Instead of reaching for biscuits or chocolate to “combat the 4pm slump”, people are turning to a “more natural sweet alternative: dates”, said The Guardian.

The wrinkled fruit has been “thrust into the snacking spotlight” thanks to a slew of viral online recipes and a growing demand for alternatives to ultra-processed foods. Ocado reports that sales of Medjool dates have soared by 100% year-on-year and searches for date butter have shot up by 458% over the same period.

Some fitness experts are suggesting their followers swap “additive-laden” protein bars for energy balls made with a mix of dates, nuts and oats. And TikTok is bursting with ideas for comforting yet nutrient-dense snacks like “sticky fried dates drizzled with olive oil and served with tangy yoghurt”.

First cultivated in the hot, arid climates of the Middle East and North Africa, “dates have had a place in culinary culture for millenniums”, said The New York Times. Traditionally used to break the fast during Ramadan, they are a staple ingredient in everything from tagines to sticky toffee pudding.

With more consumers interested in adding fibre to their diet, dates are “emerging as a simple vehicle for the macronutrient”. One serving of dates (around two to three large Medjools) contains about 5g of fibre – “a helpful step towards the daily recommendation of 25g per day for women and 38g for men”.

Brands like Date Better are opting for “bold flavour choices” to stand out in the crowded market. Varieties include dates stuffed with cashew butter, coated in chocolate infused with lime and dotted with toasted quinoa “for texture”.

But it’s important to “manage your health-related expectations” if you’re reaching for a jazzed-up version of the fruit. “If it’s stuffed with peanut butter and covered in chocolate, enjoy it!” said nutritionist Maya Feller. “But don’t think it’s going to support gut health. Right? That’s a dessert.”

If you don’t want to splash out on pricey on-the-go packaged snacks, consider adding the fruit when baking cakes, said The Times. Dates can be “chopped or blended” and “stirred through the batter instead of sugar, substituting the weights like-for-like”. They also make a delicious caramel sauce: simply soak them in boiling water before “blending them with butter” and “adding enough hot water until you have a smooth sauce”.

Dates aren’t only suitable for sweet treats, though. “I do a simple but brilliant lemon, chickpea, feta and date traybake,” said author and cook Melissa Hemsley. “The sweetness of the roasted dates with the salty feta is amazing. I’ll have that in a wrap or toss it into a warm salad. It’s perfect.”

Manhasset

Architect Tim Maldonado designed this 1991 modern four-bedroom in North Hills, on the North Shore in Nassau County. Carved Parisian doors open to a home with flamed Canadian granite floors, a water feature at the base of a floating steel staircase, a living room with floor-to-ceiling windows, and a primary suite with a balcony.

On more than an acre, the landscaped property includes a guest cottage, pool and spa, patios, fig trees, and a garage. $5,500,000. Irene Rallis, Douglas Elliman, (516) 241-9848

Quogue

Built in 1967 and expanded in 1998, this shingled Hamptons five-bedroom is near shops and oceanside Dune Road. The vaulted living room features a floor-to-ceiling brick fireplace, wood floors, and sliders to a deck; the home also includes two kitchens, a den, a sitting room, a screened porch, and a loft.

The flat property has yards, mature trees, and space for a future pool and sports court. $4,850,000. Lauren Battista, Brown Harris Stevens/Luxury Portfolio International, (917) 744-9382

Southampton

About five minutes from town and the beach, this estate spans more than 2 acres. The original 1900 barn has been expanded into a five-bedroom, open-plan home with decks extending from both levels and a 25-foot-tall great room topped by a loft with wood railings.

Outside are a three-story art studio with an elevator, a heated pool and hot tub, a shed, a garage, a riverbed garden, and stone bridges. $7,395,000. Pat Garrity, The Corcoran Group—Southampton, (631) 903-5900

Water Island

In a small, secluded, largely car-free enclave within the Fire Island National Seashore, this 2015 oceanfront coastal modern compound designed by Scott Bromley has a one-bedroom main house and a four-bedroom guesthouse.

Both feature walls of windows, cedar and teak woods, ocean views, built-ins, a high-end kitchen, and decks; the larger building also includes a pool, an outdoor kitchen, and a bar. The Atlantic Ocean is steps away down a boardwalk. $6,250,000. Nathaniel Larson, Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty, (631) 800-1301

Sag Harbor

Set in the converted 1881 Watchcase Factory Lofts, this 2016 two-bedroom penthouse condo is a block away from the village’s Main Street. The apartment has exposed brick walls, 10-foot ceiling beams of old-growth pine, oak floors, oversize windows, a fireplace, and a chef’s kitchen with Thermidor appliances and thick stone counters.

Outside are a roof terrace with a firepit, plus a community pool, gym, lounge, bar, and parking. $5,995,000. Jack Pearson, Compass, (516) 457-7111

Port Washington

Docked on Manhasset Bay, this 1986 houseboat is near Bat Walk Park and shops and dining in the town’s center. The two-bedroom features diagonal wood-clad walls, a step-up living room and kitchen area with a woodstove and granite counters, and a lower level with bedrooms, a bath, and laundry.

Outside are a balcony, a lower deck, and an upper deck with 360-degree water views. $299,999. Giedre Pogozelski and Elpis Hardiman, Douglas Elliman, (917) 335-0264

‘Backrooms’

Directed by Kane Parsons (R)

★★★

“Might social media, a force often credited with hastening the death of theatrical moviegoing, instead prove to be its salvation?” asked Justin Chang in The New Yorker. As the three-week-old horror film Obsession continues its surprising run, it has now been blocked from topping the box office chart by another made-on-the-cheap hit by a young director whose vision was also shaped by social media. Backrooms, created by 20-year-old Kane Parsons, is “an ingeniously contoured exercise in liminal horror” built around the notion of a nearly endless maze-like expanse of eerily bland office spaces. Though the film “ends on a disappointingly conventional note,” it establishes Parsons as “an undeniable talent.”

Given that his theatrical debut grew out of the huge audience he’d built on YouTube for short videos set in the same world, said Amy Nicholson in the Los Angeles Times, “Backrooms would be one of the year’s most significant releases even if the movie itself was merely fine.” Instead, “it’s a work of honest-to-goodness art,” an “uncannily mature” tale about how the self-serving narratives we tell ourselves block emotional growth. Chiwetel Ejiofor plays an embittered furniture store owner who discovers a passage into the mundane alt-space, eventually drawing two young employees and his therapist, played by fellow Oscar nominee Renate Reinsve, into also braving its potential dangers. Still, Backrooms is less straightforward horror than “a surrealist painting in motion.” It conjures “a deep-in-the-bones unease,” said Kyle Smith in The Wall Street Journal. And while the disappointing screenplay ensures the film isn’t “a fully explained wonder,” it remains “well worth the wander.”

‘Power Ballad’

Directed by John Carney (R)

★★

The latest music-filled comedy drama from the director of Once and Sing Street “should be breezy fun,” said Stephanie Zacharek in Time. Instead, “it left me feeling mildly depressed,” because its happy ending felt unearned after roughly 90 minutes about a nice-guy musician who has a song stolen from him by a pop star. Co-stars Paul Rudd and Nick Jonas “aren’t to blame here; it’s the story that lets them down,” and the wrong turns start with the pain we have to see Rudd’s underdog endure.

Beyond that, “you have to suspend quite a bit of disbelief to meet the film on its own terms,” said Christian Zilko in IndieWire. Rudd plays Rick, the middle-aged American leader of a Dublin-based wedding band who, after meeting a former boy-band member, winds up exchanging song sketches deep into the night. Months later, Rick is shocked, and begins spiraling, when one of his tunes becomes an uncredited global hit for his new celebrity soulmate. But while some key events in the story are “tough sells,” the characters’ actions convey emotional truths, and “the film builds toward the mature realization that sometimes it’s OK to miss out on our material dreams if we replace them with something better,” such as a rich family life. Still, the likable Rudd is “about all that tethers Power Ballad to something like life,” said Manohla Dargis in The New York Times. Director John Carney “keeps everything insistently light, gesturing at complexities rather than delving into them.”

‘Masters of the Universe’

Directed by Travis Knight (PG-13)

★★

“The creators of the new Masters of the Universe movie really, really want to let you know that they’re in on the joke,” said Frank Scheck in The Hollywood Reporter. The brains behind Mattel Studio’s first movie since Barbie know that only children and over-grown adolescents would care about He-Man and Skeletor, two 1980s toys turned cartoons, so they’ve packed the film with “so much campy, self-referential humor that you don’t know whether to laugh or cry.” There’s plenty of action, but even that feels “more dutiful than exhilarating, with nothing really seeming at stake.”

When the movie works, it’s “a rollicking under-dog space adventure,” said Clint Worthington in RogerEbert.com. Nicholas Galitzine plays He-Man, aka Prince Adam of Eternia, who, as an adolescent, was sent to Earth after his kingdom was conquered by Skeletor, played by Jared Leto as a purring diva. Fifteen years later, Adam is working a dreary HR job when a chance encounter sends him back home to reclaim the throne. Owing to all the wisecracking, however, the movie too often “feels like it’s ashamed of what it truly wants to be.” It’s “most enjoyable as a fish-out-of-water tale on either side of the planetary divide,” said Guy Lodge in Variety. Once we’re back on Eternia, though, “things get less spry,” and as the movie lurches from one fight scene to the next, it becomes “a nostalgia trip that never quite belongs to the present, and never rouses any cherished memory of the past.”

The authorities in China have banned a prizewinning film because nationalists and the manosphere “resented its portrayal of their country”, said The Economist.

The movie, “Her Heart Beats in its Cage”, is a prison drama based on real killing, centering on Zhao Xiaohong, who may be perceived as a “star in the making”, a “feminist icon”, a “murderer” or “part of a calculated deception”, said The Times.

Deeply conflicted 

Zhao killed her husband with a fruit knife during an argument that “spilt over into a violent altercation” about the wider division of domestic chores. A court found her guilty of intentional killing in 2009 and sentenced her to 15 years in prison.

She was preparing for release from jail when Xiaoyu Qin, a film director, “discovered” her. He visited her prison, and was surprised to find “marginalised individuals full of personality and complexity, intense clashes between notions of good and evil” and “deeply conflicted stories”, he told China Newsweek.

For the film, Qin blended documentary-style footage of Zhao’s time in jail, filmed with the approval of the government, with scripted performances by her and her family, including her husband’s relatives. Critics claimed that Qin had “lured” the grieving family into participating and “feigning forgiveness”, said The Economist.

When the film was shown last year at the San Sebastian Film Festival in Spain, it “caused an immediate stir” and “made headlines back home in China”, said The Times.

It was quickly criticised online for allegedly whitewashing a convicted killer. Some argued that the film was “condoning violence” and “rewarding a criminal”, while others “questioned whether she was a victim of domestic violence at all”, noting that the judge had “rejected” her claim of self-defence.

There were also “the usual claims” on China’s “highly nationalistic internet” that the movie depicted the country in a “bad light”, which is the “sort of issue” on which censors “tend to agree with popular opinion”.

The film’s release in China was hotly anticipated, but as controversy raged, it disappeared from schedules less than a fortnight before its release. No explanation was given.

Meanwhile, the film’s cast and crew are not responding to requests for interviews, so “even finding out their defence to the accusations and counter-accusations” aimed at the film has “become more and more difficult”, as reports and reviews are “ruthlessly scrubbed”. Zhao’s social media accounts have also been blocked, according to reports in state media.

Touchy nationalism 

Chinese “propaganda” is “full of distortion and deception”, said The Economist, but much of the reaction online “reflected a touchy nationalism”, claiming the film was a “Western plot to undermine party rule by spreading liberal, pro-feminist values”.

China is undergoing its own “version” of the “West’s culture wars”, said The Times, with feminists “calling out the patriarchy and sexual harassment”, while men, particularly young men, are “crying foul”.

But “more informed online debate” about the movie has focused on reforms to the justice system. The law has been altered to allow judges assessing a self-defence claim to take into account any previous history of domestic violence.

I remember southern Africa’s old-fashioned sleeper trains, with their wooden carriages and “grand” dining cars, from my childhood in what was then Rhodesia in the 1950s and 1960s, said Matthew Parris in The Times.

They fell out of use long ago, and few of the region’s railways now carry passengers at all. You can, however, relive their glory days – with added luxury – thanks to Rovos Rail.

This tour operator was founded in 1989 by Rohan Vos, a South African businessman with a “passion” for restoring old railway carriages. The company’s trains now ply routes across the region, from Cape Town to as far afield as Dar es Salaam, going at a slow pace for comfort (the tracks are narrow gauge and sometimes poorly maintained) and making many stops for excursions to nearby “wonders” and occasional nights in “lovely” lodges.

I took an 11-night trip from Pretoria to the “massive sand dunes and mysterious desert coast” of Namibia – an expedition that combined “adventure” with “amenity and elegance of a high order”. Our train had 19 carriages from the old Rhodesia Railways, but carried just 60 passengers: my compartment occupied a third of a carriage and had mahogany panelling, brass fittings and an en suite shower.

The meals served in the two “magnificent” dining cars were “splendid” and varied. The staff were charming. A South African historian gave “sparkling” lectures. And I never tired of the observation car, where I spent chilly mornings and warm evenings sipping coffee or post-prandial negronis and watching the “ever-changing” landscape slip by.

In South Africa, we went for a cruise on the Orange River and took a trip to the Augrabies Falls, where the river plunges into an “immense” granite gorge. In Namibia, we gazed over the vast Fish River Canyon and saw lions and elephants in the Etosha Pan game reserve. The most fun I had, though, was sliding down a huge sand dune at Sossusvlei. “I felt like a boy again.”

Distant Journeys (distantjourneys.co.uk) has a 16-night trip from £9,696pp, including flights.

The Olympic gold medal-winning cyclist picks her favourite books. Her own book, “The Fear Opportunity: How Feeling your Fear Builds Strength and Confidence”, is available for purchase.

