traditions), and the breathtaking views afforded of the “island-studded” Genkai Sea from the Kawachi Pass.

The trip costs from £3,140pp, excluding international flights, walkjapan.com

Florence is often called a living art gallery, but it’s also a living city, with culture and dining and drama far beyond the ancient. This Time Tomorrow – an exquisite collection of apartments at the northern edge of the Piazza della Libertà – exists for you to experience all this; to make visiting Florence more than just a box-ticking trail round the Renaissance classics. It succeeds.

Why stay here?

The design standard of the apartments is sublime. The classic “luxury converted palazzo” elements are all present: soaring ceilings, often frescoed; tapestries on walls and gorgeous wooden floors; restored original mosaics and embellishments wherever possible. But there’s also a contemporary edge, thanks in part to the owners’ large art collection generously displayed throughout, and to the thoughtful deployment of technology in the kitchens, living spaces and bedrooms.

Larger apartments have their own outside space and there is a communal roof terrace with exceptional views south to the city centre and north across the hills. Sunset cocktails here at least once is a must.

The tasteful, marble-clad bathrooms are stocked with luxurious Erbario Toscano olive-oil products, testament to the local-sourcing ethos of the property, and by far the best I’ve encountered at any hotel or apartment before. Such touches elevate a stay here, making it a more personal experience than any traditional hotel could ever offer. The on-site concierge team (contactable via WhatsApp after hours) ensures service isn’t sacrificed despite staying in an apartment.

Eating and drinking

A welcome hamper of essentials – artisanal pasta, charcuterie and staples like olive oil and balsamic vinegar – stocks the kitchen with, of course, tea and coffee. There is no restaurant in the building, but vouchers are provided for an inclusive breakfast at one of two local cafés. Pasticceria Blasio is across the street and frequented by affluent, well-dressed ladies; Caffè Libertà is round the corner and has a younger, more student-y vibe. Both are excellent, with incredible pistachio croissants.

People rarely go on holiday to cook for themselves, but with the kitchen and roof terrace here, the idea of making dinner one evening becomes appealing. Artisanal delis and a good-sized supermarket are five minutes on foot, and you'll find local wine recommendations in the fridge or bar cabinet (at your own expense).

For recommendations, the knowledgeable in-house This Time Tomorrow team is on hand with a network of places tourists would rarely discover. But in the same street is the family-run Ristorante Alfredo serving the kind of hearty rustic cooking only a nonna can provide. A few steps away is SantaBarbara Desco e Cucine, a hip, young joint serving a tasting menu of delicious sharing plates – try the sausage and octopus. But beware, it is so popular with locals you’ll need the team’s help to get you in.

Things to do

Go out and get a little lost. If this is your first time in Florence then you’ll be happy to hear the Duomo, the David, and all the other monuments you might want to visit are within walking distance, or there’s a tram stop outside the door. If you’re a seasoned visitor, Via San Gallo is just across the square with vintage shops and restaurants you may have missed previously.

Or embrace the local neighbourhood, turning left to venture deeper into Le Cure instead of right to the town centre. Trust in the advice of your personalised itinerary – created for you by the team before you arrive, based on your responses to a pretty comprehensive questionnaire – and discover the real soul of this extraordinary city.

The verdict

The Florence hospitality market is one of the most saturated in the world, so it’s difficult for new properties to stand out. Using its considered blend of design, empathetic service, and immense knowledge of the city, This Time Tomorrow has managed to do so with aplomb. It’s a quirky, characterful, and superbly lavish alternative to a hotel, and one that will enhance your visit to the city no end.

Nick was a guest at This Time Tomorrow; thistimetomorrow.io

Martial arts remains one of the few subgenres without much presence in the sprawling prestige TV universe. But as streamers have diversified and internationalized their offerings, there are now more options than there were, including these eight standout shows. For our list we have excluded animated offerings, foreign language series that aren’t available in the U.S. and shows like the network dramedy “Martial Law” that currently have no streaming home.

‘Kung Fu’ (1972-1975)

Some of the casting decisions, like having David Carradine play a Chinese character that Bruce Lee auditioned for, would not fly today. But the series remains an important cultural marker for the explosion of interest in martial arts in the U.S.

Carradine plays Kwai Chang Caine, a half-American Shaolin monk who flees to the United States in the early 1870s, seeking to find his half-brother, Danny Caine (Tim McIntire). It remains an “unforgettable pop culture phenomenon that blended solid action, engrossing storytelling and the philosophical musings” of Caine’s slain mentor, Master Po (Keye Luke), said Flickering Myth. (Prime Video)

‘Into the Badlands’ (2015-2019)

“Into the Badlands” is set in a violent and bleak post-apocalyptic United States ruled by warlords, whose power is backstopped by hand-to-hand combat warriors called clippers. Daniel Wu (“Geostorm”) is Sunny, a clipper who serves as the right-hand man of Baron Quinn (Marton Csokas).

While fending off attacks from a rival warlord, The Widow (Emily Beecham), Sunny meets M.K. (Aramis Knight), a mysterious boy who may hold the key to a more prosperous future beyond the confines of the badlands. A show that “sort of looks like 1886 but also sort of looks like the future,” it features the “absolute best fighting you’ve seen on TV.” Every fight is a “dramatic tableau set in a picturesque location,” said Brian Moylan at The Guardian. (AMC+)

‘Wu Assassins’ (2019)

Indonesian superstar Iko Uwais (“The Raid”) plays Kai Jin, a San Francisco chef based in Chinatown who learns that he is the last in a long line of mystical warriors who must use powers called wu xing to fight the Wu Warlords and prevent them from taking over the city. Kai’s father figure, Uncle Six (Byron Mann), is one of the warlords bent on domination, setting up a Star Wars-esque clash between father and son. A “true treat for any action fan,” the series “grabs you with its flesh-and-blood energy and ambition, offering a spectacle that has become all too rare in action stories these days,” said Nick Allen at Roger Ebert. (Netflix)

‘Warrior’ (2019-2023)

In a script based on Bruce Lee’s original (and reportedly stolen) vision, Andrew Koji (“Gangs of London”) is Ah Sahm, a renowned martial artist who arrives in 1870s San Francisco and is immediately plunged into the so-called Tong Wars, mostly street violence between rival gangs in different American Chinatowns. He becomes an enforcer for the Hop Wei tong, a crime family managing smoldering tensions with other clans.

Dylan Leary (Dean S. Jagger) is an Irish labor leader negotiating rising tensions between the two immigrant communities, and Christian McKay is San Francisco’s mayor, Samuel Blake. Both a propulsive action thriller and a fascinating piece of historical fiction, “Warrior” offers three full seasons of fighting and intrigue. It’s both “gratifying as a platform for representation” of Chinese Americans and “delivers all the adrenaline-pumping martial arts smackdowns one would expect,” said Hanh Nguyen at IndieWire. (HBO Max)

‘My Name’ (2021)

Ji-woo (Han So-hee) joins the police as a mole for a drug cartel to get revenge for her father’s murder in this Korean drama that remains little known in the U.S. To do so she must work with her father’s associate, Mu-jin (Park Hee-soon), to train and infiltrate law enforcement and find those responsible for her father’s killing.

Stylish and fast-moving, it’s a bit like the police thriller “Infernal Affairs” meets the revenge saga “Oldboy.” ‘My Name’ is an “enthralling and enjoyable revenge thriller” that uses “long, drawn-out sequences and impressive choreography” to build a compelling and slick drama, said Greg Wheeler at The Review Geek. (Netflix)

‘House of Ninjas’ (2024)

After losing their son, Gaku (Kengo Kora), in battle, the Tawara family blends back into modern Japanese life and abandons their nights-and-weekends ninja mayhem. Soichi (Yosuke Eguchi), and Yoko (Tae Kimura) are the family leaders who call their children Haru (Kento Kaku) and Nagi (Aju Makita) back into action years later while trying to keep their 8-year-old, Riku (Tenta Banka), in the dark about the family’s true identity. An “unalloyed delight,” the series offers a “marvelous mix of stealthy ninja action, family drama and gentle comedy,” said Peter Martin at Screen Anarchy. (Netflix)

‘Last Samurai Standing’ (2025)

Shujiro Saga (Junichi Okada) is a down-on-his-luck samurai who receives a mysterious invitation to a tournament in Kyoto with a grand prize of 100,000 Yen, which was quite a lot of money in 1878. Hoping to save his ailing wife and son, Shujiro travels to the Tenryu-ji temple, where the tournament is overseen by Enju (Kazunari Ninomiya).

The catch is that to win, he will have to kill all of the other 291 players, a premise similar to the smash Korean hit “Squid Game.” The show is “fascinating and impressive a production,” its “character-driven” storyline “moves fairly fast, and the production is visually stunning,” said Karina Adelgaard at Heaven of Horror. (Netflix)

‘Song of the Samurai’ (2026)

“The Last Samurai” and FX’s smash hit “Shogun” aren’t the only current dramas to use the backdrop of late imperial Japan. Set in 1859 Japan, Hijikata (Yuki Yamada) is a fighter who encounters a group of men from the Shieikan dojo training facility.

There, he joins Kondo Isami (Nobuyuki Suzuki) and Okita Soji (Kanata Hosoda) to form the famed Shinsengumi samurai, which protects the embattled shogunate of Japan against pressure from the U.S. and other Western powers seeking to open the country to international trade and development. It’s a “sweeping epic that examines a fascinating part of Japanese history and takes the time to delve into the psyches of its characters,” said Sarah Osman at The Arts Fuse. (HBO Max)

“I had two goals while pottering among the 1,851 works in the 258th Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition,” said Christopher Howse in The Telegraph. First, to find “a nice little piece to buy”; second, “to identify the most annoying exhibit”. There were, alas, many more contenders for the latter than the former.

The RA’s summer show has been running every year since 1769, making it the world’s oldest open-submission exhibition. Every year, it mixes the work of famous artists with efforts by members of the public; and every piece displayed, this year as always, is for sale.