Invisible Women

Caroline Criado-Perez, 2019

This book explores the under-representation of women in the way the world is designed. It is tragically enlightening about the gender bias in everyday life.

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

Charlie Mackesy, 2019

I love this beautifully illustrated book in so many ways; it’s comforting and reassuring and filled with the kind of phrases that should be ingrained in your soul for all the hard moments in life. I wish I had read it as a child.

The Chimp Paradox

Steve Peters, 2012

I lovingly call Steve Peters “Uncle Peters”, because I worked with him on the Olympic team and he had such a huge influence on my life. This book helped me understand my behaviour better and allowed me to access my fullest potential. I would not have won gold without Steve.

Circe

Madeline Miller, 2018

I’m obsessed with mythology and I loved this reimagining of the sorceress from “The Odyssey”. I find it intriguing the way that Miller looks at ancient myths from the point of view of the characters. I couldn’t put it down.

Milk and Honey

Rupi Kaur, 2014

This poetry collection made me go, “Wow!” I’d never come across anything like it, and I found it very reassuring because it reflects the struggles and anxieties of the female experience in a way that is very relatable. It doesn’t pull any punches.

Dancing with Elephants

Jarem Sawatsky, 2017

In Western society we’re not very good at navigating death, and this book helped me through the loss of my brother and father. Sawatsky describes his journey through terminal illness and shows us how to celebrate the experience, rather than mourning the person it’s happening to. Beautiful.

With more people looking to unplug from the digital world, analog “grandma hobbies” are making a comeback. Crafting activities like crocheting, baking, painting and knitting are especially popular among young people looking for a way to slow down. And they have been shown to help with mental health issues such as depression and anxiety. Here’s how to get your granny on.

Start with a gateway hobby

The list of so-called grandma hobbies is long, with some being more complicated than others. There’s no need to start an advanced project immediately, and the right task could keep you more engaged in the long run. Many people “jump straight into punch needling or crochet and are put off when they don’t get it right,” said Andie Reeves, a writer and fiber artist, to Verywell Mind. Try a more accessible endeavor, such as “cross-stitch, coloring books or simple beading kits.”

Match your “activity levels to the hobby that you choose,” said Susan Albers, a psychologist at Cleveland Clinic. If you are tired, ” choose an activity that has slow, repetitive movements, such as crocheting or knitting.” If you are feeling more alert, a “brain puzzle or putting together a puzzle can help to tap into your focus and concentration.”

Let go of perfectionism

Grandma hobbies are therapeutic because they allow us to make mistakes and focus on the joy of creating. Amid the pressure to “constantly hustle and be productive,” grandma hobbies offer a “refreshing pressure-free way to achieve fulfillment and well-being,” said Forbes. They remind you that “time spent doing something slow, quiet and meaningful is not wasted.” Rather, it’s “restorative" and a way of “choosing presence over pressure and imagination over efficiency.”

Embrace taking a break from the digital world

It’s hard to “doomscroll while embroidering,” said Verywell Mind. Crafts offer an “immersive experience that pulls us out of the (often addictive) digital world.” Picking up a “crochet hook, a paint brush or a recipe for bread reconnects you with simple, sensory pleasures,” said Emily Sharp, an art therapist, to Verywell Mind. While you are “using your hands and letting your mind wander,” you are “getting in touch with a part of yourself beyond the phone screen.” That’s a practice “we should all actively nurture.”

Take your time

The most valuable aspect of incorporating grandma hobbies into your life “lies in embracing the freedom of slowing down and savoring the process,” said Forbes. When you set aside time for mindful activities, you “reconnect with a softer pace of life.” To make this a consistent part of your routine, “start by dedicating small, nonnegotiable time slots each week for your chosen hobby.” Remember not to do them for “social media, for likes or for others’ approval.” The magic lies in indulging in these activities “purely for your own satisfaction, without any expectation of a perfect outcome.”

Don’t forget community

You can obviously do these hobbies alone, but there’s a lot to be gained from doing them with other like-minded people. If possible, “learn from someone who already does it,” said Shelly Dar, a mental health and well-being specialist, to The Good Trade. “Ask your grandmother, your neighbor, someone at a community garden.” These hobbies are “always meant to be passed hand to hand, and that exchange is part of the healing.”

Engaging with other hobbyists “fosters a sense of connection based on shared interests,” which is “especially valuable in today’s technology-driven world that often leaves people feeling isolated,” said Patricia Dixon, a licensed clinical psychologist, to Good Housekeeping. It can motivate you to “improve and deepen your skills, creating an environment of mutual growth.”

Listening lounges, recording studios, secret venues and vinyl lending libraries are a few of the perks guests can tap into at these seven hotels made for music lovers. You may not run into your favorite artist, but you sure might discover a new one.

Aria Hotel Budapest, Hungary

Music inspired every design element at Aria Hotel Budapest, starting with the piano-keyboard marble inlay that stretches across the indoor courtyard. Rooms come in four styles — Classical, Opera, Contemporary and Jazz — and feature elegant touches like Murano glass chandeliers, coffered ceilings and custom area rugs.

In the afternoon, guests are invited to a wine and cheese reception with live music, and they can end the night on the rooftop High Note SkyBar. Aria even has a musical director, who arranges performances and special events and compiles soundtracks for individual stays.

D Maris Bay, Marmaris, Turkey

Once the sun goes down, the energy level at D Maris Bay goes way up, as guests prepare to spend the night dancing to DJ sets and live musical performances. Situated in a “stunning bay” on the Turquoise Coast, the resort’s “fabulous setting” and “extensive facilities” make it “one of the best” luxury beach properties in Turkey, said The Telegraph.

The property’s nightlife is second to none, with DJs coming from around the globe to play. The resort also hosts a summer gala series that blends gourmet dining with musical performances; previous artists included Seal and Sophie Ellis-Bextor.

Hotel El Ganzo, San José del Cabo, Mexico

The soundtrack of Hotel El Ganzo includes musicians jamming in the Underground Studio and bands performing on the private marina. Creatives love staying at this boutique property, where murals cover the walls, the rooms feature one-of-a-kind paintings and the Musicians in Residence program brings artists like Thievery Corporation, Rufus du Sol and Khruangbin to the hotel. When you’re ready to chill, head to the beach and swim club Playa El Ganzo, the rooftop pool, or the spa and wellness center.

Hotel Saint Cecilia, Austin, Texas

Named in honor of the patron saint of music, Hotel Saint Cecilia is an “ultraprivate” spot where “record label execs, artists, musicians and writers” go for a getaway, said Condé Nast Traveler. The rooms and suites inside this Victorian-era mansion have their own “distinct decor and personality” and come with Rega turntables and Geneva sound systems. When you feel like listening to tunes, head to the hotel’s lending library and borrow a vintage vinyl; while you are there, check out one of the many rock biographies available to borrow.

Okupa Athens, Greece

The centerpiece of Okupa is the Kitchen & Listening Bar, an “all-day space that combines brunch, dinner and a listening bar moment,” said Vogue Adria. Okupa is a place where “food, music and atmosphere” all “function as one and the same mood.” Here, you can enjoy an on-property jazz session, DJ set and concert in one day. The 32 modern, comfortable rooms come with portable speakers and, in some cases, record players. The music never need stop.

The Verb Hotel, Boston

The Verb Hotel “proudly” celebrates its hometown musical heroes, with local artists “commemorated through posters and pictures” across the hotel, said Rolling Stone. Other big acts who visited the city are “immortalized with autographs and coffee table books,” and this memorabilia makes the property feel like a “retro-chic museum” that “happens to offer plush beds.” For an over-the-top experience, stay in one of the Backstage trailers complete with Bose sound systems, custom art and “unique pieces of tour life.”

W Nashville, Tennessee

Music surrounds you at W Nashville. Both established and up-and-coming artists perform inside the intimate Living Room Bar & Lounge, and guests have a chance to attend listening sessions and songwriting collaborations in the Sound Room, a small venue hidden behind a wall of speakers.

The party continues poolside, where local DJs keep the tunes going at the Wet Deck. It’s a “stylish” property with excellent service — head to the friendly concierge with requests for “tickets to the Grand Ole Opry or whoever is playing at the Ryman,” said Condé Nast Traveler.

Most people don’t leave Ibiza feeling healthier. Sun, sea, sand and sangria have reigned supreme here for decades, from the hedonistic super clubs that provide its late-night soundtrack, to the beach bars overlooking its famous Balearic sunset.

Now, however, one of the White Isle’s most established hotels is hoping to turn that on its head, with a programme intended not only to make you feel better, but actually make you live longer. The Atzaró Agroturismo Hotel has long been known for the quality of its spa, but the team has pivoted to a novel approach, creating personalised longevity pathways using new technologies alongside long-standing organic and nature-focused treatments. And after a tough winter I arrive feeling like this is exactly what I need.

Personalised programme

The experience begins with a session on the 3D body scanner, which analyses your body’s composition, takes 14 measurements, assesses your flexibility and calculates your metabolic age. It’s slightly daunting, and my readings aren’t exactly ideal, but nonetheless the information is not only useful to have, it informs your personalised programme and is used to track your progress as well.

An individual programme is developed for each person based on this data, their health history and personal goals, using traditional treatments, nutrient IV therapies, and innovative technology-led sessions.

My own pathway uses several of these, and I begin with the hypoxia oxygen therapy, a guided breath and conditioning session using controlled low-oxygen intervals to boost efficiency, stamina and recovery. As I lie back with a mask strapped to my face, I settle in, uncertain what the treatment will feel like. But as the oxygen flows at different rates and I am treated to a reflexology session, I feel myself drift off into a dozy state. It’s designed to enhance cellular function, and while I can’t speak for this, I come back into the world feeling fresh and de-stressed

Next, I spend 20 minutes in the high-frequency infrared bed. Infrared is a trend that has swept social media, but it has strong evidence behind it, and this version is much stronger than the average mask you can use at home. The frequency can hit 900-plus, which, the team explains, can penetrate to the cellular level to energise and activate the mitochondria. It reduces inflammation and supports tissue recovery, and the warm bed immediately relaxes. It feels like a cocoon and my muscles feel supple afterwards.

This is followed quickly by a four-minute session in the cryotherapy chamber. I’m in my swimming costume but am given mittens and booties to keep the extremities warm. Overall, it’s cold but not cold like wild swimming in a British lake, so I am revitalised but not in pain. My programme ends with a massage by experienced technician Marina, who works the remaining knots out of my back and shoulders, and I leave the spa feeling like a different woman.

Nutrient-rich dining and a stand-out spa

Wellness is a recurring theme across the property, and during the rest of my stay I explore the estate. Atzaró Agroturismo Hotel opened in 2004, and is spread across 14 hectares of orange groves surrounded by lush hills. Life is slower here. It was originally a working farm and has been in the same family for more than 300 years. This heritage can be felt everywhere, from the original kitchen (now reception) where the current owners’ grandmother used to sit, to the enormous vegetable garden that supplies the kitchen each day.

When I take an early morning stroll one day I stumble across the staff selecting the veg for that night’s menu, as food plays a vital role in longevity too. To reinforce the spa’s work, the kitchen has designed a selection of nutrient-dense options, including anti-inflammatory salads and juices rich in polyphenols and amino acids. Of course, there is also a menu of indulgent treats like irresistible Iberico ham croquetas, and fresh locally caught corvina cooked on a Josper grill.

I spend the rest of my time doing lengths in the stunning 43-metre spa pool, relaxing in giant Bali beds among the herb gardens, and reading books in the outdoor hot tub. My room overlooks one of the nine pools, and I can watch the sunset from a cute Juliet balcony. The entire complex smells of lavender and orange blossom, creating a sensory experience that transports you to another world, and it feels like the whole place is designed with recovery in mind. The décor is local and rustic, with bathroom products made on site from the aforementioned herbs. Even the toothpaste is organic and sourced from the island.

The hotel is part of the Atzaró Collection, which includes Aubergine by Atzaró, a popular destination restaurant, and Atzaró Beach, an informal bar and restaurant in Cala Nova where you can swim in crystal water and enjoy views over Ibiza’s leafy cliffs. The family encourages visitors to get out and explore the island’s beauty. Soaking in its energy is all part of the package.

I end my stay feeling calm, refreshed and ready to go back to my ordinary life with a new vitality, a far cry from previous visits to the island. It’s important to remember that longevity isn’t just about living for ever, but living well, and if life feels this good then why wouldn’t you want more of it?

Jaymi McCann was a guest of Atzaró Agroturismo Hotel

With many parts of the world bracing for a scorching summer driven by the Super El Niño climate pattern, people might be spending more time indoors than they had expected. If so, they’ll have an impressive array of new and returning shows to help pass the time.

“Not Suitable for Work”

Last year brought two buzzy comedies aimed at the under-30 set, HBO Max’s “I Love LA” and FX/Hulu’s “Adults.” Now comes Hulu’s “Not Suitable for Work,” from the mind of creator Mindy Kaling (“The Mindy Project”).

AJ (Ella Hunt) and Abby (Avantika) are fresh-out-of-college Manhattan roommates embarking on their careers — AJ in finance, and Abby in fashion. They happen to live across the hall from a group of young men including Davis (Will Angus), who also works at AJ’s firm. If this kind of classic Kaling-esque plot conceit bothers you, this might not be the show for you because it’s full of them. The series is a “lightweight, frothy romp through a glossy, fictional Manhattan” whose “nimble pace, quick-enough wits and aspirational aesthetic” are enough to make up for its lack of realism, said Rachel Leibrock at The Wrap. (now on Hulu)

‘The Witness’

A two-timeline potboiler, “The Witness” stars Jordan Bolger (“This Town”) as André Hanscombe, whose 2-year-old son, Alex (Jahsaiah Williams as a child, Max Fincham as an adult), is the lone witness to the brutal 1992 murder of his mother, Rachel Nickell (Eleanor Williams). The arrest and successful prosecution of the alleged killer seemingly allows the family to move on, but years later the investigation is reopened, as are the emotional wounds. The “gripping but distressing” three-part series, based on a true story, shows a family working through “unimaginable trauma” while dealing with the long-term aftermath, said Phil Harrison at The Guardian. (June 4 on Netflix)

‘The Listeners’

A five-part limited series, “The Listeners” stars Rebecca Hall (“The Night House”) as Claire, a teacher who begins to hear a humming sound that no one else can. When doctors, friends and family can find no reason or meaning behind her ordeal, she turns to a student, Kyle (Ollie West), who says he can hear it too. A riveting exploration of how “people can fall off the map when it seems as if they have nowhere to turn,” director Janicza Bravo (“Zola”) “captures this sinking feeling” while staying “attuned to character in a way that feels deeply, disquietingly alive,” said Chase Hutchinson at The Wrap. (June 12 on Starz)

‘The Bear,’ season 5

FX’s Chicago-set restaurant drama, “The Bear,” returns for its fifth and final season. Syd (Ayo Edebiri), Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and Natalie (Abby Elliott) are left to pick up the pieces after Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) abruptly walks away following a tense baring of souls in the season 4 finale.

The group plans to pour everything into one final evening, with a massive storm bearing down on the city, in an effort to snag the Michelin star they need to survive. The fourth season told viewers that “if you’re tired, it’s OK to take a break” because “you can’t save someone else until you save yourself,” said Whitney Friedlander at Paste Magazine. The final season of creator Christopher Storer’s show is a slam dunk for fans and destined to be the subject of a thousand think pieces. (June 25 on Hulu)

‘Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness’

Though this may not have been the original intent, Larry David’s HBO Max sketch comedy series will function as a kind of counterprogramming to the White House’s celebration plans for the Declaration of Independence’s 250th anniversary. Details are scarce, but the series is produced by Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground Productions, features the 44th president in the trailer and will comprise vignettes about America’s long history, as filtered through David’s distinct comedic aesthetic. David is “gearing up to take his ‘world’s most yelled-at man’ bona fides back into history,” said William Hughes at The A.V. Club, to squeeze more content out of the “very simple premise” that “Larry David is, largely, to be loathed.” (June 26 on HBO Max)

‘The Boys of Dungeon Lane’ by Paul McCartney

★★★★

Paul McCartney is “acting his age and defying it too, which is kind of the best of both worlds,” said Chris Willman in Variety. On his 20th solo album, the 83-year-old former Beatle keeps it “fresh and lively, and occasionally even fiery, but not by pretending that he’s a youngster.” Named after the area of Liverpool where McCartney spent part of his childhood, The Boys of Dungeon Lane is a nostalgia trip—“mostly in the flagrantly commercial, engaging, oft-rocking style of a 1970s Wings record.” He duets with Ringo Starr on one track, while another looks back on his “platonic crush on George Harrison.” The “ode to friendship from the Cute One to the Quiet One is so romantic, you could almost swoon.” McCartney’s sheer joy “comes through in every chord change,” said Simon Vozick-Levinson in Rolling Stone. From “moving acoustic ballads” to a “trippy” ode to hiking and magic mushrooms, the artist’s “life force remains undimmed.” What’s more, the “simple, elegant arrangements” are mostly played by the man himself: He understands that what we want from a new McCartney solo album “at this stage in his career is more McCartney.”

‘Blue Morpho’ by Ed O’Brien

★★★

The second solo release from Ed O’Brien “feels like a do-over” that was very much worth the effort, said Ryan Reed in A.V. Club. The Radiohead guitarist and backing vocalist’s 2020 debut, Earth, was “a sonically rich album” that never quite found its footing; here, he taps into what that record got right and runs with it. Blue Morpho finds O’Brien “relying less on lyrics, leaning more into psychedelic atmospheres,” and embracing prog-rock catharsis on the final track, the nearly 10-minute “Obrigado”—a “genuinely affecting head trip laced with jazzy keyboards.” O’Brien is “out of his cocoon and in dazzling flight,” said Andrew Trendell in NME. In a reflection of the Brazilian butterfly that inspired the album’s name, the orchestral title track “floods the record with color,” with the guitarist drifting above the cinematic orchestration with “all the cool Zen of an Oxford-born Beck or a reborn Nick Drake.” On the funky “Teachers,” O’Brien delivers for “fans of the smoky, jazzier corners of Amnesiac, albeit with a lot more druggy euphoria.” This is a savory treat, full of “the secret sauce that O’Brien has always added to the Radiohead recipe.”

‘Little Wide Open’ by Kevin Morby

★★★

This is an album that, “in the best way, can’t quite work out what it thinks,” said Alexis Petridis in The Guardian. On Kevin Morby’s eighth release, the Midwestern singer-songwriter is grappling with “the weird push and pull exerted by one’s hometown,” impending fatherhood, and introspection born of middle age. (On “Javelin,” he ponders: “Am I a has-been? Am I a husband?”) He’s aided by an impressive artistic lineup: The National’s Aaron Dessner produces, while Bon Iver lends his voice as a quasi–tornado siren and Lucinda Williams joins for a Springsteen-flavored monologue. Morby has delivered his “most cohesive, tuneful, and cleanly drawn” album yet, said Will Hermes in Pitchfork. It’s satisfying to watch an artist evolve steadily over the years and emerge as one of the “long-game players.” Here the folk-rock artist offers a “meditation on what happens when things aren’t falling apart” to arrive at “a balancing act of personal and universal that suggests an inverted Blood on the Tracks.” Set firmly in Middle America, Little Wide Open is the portrait of a musician becoming “more soulful, not less, as his sound grows more polished and inviting.”

When you make a purchase using links on our site, The Week may earn a commission. All reviews are written independently by our editorial team.

With I Hear a New World, Alan Moore continues his five-novel Long London fantasy series, which spans the second half of the 20th century. Below, the author of Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and From Hell recommends six books that have influenced his work.

‘Pariah Genius’ by Iain Sinclair (2024)

A favorite book that looms in the same territory as I Hear a New World, Pariah Genius is a fiction conjured from the life and death of Soho photographer John Deakin. It unfolds in a glistening underworld peopled by Deakin’s subjects and associates—Dylan Thomas, Francis Bacon—and delineated with the diamond focus of Sinclair’s consciousness-expanding prose. Buy it here.

‘Mother London’ by Michael Moorcock (1988)

An essential London novel, infused with a deep love of place. We view the war-wounded city through the eyes of memorable characters connected by those airraid shelter nights. Buy it here.

‘The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman’ by Angela Carter (1972)

Carter is another favorite London author, and although her later work includes tremendous novels that are situated in the capital, it’s in earlier books like this, with their unrestrained exoticism, their delirious sensuality, and their steaming orchid forest writing, that I find the new flavor of fantasy my current offerings are aiming for. Buy it here.

‘Gormenghast’ by Mervyn Peake (1950)

I first read Peake’s Gormenghast books at 14, and although bowled over by them, I’d not realized until I was reading my grandsons the trilogy just how much Peake’s berserk use of language, with its lyric seizures, has affected my own style. So, yes, I’m blaming him for my excesses. Buy it here.

‘One Last, Mad Embrace’ by Jack Trevor Story (1970)

Along with all the horror, history, and phantasmagoria of the Long London series, I wanted it to be grotesquely amusing, and my benchmark for wretchedly funny English literary comedy has always been Jack Trevor Story, who, in works like One Last, Mad Embrace, perfectly illustrates Ian Dury’s admonition that “a sense of humor is required amongst the bacon-rind.” Buy it here.

‘I Got References’ by Gerald Kersh (1939)

An honorary Londoner, the awesome Gerald Kersh deserves acknowledgment as an influence, for his shrewd grasp of how the city works, for his pitch perfect evocation of its aura, and, in I Got References, for introducing me to the astounding Ras Prince Monolulu. Buy it here.

‘An Inconvenient Widow: The Torment, Trial, and Triumph of Mary Todd Lincoln’ by Lois Romano

“No first lady has been more demonized than Mary Todd Lincoln,” said Amy S. Greenberg in The New York Times. Even before her husband’s 1865 assassination, the former Lexington, Ky., socialite was portrayed as unhinged and unworthy of both the White House and Abraham Lincoln’s love. With An Inconvenient Widow, former Washington Post reporter Lois Romano seeks to rehabilitate Mary Todd’s reputation—“an ambitious project,” given that there’s “a kernel of reality” even in the over-the-top depiction of the first lady in the Broadway comedy smash Oh, Mary! She was erratic, vain, and, even during a deeply depleting war, a compulsive spendthrift. Though Romano at times goes too far in defense of her subject, she’s right that the demonization of Mary has been wildly disproportionate. “Whatever her faults, and they were many, she deserved better, and Romano deserves praise for granting her, at long last, a measure of grace.”

Romano’s ambition here isn’t new, said Thomas Mallon in The New Yorker. “Measured rehabilitation of the first lady’s character has been the dominant mode of Mary Lincoln biography for more than 70 years.” But in the popular imagination, untruths persist that should be corrected. First, she was not a traitor. Born in 1818 into a slaveholding family, Mary evolved into a committed abolitionist and an im­placable Unionist who poured time into caring for wounded Union soldiers. Earlier, because she was well-educated and witty, she sometimes impressed reporters covering the 1860 presidential campaign even more than her husband did. But opinion turned against her when she began lavishly redecorating the White House, and the death of a second young son, in 1862, didn’t win her lasting sympathy. Her reputation was buried when Abraham’s former law partner, William Herndon, began spreading lies about her shortly after the assassination.

Though Herndon would object, Romano “offers a persuasive portrait of a loving, mutually supportive marriage,” said Melanie Kirkpatrick in The Wall Street Journal. The author also “emphasizes the impact of grief on Mary’s mental health.” Three of Mary’s four sons died by 18, and in the wake of her husband’s death, she struggled not just emotionally but also financially, having to fight for years for a congressional pension. Meanwhile, her politically ambitious surviving son, Robert, was so embarrassed by the negative press she attracted that he had her committed to a mental institution, a decision she had to fight to reverse. She died of a stroke in 1882, and while she “won’t go down in history as one of the most congenial first ladies,” Romano’s “exemplary” examination of her life may ensure she’ll be remembered for both her flaws and her merits.

‘Lady C: The Long, Sensational Life of Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ by Guy Cuthbertson

“Obscenity lacks staying power,” said Dan Piepenbring in Harper’s. Some 65 years after Lady Chatterley’s Lover was widely derided as a book that might hasten the collapse of Western civilization, even pornographers aren’t bothering to invoke Lady Chatterley’s name or riff on the extramarital romps she engaged in with her paraplegic husband’s brooding, sweaty gamekeeper. But the book’s history is worth revisiting, because for decades, “it set polite society on edge,” even triggering landmark obscenity trials in Japan, India, the U.K., and the U.S. more than a generation after it was first published. Though “the most corrupted among us have long abandoned Lady Chatterley’s Lover as a totem of smut,” D.H. Lawrence’s 1928 novel lives on as a cultural milestone.

“There was always a great deal of hypocrisy amid the furor surrounding the book,” said Tim Bouverie in Air Mail. From the moment Lawrence had the first edition privately printed in Italy, American and British authorities confiscated copies that had been smuggled across their borders and secretly read the novel for pleasure. Even editions in which the sex scenes and four-letter words had been expurgated sold well in the 1930s. Cuthbertson “consistently informs and amuses” as he surveys the jokes and parodies the novel inspired, and he’s “fascinating” on various readers’ political interpretations of the tale. The 1960 trial in London that unleashed the unexpurgated paperback edition was “one of the great comic episodes in British cultural history,” and Cuthbertson’s account adds fresh color.

Readers of the novel today might be less offended by the sex than by Lady Chatterley’s antisemitism and her lover’s homophobia, said Blake Morrison in The Guardian. But Cuthbertson doesn’t dwell on that ugliness or Kate Millet’s famous attack, in 1970’s Sexual Politics, on the phallocentrism of Lady Chatterley’s sexual awakening. Lawrence himself thought of his final book, completed two years before his death at 44, as a serious novel about the sacred nature of sex. Others justifiably found humor in the way he conveyed that idea. So credit Cuthbertson for keeping his story light. “After all the moralizing that went with the book, it’s the right way to go.”

“No literary genre divides opinion quite like self-help,” said Josiah Gogarty in GQ. Some people love it, while others steer well clear. But the best personal growth books “cover a lot more ground than you might think”, spanning everything from deeply personal memoirs about grief to science-backed guides that could change your relationships. Here are our top picks.

Secure by Dr Amir Levine

It’s been 16 years since Dr Amir Levine and Rachel Heller published the bestselling “Attached”, which set out the “four main styles of bonding” in human relationships: anxious, secure, avoidant and fearful avoidant, said psychotherapist Philippa Perry in The Guardian. Now Levine is back with his keenly anticipated follow-up that’s also rooted in attachment theory. The psychiatrist lays out a “set of tools to help us feel more secure in all our relationships” – not just with romantic partners, but with friends, parents and “even with ourselves”. Firmly grounded in neuroscience and research, it’s an insightful read that can help you “know yourself better” and move towards “positive change”. Of course, you can’t just read the book: you must also be willing to “do the work and then keep up the practice”.

The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga

This is “different from any other self-help book I’ve ever read”, said consultant psychiatrist Alex Curmi in The Guardian. Written in the format of a “philosopher talking to a young, frustrated student”, Kishimi and Koga introduce readers to Austrian psychoanalyst Alfred Adler’s ideas around the “separation of tasks, where you decide which tasks you are responsible for and then let other people get on with their own tasks”. This can be “extremely liberating” – especially for people pleasers.

The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk

Published over a decade ago, this insightful book is one that “hasn’t wavered in popularity” and continues to “attract new fans with each passing year”, said Daisy Jones in Vogue. “It’s easy to see why.” The Dutch psychiatrist writes in a “persuasive” way that “rings true”. Backing his ideas with scientific research, he argues that “though the brain may work hard to suppress trauma, the body does not in fact forget”.