Its 2026 iteration has been “coordinated” by the conceptual artist Ryan Gander, whose chosen theme for it is “Interconnectedness”. I didn’t detect a hint of that here: it is, rather, a “whirl of objects” – an incoherent and unsatisfying display. “If you really dislike someone, then you might consider giving them ‘Speaking Clock’ by Peter Liversidge, which is just a Tannoy announcing the time each minute. It would be an expensive hate crime, though, at £7,500.”

This year’s exhibition is “less awful than usual”, said Eddy Frankel in The Guardian. Yes, of course it features “some of the worst art you’ve ever seen”. Nadirs include “a vast, half-arsed nude” by Tracey Emin; and Antony Gormley’s “giant” sculpture of his own likeness, that you’re encouraged to enter via “his backside”.

Yet Gander brings “a little bit of strangeness” to the event, which is very welcome. He gives ample space for oddball displays: “a video of a bloke doing Bowie karaoke”; a sculpture of a disembodied corpse sitting on a chair; a pair of silver boots “dumped on a plinth”.

As for buying opportunities, if I had the cash, I’d be interested in the comedian Harry Hill’s two paintings of cars on fire, which are “bleak and silly”, but strikingly so. The best things are by artists you’ve probably never heard of. Glen Pudvine’s image of hands unfolding a piece of paper, for instance, is “stunningly executed”. Harriet Porter, meanwhile, is a regular at the Summer Exhibition – and she’s always “the best thing in it”. Her painting of a “small, silver pot” is “hazy, minimal, serene”.

The summer show means “a great deal” to the non-professional artists who submit their best work, said Laura Freeman in The Times. There’s the standard deluge of cat pictures (though, curiously, there are fewer dogs than usual), but there are also some really good submissions: Sharmini Wirasekara, for instance, is exhibiting a “beaded beetle” that strikes me as “an iridescent miracle”.

Yet there are many disappointments: a Grayson Perry tapestry railing at the rise of AI doesn’t make sense in this context; and, in the RA courtyard, Ugo Rondinone’s LED rainbow sculpture spelling out the words “The Song is You” is the “tritest” work to occupy the space in years. Overall, this is “a flat and charmless year”.

Royal Academy, London W1. Until 23 August

The best cookbooks can be read from multiple directions. A compendium of utilitarian recipes that can be both browsed and zeroed in on. An anthropological telescope through which you gape at a cuisine. The history of a food told through a kitchen aperture.

If a cookbook achieves one of those objectives, it warrants consideration. If it attains all three, the angels sing, the pots clang and the fridge door swings wide open. Rachel Roddy’s “An A-Z of Pasta: Recipes for Shapes and Sauces from Alfabeto to Ziti, and Everything in Between” is that style of cookbook.

Pasta, then and now

Roddy, a Brit who has lived in Rome for the last 20-odd years, notes that only a “genius or an idiot” would try to gather the stories of the “350 to 600, depending on who you talk with” pasta shapes used across Italy. “I am neither, at least not in this context, so I haven’t tried,” she writes.

You could wager she is instead both a genius and an idiot. With the valiant undertaking of “An A-Z of Pasta,” she does the near-impossible: She captures, across 50 pasta shapes, the lifeblood of an ever-shifting subject.

In the chapter on paccheri, those chunky, dried elongated tubes akin to rigatoni on ’roids, Gragnano, a town near Naples, is the main character. You learn that in the 18th century there were “22 mills and 97 pasta factories” in the area. Now there are “23 pasta factories,” only some of which “bear the mark Pasta di Gragnano DOC, that Gragnano is the city of pasta.” The present clings to the past, like fava bean pesto should adhere to al dente paccheri.

The entry on busiate jumps even further back, to 12,000 years ago, when wheat was first domesticated, then on to cultivated wheat’s appearance in Italy in 6500 B.C. Sumerians, Greeks, Arabs, Vikings; Greek and Roman texts, plus the Jerusalem Talmuds — all played their part in pasta’s ascendance as a commonplace food.

Flip to the “L”s, and we time-warp to the present, as Roddy sits with a pasta maker in the region of Le Marche, “examining uncooked pasta like dermatologists, admiring the pores and rugosity.” She offers a recipe for linguine, dressed in a silken sauce of thinly-sliced onion and zucchini, egg yolks and Parmesan. If this is food-history whiplash, bring on the 17-car pileup.

Bags of opportunity

Should your pasta pantry be forever stocked with an array of shapes, like a menagerie of delicious rigidity, flip through “An A-Z of Pasta” and be astounded. You might gasp and nod so much at the book’s recipes, that your jaw remains unhinged and your head frozen in descent.

Those wagon wheels, aka ruote, untouched because you cannot quite figure out how to use them? Drape them with Gorgonzola, sage and walnuts, or mascarpone and, again, walnuts. Jaded by your staple spaghetti with tomato sauce? Wander the week with nine tomato-based recipes, tripping from a raw sauce with dried oregano, to spaghetti alla Norma with eggplant, tomato and ricotta salata, to the apotheosis of leftovers, a frittata made with day-old spaghetti and tomato sauce.

Pasta will tell you how it wants to be treated in the kitchen, if you listen. Roddy, with “The A-Z of Pasta,” teaches you the foodstuff’s centuries-old language. Lend an ear, and put some water on to boil.

“Nobody asked for a prequel to ‘Legally Blonde’,” said Anita Singh in The Telegraph, but here it is, because “ker-ching! – there is money to be made from rinsing the original”.

The result is “Elle” (Amazon Prime Video), “a cute but pointless series” in which we meet Elle Woods as a 16-year-old high schooler in 1990s Beverly Hills. She’s living her best life, until her parents announce that they have to move to rainy Seattle. So Elle is transplanted to the “epicentre of grunge”, where her “Barbie-pink outfits and perky demeanour are greeted with horror” by her hoodie-wearing peers. It is “a re-run of the film” – but “not half as funny”.

Lacks ‘fizzy dialogue’

Stretched over eight episodes, it sorely lacks the sharpness of the 2001 movie, said Adam White in The Independent, as well as its stacked supporting cast (Jennifer Coolidge, Selma Blair etc.), “fizzy dialogue” and comic set pieces.

The TV show also has a large plot hole: presumably, in the second season, Elle (Lexi Minetree) will undergo a “sociopolitical lobotomy” to explain why, in the film, she rocks up to Harvard so shocked by the way she’s greeted despite her experience in Seattle.

‘Slick nostalgia fix’

The series is an odd concept, said Carol Midgley in The Times: a spin-off of a film adored by a generation that is now well into middle age, but seemingly aimed at teenagers.

Still, it’s really not bad. Minetree looks like the film’s star, Reese Witherspoon, and captures some of what made her so brilliant in the part; and it has some good lines. It’s probably not a show for “a fogey like me”, but this “slick nostalgia fix” is good fun.

“Empires fall. Glaciers melt and oceans rise. Monarchs and prime ministers are crowned and toppled,” said John Nugent on Empire. “But the Minions cannot be halted, will never cease, will outlive us all.” And so they are back, in the seventh instalment of the “Despicable Me/Minions” franchise.

As ever, these small yellow gibberish-spouting creatures are searching desperately for a “villainous master to serve, which sees them encounter everyone from the tyrants of revolutionary France to a fearsome cyclops”.

Eventually, the “ageless goofballs” land in silent-era Hollywood, where they try to make their own monster movie. The tone is “as juvenile as ever” – in a film that is “goofy and giggly and resolutely wedded to stupidity” – but happily for “cine-literate parents”, there are some “absurdist treats”, including “the first ‘Citizen Kane’-based fart joke in cinema history”.

The film is “a hoot”, said Ed Potton in The Times, with “world-class slapstick” and a plethora of enjoyable movie references, not just to “Citizen Kane”, but to everything from Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton to “Jaws”. And it boasts a “tremendous” voice cast: Jesse Eisenberg features as a deluded robot, Trey Parker as a small monster, Allison Janney as a museum curator, and George Lucas (as himself) and Jeff Bridges as a pair of Warner brothers-like studio bosses.

It has been billed as returning director Pierre Coffin’s “love letter” to old Hollywood, said Rafaela Bassili in The Guardian, but the pleasures of this set-up prove short-lived. Later acts are “cluttered with extraneous characters and absurd situations”, and you feel you are just watching more of the same Minions fare.

Couple-swapping dramas had their heyday during the sexual revolution, said David Sexton in The New Statesman. And even the most famous of them, such as 1969’s “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice”, look like “curiosities from another era” now. “Yet somehow, sexual perplexities remain in 2026.” “The Invite” started life as a play, by the Catalan writer/director Cesc Gay, which has since been turned into a film everywhere from Italy to South Korea. Now we have an American version, from director Olivia Wilde, and it is “not to be missed”.

Seth Rogen is “better than ever” as Joe, a failed musician unhappily married to frustrated housewife Angela (Wilde). One day he comes home to find that she has invited their hot upstairs neighbours – Hawk (Edward Norton) and Piña (Penélope Cruz) – to dinner. Joe is furious. He doesn’t want their company, he wants them to stop having noisy sex, which is keeping him awake at night.

The dinner is a disaster: Angela has failed to check Piña’s dietary needs (“no gluten, no dairy, no meat, no sugar”) and Joe didn’t get any wine in. As the evening descends into “mayhem”, Hawk and Piña reveal that they are into sex parties, and have come to see if their hosts are open to one. Brilliantly executed, “The Invite” is “the funniest film so far this year”.

“If there is more pleasure to be had than watching great actors behaving badly, I would genuinely wish to know about it,” said Deborah Ross in The Spectator. Cruz is wonderful, as sexy and charismatic as you could hope; Norton is “insufferably smug”; and Rogen proves he can do “emotional depth” when he tries.

The film is “hilarious”, said Brian Viner in the Daily Mail, but it is also profound, “offering a genuinely insightful peek into the human, and marital, condition”.

The best newly published holiday reads.

All In by Claire Powell

Very few authors write about “contemporary Englishness as astutely, mercilessly and affectionately as Claire Powell”, said The Guardian. In “All In”, she “puts her perfectly observed characters in the pressure cooker” of an all-inclusive family holiday, creating a “kind of meta-beach read”. Best known for “At the Table” (2022), Powell has a knack for creating “characters you feel you really know”, said The Times. “Funny and moving”, this is a “brilliant summer read”.

Kids, Wait Till You Hear This! by Liza Minnelli

From “drug addiction to choosing unsuitable lovers, Liza Minnelli inherited plenty” from her mother Judy Garland, said The Telegraph. It has made for a fascinating life, which she documents in an “intimate, chatty style” in this “rip-roaring memoir”. The most vivid sections focus on Garland, whose mood swings Minelli had to manage as a teenager, said The Sunday Times. But Minnelli’s love life also “makes for anecdotes galore”.

Transcription by Ben Lerner

On his way to interview his literary hero, the narrator of “Transcription” drops his iPhone in the sink. He has no means to record the conversation, but presses ahead with the interview anyway. From this simple premise unfolds an “intelligent, absorbing” study that “plays with the boundary between the truth and fiction”, said the Financial Times. A deserving winner of the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, this “compact and endlessly surprising” novel “exerts a powerful grip”, said The Times.

Land by Maggie O’Farrell

The “Hamnet” author’s latest is set in Ireland just after the Great Famine, and begins with the story of a cartographer and his son surveying a windswept peninsula, said The Independent. “Moving and magnificent”, it is O’Farrell’s “most ambitious book to date”. Incorporating elements of folklore and the supernatural, this is a “gripping” work about a land and its people, said London’s The Standard. “You’ll struggle to look up” from it while on holiday.

Jan Morris: A Life by Sara Wheeler

“From reporting on the first ascent of Everest in 1953 to transitioning in the 1970s”, Jan Morris led a “unique and astonishing” life, said the Financial Times. And it is superbly captured by Sara Wheeler in this “engrossing authorised biography”. For all that she was trail-blazing, Morris was “not a lovely person”, said The Times: “she was sharp-elbowed, slapdash, imperious and narcissistic”. It’s to Wheeler’s credit that she acknowledges such traits in her “sympathetic but candid biography”.

London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe

When Zac Brettler, a middle-class 19-year-old, fell to his death from a Thames-side apartment in 2019, police initially treated his death as suicide, said The Telegraph. But this “extraordinary” work of investigative journalism presents a darker, more complex take. At once a portrait of a family’s grief and of “a city at a particular point in its history”, said the Financial Times, “London Falling” is “a masterpiece” from the award-winning author of “Empire of Pain”.

Consider Yourself Kissed by Jessica Stanley

There can’t be many romantic novels that feature “Boris Johnson’s ICU stay”, said The Guardian. But in this “treasure” of a book, Jessica Stanley braids the personal and political as she chronicles the relationship between copywriter Coralie and journalist Adam. Full of “on-the-nose” references, this is a “stellar summer read”, said The Times.

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

This epistolary novel about a 73-year-old retired lawyer who lives alone in Maryland was a “startling word-of-mouth success”, said The Times. “When you read it you’ll understand why.” Sybil, the protagonist, is someone “you want to spent hours with”, said The Independent. The winner of this year’s Women’s Prize For Fiction, this book is the “best kind of summer read”.

Fair Play by Louise Hegarty

When a group of friends holds a murder mystery party and one is found dead, we seem set for a conventional “whodunnit”, said The New York Times. But this “terrific debut” works on several levels: part “knowing homage to classic detective fiction”, it’s also a “sensitive examination” of grief. It’s the “most original crime novel you’ll read all year”, said The Guardian.

The Dordogne is a region renowned worldwide for everything from gastronomy and gorgeous castles to grottos and grand cru vintages. Quite understandably at this time of deep uncertainty and major conflict in the Middle East, British travellers are opting to visit Europe rather than venturing farther afield. And, just an hour’s flight time from London, there are few more lovely places to visit than the southwest of France.

What to see

Among the many natural wonders of the Dordogne, a true highlight is the Padirac Caves. The largest underground natural heritage site in Europe, it is the most famous cave in France, welcoming 500,000 visitors a year.

The limestone cave system dates back to the Jurassic period 170 million years ago, when dinosaurs walked the earth. It was discovered in 1889 by the intrepid French explorer, Edouard-Alfred Martel. He descended 60 metres on a rickety rope ladder into a chasm known as the Devil's Pit.

More than 100 metres deep and 20 kilometres long, Padirac is a breathtaking place to visit. You travel part of the way in a boat which has the feel of Charon’s ferry to the underworld. You are steered through an astonishing limestone canyon, crossing turquoise water where only tiny snails and blind shrimp are capable of living. The caves are adorned with 60-metre-long stalactites which descend from the roof like mesmerising aliens.

The high point of Padirac – literally and figuratively – is La Salle du Grand Dôme. An astonishing piece of natural theatre, it is a 93-metre-high cave large enough to fit the entire Notre Dame Cathedral. It's a temple to the power of nature.

Around a two-hour drive from here lies the beautiful medieval city of Limoges that’s famed for its leather. You can spend a very enjoyable morning at the recently opened La Cité du Cuir (City of Leather) museum. It is housed in the city’s former tannery in nearby St Junien beside the River Vienne.

As well as a comprehensive display about the process of making leather, featuring many vintage implements, the museum offers a demonstration by an expert cutter of the immense skill required to craft a fashionable pair of leather gloves.

The museum also has a fascinating exhibit about the social history of leather. This includes the iconic moment when the American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists in a defiant Black Power salute during the US National Anthem at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. The relevant aspect of their protest? Their hands were clad in black leather gloves.

Like Padirac, this charming, atmospheric cheese shop, La Maison du Fromage, in the medieval centre of Limoges, is a sublime subterranean experience. You descend three storeys to the building’s ancient cellars, where you can try a selection of the region’s marvellous cheeses and wines by candlelight. The 250-plus cheeses are kept fresh in the constant 11C temperature.

Where to stay

A fairytale castle dating from the 14th century, the Château de la Treyne hotel near Lacave appears to be teetering in an impossibly precarious spot atop a rugged cliff on the banks of the Dordogne.

The interior, which has 18 very different bedrooms, is equally impressive. It is easy to see why Henri IV felt at home when he stayed here. I spend the night in a grandiose red-hued room called Gothique, which has a suitably regal double bed.

The dishes on offer in the château’s Michelin-starred restaurant are equally sumptuous. Please do not leave without sampling the divine dessert of Caribbean coffee-chocolate delice with a hint of tonka beans and cacao nibs. Truly, food fit for a king.

With 14 rooms, three suites and a villa, La Chapelle Saint Martin, is set in 40 acres of parkland near Limoges.

In the splendid Michelin-starred restaurant, you can sample such delicacies as the signature Limousin rack of veal with meat ragout and truffle sauce. In a clever nod to the regional speciality of porcelain, it’s all served on plates by local makers Bernardaud, decorated by the artist Marco Brambilla.

Another stand-out hotel serving Michelin-starred food is Le Vieux Logis, in Trémolat in deepest Dordogne. It occupies a lovely former medieval priory and features an immaculately kept formal garden. In the restaurant, in a capacious room that used to be a tobacco-drying chamber, you can delight in dishes from a menu of seasonal specialities.

The verdict

The Dordogne is a breathtaking region. If you're looking to avoid long-haul flights in these turbulent times, this is the ideal short-haul destination.

The famous French film director Claude Chabrol, who spent six weeks in Trémolat shooting the psychological thriller “The Butcher” in 1970, signed the visitors’ book at Le Vieux Logis, writing: “To leave paradise and return home is the height of sadness. Pity me!"

I know exactly how he feels.

James Rampton was a guest of Château de la Treyne; La Chapelle Saint Martin and Le Vieux Logis.

“A weekend spent at a water park might be the perfect family trip,” said Sophie Dickinson in The Telegraph. And “mercifully”, given the heat, the UK boasts plenty of options. Spoilt for choice with most parks having both indoor and outdoor facilities, they are equally attractive in a “heatwave-filled summer” or on a “gloomy Sunday afternoon”.

Here are some of our favourite spots, including toddler-friendly options and thrilling attractions for older children to explore, not to mention those that are secretly a lot of fun for adults too.

Alton Towers Waterpark, Staffordshire

Alton Towers is known as one of the most “iconic (and arguably best)” theme parks in the country, said Adam England on Time Out. But its water park is “unmissable” too. Its famous attractions, the “Master Blaster coaster, Rush ’N’ Rampage waterslides, and the interactive Wacky Waterworks” draw visitors from across the UK.

Lagoona Bay, Bubbly Wubbly Pool and Volcano Springs are all more suitable for younger children, and adults who are wanting to take a break, “until it’s time to resume the fun”. Entry to the water park is not included with a standard ticket, but “if you enjoy hurtling down flumes it’s well worth the additional cost”.

altontowers.com

Alpamare, Scarborough, North Yorkshire

“The ever-popular Alpamare combines rides with relaxation”, said Dickinson in The Telegraph. Its four major slides – “twisting Snow Storm, frightening Black Run, double-tube Olympic Run and thrilling Cresta Run” – will keep the whole family “entertained for hours”. Every 30 minutes, the wave pool kicks into gear to add a bit more excitement into the mix. But don’t worry if it all “gets too much”. There’s an infinity pool overlooking the bay that’s a “breathtaking place to swim” away from the chaos.

alpamare.co.uk

Coral Reef Waterworld, Bracknell, Berkshire

Londoners have been trying their best to “stay as cool as a cucumber” in the heat, said Katie Forge on Secret London, but the majority end up “resembling something slightly more similar to a tomato”. Coral Reef Waterworld is within “splashing distance” of the capital, and is “squeal-inducingly thrilling”.

It boasts a “whopping” five slides, which vary in speed and scariness, so it’s guaranteed that something will “float your boat”. To top it all, there is a “humungous” pirate ship in the middle of the pool, and there’s even an erupting volcano, because “why not?”. There’s also an adults-only spa: the “perfect antidote” to the water-filled frenzy of the water park.

everyoneactive.com

Let’s Go Hydro, Belfast, Co Down

This is undoubtedly one of Northern Ireland’s “best” gigantic inflatable playgrounds, said The i Paper. If indoor slides and wavepools aren’t your thing, and you’re looking for something more active and adventurous, this is well worth a visit. Hosted on the Knockbracken Reservoir in Carryduff, the outdoor features “seven-foot-high slides, climbing walls and floating trampolines” among other obstacles.