Atomic Habits by James Clear

“If you’ve ever wanted to change something about your life but found it overwhelming”, this transformative book provides a “step-by-step” guide to building small positive habits, said Tria Wen in Reader’s Digest. This is a “great book to gift”, helping readers “think about their goals in terms of little shifts they can make” that can be divided into “more manageable pieces”. By adding “one tiny” habit at a time, it’s possible to “create real and lasting change”.

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

Joan Didion is known for her “journalistic dispatches written in ice-cold prose”, said Gogarty in GQ. But following the sudden death of her husband in 2003, she “turned her unblinking analytical eye on her own life” in this powerful memoir. In it, she shines a light on her “debilitating grief”, transforming the nature of writing about bereavement. “Mourning is part of being human, and ‘The Year of Magical Thinking’ has lessons for everyone.”

Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman

The title of this book might sound “terrifying” (4,000 weeks is the average human lifespan) but beneath the cover there’s an “optimistic” message, said Gogarty in GQ. Instead of trying to encourage “unattainable levels of productivity”, Burkeman “urges you to accept your limits and make peace with your perpetual mountain of tasks”. His advice? To “stop sweating over your to-do list” and choose to focus only on what’s important.

Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is under attack for the “unfathomable sin of having a diverse cast,” said Marlow Stern in Variety. Director Nolan has confirmed that Kenyan Mexican actress Lupita Nyong’o is playing Helen of Troy in his upcoming blockbuster film version of Homer’s epic. Critics of Nolan’s casting also claim, without confirmation, that trans actor Elliot Page is playing the warrior Achilles. Leading the anti-Odyssey charge is Elon Musk, the champion of “white-grievance campaigns,” who posted dozens of indignant screeds on X claiming Nolan had “desecrated” Homer’s story. He and other detractors “have not actually seen the film yet, mind you,” nor do they seem to care that Helen and Achilles are “fictional characters navigating a mythological fable” with a giant Cyclops and other monsters. For these “culture warriors,” a diverse Odyssey is an intolerable affront.

These detractors may whine about “accuracy,” said Peter A. Berry in Bloomberg, but they’re actually defending their “fantasy of the past.” Genetically Mediterranean, the ancient Greeks generally had darker hair and skin than the fair, blue-eyed Brad Pitt, who played Achilles in 2004’s Troy—a film that Musk extols. Homer described Helen as beautiful but without much detail, making any portrayal “an educated guess.” Whatever Homer imagined 2,700 years ago, said Rich Lowry in National Review, there’s “nothing inherently wrong with casting actors in roles that don’t match their ethnicity.” Liberals were equally misguided when they criticized Scarlett Johansson for saying she should be “allowed to play anyone” after starring as a traditionally Japanese character in 2017’s Ghost in the Shell. “What’s good for Lupita Nyong’o should be good for Scarlett Johansson, and vice versa.”

With an IPO for SpaceX looming, “you’d think Musk wouldn’t have the time or energy for this nonsense,” said Arwa Mahdawi in The Guardian. But the world’s richest man spends an “extraordinary” amount of time posting anti-immigrant rhetoric and “white genocide” conspiracies. On 26 of 31 days in January, he shared racially charged posts with his 240 million followers on X. Musk’s “whiny” race panic has become “boring,” said John DeVore in MS.now, and has zero impact beyond his reactionary base. The Odyssey is “already the most buzzed-about movie of the summer,” with brisk advance ticket sales. Musk is “losing the culture war; he just doesn’t know it yet.”

While much has changed about the movie industry in recent years, the presence of a sci-fi blockbuster like director Steven Spielberg’s “Disclosure Day” early in the summer season feels like a throwback. The buzzy tentpole will be joined by several other intriguing — if less hyped — films this month in theaters, including a talky dinner party drama and a queer horror fable.

‘Disclosure Day’

Hollywood legend Steven Spielberg will turn 80 this December but seems in no hurry to slow down. “Disclosure Day” looks like his most ambitious science-fiction project since 2005’s “War of the Worlds.”

The plot remains mostly under wraps, but Emily Blunt (“A Quiet Place”) plays Margaret Fairchild, a Kansas City meteorologist who works with whistleblower Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor) to blow the lid off of a government conspiracy to conceal the existence of alien life on Earth. It’s a “dense roller-coaster ride blending chase film, love story and mystery, all wrapped in sci-fi wonder” making up “Spielberg’s best film in 20 years,” said Gizmodo’s Germain Lussier on X. (in theaters June 12)

‘O Horizon’

Maria Bakalova (“Bodies Bodies Bodies”) is Abby, a neuroscientist who signs up for an experimental new app technology peddled by the delightfully goofy Sam (Adam Pally) to create an AI version of her recently deceased father, Warren (David Strathairn). But her new creation slips out of her control when “Warren” interferes with her budding relationship with Douglas (Avi Nash).

Though it sounds like the premise of a bleak “Black Mirror” episode, the movie has a bigger heart and is less cynical than most cinematic takes on AI. An “instant audience-pleaser,” director Madeleine Rotzler’s movie creates an “effective adult fairy tale, a kind of latter-day ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ in which the main character is sent down her own emotional rabbit hole,” said Greg Archer at MovieWeb. (in theaters June 19)

‘Maddie’s Secret’

Comedian John Early (“Search Party”) directs himself as Maddie, a chef who descends into eating-disordered hell after her husband, Jake (Eric Rahill), releases a video of her cooking that goes viral. It’s been a long time since a man played a woman like this in a mainstream feature, and it remains to be seen how audiences will react, but “Maddie’s Secret” boasts an impressive roster of comedic talent, including Kate Berlant (“A League of Their Own”) as Maddie’s close friend Deena. A “tricky, one-of-a-kind stunt” that’s “sure to be divisive,” Early’s film succeeds as a “tongue-in-cheek critique of influencer culture crossed with a sincere homage to the heyday of disease-of-the-week TV movies,” said Peter Debruge at Variety. (in theaters June 19)

‘Leviticus’

Director Adrian Chiarella’s first feature is an unusually poignant horror story set in rural Australia, where teenagers Naim (Joe Bird) and Ryan (Stacy Clausen) begin a halting romance. Then a local preacher (Nicholas Hope) curses the boys with a demon that visits them every night and takes the shape of whoever they desire the most.

The result most closely resembles a queer version of “It Follows” and feels perfectly timed as a critique of the authoritarian turn against kids struggling with their gender identities in the U.S. In a film that “takes a more restrained approach to horror tropes,” the demon turns their “love into a weapon against them” and “vividly visualizes” the church’s project of “converting desire into shame,” said Marshall Shaffer at Slant magazine. (in theaters June 19)

‘The Invite’

In director Olivia Wilde’s first feature since the divisive “Don’t Worry Darling,” Joe (Seth Rogen) is a down-on-himself music teacher whose moribund marriage to Angela (Olivia Wilde) is stress-tested when the pair invites their glamorous and seemingly blissful upstairs neighbors, Hawk (Edward Norton) and Pína (Penélope Cruz), over for dinner. The tense subtext is that Joe and Angela have been listening uncomfortably to their neighbors’ loud sex. Turns out Hawk and Pína may have accepted the invitation with more than a nice dinner in mind. “The Invite” intentionally recalls classic spiraling-marriage movies like “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,” while the characters’ “interplay yields an entertaining, at times crackling evening that tries for a bittersweet note,” said Nicolas Rapold at Sight and Sound. (in theaters June 26)

Dating apps are “rooted in rejection and judgement” and that’s “not healthy”, Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd told Fortune. She had an “epiphany” during a 14-month leave of absence that users are just “hurt people hurting people”, and has vowed to bring “more joy and satisfaction” to her app.

Bumble is now shifting to matching-making driven by AI – and it’s not the only dating app to see this as the solution to increasing dating-app fatigue. But newcomer Breeze is taking another route: switching the focus to in-person experiences by reducing opportunities to chat in app, and sending only a time-specific, limited number of matches.

‘Payment and consequences’

“Breeze is a welcome disruptor in the dating app landscape,” said Isabella Silvers in The Telegraph. Since it launched in Europe in 2020, after winning investment from the Dutch version of “Dragon’s Den”, it has clocked up more than two million downloads. Users join “matching pools” that bring together “like-minded daters”, based on everything from hobbies (“outdoor lovers”) to niche interests (“rat owners/lovers”). To date, the app has arranged more than 737,000 dates, “resulting in 10 babies – that it knows of”.

Users receive a “select number of profiles” at 7pm every day and the key to the app’s success seems to be “payment and consequences”. Once you accept a match, you have to fill out your availability and pay a £9.50 deposit to secure a drinks date (or £4.50 for a “walk and talk”), “before being allowed to make a decision on anyone else”. The chat function for matched users is only opened up four hours before the date – prompting last-minute date confirmations, rather than “meaningless messaging”.

Breeze is “evidently working”, especially in the Netherlands where it’s “the third most popular and fastest-growing” dating app, said Lydia Spencer-Elliott in The Independent. “But can it save Britain’s dismal dating scene?” It can certainly save us from “boring convos generated by ChatGPT”, or being stood up or ghosted or “strung out” for weeks with no follow-through. But “what it absolutely can’t save” us from “is ourselves”. It’s ultimately “knackering” to keep “riding the rejection rollercoaster of the dating-app landscape” – and, sometimes, “the best remedy is to give it all a rest”.

‘Charming chatbots’

There is “rampant” dating-app burnout, said Catherine Pearson in The New York Times. As Bumble embraces AI-powered algorithms to re-engage those who “crave an experience that feels less overwhelming and more purposeful”, it’s also removing its swipe feature. It’s hoping to “end superficial, snap judgements” by altering “the dating habits of millions of users who have grown used to vetting partners with the flick of a finger”.

But the AI pivot comes with risk. Integrating AI features “sloppily” could “alienate” dating-app customers, said Tatum Hunter in The Guardian. Some users are already reporting “being plagued by AI paranoia, unsure whether the people they are messaging are real or charming chatbots”. The messaging from the industry is clear: “if we let AI take the wheel, this will all get less depressing”. But can a “smooth, mindless path toward connection” really make dating more joyful?

Evolutionary psychology reminds us that “only a signal that is difficult to fake can carry reliable information about the sender”, said Andrew King on Quillette. A rightward swipe behind a screen “communicates almost nothing about the sincerity of the person making it”. But making an approach in person at a bar or an event carries the potential for “public rejection”, and that cost is a signal of sincerity. These signals “matter” and “cannot be easily digitised”: “the discomfort is the point”.

Forget “bleak dormitories with creaking iron beds and draughty communal spaces”, said Georgie Duckworth in The Guardian. A new generation of UK hostels offer a comfortable place to stay – without the hefty price tag that often comes with cabins, cottages and lodges.

As staycations boom in the face of uncertainty over the war in the Middle East and soaring airfares, holidaymakers are looking for affordable places to stay closer to home. But in prizing “seclusion” so highly, “have we lost the very essence of travel: the pleasure of meeting new people; sharing stories; hearing word-of-mouth tips; and stepping outside our familiar routines?”

That’s where hostels come in. These reasonably priced accommodations encourage “outdoor pursuits and socialising”, with a range of private rooms for families and communal rooms with bunk beds. One of the best is The Rocks in Pembrokeshire: a “bright and stylish” hostel with a cosy shared lounge, and firepits for “stargazing and marshmallow toasting” in the evenings. Rooms are “snug but smart” with “soft sheets and Welsh woollen blankets”.

The Youth Hostel Association offers rooms in a “beautiful building in a luxury location” for a fraction of the price of other staycations, said Catherine Lofthouse in The Sun. My “favourite” is Chester Trafford Hall: an “old Georgian mansion set in lovely grounds”. In a great “blend of city and countryside”, visitors can enjoy walks from the doorstep or “hop on the bus” to the city centre to “wander through the historic streets”.

There are plenty of completely “off-grid” escapes, too, for “wild adventurers” and “digital detoxers”, said Freya Parr on BBC Countryfile. Consider travelling off the beaten track to Ulva – a small Scottish island off the west coast of Mull. Here you’ll find the community-owned Ulva Hostel which sleeps just 14 people. Home to a comfy living area, shared kitchen, and sauna, with additional camping pitches available outside, it’s the “perfect spot” to explore the remote, car-free island.

At the end of a winding tree-lined driveway, this grand country house appears suddenly, like a dame at a ball. The late Victorian-era mansion, set in 66 acres of prime Hampshire parkland and gardens, certainly makes a statement.

When you step through the entrance archway onto the marble floor, you’re greeted with floor-to-ceiling walnut panelling that sweeps up the staircase, overlooked by gilt-framed portraits of past residents. This Grade II-listed hotel might boast a spa and award-winning restaurant, but it still feels like a grand country house (I imagine).

Why stay here?

Have you ever wanted to step into the pages of a Regency novel and be transported to a world of balls, halls and primogeniture? This is the place to do it. In fact, Tylney Hall is near many important Jane Austen sites. Her cottage, where she wrote “Pride and Prejudice”, is about a half-hour drive away, as is her grave, in the north nave aisle of Winchester Cathedral. The hotel itself feels familiar to fans of her work; you can imagine Mr Darcy brooding in a corner of the Library Room, or Elizabeth Bennet roaming the grounds.

Tylney Hall is the first of three Elite Hotels, an independent group that has carefully taken on some of the UK’s foremost historic homes. Tylney Hall has a fascinating provenance dating back hundreds of years, first as a home, then a First World War hospital, a school and the HQ of a shipping line. It’s worth reading the various information plaques dotted around the mansion and sprawling grounds. The Italian Lounge, for example, has a magnificent blue-and-gold ceiling imported from the Grimation Palace in Florence in the late 19th century.

Some of the 113 rooms are as you’d hope: fit for minor aristocracy. Think massive suites inside the mansion with four-poster beds, marbled bathrooms, and sitting rooms with views across the lawn. All that’s missing is a butler.

But some are located in the courtyard or gardens, and inexplicably furnished like student halls. To get to the spa, you have to walk back via gravelled pathways through the trees in your robe and slippers, braving inclement weather and darkness (there is zero lighting). Sneaking around like a scullery maid feels like a big ask on a spenny weekend break. Perhaps you’d do better to stay in the bathroom with the gorgeous Molton Brown toiletries.