Fans of “Total Wipeout” are in for a treat, and for teams or larger groups there is a “floating rugby and football pitch” and a “beach arena for volleyball”, not to mention a “Puddle Park” for the smallest visitors. With an on-site spa, and self-catering barbecue pod options letting you “cook up a storm”, you will leave more revitalised than when you arrived.

letsgohydro.com

For many people busy ferrying their kids to camp or embarking on vacations, summer is a time to let their TV backlog swell. But if you’re the kind of person who streams as usual during the summer months, there are some terrific options for you this July.

‘Silo’ season 3

“Silo” has become one of the most beloved dystopian sci-fi series of the decade, in large part due to its magnetic central character, Juliette Nichols (Rebecca Ferguson). The show returns for a third season with a major surprise.

Instead of focusing exclusively on the post-apolyptic bunker dwellers of the title, the new season also leans on a second timeline, set in a near-future Washington, D.C. There, Congressman Daniel Keene (Ashley Zukerman) and journalist Helen Drew (Jessica Henwick) — introduced in the season 2 finale — navigate the events that led to the apocalypse, including a war with Iran. It’s “fun and incredibly interesting,” said Jean Henegan at Pop Culture Maniacs, and the “final stretch of this season is just spectacular across the board.” (on Apple TV+ now)

‘The Westies’

MGM+, a relatively new streamer, may have its first big hit with this real-life tale of dueling New York crime families set in the 1980s. Eamon Sweeney (J.K. Simmons) and his deputy, Jimmy Roarke (Tom Brittney), lead an upstart Irish-American syndicate battling their Italian mafia rivals for the spoils stemming from a major construction project, the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. Hamish Allan-Headley (“Mayor of Kingstown”) plays John Gotti, the leader of the far larger and more powerful organization. This “gritty new drama” ultimately “takes a Shakespearean turn, as the new generation clashes with the old” in both families, said Erin Maxwell at TV Insider. (July 12 on MGM+)

‘Lucky’

Anya Taylor-Joy (“The Gorge”) found perhaps her biggest success in the 2020 Netflix mini-series “The Queen’s Gambit,” and here she’s the centerpiece of Apple TV+’s seven-part limited series “Lucky.” Taylor-Joy plays Luciana “Lucky” Armstrong, a seasoned criminal aiming for one final heist before going straight. To complicate the narrative, her mom, Priscilla (Annette Bening), is a mob boss and her dad, John (Timothy Olyphant), is a career criminal. With “adrenalized action, tense familial drama, and a classic ‘one last job’ hook, the omens are strong” for this highly anticipated thriller, said Jordan King at Empire. (July 15 on Apple TV+)

‘The Hawk’

Comedy legend Will Ferrell has starred in several beloved sports parodies, including the car-racing satire “Talladega Nights” and the figure skating send-up “Blades of Glory.” This time he brings his many talents to a TV series about golf.

Ferrell stars as Lonnie “The Hawk” Hawkins, a pro golfer two decades past his prime who seeks one last big tournament win even though his wife, Stacy (Molly Shannon), and golf phenom son, Lance (Jimmy Tatro), want him to retire. Lonnie is a “loud, silly and gloriously arrogant” man whose “on-the-green rivalries take on an extrafamilial dimension,” when he ends up competing against Lance, said Luke Buckmaster at The Guardian. (July 16 on Netflix)

‘Gone’

Respected Bristol schoolteacher Michael Polly (David Morrissey) displays a strange lack of emotion when his wife, Sarah, goes missing, triggering the suspicion of Detective Sergeant Annie Cassidy (Eve Myles) in this engrossing, six-part pressure cooker from “Lupin” writer-creator George Kay. The setup sounds similar to the superb HBO Max drama “The Staircase.”

The couple’s daughter, Alana (Emma Appleton), is caught in the middle as Michael becomes the prime suspect, while the audience is left to figure out who is telling the truth. “If there is a tauter, clammier or more engrossing drama this year I will eat my mortarboard with chips,” said Sarah Dempster at The Guardian. (July 23 on BritBox)

Sunset strolls by the sea, snorkelling and picnics on the beach: it’s hard to beat an island holiday. Europe is dotted with picture-perfect isles that lie waiting to be explored. From a tiny island nestled within a Tuscan archipelago, to a quiet Greek haven at the southern tip of the Peloponnese, these are our favourites.

One of Tuscany’s most tranquil islands

The Tuscan island of Giglio hit the news in 2012 when a cruise ship, the Costa Concordia, ran aground here and capsized, with the loss of 32 lives. Today, it is hard to imagine that such a tragedy should have struck this beautiful, “laid-back” place, says Elizabeth Heath in Travel + Leisure. An hour by ferry from Porto Santo Stefano, on the Monte Argentario peninsula, the island has a “completely away-from-it-all feel”. The main town, Giglio Porto, is “colourful” and charming, and there are some good, if occasionally steep, hiking trails (Giglio is five miles long), with views to the larger island of Elba, 30 miles to the north. Hire a boat to reach hidden coves – perfect spots to “swim, snorkel or picnic” – and be sure to look up the island’s summer theatre season and its festivals of opera, film and wine. The stylish La Guardia hotel has rooms from £280 a night.

A beloved, less-visited Greek island

I grew up in Greece and have visited many of its islands – but “none has captured my heart quite like Kythira”, says Alexis Conran in The Times. Sitting alone, off the southeastern tip of the Peloponnese peninsula, it is quite big, and offers plenty to see and do; but with no international airport nearby, it never feels too busy. On a recent trip, I stayed in a “beautiful” villa run by Kythera Houses, near the central village of Potamos, which has a great farmers’ market on Sundays. There’s an attractive beach, Kaladi, not far away, but my favourite of the island’s beaches is Limnionas. The drive to it, passing the massive caves of the Agia Sofia, is “dramatic”, but the beach sits in a protected cove, and has lovely “clear”, calm waters. Eat if you can at Platanos, a “lovely” traditional taverna in the nearby village of Mylopotamos.

An arty stay in the heart of Sardinia

In the Costa Smeralda, Sardinia has one of the Med’s most glamorous tourist destinations, but the island’s interior is a world apart from its glitz, says Emma J. Page in House & Garden – “deeply agricultural” and steeped in tradition. Set next to the “rugged” Supramonte mountains, Su Gologone makes a great base. This family-run hotel has a huge collection of folk art, and offers a diverse range of art classes and outdoor activities. Ancient choral songs are sometimes performed during the communal feasts served in its terraced gardens, and there are wonderful artisans’ studios to visit in nearby villages. Also unmissable are the street murals in Orgosolo. Dating back to the 1970s, they address social and political themes, and lend this former bandit town an “edgy air”.

The Blytonesque charm of St Martin’s

Of the five inhabited Scilly Isles, none is more enchanting than St Martin’s, says Paul Miles in The Telegraph. Situated in the north of the archipelago, it is a “Famous Five” sort of place that has barely changed since the 1950s. Home to just 140 people, it lacks the “upmarket” shops and holiday lets of Tresco (more popular with “well-heeled” tourists). But it has seductive beaches of “almost-white” sand, lovely walking paths, and with the island’s mild climate, it “feels like a garden”, peppered with exotic species such as “tall” echiums and blue-and-white agapanthus. It’s worth hiring a kayak to visit the uninhabited islands nearby, and dropping in at the community observatory, with its two telescopes: on clear nights, the skies here are “tar-black” and full of stars.

A lonely cottage on a Cornish island

Fifteen minutes by boat from Cornwall’s southeast coast, Looe Island is a great place to connect with “the wilder world”, says Carol Donaldson in The Guardian. Managed by the Cornwall Wildlife Trust, the 22-acre island welcomes day-trippers, but also has two places to stay – a bell tent sleeping two, and a “cosy” one-bedroom cottage that was home, long ago, to a “pipe-smoking, fist-fighting” smuggler called Black Joan and her brother, Finn. There’s also a tiny museum and a house where the island’s wardens live. I rented the cottage for three nights, and spent my time reading and wandering the island’s woods and meadows. I also swam in a “little-visited” cove, and watched local seals frolic on the rocky shore.

If you are after a good cry, these films will have you reaching for the tissues. From stories of survival and life-changing decisions to heartbreak and hope, here are some of the best tragic tales brought to the big screen.

Titanic (1997)

Director James Cameron became “king of the world” in the 1990s with this “wildly over-the-top weepie romance” between Rose (Kate Winslet) and Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) on the so-called unsinkable ship, said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian.

Our heroine is “not suited for life in the gilded cage”, said The Hollywood Reporter, and finds herself saved by Jack, “whose joy for life and eagerness for living it to the fullest soon revitalise the young Rose”. Their love is not only tested by class boundaries, but with the “horrible outcome” of the voyage.

If the story was “made of showbiz and hype”, said Roger Ebert, “well – so was the Titanic”. The 194-minute, $200 million (£151 million) epic was “flawlessly crafted, intelligently constructed, strongly acted and spellbinding”.

It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

Frank Capra’s Christmas classic is repeatedly voted Britain’s favourite festive film for a reason. It is an “uplifting story of family, love and hope”, said the BBC. It’s “also the story of one man’s struggle with life’s knockbacks”. George Bailey, played by James Stewart, is brought back from the brink of suicide with the help of an angel, Clarence, played by Henry Travers.

George is shown how “worthwhile his life has been and what treasures, largely intangible, he does possess”, said Bert Briller in Variety, when the film first came out in 1946. This recounting of his life is “just about flawless in its tender and natural treatment”.

Atonement (2007)

Another romance set during a tragic historical period, “Atonement”, reflects on how a single error “destroys all possibility of happiness in three lives”, said Roger Ebert. Based on Ian McEwan’s book of the same name, the film begins with a “breathless celebration of pure heedless joy”, as heiress Cecilia (Keira Knightley) falls in love with the housekeeper’s son, Robbie (James McAvoy), on an English country estate.

But the actions of Cecilia’s younger sister Briony (Saoirse Ronan) and then the couple’s separation during the Second World War force us to “think deeply about what betrayal and atonement might really entail”.