Eating and drinking

The continental breakfast buffet is so comprehensive that I discovered a new type of jam. Dietary requirements are well catered for; every possible intolerance from celery to sesame is marked on the menu, and every milk substitute is available, which surprised me in an English country hotel. But the best items are à la carte – if you haven’t the space for the full English, with hand-linked, butcher-fresh pork sausages, go for the smoked salmon with perfectly poached eggs, or the filled pancakes with banana and crème fraîche.

The afternoon tea in the Grey Lounge is popular: a theatrical affair, with homemade pastries and silver teapots. Dinner is served in the opulent Oak Room Restaurant, and like the curtains, the menu skews towards rich, heavy and conventionally British. Mains like baked pork belly with rose harissa and coriander couscous, salmon poached in browned butter with mussel and cockle risotto, and a sharing Chateaubriand with chips are all presented with a flourish on white tablecloths, accompanied by the tinkling of a grand piano.

The beef fillet with wild mushroom gratin and autumn black truffle is the stand-out – but take care. The prices aren’t on the menu for a reason; lay off the starters and sides unless you want a hefty bill at check-out. I ended my evening with a stiff drink in the Library Bar, curled up in front of the fire like a Bridgerton earl.

Things to do

The outdoor pool, in pride of place within a walled Dutch garden, is a focal point in summer – weather permitting. The high trees shade half the sunbeds, so you’ll need to get up early to grab a good spot.

The indoor swimming pool area is beautiful; light floods in from the arched glass roof and through floor-to-ceiling windows. The problem is the acoustics. If you’re in there alone, the silence is funereal, but as soon as anyone opens their mouth for a chat, the noise is deafening. One hen party group nearly brought the roof down. Some low-fi chill, or generic spa music, would help the ambience. But otherwise, it’s a breathtaking bit of architecture.

You can fill your boots with genteel country pursuits: a game of golf or tennis, croquet, clay pigeon shooting and walking trails. Don’t miss the water gardens, designed by renowned horticulturalist Gertrude Jekyll, as well as lakes of Monet-style water lilies and a pond of fancy koi carp.

The verdict

Tylney Hall is conveniently located near Junction 5 of the M3, and a short taxi hop from the village station of Hook if you’re coming by train. But it feels like a world away from modern life.

It would be a shame to treat it as a spa-break destination, however – treatments are extortionately priced, and the facilities are limited. Consider it instead as a luxurious visit to a bygone era.

The jewel in its crown is the grounds: ancient trees, rolling hills, manicured formal lawns, rose and azalea flowerbeds, and an Italian garden complete with statues and a fountain. Follow the trails that wind through the gardens and orchard, then sit by the Boathouse Lake, taking in views of the house, and imagining the lives of those who once called it home.

Harriet Marsden was a guest of Tylney Hall Hotel and Gardens, part of the Elite Hotels Group

When you make a purchase using links on our site, The Week may earn a commission. All reviews are written independently by our editorial team.

It is not too early to start picking out your summer reading list because a slew of new releases promise to keep June interesting. Standouts for the perfect summer beach read include a highly anticipated debut of a speculative fiction rising star and several historical-fiction options.

‘Land’ by Maggie O’Farrell

The bestselling author of “Hamnet” and “The Marriage Portrait” returns with a novel about Ireland in the 1860s, during the years before and after the Great Hunger. “Land” follows a man named Tomás and his son Liam as they work on the Ordnance Survey, a project to map the whole of Ireland for the British Crown.

Through its characters, the book “stages an argument about the virtues of various types of maps—those that are measured, those that are recollected, those that are dreamed,” said The New Yorker. In her latest work, “the facts ground the fiction, the fiction enlivens the facts,” and both “work together to suggest that the pursuit of resurrecting the past and the pursuit of telling a good story can, in some cases, be one and the same.” (June 2, $32, Penguin Random House, Amazon)

‘A Resistance History of the United States’ by Tad Stoermer

Historian Tad Stoermer reframes American history by revisiting past resistance movements, such as the Salem Witch Trials and the Underground Railroad. Through these examples, Stoermer “dismantles the mythologies that pass for American history — exposing the curated nostalgia, moral evasions and institutional silences that have long protected abusive power,” said the publisher. (June 2, $20, Penguin Random House, Amazon)

‘Sublimation’ by Isabel J. Kim

Isabel J. Kim has made a name for herself in the genre of speculative fiction. The winner of the Nebula, Locus and Shirley Jackson prizes for her short stories is publishing her debut novel about immigration and doppelgangers this summer.

Across “Sublimation,” immigration is explored through a science-fiction lens in a world where emigrating creates a second “instance” of the person who stays behind in their home country. The story follows Soyoung Rose Kang, a Korean immigrant in America, who comes face to face with her clone when she returns to South Korea for a funeral. Kim’s “pulls in historical, cultural and literary examples of ‘instancing’” before “recasting them all in the brilliant light of her imagination,” said The New York Times. (June 2, $29, Macmillan, Amazon)

‘Daughters of the Sun and Moon’ by Lisa See

Best-selling author Lisa See returns with another historical fiction novel that illuminates a dark era of American history. The story focuses on the real-life “Night of Horrors” massacre of 18 Chinese immigrant men and boys in post-Civil War Los Angeles in 1871.

The novel is told through the shifting narration of three Chinese women whose friendship helps them survive the chaotic time. See offers a “stunning piece of historical fiction based in truth,” said Library Journal. Her book will “touch readers with the characters’ resilience, heroism and devoted friendship.” (June 9, $29, Simon & Schuster, Amazon)

‘Dead but Dreaming of Electric Sheep’ by Paul Tremblay

Paul Tremblay’s near-future, genre-blending sci-fi horror novel explores timely themes of AI, reality and memory. Julia Flang, a semi-professional gamer, was tasked with chaperoning a man in a vegetative state, who happens to have proprietary AI implanted in his head. What follows is a humorous, surreal and terrifying journey across the country. For fans, it will not “come as a surprise that Tremblay ends it all on a nicely gory note,” said Kirkus Reviews. A “smart and smart-alecky tale of technology put to bad ends by bad people.” (June 30, $30, HarperCollins, Amazon)

Nvidia has unveiled a new superchip for personal computers, marking its first entry into the lucrative consumer market.

“This reinvention of the computer is as big a deal as the reinvention of the phone into what we now know as the smartphone,” Nvidia’s chief executive Jensen Huang said, as he unveiled the RTX Spark chip at the Computex technology show in Taiwan on Monday.

‘Real game-changer’

Selling artificial intelligence chips used in enormous data centres has helped Nvidia become the world’s most valuable company, currently worth more than $5 trillion (£3.7 trillion). “Now it’s looking to put its technology in people’s homes,” said The New York Times’ Tripp Mickle.

The RTX Spark is a “new superchip for the era of personal AI agents – offering a new class of computer that moves from tool to teammate”, Nvidia said on its website.

Expected to be released in the autumn, it will power laptop and desktop computers from Dell, HP, Microsoft, Lenovo and others and is designed to run local AI systems that can sort files and quickly perform tasks.

The move into personal computing fires a “warning shot across the bow” of historic industry leaders such as AMD, Apple and Intel, said TechRadar, which described the move as a “real game-changer”.

Intel, Microsoft’s long-term partner, was once the “undisputed king of PCs”, but its performance has “slipped in key areas like battery life” in recent years, said Mickle. In 2021, Microsoft made it possible to run Windows software with processers from rival providers, creating an opportunity Nvidia has now exploited.

With the RTX Spark, the company will be hoping to move in on the growing market for AI computers that is currently dominated by Apple, which ditched Intel processors for its own hugely popular and powerful M-series chips in 2020.

“Apple more or less owns this market today,” Max Weinbach, a technology analyst at Creative Strategies, a tech research firm, told The New York Times. “Nvidia wants to build a laptop ecosystem for Windows that’s an alternative.”

An AI supercomputer in every home

The chip “lies at the heart of Nvidia’s push to embed AI directly into end-user devices, aiming to transform PCs into personal assistants which perform various tasks such as searching email, fixing coding bugs and accelerating generative AI features in software including Adobe Photoshop”, said Aqsa Qaddus Tahir on The News International.

Shohag Hossain, a digital creator, posted on X that the Nvidia-Microsoft partnership had “quietly built the hardware layer that makes AI run locally, privately, instantly, no cloud needed”. The result is your laptop “becomes an AI agent that works offline”, which means “no more sending your data to some server farm”.

“The real competition isn’t Apple vs Windows any more, it's who owns the AI that runs on your device.”

This new superchip could be the first step towards AI supercomputers becoming a common home appliance in the future, in the way that home theatres, large televisions, lawn mowers and dishwashers are not unusual, Huang told the conference in Taiwan.

“I could totally imagine someday there’s an AI supercomputer in your house,” he said. “It’s running all of your agents, it’s running all your assistants, and they’re doing all kinds of things for you all the time.”

Block Island, R.I.

On the west side of the island in the Grace’s Cove area, this 2003 shingle-style, 2-acre estate features a pool with an aqua-and-navy-tiled edge and spa, a stone patio surround, and ocean views. The updated five-bedroom includes tongue-and-groove wainscoting, hardwood floors, an all-white updated kitchen, and glass doors throughout that frame the water.

Decks, a pergola, a fitness cottage, and yards complete the lot. Dining and shops are about a 10-minute drive. $6,950,000. Rosemary Tobin, Lila Delman Real Estate/Compass, (401) 741-1825

North Miami Beach, Fla.

The pool at this 2026 modern seven-bedroom includes a spa, a seating shelf, and water views. Located along Little Arch Creek with access to Biscayne Bay, the two-story home has pale wood built-ins, a leafy atrium, a kitchen with a Wolf range, and a primary suite with three closets and sliders to a pink outdoor tub.

Also outside are decks, a kitchen, a lounge area, and a boat lift. $7,950,000. Zulu Zuluaga and Sergio Giraldo, Coldwell Banker Realty, (850) 803-1383

Pasadena, Calif.

This 1976 mid-century-modern-style home in the South Arroyo neighborhood features a heated infinity-edge pool with a waterfall, next to decks and a yard. Inside the four-bedroom are vaulted 15-foot ceilings, ebony-tone flooring, roofline windows, a folding glass wall, a kitchen with high-end appliances and Carrera marble counters, and a primary suite with a fireplace.

The property includes a covered outdoor kitchen and a gas firepit. $3,899,888. Georges Rouveyrol, Sotheby’s International Realty—Los Feliz Brokerage, (626) 676-5368

Turks and Caicos

Villa Palmera, a 2012 Caribbean Colonial on the north shore of the island of Providenciales, has a pool with a bathing shelf overlooking turquoise sea. The six-bedroom hillside home’s double-height living room has dual staircases and water views, and the bedrooms offer deck access.

A lower level includes a billiards room. The property features pergolas, decks, and stairs down to a private white-sand beach near a thriving reef. $6,900,000. Nina Siegenthaler, Turks & Caicos Sotheby’s International Realty, (649) 946-4474

Kilauea, Hawaii

On Kauai’s North Shore, this Balinese-style four-bedroom at the foot of Mount Namahana has a saltwater pool and spa clad in greenstone tiles adjacent to an ipe wood deck.

The home’s airy great room has exposed beams, skylights, and an eat-in chef’s kitchen; breezeways connect the bedroom suites. Spread over 3.5 acres are a lanai, a cottage, a garage, and tropical landscaping. Town and the beach are about 10 minutes away. $7,650,000. Neal Norman, Hawai’i Life, (808) 651-1777

Naples, Fla.

This 2003 three-bedroom condo in a gated community includes access to a community swimming pool next to a lake. The Mediterranean-inspired building faces south and has a sunroom, a living room with custom curtains and valance, tile floors, and an open kitchen with granite counters.

Amenities include pickleball, clay tennis courts, and access to a clubhouse. Vanderbilt Beach, on the Gulf coast, is about a 20-minute drive. $450,000. Lynlee Dusek, John R. Wood Properties/Christie’s International Real Estate, (239) 287-4911

The line between gamer culture and traditional storytelling is being blurred, one quest notification at a time, as readers get addicted to novels that combine sci-fi and fantasy narratives with features from video games.

These “gamified novels”, which are based on video games, are “going mainstream” and selling in their millions, said The Economist.

Cosmic octopus 

Standing for “literary role-playing game”, LitRPG is a genre of fiction that combines a traditional story with mechanics from role-playing games and video games. Although a Russian publisher insists that it coined the term in 2013, versions of the genre had been popular in Asia since the turn of the century.

The books “borrow the tropes of video and tabletop games”, and the characters “face challenges and grow stronger” as they “go on quests to obtain rewards”.

For instance, in the novels of Matt Dinniman, whose books have sold over six million copies, the hero “gets tougher as he punches goblins” and “defeats a monster” that is a mix of a “cosmic octopus” and “your average, suburban, anti-vax, let-me-talk-to-your-manager mom”.

The reader is regularly “updated on his character stats, health bar, XP [experience points] and special skills”. “Video-game vernacular” offers a “useful shorthand” – “minor figures” in the story are called “NPCs: non-playable characters”.

“Unlike choose-your-own-adventure tales”, readers don’t “make narrative choices”, but they “often interact with their favourite authors and leave comments on chapters, which then shape the stories”. This means the authors are “thinking strategically on and off the page” and many “self-publish their work online, chapter by chapter”. Some writers are particularly “prolific, posting new material daily”.

Foot-shaped sex toys

The adulation of readers is quite something. Dinniman “knew things were getting out of hand” when “rabid” fans “started asking him to sign their feet”, said The New York Times last year. When he put out a statement drawing the line at signing feet, his “undeterred” fans brought “foot-shaped silicone sex toys”, “heart-patterned boxers, pink Crocs, ‘Gilmore Girls’ DVDs, stuffed cats and severed doll heads” – all objects that feature in his novels.