The Pursuit of Happyness (2006)

In this “truish story set in 1980s San Francisco”, Will Smith’s Chris Gardner is a “newly single dad juggling bankruptcy, childcare, and high hopes of an internship” at a stockbrokers for no pay, said Tim Robey in The Telegraph. Smith is “sublime and moving” in this “tailor-made, sweetly serio-comic, Julia-Roberts-in-‘Erin-Brockovich’ Oscar vehicle”.

Chris and his son Christopher Jr. (played by Smith’s own son Jaden) navigate poverty, eviction and homelessness, but the hope portrayed in the movie is enough to “turn even the strongest of viewers into a puddle of tears”, said Harper’s Bazaar.

Graveyard of the Fireflies (1988)

Isao Takahata’s animation about two orphaned siblings in Japan during the Second World War is “one of the greatest films to have ever been made about children in wartime”, said Robbie Collin in The Telegraph. Made at Studio Ghibli, it has a “quiet but devastating power that breaks every heart it finds”.

The film creates “magical moments of natural beauty and childish delight” that only make the tragedy of Seita and his little sister Setsuko “even more harrowing”, said Steve Rose in The Guardian. It’s a “war story as wrenching as any live-action movie”.

Never Let Me Go (2005)

On the surface, the three main characters – played by Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield and Keira Knightley – are embroiled in a love triangle, but “this romantic drama tells an entirely more complicated story than you might expect”, said Entertainment Weekly. Based on Kazuo Ishiguro’s “devastating dystopian novel”, the film “dives into heavy themes of mortality and ethics with striking clarity”.

The characters are “expertly acted” and played “with such conviction” that “we get caught up in their doomed romance”, said The Hollywood Reporter.

Hotel Rwanda (2004)

The first mainstream film to approach the subject of Rwanda’s genocide, “Hotel Rwanda” focused on the story of hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina (played by Don Cheadle), who sheltered more than 1,200 people.

Turning such a “brutal and heart-wrenching subject” into “entertainment” has its risks, said the BBC at the time. But director Terry George’s decision to choose the “One Man Who Made A Difference” angle, as seen in “Schindler’s List”, gave “filmmakers the freedom to inject suspense, humour and romance – all the stuff that an audience actually wants to see – into otherwise sombre material”. Cheadle offers a “thrilling portrait of ordinary heroism, a performance that’s matched only by the magnificent Sophie Okonedo as his wife Tatiana”.

Sophie’s Choice (1982)

Meryl Streep delivers a performance “of such measured intensity” that encapsulates the “tragic, voluptuous” heroine of William Styron’s novel “Sophie’s Choice”, that “the results are by turns exhilarating and heartbreaking”, said Janet Maslin in The New York Times when the film first came out.

Sophie, a Polish immigrant, is forced to make an unconscionable decision which will have life-changing and haunting consequences. It’s not a flawless film, but it is a “unified and deeply affecting one” that “casts a powerful, uninterrupted spell”, thanks largely to Streep’s “bravura performance”.

Dancer in the Dark (2000)

A “dreadfully sad musical”, said Vogue, “Dancer in the Dark" is “painfully bleak, but very beautiful”. Björk stars as Selma, an immigrant mother losing her vision while trying to provide for her son.

Director Lars von Trier “pushes the limits of modern film-making”, said the BBC, combining the “extreme styles” of “hand-held documentary melodrama” and an “all-singing, all-dancing Hollywood musical shot in vibrant Technicolor-style”. There are “many moving and heartfelt scenes, if you can cope with the burst of a song or two”.

The Notebook (2004)

A romance that “transcends obstacles, space, and time”, said Marie Claire, “The Notebook” follows the romance between Allie (Rachel McAdams) and Noah (Ryan Gosling) from “youthful intoxication to old age”, said Vogue.

Switching from scenes showcasing the “urgency of young romance” to the tragedy of an older Allie “disappearing into the shadows of Alzheimer’s”, it’s a “sentimental fantasy”, said Roger Ebert.

The story builds a relationship that will make you “root for the pair to beat the odds against them”, said Stephen Holden in The New York Times.

“What can there possibly be left in the Sedaris backstory that the writer hasn’t already mined?” asked Emma Brockes in The Guardian. The American humourist has written nine volumes of essays over his decades-long career, which leaves you wondering whether he’s “suffering from a problem that comes to all writers in the end” – a “dearth of usable material”.

But his latest collection reveals that he hasn’t run out of ideas yet. While reading Sedaris is a “glitchier experience” than it once was, his “tone still charms, even as it advances to a state of crankiness that makes him look like a gay Larry David”.

In the 28 pieces that make up “The Land and its People”, Sedaris sticks to his tried-and-tested formula of harvesting from “everyday experiences with his husband, Hugh, his siblings and his friends”. The book is peppered with “laugh-out-loud moments”, like his experience of a No Kings protest against Trump in which he finds himself “baffled by his fellow protesters’ lack of focus”. But there are also sections that “an editor could have put a red line through”, where he veers into an “occasionally too rote adoption of the grumpy-old-man trope”.

Inevitably some of the essays “have more going for them, and more in them, than others”, said Roddy Doyle in The New York Times. Is it as funny as his earlier books? “We’re very lucky to have both.” Sedaris has grown older and the “world seems weirder”. That’s why I love reading his work: “for him, being alive has always been strange and atrocious, contradictory, unfair and hilarious”. Now approaching 70, he “examines ageing with the same vigour, curiosity and grim glee” that brought his other books to life.

It is when he reflects on the “minutiae of everyday life” that his writing “really shines”, said Buzz Magazine. Whether he’s “documenting a humdrum car journey” or “arguing in bad French with an AI assistant on Duolingo”, Sedaris remains a “masterful storyteller” who is “always outrageous and highly entertaining company”.

Sometimes “ill-tempered and frequently hilarious”, he brings readers with him on a “touchingly honest journey through life’s peaks and troughs”, and continues to “mine gold from both the mundane and absurd”.

“For centuries, the Cerne Abbas Giant has been hard to miss,” said the BBC. The 55-foot chalk outline of a “naked, club-wielding man” cut into a hillside in the Dorset countryside is “one of the UK’s most instantly recognisable historic landmarks”.

Following recent fundraising efforts, the National Trust purchased the land surrounding the figure to help preserve it for future generations. Its origins are unknown but scientific analysis of sediments published in 2021 revealed the giant was probably first cut in the late Saxon period, between 700 and 1100 AD. Every eight to 10 years, volunteers visit the hillside to restore the figure by packing fresh white chalk into his outline.

Britain is “seared” with chalk figures like this one, said Dr Matthew Green in The Telegraph. From “fantastical beasts” to “beguiling symbols”, the “unsettling and beautiful” shapes are “cut into the bedrock of chalky hills”. In the “absence of detailed written evidence”, their roots remain a mystery.

Among the most “striking” is the Uffington White Horse in Oxfordshire. Best seen from the car park above Dragon Hill, it’s “more of a spectral echo of a horse than a horse”: the chalky outline doesn’t have hooves, its mouth looks like a beak, and it has a “ghastly, ghostly eye”.

Archaeology has dated the horse’s creation to 3,000 years ago in “the late Bronze Age” which is an “extraordinary survival”, said Jon Woolcott in The Guardian. “Generation after generation” have cared for it, “somehow keeping it bound to its wind-blown hill”.

Just over the border in Wiltshire, the rolling green hills are peppered with eight other chalk horses. Following the Ridgeway trail, you can walk to the Alton Barnes White Horse which is carved into Milk Hill, and another gleaming white horse cut into Cherhill Down near Oldbury Castle.

Drive for around two-and-a-half hours into East Sussex and on a “steep scarp of the South Downs” you’ll find the Long Man of Wilmington trekking over the hill, a “stave clasped in each hand”. Possibly Anglo-Saxon in origin, the “mysterious” carving has “fascinated” artists and writers for hundreds of years. Like the 40 or so other chalk figures that mark the British landscape, “their appearance enlivens walks and invites conjecture” to this day.

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It is unseasonably warm in some parts of the world, and the indoors beckons as many of us try to escape the heat. A few of this month’s new books will make the perfect companion for some cool summer reading. July’s releases include the highly anticipated conclusion of Colson Whitehead’s trilogy and an author’s first foray into romantasy.

‘How to Kill a Language: Power, Resistance and the Race to Save Our Words’ by Sophia Smith Galer

Nonfiction fans will find journalist Sophia Smith Galer’s “erudite exploration” of what she dubs ‘systemic linguicide’ fascinating, said Publishers Weekly. The number of languages that have ever existed is “placed at between 31,000 and 140,000,” but at most “only 4,000 will remain by the 22nd century, about half of the current total.”

Moreover, many of them “will not have died natural deaths” but will have been “killed off.” Smith Galer “weaves together heart-wrenching accounts” of those who have “suffered linguicide.” The collection of personal accounts creates a “spirited reconsideration of language as a natural resource that must be protected.” (July 7, $33, Penguin Random House, Amazon)

‘Dominion’ by Jean Kwok

Jean Kwok, who is best known for “contemporary family dramas” like “Girl in Translation” and “Searching for Sylvie Lee,” “swerves into romantasy with this Chinese mythology-infused epic,” said The New York Times. “Dominion” is the first book in a planned trilogy that follows Rubi Morningtail, a refugee who lost her memory after a demonic attack.

Kwok’s romantasy debut has been described as “‘Fourth Wing’ meets ‘The Hunger Games,’” Jezebel said. The story is a cornucopia of genre favorites: “romance, action, magic, politics, a broody hero, a heroine coming into her own and a fierce mythical companion animal.” (July 14, $32, Penguin Random House, Amazon)

‘Cool Machine’ by Colson Whitehead

The highly anticipated conclusion of two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Colson Whitehead’s “Harlem Trilogy” arrives this summer. Following 2021’s “Harlem Shuffle” and 2023’s “Crook Manifesto,” readers with an “appetite for Whitehead’s noir fiction and stylishly exuberant storytelling” are rewarded with an “atmospheric, stylish finale,” said The Independent. Whitehead brings 1980s New York to “vivid, unforgettable life.” (July 21, $30, Penguin Random House, Amazon)

‘Dad, Love, Me: A Memoir’ by Matthew Quick

In this “deeply personal” memoir, South Carolina novelist Matthew Quick, author of “The Silver Linings Playbook,” reflects on his public success and “private struggles with depression, addiction and the lingering wounds of a fraught relationship with his father,” said Southern Living. As his father’s dementia progresses, Quick “confronts his past and races to find healing and reconciliation before it’s too late.” (July 21, $30, Simon and Schuster, Amazon)

‘Fishbone Cinderella’ by Elizabeth Lim

Young adult fiction author Elizabeth Lim makes her adult debut with a “historical fantasy inspired by the Chinese version of Cinderella,” in which magical fish bones replace a fairy godmother, said Literary Hub. The “multigenerational tale” takes place across two timelines: 1940s occupied Hong Kong and 1960s San Francisco.