The money is impressive, too. His series is in development for television and is being adapted into graphic novels, a multi-cast audio drama and a tabletop game. Dinniman has a merchandise range that includes sweatshirts, baseball caps, phone cases, wall tapestries, action figures and plush toys.

“Quantity has been trouncing quality,” said The Economist, so the genre is “not going to win any prestigious awards”, but readers “looking for escapist thrills are often forgiving”. Although the core readers are “gamers in their 30s”, its “biggest audience” is audiophiles, ranging from “truckers to stay-at-home mothers”, because the novels “often have only one perspective, and are usually narrated in the first person”, making them “easy to follow”.

Many of the readers “grew up gaming or playing tabletop games like Dungeons & Dragons”, said USA Today. Brandon Dwane, a 28-year-old from Massachusetts, “never considered himself a reader”, but “that changed” when he began reading LitRPG. Now, he’s a “junkie” for the “dopamine” hits the novels give him.

The possibilities are endless when it comes to tacos. There are so many regional specialties and choices to be made — crunchy shell or soft, what type of filling, which toppings, and what style of salsa to add.

Los Angeles is one place where all this bounty collides. The city is home to thousands of taquerías, taco trucks and stands, many of them owned by immigrants, where hungry diners queue for perfect bites of al pastor, carne asada and carnitas wrapped in freshly made tortillas. These nine spots are just a few of the places Angelenos head to when the mood for a satisfying taco strikes.

Carnitas El Momo

Pork is the star of the show at Carnitas El Momo, where the Michoacán-style carnitas tacos “shine the brightest on the menu,” said The Infatuation. Before you place your order, you’ll be hit by the “intoxicating” scent of “fried pork in bubbling cauldrons,” cooked in lard and seasoned with a “secret blend of spices.” The meat — choose from shoulder, belly, skin or a combination of all three — is so “obscenely rich” that the best way to top your tacos is simply with some pickled jalapeños, lime or “smoky” salsa verde.

El Cocinero

The focus at El Cocinero, the San Fernando Valley’s first Mexican vegan restaurant, is imparting a “rich, soulful flavor” to the soy alternatives used instead of meat, L.A. Taco editor Javier Cabral told Bon Appétit. Each piece undergoes an “intense seasoning” and “heavy fry,” and though all of the plant-based options are “delicious,” the vegan chicharrón taco is the most impressive. Traditional fried pork rinds are replaced with soy curls cooked to have an “amazing crunch” and the same “satisfying, umami-forward flavors” of a traditional chicharrón.

Holbox and Chichen Itza

Holbox serves some of the "highest quality and most beautifully prepared seafood" in all of Los Angeles, said the New York Times. The menu changes based on the season and catch, but expect tacos stuffed with shrimp, Hokkaido diver scallops, vermilion rockfish, octopus and kanpachi.

Holbox is located inside the Mercado La Paloma food hall in South Los Angeles, next to its sister restaurant Chichén Itzá. The seafood game is also strong at this Yucatán-inspired spot, and while the hearty tacos de pescado with flaky fried fish are great, fans love the "succulent" cochinita pibil (achiote-seasoned pork) tacos with pickled red onions, said Condé Nast Traveler.

Mariscos Jalisco

At lunchtime, the crowds head to Mariscos Jalisco, one of the “pioneering” taco trucks that dot Olympic Boulevard in Boyle Heights, said the Los Angeles Times. The taco de camarón is what lures diners and keeps them returning. These “golden” tacos are filled with crispy shrimp that emerge from the fryer “tender at the center and crisped on the edges.” Each one is topped with salsa and avocado, which together add bright creaminess.

Sonoratown

The made-in-house flour tortillas at Sonoratown set this taqueria apart. They are “so paper-thin you can almost see through them,” Cabral told Bon Appétit. Lard makes them chewy, and the “first bite feels different than any other taco in the city.” Everything here is cooked in Sonoran style, that is over a mesquite grill, and the meat has a “slight crisp to it.” The costilla asada taco is a standout, thanks to a “unique” cut of rib meat that’s tender and juicy.

Tacos Don Cuco

With carne asada, pollo asada, chorizo, tripa and al pastor on the menu, it’s “difficult to go wrong” with Tacos Don Cuco’s meat options, said the Los Angeles Times. Tacos are prepared Tijuana-style, and the meat is cooked over mesquite coals before being sliced to order and placed in a fresh corn tortilla. The thick adobada, or marinated pork, does have the edge, as it gets “caramelized and crispy” and “garners even more smokiness off the mesquite grill.”

Tacos Los Guichos

When you walk up to the Tacos Los Guichos taco cart, you’ll be greeted by “glistening” trompos (vertical rotisseries) of the “absolute best al pastor” around, said TimeOut. Expect “sweet, porky nirvana” in the form of “beautifully charred” and “slightly smoky” shaved al pastor, which manages to taste even better when “anointed” by either the “delicious” salsa verde or “subtly fiery” salsa roja. You can only order the al pastor after 5 p.m., but it’s worth fighting traffic to get there on time (it helps that Tacos Los Guichos is at a tire shop right off the 110 freeway).

Tacos y Birria La Unica

You can find a birria truck on “practically every corner of Los Angeles,” but none are like Tacos y Birria La Unica, said Eater. It specializes in shredded goat and shredded beef birria, cooked in a “rich, herbal stew.” The meat is served in a variety of ways, with the quesataco (crunchy taco with cheese) a popular choice. Do not skip the consomé — you will want to dip your tacos in the savory broth.

Lena Dunham “crashed into public consciousness” in 2012 when the first season of her comedy-drama “Girls” – often described as the millennial “Sex and the City” – aired on HBO/Sky Atlantic, said Sarah Ditum in The Times. The show “made her very, very famous” – the kind of fame which involved her face appearing on “building-sized billboards” – and “that in turn made her very, very hated”.

Dunham was attacked for many things – for embodying white privilege, for having the wrong body shape – and that “barracking” profoundly damaged her mental and physical health.

In this “melancholic” memoir, Dunham documents a seemingly unending range of afflictions. These include colitis, endometriosis, opioid addiction, “constant gynaecological issues”, OCD and PTSD, said Hannah J. Davies in The Guardian. At one point, she “accidentally sets herself on fire”; there’s also a horrifying incident involving cotton buds. Dunham isn’t always an easy person to feel sorry for – her decisions are “questionable”, and her name-dropping is shameless – but she writes honestly and fluently, and has a rare ability to discuss the “painful parts of life in a way that feels both intimate and universal”.

Weaving together the “funny, the heartbreaking and the grotesque”, this book (Dunham’s second memoir after 2014’s “Not That Kind of Girl”) “confirms her talents as a writer of prose as well as scripts”, said Hannah Williams in the Financial Times.

The strongest chapters are those that focus on “Girls”, which “time has cemented” as one of the most notable shows of the past two decades. Later on, the book becomes “a little bloated” and repetitive. “But in its portrayal of the ecstasy, heartbreak and sheer thrill of what it is to be young and lost, ‘Famesick‘ reaffirms Dunham’s status as a generational voice.”

“Drake is looking to chart dominance to turn the page on one of the most infamous rap battles in music history,” said Ethan Millman in The Hollywood Reporter. Two weeks ago, the Canadian singer-rapper surprised even his fans when he released not one but three albums in a single day, bidding to become the first artist since Michael Jackson to simultaneously hold the first three slots on Billboard’s album chart. It’s impossible not to read the move as Drake’s response to his decisive loss to Kendrick Lamar in a 2024 rap beef that culminated with Lamar enlisting an entire Super Bowl halftime audience to join him in slurring Drake as a pedophile. Drake has sued over the accusation while now daring to tie himself to Jackson, even creating an album cover that shows a hand wearing one of the crystal-covered gloves that once belonged to the deceased accused pedophile. None of this fully makes sense, except that the album rollout is pushback, and whenever people debate who this century’s greatest rapper is, the argument for Drake “goes down to his pure commercial dominance.”

Drake’s three-album onslaught “does more than attempt a comeback,” said Jeff Ihaza in Rolling Stone. “It takes on the Herculean task of reframing the argument entirely.” On the tracks “Ran to Atlanta” and “2 Hard 4 the Radio,” both on the lead album, Iceman, the 39-year-old adopts Atlanta and West Coast sounds so effectively that he upends Lamar’s authenticity diss: that a mixed-race, middle-class rapper from Toronto had no business in the game. Meanwhile, Drake reignites at least a dozen beefs, comparing Lamar to Muggsy Bogues, the shortest NBA player ever, and lashing out at Jay-Z, A$AP Rocky, Dr. Dre, DJ Khaled, and even LeBron James. Across the record’s 69 minutes, though, “the bickering feels tedious.” Better is Habibti, an 11-song album that “finds Drake in romantic territory, embracing the R&B lover boy that audiences first came to love.” Meanwhile, the groove-centric Maid of Honour is “his strongest work since More Life,” released in 2017. From “Hoe Phase” on, Maid of Honour finds Drake “engaging deeply with niche Black regional sounds” and converting those sounds into so many bangers that the borrowing he’s been slagged for is “reframed as a form of cultural fluency.”

“Say what you want about Drake, but music needs someone like him right now,” said Steffanee Wang in The Fader. “A hateable target is one way to look at it; more generously, Drake’s an incredible showman.” No matter how high he ranks among the most streamed artists in the world—third behind Bad Bunny and Taylor Swift—he always acts as if he’s an underdog who needs to go nuclear when he releases solo music. And the strategy works. “Maybe it’s not Drake we wanted, but it’s Drake we got,” and “at least the public is talking for once, together, like we used to.”

When you make a purchase using links on our site, The Week may earn a commission. All reviews are written independently by our editorial team.

Manil Suri’s new memoir, A Room in Bombay, describes his coming of age in a single room that he shared with his parents before his move to the U.S. at age 20. Below, the author of the award-winning novel The Death of Vishnu recommends six books set in Indian cities.

‘The Heart is a Shifting Sea’ by Elizabeth Flock (2018)

With surprisingly candid reportage, Flock tracks the lives of three middle-class couples as they navigate life in a newly globalized Mumbai. Each couple finds that the notion of love, so romanticized in Bollywood movies, must be forged into something more practical if they are to survive the city’s myriad challenges. Buy it here.

‘Chapal Rani, the Last Queen of Bengal’ by Sandip Roy (2026)

A fascinating account of Chapal Bhaduri, one of the last iconic female impersonators in Kolkata. In a series of interviews, Chapal takes us from memories of his mother through the rise and fall of his career. A must for understanding how attitudes toward gender and sexuality have evolved in India’s larger cities. Buy it here.

‘The Sari Shop’ by Rupa Bajwa (2004)

Bajwa transports you into the heart of Amritsar, with its glitzy bazaars, dusty slums, and plush mansions. The story she weaves, about the widening gap between India’s classes, is ultimately devastating. Sadly, such stories still play out repeatedly in every corner of the country. Buy it here.

‘Ghachar Ghochar’ by Vivek Shanbhag (2017)

India has deep literary traditions in several regional languages, and this delicious novella, translated from Kannada, is a perfect amuse-bouche. The narrator’s family has moved to an affluent part of Bengaluru, and their attempts to head off meddling outsiders are at times subtle, at times pugnacious, but always hilarious. Buy it here.

‘Land Where I Flee’ by Prajwal Parajuly (2013)

Amma’s grandkids travel to remote and hilly Gangtok (a city “infested with stairs”) to celebrate her 84th birthday. Everyone has an acid tongue and brims with spiteful resentment. The resulting snark-fest makes this one of the funniest Indian novels I’ve ever read. Buy it here.

‘The Painter of Signs’ by R.K. Narayan (1976)

This classic work by one of the founding fathers of Indian fiction is set, like most of his novels, in the unhurried fictional town of Malgudi. Narayan’s bittersweet love story about a hapless painter’s crush on an emotionally distant social worker has lost none of its humor, relevance, or unconventionality. Buy it here.

‘This Land Is Your Land: A Road Trip Through U.S. History’ by Beverly Gage

“In one obvious respect, This Land Is Your Land is perfectly timed,” said Jennifer Szalai in The New York Times. Our country’s looming semiquincentennial inspired historian Beverly Gage to embark on the “companionable” national tour she chronicles here. In 2023 and 2024, the Pulitzer Prize– winning author visited roughly 300 historical sites associated with particular events, choosing to focus on just 13, which she presents in chronological order. Because Gage avoids venerating or condemning her countrymen for past deeds, “what comes through is how complicated and just plain weird a lot of American history is.” The sites she visits are “often marked by contradiction,” which Gage “highlights to powerful effect.” And while her accounts of past events are never divisive, “as a historian, she knows that none of the attempts to fulfill the Declaration’s promise of freedom and equality has ever come easily.”

To anyone expecting an old-fashioned American road trip, with all the minor misadventures such journeys entail, “you’ll be disappointed,” said Ceci Browning in The Times (U.K.). As a guide to the story of the nation as told by its historic sites, though, “it’s pretty great.” Gage begins her tour in Philadelphia at the Museum of the American Revolution, which, she notices, lavishes more attention on George Washington’s tent than the thousands of soldiers he camped alongside. At Washington’s Mount Vernon home, barely a mention is made in the main tour of the people he enslaved. Gage admires the National Women’s Hall of Fame, in Seneca Falls, N.Y., but points out that it’s housed not in a majestic building but in a former sock factory. Does she end up making sense of the American story? “She certainly shows that ‘sense’ of any kind is getting harder and harder to come by” as the sites of many important events either venerate or condemn, simplifying history to make it easier for tourists to absorb.

Though Gage is “an accomplished historian and capable writer,” said Charles Lane in The Wall Street Journal, her “warts-and-all look at the American past dwells, a bit predictably, on the warts.” When the time comes to cover World War II, for example, she takes readers to the remnants of a Japanese internment camp and the atomic bomb testing site in Los Alamos, N.M. “If Gage wanted some celebratory leaven,” she’d have had plenty of options, including, say, the many sites in Dayton, Ohio, devoted to the Wright Brothers. But credit Gage for finding a fresh way to tell a history of the U.S., said Edmund Fawcett in the Financial Times. And while she does her best to stay hopeful, it’s clearly a struggle, given the dour mood of the nation amid its 250th year.