The story follows a Chinese girl who “only manages to escape the Japanese soldiers during the Sino-Japanese War by turning invisible” and, in turn, learns of a family curse that could be related to her newfound magic, said Book Riot. (July 28, $30, Penguin Random House, Amazon)

Even with the many streaming-induced changes to the film industry’s operations, July remains a month for blockbusters. This July will include an intriguing mix of madcap comedies, sweeping action epics and independent fare hoping to get as many viewers into theaters — or in front of their televisions — as possible.

‘Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass’

Gail (Zoey Deutch) is so shocked when her fiance, Tom (Michael Cassidy), uses his half-joking “celebrity sex pass” — an exception to marriage vows if the opportunity arises to sleep with your most-lusted-after famous person — that she decides to even the score by traveling to Los Angeles and convincing actor Jon Hamm to go to bed with her. Featuring a “tone that’s broad, antic, overemphatic and a bit wacked,” director David Wain (“Wet Hot American Summer”) brings us a film “so aggressive in its meta absurdity that it makes an episode of ‘Seinfeld’ look like Ingmar Bergman,” said Owen Gleiberman at Variety. (in theaters July 10)

‘Reading Lolita in Tehran’

After a year of protests and war for Iran, the timing for an adaptation of Azar Nafisi’s celebrated 2003 memoir is exquisite. Golshifteh Farahahi (“Invasion”) stars as Nafisi in Israeli director Eran Riklis’ film that follows her from her sacking as an English professor at the University of Tehran following the 1979 revolution to her emigration to the United States in 1997.

The book gets its title from the secret book club Nafisi conducted in her home for her students, including Sanaz (Zar Amir Ebrahimi) and Mahshid (Bahar Beihaghi), after her dismissal. The film’s “message about the humane power of literature” makes it a “work of art rather than an exercise in sloganeering,” said Arash Azizi at The Atlantic. (in theaters July 10)

‘The Odyssey’

There may be no more bankable director working in Hollywood today than Christopher Nolan (“The Dark Knight”). He has succeeded at everything from science fiction (“Interstellar”) to war (“Dunkirk”).

In “The Odyssey,” Nolan tackles Homer’s epic story of Odysseus (Matt Damon), the king of Ithaca, and his journey home to his wife, Penelope (Anne Hathaway), following the Trojan War. An extraordinary cast includes Zendaya as the goddess Athena and Jon Bernthal as Menelaus, the king of Sparta. Nolan “has been circling this kind of scale for much of his career, but ‘The Odyssey’ marks a new technical milestone even for him,” said Rodrigo Perez at The Playlist. (in theaters July 17)

‘The Dink’

Sports comedies like “Dodgeball” don’t always get the critical love they deserve. In “The Dink,” director Josh Greenbaum (“Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar”) looks to capture the zeitgeist with a big-hearted satire of the pickleball phenomenon.

Jake Johnson stars as Dusty Boyd, an over-the-hill tennis pro slumming it as a children’s tennis teacher at his father Chuck’s (Ed Harris) country club, where pickleball is squeezing out tennis. When an injury forces Dustin to try pickleball, he meets Candace (Mary Steenburgen) and reevaluates his kneejerk loathing of the sport. It has “all the hallmarks of a typical sports redemption story,” said Ryan O’Rourke and Maggie Lovitt at Collider. (July 24 on Apple TV+)

‘A Sad and Beautiful World’

Nino (Hasan Akil) and Yasmina (Mounia Akl), who were born on the same day in a Beirut hospital, are childhood friends who rediscover each other as young adults and fall in love against the backdrop of Lebanese political turmoil and violence. The country’s tragic 21st-century travails provide much of the fodder for the couple’s drama in director Cyril Aris’ moving film, including whether to stay or emigrate, with touches of magical realism and whimsy providing levity. A movie that “combines exuberant comedy with soft-hearted drama,” it “builds its entire thesis on the idea that there is still reason for hope,” said Matthew Joseph Jenner at International Cinephile Society. (in theaters July 24)

As the scorching weather returns, the best way to cool down is with an ice cream by the sea. The UK’s coastal towns are peppered with parlours serving everything from rich, creamy gelato, to refreshing sorbets and conefuls of quirky flavours. Here are some of our favourite spots.

Joe’s Ice Cream, Mumbles, Swansea

This century-old family run parlour in Mumbles is a “local cult”, said Felicity Cloake in The Times. It also has branches in Cardiff and Llanelli. There are rules: “always order the vanilla” which is “churned fresh every day” and has a “distinctly savoury edge”. You’ll also find huge sundaes here, and a knickerbocker glory that present owner Adrian Hughes thinks is “far too big for one person. Believe me, it’s not.”

joes-icecream.com

Jannetta’s Gelateria, St Andrews, Fife

“If you’ve ever visited St Andrews in winter, you’ll appreciate just how good Jannetta’s gelato must be to have stuck it out in South Street for the past 118 years,” said Cloake in The Times. When it comes to choice you’ll be hard pressed to find better: the parlour serves 54 different flavours that make use of locally sourced ingredients like Fife tayberries and Dundee marmalade. Expect long queues when it’s hot but the samples on offer while you wait “sweeten the deal”.

jannettas.co.uk

Hive, Aberaeron, Wales

Master ice cream makers Kevin and Mateuz make their “legendary” honey ice cream at Hive, said Portia Jones on Wales Online. The “distinctive, creamy” confection is “hands down my favourite ice cream” in the country. “One scoop, and you’ll see why it has a cult following.” Located right by the picturesque harbour in Aberaeron (with branches in Cardigan and Saundersfoot), it’s a great place for a sunny afternoon stroll.

thehiveaberaeron.com

Rossi’s Ices, Weymouth, Dorset

“Forget your standard vanilla”, said Judy Cogan in The i Paper. At Rossi’s, the Figliolini family “let the natural taste of the cooked milk shine”. They’ve been scooping here since 1937 and certainly know a thing or two about how to make and serve ice cream properly. Expect everything from banana splits and chocolate sundaes to affogato and ice cream sodas.

rossisweymouth.com

Moomaid of Zennor, St Ives, Cornwall

Milk is supplied by the cows at the on-site family farm to the parlour at this charming spot in St Ives, said Cogan in The i Paper. In keeping with its Cornish location, every scoop of ice cream is “topped with a dollop of clotted cream”. Flavours are creative but not “heinously quirky”: things like orange and mascarpone or almond and cherry ripple. “Watch out for circling seagulls”.

moomaidofzennor.com

The Toyota Rav4 was the world’s bestselling car last year, said Car Magazine. This sixth-generation version of the family SUV is available only as a plug-in hybrid in the UK, with “more range, tech and attitude”.

The 2.5-litre PHEV gets up to 305bhp in all-wheel drive form and can do 0-62mph in 5.8secs, while the new 272bhp front-wheel drive version takes 7.5secs. Electric range is “top-of-the-class” at 85 and 83 miles respectively.

With nearly twice the range of the previous Rav4 PHEV, the new model is good value and remains relatively refined, said Top Gear Magazine. It’s not that exciting to drive, but the soft set-up makes for a comfortable ride.

There’s a fair amount of body roll through corners, but it “never feels ungainly”. Pitch and dive is “well controlled”, the steering is light and pretty direct and there’s “decent feel” to the brake pedal.

Inside, the Rav4 is “more rugged” than plush, but the hard plastics “feel durable rather than cheap”, said What Car? reviewers.

There’s a clear 12.3-inch driver’s display, but opt for Excel trim or above and you get a head-up display with speed projected onto the windscreen, plus a “punchy” JBL speaker system. The 12.9-inch infotainment touchscreen is “a big improvement”, and there’s plenty of space and storage options.

Set in the ice-capped peaks of the Annapurna range, the upper Manang Valley is one of Nepal’s most “extraordinary” places – and last year it acquired its first-ever “upscale” hotel, said Christopher P. Hill in DestinAsian. Perched on a lonely, “gravelly bluff”, Mountain Lodges of Nepal’s new property is a “thrilling” sight – stone built, as “stout as a medieval stronghold” – and it commands “postcard- shaming” views, too. The 14 rooms are comfortable, with wooden floors and full-height windows; the food is “unfussy yet satisfying”; and guests can choose from “numerous” guided excursions. Among these is a “demanding” climb to the remote glacial lake of Kicho Tal, and a visit to the 15th-century Sangag Samling Monastery, a rich repository of thangka paintings and sacred texts, set into a cliff high above the ancient farming terraces of Bhraka village.

Double rooms cost from £150 b&b (mountainlodgesofnepal.com).

A food-focused cycling trip in Italy

Widely regarded as Italy’s gastronomic heartland, Emilia-Romagna is a great place for an “eating odyssey”. If that sounds a bit heavy, consider doing it by bicycle, said Sean O’Neill in The Times – as I did this spring with a group of friends on a seven-night, self-guided tour with Saddle Skedaddle. From Cremona, we cycled 180 miles south to Bologna, via Parma, Modena and other lovely towns, travelling mostly along quiet country lanes, with hotels and luggage transfers arranged for us, and daily restaurant and bar tips sent via WhatsApp. I chose an e-bike, which made the going delightfully easy. There was plenty of time to “stop and stare” each day – at castles and palaces, and distant mountain views – and we enjoyed “sumptuous” feasts and lots of good wine.

The trip costs from £1,575pp, excluding bike hire (skedaddle.com).

Lovely Penzance with fresh polish

It doesn’t have the splendid beaches of St Ives, but Penzance is my favourite seaside town, said William Cook in The Telegraph – and after “decades in the doldrums”, it has “become chic”. Artists’ studios, “trendy” cafes and “quirky” independent shops have multiplied, but Penzance still doesn’t feel overcrowded, and nor has it lost its “grungy, vaguely hippy vibe”. If you go, eat at Orto (try the “rich” venison ragù) and, even better, Argoe, a seafood place in nearby Newlyn; and consider staying at the “elegant yet understated” Chapel House hotel. Don’t miss the “fabulous” coffee at The Hoxton Special (a “funky” surf shack on Marazion Beach). And make time for some of the best local sights, including the Jubilee Pool (a huge art deco lido from 1935), and the Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens, created by a local GP.

Whether you are after memoirs or analysis, here are the most compelling business books to pick up this summer.

1873 by Liaquat Ahamed

A “lively and compelling” account of how America’s Gilded Age economy broke the world, says The New York Times. Action sweeps from America’s railroad barons to Vienna’s stock market crash. Ahamed tackles “one of the great forgotten financial crises”, combining the nuances of high finance with some excellent vignettes, says Robin Wigglesworth in the Financial Times. The cast of characters, says The Wall Street Journal, ranges from the Rothschild clan to a “still-obscure” Karl Marx.

Super Nintendo by Keza MacDonald

How did a 19th-century Japanese playing-card manufacturer become one of the most influential companies in the entertainment world, asks Stephen Bush in the FT. This “engaging” history of the home of Mario, Zelda and Pokémon, by The Guardian’s video games editor, is a delight whether you’re a gamer or not.

Suing the Kremlin by Martin Sixsmith

“If you want to see Vladimir Putin’s soul, study the fate of Yukos,” says The Economist. An early indicator of his “authoritarian turn” was the “seizure and dismemberment” of the Russian oil giant and imprisonment of its boss Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Here, Sixsmith, a former BBC Moscow correspondent, charts how shareholders fought back. “Their unlikely champion was a cheery, phlegmatic London-based tax lawyer, Tim Osborne.”

Streetwise: Getting to and Through Goldman Sachs by Lloyd Blankfein

This memoir, from the “ultimate Goldman insider”, doesn’t quite break the bank’s “blood oath” of silence, says Literary Review. But it’s interesting on Blankfein’s ascent from working-class New York, and includes a “vivid retelling of the desperate days of September 2008”. Blankfein emerges as a “straight-arrow guy”.

Surviving Rome: The Economic Lives of the Ninety Percent by Kim Bowes

This history examines the everyday finances, food and working practices of ordinary Romans in “thrilling detail”, said the FT. Don’t be put off by the 35 bar charts, said the Times Literary Supplement. This is “that rarest of birds”: an “utterly gripping piece of economic history”.

Bonfire of the Murdochs by Gabriel Sherman

“A brief, deft account” of one of the most consequential family feuds of recent corporate history, says the FT – and the costs of elevating just one child to run the empire.

Money Beyond Borders: Global Currencies from Croesus to Crypto by Barry Eichengreen

In this “timely book”, Eichengreen – an expert on the international monetary system – puts today’s concerns about the global role of the dollar into historical context, says the FT. Technological change is important, but it all depends on “trust”.

It’s an overused term, but Frida Kahlo “has become an icon”, said Laura Freeman in The Times. Her likeness is now inescapable and her story, too, is familiar: born in Mexico City in 1907, she took up painting as a teenager, while recovering from a traffic accident that would lead to her losing a leg below the knee.

She had a short but difficult life, compounded by health problems and her tumultuous marriage to the philandering muralist Diego Rivera. She died in relative obscurity in 1954, aged 47; but her works have since become “objects of mass worship and private devotion”.

“The brand, the brow, are unmistakable”; even before this exhibition opened, Tate had sold 35,000 advance tickets – the greatest number in its history. The show brings together around 30 of Kahlo’s own works alongside 150 by her contemporaries and admirers, in an attempt to track her arc from neglected painter to global phenomenon. I’m “no Frida fangirl”, and as an exhibition this is in some respects unsatisfying, but I left “reeling” from the “dizzying singularity of her vision”.

“There are few faces as familiar,” said Chloe Ashby in The Independent. Yet as the show demonstrates, she “had multiple selves: avant-garde artist; political activist; devoted wife; bisexual; disabled person; intellectual”. Her father was German, her mother “mestiza” (part Indigenous). In art and life, she “projected her shifting identity”. Among the “big hitters” here is a self-portrait painted in 1940, shortly after her divorce. It sees her “surrounded by greenery”, a “black cat and spider monkey peeking over her shoulders, a thorn necklace pricking her skin”.

There are some nice surprises, too: “The Chick” (1945) is an “exquisite” vision of “a fluffy, white fledgling”. Unfortunately, Kahlo’s own work represents only the first half of the show. Her “icon” status has made it hard to borrow her works, said Jonathan Jones in The Guardian. “Kahlo’s collectors, it seems, don’t care about supporting museums or sharing their treasures – I’m talking to you, Madonna.” The curators compensate for this “thin haul” by adding works by her contemporaries, and by artists who have been inspired by her one way or another.

Kahlo “was a sort of creative patron saint” to many artists, said Alastair Sooke in The Telegraph. Yet when we see homages here, we rarely see the original image that inspired them. This shifts the focus “from Kahlo to her imitators”; and much of their work is “boring and second-rate”. There’s a room concentrating on “Fridamania”, featuring everything from editions of a “canonical” 1980s biography, to a Frida Barbie doll – a tribute controversially manufactured “with lightened skin”. This could have been a “fascinating” exploration of the artist’s latter-day cult, but there’s too much padding here. The show feels like a “festive get-together at which the guest of honour is only intermittently present”.

Tate Modern, London SE1. Until 3 January 2027

From a very modern romantic entanglement to an epic tale of power and class in Pakistan, here are some of the most exciting debut novels of the year so far.

Prestige Drama by Séamas O’Reilly

In his 2021 memoir, “Did Ye Hear Mammy Died?”, Derry-born journalist Séamas O’Reilly applied “gallows humour” to the death of his mother, said Michael Delgado in Literary Review. In his “slim but impressive” first novel, he adopts a similar approach, finding comedy in “the Troubles and the shadow they continue to cast”. The action – set in present-day Derry – centres on the disappearance of “glamorous American actress” Monica Logue, who came to the city to film a 1980s-set crime series, said Miriam Balanescu in The Spectator. Featuring a “cacophony of voices” (each chapter is narrated by a different townsperson), this is a “thoughtful novel” from a “startlingly perceptive writer”. O’Reilly doesn’t fully pursue the “missing-actor thread”, said Joanna Quinn in The Guardian. Some may wish he had given it “more prominence”. But his main goal is to create a “patchwork portrait of the city”. Full of “gloriously vivid” writing, and insights about how Northern Ireland’s past misfortunes are recreated and commodified in the present day, “Prestige Drama” is a “brilliant” debut.

I Want You to Be Happy by Jem Calder

Jem Calder – who grew up in Essex before moving to London 10 years ago – is a writer much concerned with the “specific indignities of living in the capital”, said Laura Hackett in The Times. Both his 2022 story collection, “Reward System”, and now this debut novel are full of observations about “extortionate rent, overpriced coffees and fickle trends”. Chuck, 35, is a copywriter who has just broken up with his long-term girlfriend. At a party, he meets 23-year-old barista Joey, and they begin a “halting relationship” – one driven by their shared ambition to be writers. “Calder is brilliant at parsing the nuanced power dynamics of this situationship”; he’s a writer of “genuine talent”. “Frustrated romantic entanglements” are hardly rare in novels, but “I Want You to Be Happy” also presents a “hyper-specific chronicle of the current moment”, said Natalie Perman in Literary Review. “A significant plotline involves the opening of a branch of Gail’s”; characters spend “a lot of time” on WhatsApp. Impressively, Calder makes us care about what happens; and his “humour lands”.

Upward Bound by Woody Brown

Woody Brown is a 28-year-old with a severe form of autism, which means he’s unable to speak or type, said Xan Brooks in The Guardian. And yet, he has produced a “triumphant first novel”, about a “non-speaking” person like himself and his experiences at Upward Bound, a “dismal adult daycare centre” in Los Angeles. Told from multiple perspectives, the novel is essentially a “series of vivid character sketches”, although it builds to a climax when a “client” of Upward Bound escapes. Both a “garrulous, charming story of a young man who can’t speak, and an inclusive, friendly guide to the overlooked and the isolated”, it is “moving and ringing with life”. It is controversial, though, said Laura Hackett in The Times. Brown communicates using a system known as “rapid prompting”, which involves him pointing at a letter board. Some say helpers can influence the process – others even suggest that his mother wrote the book. Yet even if you ignore its background, the novel “stands proudly on its own”. It offers a “fascinating insight” into the mind of a non-speaking autistic person, and is “genuinely entertaining”.

Discipline by Larissa Pham

This “spare” debut tells of a “lapsed art student”, Christine, who’s touring America to promote her own first novel, said Alexandra Jacobs in The New York Times. That book is a revenge fantasy about the former art school professor who seduced her, discarded her and destroyed her confidence as a painter. On her travels she shares her story with a variety of interesting characters. But all roads lead to a confrontation with the professor on an island off Maine, at which point the book “acquires Stephen King vibes”. Will Christine, like her protagonist, resort to murder? “Thickly pigmented” with suspense, Discipline shows that Larissa Pham “is a writer to keep a close eye on”. Pham’s “spiky” novel provides rich insights into the art world, said Ceci Browning in The Sunday Times. It’s “splattered with colourful descriptions of artists’ materials and references to specific paintings that will have you gleefully googling them”. On the surface, it’s about the aftermath of an illicit affair: but, as with a painting, “far more can be revealed with a longer, more thorough look”.