‘Beyond Inheritance: Our Ever-Mutating Cells and a New Understanding of Health’ by Roxanne Khamsi

“People tend to assume that the genes we inherit from our parents are a fixed blueprint for our growth and development,” said Jerome Groopman in The New Yorker. But medical researchers are increasingly interested in the ways our DNA is forever changing, and in Beyond Inheritance, science journalist Roxanne Khamsi “provides a useful guide to this body of research and its far-reaching implications.” Advances in DNA sequencing have revealed that of the 30 trillion cells in the human body, about 4 million are replaced every second, requiring 4 million copies of a code that’s many billions of letters long. Eventually, errors slip in, errors that accumulate. These can be harmful, producing cancer, while some have real benefits.

Still, Khamsi’s “disquieting” book vividly reveals the battle that our cells are forever waging against one another, said David A. Shaywitz in The Wall Street Journal. Cancers begin with a single mutant cell whose offspring compete for dominance while acquiring additional mutations that can render them resistant to medication. As even healthy-seeming people age, they accumulate mutant blood cells that have a growth advantage over healthy cells. This makes many seniors far more susceptible to blood cancers, heart attacks, and strokes. Mutant cells in the aging brain, meanwhile, appear to contribute to cognitive decline. At times, Khamsi “seems almost apologetic for the dismal message she carries,” but, from birth, a process is unfolding within us that will kill us if nothing else does sooner.

“It isn’t all bad news,” said Michael Le Page in New Scientist. Khamsi’s “most astonishing chapter” describes how mutations sometimes correct inherited conditions, including the rare immunological disorder associated with babies who must live in protective bubbles. Still, “helpful mutations are the exception rather than the rule,” and there’s apparently no escaping the damaging ones. Khamsi “doesn’t go on to draw what seems the obvious conclusion: that the only way to dramatically extend lifespans is to redesign the human genome to massively reduce the mutation rate.” While the resulting new beings may look like us, however, they’ll “no longer be human.”

The benefits of bird-watching are plenty — it’s relaxing, can offer a mental-health boost, gets you outside in the fresh air, teaches you about new types of species and helps you focus. Start in your backyard or local park, then consider these eight global hot spots, where opportunities to zero in on avian splendor are plentiful.

Cape Town, South Africa

The Cape sugarbird, Cape rockjumper, orange-breasted sunbird and bank cormorant are some of the endemic birds that draw nature lovers to Cape Town. The best place to do serious birding is Strandfontein Sewage Works, where visitors “may count more than 50 species on any given morning,” said Afar. Flamingos, African marsh harriers and Cape longclaws all gather in and around the ponds, and in the summer grey and purple herons arrive in droves.

Colombia

Nearly 2,000 avian species call Colombia’s mountains, forests and beaches home, making the country a “veritable paradise” for birders, said Forbes. Don’t overlook the cities, either; Cartagena is an “underrated gem for avitourism” and a great “jumping-off point” for birding adventures.

Ekoparque Luna Forest is “prime territory” for the chestnut-winged chachalaca, a species endemic to the Colombian Caribbean, and the tropical dry forest at Santuario de Flora y Fauna Los Colorados is home base for the scarlet macaw, Amazon kingfisher and rose-breasted grosbeak.

Costa Rica

Costa Rica’s rainforests offer varied bird-watching experiences. Quetzals dwell in the “ethereal cloud forests,” said Travel and Leisure, while red-capped manakins live in the lowland tropical rainforest.

A “great” destination for bird-watching is Carara National Park on the central Pacific coast, where tropical dry forests and humid rainforests meet. Birds from both environments, like scarlet macaws, toucans and herons, live here. On the Caribbean coast, discover “abundant wildlife” in Cahuita National Park. Visitors can walk a five-mile forest hiking trail and experience the chance to see kingfishers, hawks and green ibis.

Daintree Rainforest, Australia

More than half of Australia’s bird species live in Daintree Rainforest, and bird-watchers from “all over the world” come here for a “day, or even a week, of bird-spotting,” said Time Out. This is the oldest continually surviving rainforest on Earth — it’s estimated to be more than 180 million years old — and “wing-watchers” flock here to search for the “elusive” flightless Southern cassowary. There are more than a dozen endemics to keep an eye out for, including the pied monarch, Macleay’s honeyeater and Victoria’s riflebird.

Everglades National Park, Florida

Wading birds are “essential” residents of the Everglades, playing a vital role in Florida’s wetlands ecosystem, said Lonely Planet. Birders glide down the coastline in kayaks and canoes to watch “egrets, ibis and roseate spoonbills pick through the shallows for food,” and there are trails throughout the park offering views of birds like cormorants, warblers and nesting anhingas. One of the best times to visit is in mid-February, when swallow-tiled kites return from their winters in Central and South America.

Hokkaido, Japan

During winter, the bird-watching in Hokkaido is “spectacular,” said National Geographic Traveler. The “remarkable” red-crowned cranes can be found performing “elaborate mating dances against snowy landscapes,” while the Steller’s sea eagles dive into the chilly water for fish. The Blakiston’s fish owl is the rarest owl in Japan but often visits the Yoroushi onsen in the evening.

Manu National Park, Peru

What birds you see at Manu National Park depends on your elevation. When in the cloud forest, be on the lookout for the vibrant Andean cock-of-the-rock, quetzals, tanagers, horneros and parakeets.

Down in the lower parts of the park, you might spy the Amazon umbrellabird, or nesting nightjars and yellow-billed terns on the beaches along the Manu River. Go off the beaten path to “remote areas like the Huacarpay wetlands, home to nearly 60 resident species” like yellow-winged blackbirds and violetear hummingbirds, said Condé Nast Traveler.

Scottish Highlands

The “majestic” golden eagle, “elusive” capercaillie and “tiny” crested tit are some of the reasons why bird-watchers love the Scottish Highlands, said National Geographic Traveler. Spot ptarmigan, dotterel and snow bunting, “three high mountain specialists,” in Cairngorms National Park and Spey Valley, but prepare to put in some work — you will have to “trudge up mountains” and “search through pine forests to find them.” It’s worth it to spend time in the “spectacular” landscape, amid the “dense foliage,” and listen to the birdsong.

Nobody knows how the phrase “Vedi Napoli e mori” (See Naples and die) came into being. The sentiment that once you have seen the beauties of Naples there is no need to go on is most commonly ascribed to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe on his grand tour of Italy in the 1780s. Goethe and I have little in common – just ask my GCSE German teacher – but it is a feeling that is easy to share. Indeed my first time in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius was much like the volcano itself: beguiling and beautiful but filled with noise, theatre and barely contained energy.

It is all the more surprising, then, that the most impressive hotel on the Naples waterfront achieves its effect not through a crescendo of Neapolitan drama and excess but through piano, or restraint. ROMEO Napoli is a hotel that exudes class, almost effortlessly, and in a city that is so turned up to 11, that quality alone is something of a luxury.

Why stay here?

The building has a history worthy of its surroundings. Once the headquarters of Achille Lauro’s legendary shipping fleet, the palazzo was entrusted to the late Pritzker prize-winning Japanese architect Kenzō Tange for a transformation that is stark and yet incorporates so much of what has gone before.

The result is a double skin of glass and steel rendered in an aquamarine shimmer, its gently undulating curves calling to mind the prow of a great vessel preparing to cast off. It is striking in the way that all great Italian suits are striking, in that you can’t quite take your eyes off it, but you’d struggle to explain why. Against the backdrop of Naples’ Unesco-listed historic centre, it somehow manages to stand entirely apart while remaining very much of its place.

Inside, the philosophy is one of “essentiality”, something I took to mean that while some of the art and decor could feel over the top, it instead feels perfectly appointed. Black marble floors and Macassar ebony flow through communal spaces and into the 77 rooms and suites, each a tightly composed study in materiality. All the mod-cons of the highest end hotels are here, while the bed has a comfort level that is usually reserved only for your own one at home.

The mostly monochromatic palette, punctuated with flashes of blood red and cobalt, lends the whole place a cinematic quality, like something from a Paolo Sorrentino film, rather than your standard five-star interior. The Gulf of Naples, visible from most rooms, remains the star attraction and the “essentiality” of the interior decor means that there is nothing too in-your-face to compete for your attention.

The art collection deserves a mention, too, as it is not art for the sake of art. The founder, Alfredo Romeo, is himself a serious collector, and the works here – ranging from 17th-century paintings to Samurai armour, from Mario Schifano’s pop-inflected take on Vesuvius to Andy Warhol’s typically flat, iconic treatment of the same volcano – feel genuinely chosen rather than acquired.

Mark Kostabi, the American artist whose stylised, mannequin-like figures explore themes of isolation and alienation in the age of technology, is another recurring presence. His pieces appearing in the rooms as well as the public spaces give an unsettling elegance. Marc Chagall’s dreamlike figurative work brings a note of European modernism to the mix, while a lenticular piece by Neapolitan artist Francesco Clemente shifts and transforms as you move past it. Lemons, sheep, Vesuvius – the iconography of the area flickers in and out of focus like a half-remembered memory. It is a fitting tribute to a city that always shows you something different.

Eating and drinking

That Alain Ducasse chose Naples for his first Italian restaurant is testament to the history, quality and excitement that eating in the city can bring. The food offering at the ROMEO is the perfect example of all three. Il Ristorante Alain Ducasse Napoli, on the ninth floor with panoramic views across the Gulf, has already been awarded its first Michelin star. It would be no surprise if more were on the way.

On Sundays and Mondays, when the main restaurant rests, the kitchen migrates up to La Terrazza, where lunch and dinner are served against a view that, well, it is a cliché, but it took my breath away. As we were there on a Monday we were treated to a smorgasbord of delights from the menu, once we’d caught our breath of course. It’s rare that a salad steals the show, but the caprese was quite simply perfect – the tomatoes in this part of the world are worth travelling for.

While the two pastas were divine, a pomodoro sauce and a white wine and clam number, it was in fact the ceviche and octopus courses that have lived long in the memory.

Despite to this day being a thriving port city and with so many people so close to the sea, Naples has plenty of substandard fish restaurants. But at ROMEO the simplicity of cooking is a key reason behind its excellence. Executive chef Alessandro Lucassino’s kitchen operates on the principle of letting the exceptional Mediterranean produce speak for itself. This is shown in the delectable nature of their fish and seafood dishes.

Lemons are the other food staple that are just better in Naples than pretty much anywhere else on the planet and we ended our meal with a lemon tart that was truly out of this world. There’s an ease and warmth in which the food is served that also speaks to the quality of the dining experience. Too often high-end places with this sort of menu can feel stuffy, but the ROMEO has a quality offering that comes with an air of relaxed confidence, with is both instantly appealing and relaxing in equal measure.

Breakfast, served in the same space, is another Ducasse production and considerably above what most hotels consider sufficient. For something more casual, Il Bar, a sleek all-day space with an interesting past life as Naples’ first fusion restaurant, offers seasonal plates at any hour.

Things to do

Few hotel spas manage to be impressive in scale and genuinely immersive in atmosphere at the same time. LA SPA by Sisley Paris, occupying more than 1,000 square metres within what was historically the city’s salt customs office, manages both with considerable style.

Descending into it feels like entering an entirely different world. In fact, if you’ve ever wondered what it might feel like to be a very well-pampered astronaut, the spa has the answer. There is a salt cave, an infrared sauna and a snow room that delivers exactly the kind of bracing shock to the system that you didn’t know you needed. Three plunge pools are backed by futuristic projections of water scenes, while most remarkable of all are the circular “phyto-aromatic” cabins. They are neon-lit pods in which you lie back, breathe in essential oils and watch scenes from the natural world play out above you.

The treatments themselves are everything you would expect from a brand such as Sisley. I felt rejuvenated, revitalised and really could have spent my whole week down there. But there were more delights above ground with the two pools, and the Krug Champagne terrace on the rooftop, offering a different but no less necessary kind of therapy. On a clear day, the 120-square-metre infinity pool appears to dissolve into the Gulf itself, with the islands of Ischia and Capri floating on the horizon.

The verdict

Naples, as Goethe well knew, is one of those cities that stays with you long after you leave. ROMEO Napoli, rather than fighting that feeling, channels it into something altogether more considered.

A special mention too must go to the staff who all went above and beyond to ensure our stay was such a delight. It’s rare to see staff members engaged in such convivial conversations with so many of the guests but that seems to be the ROMEO way.

From the architecture and the art to the dining and the view, no trip to the ROMEO is wasted, while the spa, the pools and that terrace ensure that “see Naples and die” feels, for the duration of your stay at least, like a very long way off indeed.

Rooms from approximately €700 per night. Il Ristorante Alain Ducasse Napoli is open Tuesday to Saturday for dinner; reservations are essential. Daily spa access is included for hotel guests. theromeocollection.com

Ferrari’s first foray into electric vehicles has sparked an intense backlash from fans and investors, with shares falling sharply after the unveiling of its new battery-powered Luce.

Created in collaboration with former Apple chief designer Jony Ive, the car’s futuristic shell-like form, silent engine and £475,000 price tag were always going to be “controversial”, said Politico. But Luca di Montezemolo, Ferrari’s former chairman, spoke for many “purists in Italy” when he said it “risks destroying the myth” of the legendary cars and should be stripped of the company’s prancing horse logo.

‘Polarising’

Montezemolo was far from alone in his assessment.

“The Luce does not look like a Ferrari. It looks like the concept for a Honda Hydrogen vehicle from 2002,” said Luke Plunkett on Aftermath. “It looks like one of the ‘this is what the future will look like from the 90s’ cars from ‘Demolition Man’, only worse.” It looks like “anything but a Ferrari”.