This is Where the Serpent Lives by Daniyal Mueenuddin

Writers who leave a long gap between books run the risk of being forgotten, said John Self in The Times. But I think Daniyal Mueenuddin “will get away with it”. The Pakistani-American author published his first book – the short-story collection “In Other Rooms, Other Wonders” – in 2009. It was widely acclaimed, and he was hailed as “Pakistan’s answer to Chekhov”. Now, 17 years later, comes his first novel, a “sweeping parable of power and fortune” set in Pakistan in the decades following Partition. Filled with “lovingly created characters”, it more than “lives up to expectations” – and is sure to be “all over the prize lists later this year”. Divided into four self-contained sections, the novel immerses us in a semi-feudal world where “property and influence are everything”, said Lucy Popescu in The Observer. We meet those at the top, and those at the bottom – and observe their fraught, often complex interactions. The prose is “exquisite, lush” and “evocative”. It really is an “exceptional novel”, said Stevie Davies in Literary Review. “From the opening pages, I knew I held a masterpiece in my hands.”

Workhorse by Caroline Palmer

Clo, the protagonist of this “diverting” debut, is a lowly assistant at a New York fashion magazine, said Siobhan Murphy in The Times. She starts out as a “classic outsider”, who’s often mocked by her snobbish colleagues. But while she poses as a “self-deprecating storyteller”, she’s actually ruthlessly ambitious – and has an “ample amoral streak”. Caroline Palmer, a former Vogue staffer, “brings impeccable insider knowledge to her takedown of the absurdities and indignities” of the glossy magazine world. The novel is too long – and sometimes loses “propulsion” – but it’s “often punchily funny”. Any novel set at a Vogue-like magazine will inevitably draw comparisons with “The Devil Wears Prada”, said Alex Beggs in The New York Times. Yet “Workhorse” feels closer to a more “sinister story, with a paranoid and untrustworthy antihero”: “The Talented Mr. Ripley”. Palmer is a witty writer, and her observations are “razor-sharp”, said Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett in The Guardian. Still, it’s quite an ask to spend 560 pages in the head of such a “seething, grasping” central character.

This, My Second Life by Patrick Charnley

In 2021, a “near-fatal cardiac arrest” left Patrick Charnley with a brain injury, said Tilda Coleman in The Telegraph. The former lawyer draws on this experience in his “impressive” debut – about a 20-year-old who has just suffered a similar injury. Needing to lead a simple life, Jago has returned to the Cornish village where he grew up, to help his uncle on his farm. It’s not a novel in which a great deal happens (though there is “some plot”, involving a local drug dealer). Charnley’s aim, rather, is to convey the “limitations of life after such an event” – and this he does “expertly”. Like his mother, the late poet and novelist Helen Dunmore, he has a “mellow, pared-back style”. Although this novel is inspired by Charnley’s experiences (as he acknowledges in a brief preface), to see it mainly “through the lens of personal trauma would be to do it a grave injustice”, said Christobel Kent in The Guardian. It succeeds as a work of art: written in “spare and beautiful” prose, it’s as “finely wrought as poetry, luminous with Jago’s sheer delight in the world”. This is a work of “piercing intensity”.

The French playwright Florian Zeller is best known for 2012’s “The Father”, the elliptical dementia drama that – in its film adaptation – won Anthony Hopkins his second Oscar, said Clive Davis in The Times.

But he has written more than a dozen plays in all, one of which, “The Forest”, had its world premiere in London in 2022. That play was a misfire – a “pretentious study of bourgeois adultery”.

“The Truth” covers similar territory but is a very different beast. A comedy that “breezes along”, it is like an “old-fashioned English sex farce” with a Gallic twist – and Lindsay Posner’s production is well worth seeing.

“The Truth” takes the physical comedy of French farce, and adds a “metaphysical dimension about whether accuracy and veracity are possible or even sensible”, said Mark Lawson in The Guardian. “Across seven scenes, each featuring two characters, alibis overlap and contradict. Lies may be a tactic to expose truth and vice versa until the plot twists into a double helix of deceit.”

Zeller nods to his debt to Pinter’s “Betrayal”, the “guvnor of adultery dramas”, and as in that play, the two men here “are more faithful to their friendship” than to their wives. “The Truth” is one of seven Zellers translated into English by Christopher Hampton (of “Les Liaisons Dangereuses” fame), and it is “made seat-shakingly funny by four fabulously fibbing performers”.

The play opens with a classic farce set-up, said Caroline McGinn on Time Out: a bed from which the rumpled head of Stephen Mangan’s Michel “emerges, looking roguishly pleased” with himself, next to the less satisfied head of Alice, who we discover is the wife of Paul, his best friend. What follows is 90 minutes of tightly plotted light entertainment, and Mangan fans will not be disappointed: he is terrific as the charmer who thinks he is managing to deceive everyone around him.

The other actors – Janie Dee, Sarah Hadland and Ardal O’Hanlon – also expertly navigate the “gathering reliance on contrivance”, and some tricky tonal shifts, said Matt Wolf on London Theatre. This is not a profound piece, but it is fun, in a staging that has been “polished to a glistening sheen”.

Apollo Theatre, London W1. Until 12 September

Across five “pacy” episodes, “The American Experiment” (Netflix) “draws you into the grand story of how a British backwater became the most powerful nation in the annals of humanity”, said Ed Power in The Irish Times.

The series, directed by Brian Knappenberger and produced by Tom Hanks, offers a bird’s-eye view of America since the 16th century, and features more than 60 talking heads (including Mike Pence, Ted Cruz, Hillary Clinton and Al Gore), who weigh in on the US’ origins and its “enduring fabulosity”. Yet the series is not entirely “self-congratulatory”; as it gets into the weeds of US politics, it makes it clear that all is not entirely well at the centre of Pax Americana.

The series makes use of an “awful lot” of voices, said Carol Midgley in The Times, but they are “woven tapestry-like to present a compelling, clear narrative that is detail-dense and immersive”. Dramatised re-enactments provide welcome breaks from the expert commentary, and the battle scenes are brilliant. It is a “punchy, spiky but cerebral few hours” that convey that the experiment is evolving – and fragile.

The commentary on American ideals is compelling, said Lucy Mangan in The Guardian, but there is an awful lot to take in. You might start to feel numbed and exhausted by the detail. The series lacks the flair of Ken Burns’ recent series “The American Revolution” (on the BBC), and it is all so carefully balanced that, at times, it starts to feel like “the televisual equivalent of consuming a kale smoothie on a wellness retreat”.

Jodie Foster has appeared in several French films, said David Sexton in The New Statesman – she speaks the language fluently, having attended the Lycée in Los Angeles as a child and lived in France for nine months, shortly after her breakthrough role in “Taxi Driver”. But this is her first lead role in French, and “it is her casting that makes this movie, a teasing melee of genres, work – more or less”.

Foster plays Lilian Steiner, a bad-tempered Jewish-American psychoanalyst, living in an elegant apartment in Paris, but now separated from her French husband Gaby (the “ever enchanting” Daniel Auteuil).

Things are not going well for her. One of her former patients has seemingly died by suicide using drugs that Lilian had prescribed her illicitly. She is being blamed, but Lilian suspects foul play by the patient’s partner and daughter, and recruits her ex to help her with some “dodgy sleuthing”. The set-up is good, and for the first few minutes it is “hugely enjoyable and promising”, and you wonder where it’s heading: “a satire on therapy? A family romance? A murder mystery?” Alas, the film tries to embrace them all, while never quite fulfilling any.

There are points when the story “probes potentially rich psychological territory”, touching as it does on Lilian’s suppressed childhood memories and her Jewish identity, said Philip Concannon in Sight and Sound. But ultimately, this “convoluted mystery, cluttered with red herrings and signifiers, doesn’t grip”.

Still, it is worth watching for Foster’s performance alone, said Deborah Ross in The Spectator. “She is Lilian through and through – and there isn’t a single scene where she doesn’t make an interesting choice or something doesn’t flicker over that face that keeps you hooked.”

The life of Juan Carlos I, Spain’s 88-year-old former king, has been one of “richly deserved triumph followed by richly deserved disgrace”, said Jim Lawley in The Spectator. And it’s a life that is superbly charted by Paul Preston in this “magisterial” biography.

Born in Rome in 1938, Juan Carlos was the son of Don Juan de Borbon, the exiled heir to the Spanish throne. Aged 10, he was sent back to Spain by his father, to be indoctrinated in the “political tenets” of Spain’s fascist leader, General Franco – who’d intimated that this could pave the way for a “restoration of an authoritarian monarchy”. Taking a close interest in the prince’s education, Franco would regularly lecture his charge “on the mistakes made by previous Spanish monarchs”.

It was a “very lonely” childhood, but Juan Carlos emerged as Franco’s chosen successor, and was proclaimed king after Franco’s death in 1975. Contrary to the dictator’s wishes, he then set about initiating democratic reform. In 1981, his “supreme test came” when he faced down a military coup. “Grateful Spaniards poured out onto the streets”, to hail the king who’d saved their democracy.

If the first half of this book “tells the tale of a lonely boy who turns into a noble king”, then the second “tells of his transformation from noble king into corrupt sleazebag”, said Craig Brown in The Sunday Times.

Having always been “something of a playboy”, Juan Carlos married Princess Sofia of Greece in 1962. But that didn’t staunch his appetite for what Preston calls “industrial-scale adulteries”. Although estimates vary, according to the highest figure mentioned he has slept with 4,786 different women – a voraciousness matched by his talent for procuring mammoth “gifts” from Middle Eastern rulers ($10 million from the Shah of Iran; $100 million from the Saudis), and a taste for “bear hunts and elephant hunts”. In 2014, “beset by political scandal and ill health”, he was “obliged to abdicate in favour of his son, Felipe”. Since 2023, he has lived in Abu Dhabi.

“Preston’s narrative is perhaps needlessly haunted by the question ‘Why?’,” said Jeremy Treglown in Literary Review. Seeking psychological reasons for Juan Carlos’ self-indulgence, he writes of the “strain of having to please two antagonistic masters” – his father and General Franco – and describes a horrifying accident in his late teens, when he fatally shot his “intellectually more able” younger brother while playing a game with an ornamental pistol. Yet the references to his “damaged psyche” don’t seem altogether convincing. “You don’t need to have read ‘Don Quixote’ or ‘King Lear’ to know that some men just go nuts.”