It has even managed to unite Italy’s fractious politics. Far-right transport minister Matteo Salvini slammed it on X, while centrist opposition politician Carlo Calenda called it an “aesthetic and technological insult to anyone who loves Ferrari”.

Even Ferrari’s chief design officer, Flavio Manzoni, admitted that the design was “polarising”, but he’s confident fans will embrace the new car with time.

Investors, however, were not so sure. Ferrari shares fell nearly 8% in Milan on Tuesday, amid fears the Luce launch “could become a repeat of Jaguar Land Rover’s controversial failed rebrand” in 2024. That was when the luxury British carmaker “tried to shift the marque away from its traditional ‘Jag man’ image towards ultra-wealthy customers”, said The Telegraph.

‘Energy transition challenge’

The Luce has had a “rather long gestation period”, with a Ferrari EV in the works for “a few years” before development officially started in 2021, said Car magazine. At the time, “EVs were riding high and increasing in popularity in the premium, sport and luxury space” but “the world slightly reassessed that overly positive attitude to EVs not long after and so did Ferrari”.

Since then, mass-production brands like Ford, GM, Honda and Volvo have “all retreated from their EV initiatives in one way or another as consumer demand plummets, profit falls and policy makers deprioritise moving away from traditional gas power”, said Forbes.

“Luxury and performance brands have done the same”, with Lamborghini scrapping its first planned EV, Porsche opting for hybrid and McLaren steering clear entirely.

“Underscoring the energy transition challenge for luxury carmakers”, the “initial negative reaction to Ferrari’s new model was not surprising”, said the Financial Times. But according to analysts, “the key challenge for the company was to fill the order book with the highly specific clients it had targeted for the Luce”.

As far as the Italian brand’s executives are concerned, “whether most current Ferrari customers think the Luce is cool is irrelevant,” said Scott Sherwood, an independent analyst of luxury carmakers. “If it tested well enough with the tech crowd to fill the order book, that’s all they are concerned with.”

A controversy surrounding a prize-winning short story has raised questions over the use of artificial intelligence in fiction.

“The Serpent in the Grove” by Jamir Nazir was named the winner in the Caribbean category of the Commonwealth Prize, but “syntactical tics” alleged to be telltale signs of AI use, as well as “the verdict of an AI detection platform”, have caused an uproar in the literary world, said The Guardian.

Smelling a rat

The judging committee said the winning story was told in “a voice of restraint and quiet authority”, praising Nazir’s language as “sublime” and “precise yet richly evocative”. But soon “literary sleuths smelled a rat,” said LitHub.

“Off a hunch”, Ethan Mollick, a professor who studies AI, ran the story through Pangram, a program that claims to detect AI writing with 99% accuracy; the results came back with “100% red flags”. Writing on Bluesky, Mollick said: “Come on, if you know you know.”

Nazir has denied using AI to write the story, which he says was inspired by childhood memories. Granta, the magazine that published the winning story, said they were still investigating the allegations. The foundation that awarded the prize said that all entrants were required to confirm that their submission was their own work and not created with AI assistance.

The accusation is “another episode” in an “ongoing, frenetic conversation” about “whether artists and creators are passing off AI-generated work as their own” and whether publishers “will be able to reliably catch them doing it”, said The Guardian.

In April, Hachette pulled a novel called “Shy Girl” by Mia Ballard from bookshops after Pangram said it was 78% AI-generated, and in March, The New York Times cut ties with a freelance journalist after he admitted to having used artificial intelligence to write a book review. Such episodes have “fuelled discourse around the telltale signs of AI writing”, including frequent use of specific words (“delve” being one example), a “profusion of em dashes” and a predilection for “vague, soft intensifiers” such as “quietly powerful” and “deeply transformative”.

Detection industry

The “ideal” expressed by Razmi Farook, director-general of the Commonwealth Foundation, who said she places “complete trust in writers”, may not “be enough to stem the tide of AI slop” in “everything from high literature to scientific research”, said Wired.

Some writers have already admitted that they use AI. Steven Rosenbaum acknowledged that his new book “The Future of Truth”, which “grapples with the nature of veracity in the AI age”, itself contains AI-hallucinated quotes. The Nobel Prize-winning novelist Olga Tokarczuk “outraged her own fans” by admitting that use of LLMs is “part of her creative process”.

But the “biggest bummer is to come”, said LitHub, because although “winning a literary prize is one small step” for AI, it’s “sure to be catnip for the pushers touting the technology’s creative potential”.

Meanwhile, the row over the Commonwealth Prize and similar controversies have “generated energetic business” for a “new cottage industry” of AI detectors, said The Guardian. Researchers into the efficacy of the models predict that there will be “a continuous technical arms race” between the detectors, AI models and writers adapting their usage of them.

When you make a purchase using links on our site, The Week may earn a commission. All reviews are written independently by our editorial team.

Don’t let dehydration derail your summer adventures. Keep plenty of cold beverages — and lots of snacks — close at hand in one of these decked-out coolers ready for the beach, park, campground or stadium.

BruMate BruTank 55-quart rolling cooler

Take the party on the road with the BruTank. It offers a “huge capacity” and “clever compartmental design,” including a removable drink tank with “handy spigot” for batches of cocktails, said The Strategist. The puncture-resistant wheels are big enough to “handle sand” and are rubberized for “extra traction,” and the metal handle makes the cooler “maneuverable in any direction.” There’s room for up to 48 standard or slim cans and 12 upright wine or liquor bottles, with up to seven days of ice retention. (starting at $399, BruMate)

Business & Pleasure Co. Hemingway 35-quart cooler bench

This luxe cooler’s vintage design is inspired by retro European cars and speed boats but is made for the modern world. The teak wood lid doubles as a seat, with a weather-resistant cushion that stays in place with magnets. Additional features include stainless steel hardware, retractable handles, nonslip rubber feet and a side drain. ($400, Amazon)

Dometic CFX5 electric cooler

No ice? No problem. Dometic’s CFX5 electric cooler provides “excellent” temperature control and “superb” insulation, said Outdoor Gear Lab. A Bluetooth smartphone app lets users control and monitor energy consumption and temperature, and two baskets and a removable divider keep the items organized. The cooler has a 45 liter capacity and can hold up to 67 12-ounce cans. ($840, Dometic)

Igloo KoolTunes

Yes, that is music coming from your cooler. Igloo’s KoolTunes comes equipped with built-in speakers and Bluetooth wireless pairing technology, with sound quality that is “well-rounded,” said Mashable. Coolers and boom boxes are “two summer essentials,” and KoolTunes brings them together for one “fun, functional novelty product.” ($84, Igloo)

Ninja FrostVault 65qt cooler with wheels

What sets the Ninja FrostVault apart from other coolers is its DryZone, a separate storage space away from the ice that keeps food cold without getting it wet. Having two sections is “very useful” and can “reduce cross-contamination” if you’re bringing along ingredients like raw meat, said Tom’s Guide (a sister site of The Week). Because of its thick insulation, the FrostVault’s “cooling performance is nothing short of astounding,” and drinks can stay “icy cold” for several days, even when constantly opening and closing the cooler. ($280, Ninja)

RTIC 45 QT Ultra-Tough wheeled cooler

Rugged terrain has met its match. The compact RTIC 45 QT Ultra-Tough has thick, puncture-resistant wheels able to tackle most landscapes, from “pavement and grass to sand and mud,” said Popular Science. It also has close to three inches of insulation, and if you follow RTIC’s guidelines and prechill the cooler, add cold beverages and have a 2:1 ice-to-drink ratio, it can maintain ice for up to five days. One fun feature is the bottle opener, which “acts like a padlock” when “inserted into the cooler’s front side.” ($299, RTIC)

Yeti Hopper M20 backpack soft cooler

With its waterproof nylon fabric, leakproof liner and closed-cell foam insulation, the Hopper M20 is “tough as nails,” said Wirecutter. This soft cooler is engineered for “strength and durability” and holds up on even the longest days. When “fully loaded” with 36 cans or 22 pounds of ice, the Hopper is “still remarkably easy to carry.” ($325, Yeti)

Pagosa Springs, Colo.

Elk Pointe Estate, a 2005 five-bedroom southern Colorado log house, is on a peninsula surrounded by Hidden Valley Lake. The living room features whole log beams, arched windows, and an antler chandelier; the kitchen has paneled appliances and a breakfast cove.

On more than 45 acres, the property includes patios with mountain views, a guesthouse, a dog run, a two-story barn, and a greenhouse dome. $8,950,000. Zach Morse, Legacy Properties West Sotheby’s International Realty, (970) 391-2600

Point Arena, Calif.

On the Mendocino coast, the 1990 Frog Song Farm features full log construction and visible corner joints. The two-bedroom’s dramatic double-height great room includes a log staircase and a conical fireplace with a round stone base.

The 30-plus-acre ocean-view property includes a two-bedroom guesthouse, a one-bedroom barn house, abundant gardens, a greenhouse, creeks, wooded trails, and a pond. $2,295,000. Tracy Wolfson, Engel & Völkers San Francisco, Mendocino Branch, (707) 272-5733

Bowen Island, British Columbia

Designed by Murray Arnott, this 1995 western red cedar log home is about an hour from Vancouver by ferry. The three-bedroom’s curved tower holds an open-plan living area with a rounded stone fireplace, angled windows that overlook the forest and Killarney Lake, and a rustic-modern kitchen with skylights; a carved staircase leads to a primary suite.

The 2.5-acre property features mature trees and is close to shops. $1,618,000. Mary Lynn Machado, Macdonald Realty Ltd./Luxury Portfolio International, (604) 220-7085

Pine Plains, N.Y.

This 170-acre estate designed by architect Lloyd Taft is anchored by a 1991 log-and-stone lodge near Millbrook. The six-bedroom’s vaulted great room has a floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace and French doors to a deck, with a billiards loft above.

The property includes three connected guest cabins, a triple-height sports barn, a pickleball court, a swimming hole, a football field, trails, and orchards—plus a party barn, bar, and courtyard. $7,750,000. George Langa, Houlihan Lawrence—Millbrook, (845)242-6314

Vail, Colo.

Built in 1997, this updated Swiss-chalet-style five-bedroom log home is less than 10 minutes from Vail Village. The great room’s pale logs with visible chinking contrast with ultra white floors and drywall. The modern kitchen has butcher-block counters and an arched wood dining nook, and the primary suite includes a three-sided fireplace and oxygenation to counter high altitude.

A new deck includes a barrel sauna, hot tub, and firepit. $5,675,000. Brad Cohn, Compass Vail, (970) 688-1409

Florida, Mass.

Located in the Berkshires outside the town of North Adams, this 2022 home is built with 8-inch logs and sits on 1.5 acres. The house features tongue-and-groove walls, wide-plank wood floors, an open kitchen with stainless appliances, and two main-level bedrooms and an expansive loft above.

The unfinished basement is renovation-ready. Yards and mature trees surround the home, while trails, the Deerfield River, and Mass MoCA are nearby. $349,000. Jeffrey Loholdt, Engel & Völkers Wellesley, (413) 652-7423

‘Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu’

Directed by Jon Favreau (PG-13)

★★

“It’s time to ask for more,” said Kate Erbland in IndieWire. While this first new Star Wars movie in seven years is “charming enough in the moment,” it’s “almost instantly forgettable,” a spin-off of a Star Wars TV series that’s little more than “three good-enough TV episodes smushed together.” Pedro Pascal is back as the masked bounty hunter who is the title character of Disney+’s The Mandalorian. Mando, as usual, is accompanied by the “still very cute” Grogu, aka Baby Yoda. But shouldn’t a Star Wars movie reach for more?

To me, “the film’s relative modesty comes as something of a relief,” said Johnny Oleksinski in the New York Post. “Freed from the burden of canonical responsibility,” it’s nothing but “flighty fun,” a “Western-y” space adventure in which Mando has been enlisted to rescue Jabba the Hutt’s son, Rotta, from captors as part of a larger mission to take out a baddie who’d been allied with the recently fallen Empire. Sigourney Weaver even makes an appearance. Granted, none of the many action sequences match the scale of those in the 2015–19 Star Wars movie trilogy. But the action scenes are exciting in their own right, helping to make this film “a likable-enough one-off.” Still, the Star Wars franchise “once led the culture with its imagery, swagger, and style,” said Mark Kennedy in the Associated Press. This entry feels merely formulaic, with little on the line except the outcome of a stray assignment for one bounty hunter. “You used to leave a new Star Wars movie on a cloud. Here, that galaxy is far, far away.”

‘I Love Boosters’

Directed by Boots Riley (R)

★★★

“If you’re wondering whether Boots Riley has toned down his brash satirical style, have no fear,” said Owen Gleiberman in Variety. The rapper turned director’s first film since 2018’s acclaimed Sorry to Bother You is “every bit as out there, maybe more so.” Keke Palmer plays Corvette, the leader of a three-woman gang of shoplifters who resell stolen high-end clothes and have targeted a billionaire designer played with comic flair by Demi Moore. But Riley unleashes wild departures from reality, and “you either go with it or you don’t.”

In the movie’s second half, “Riley turns the volume up on the surreal meter way past 11,” said Brian Tallerico in RogerEbert.com. After Corvette’s cause is taken up by a fourth booster who can teleport, this energetic send-up of fashion, capitalist exploitation, and cultural appropriation “goes to so many impossible, ridiculous places that Riley sometimes feels like he loses a grip on the messaging.” Still, “there’s something invigorating about seeing an artist like Riley given the freedom to just go for it.” Largely thanks to Palmer, the movie never fully falls apart, said Chase Hutchinson in The Wrap. “As always,” the One of Them Days star is “a captivating, comedic jolt of energy,” and she also provides “the emotional heft the film needs at key moments.” Riley, for all his comic flourishes, clearly roots for everybody who’s trying to survive in our cutthroat world and is helping others do the same. Though he traffics in spiky cynicism, “it’s a cynicism that is cut with a more earnest belief in people.”

‘Obsession’

Directed by Curry Barker (R)

★★★

This hit theatrical debut from 26-year-old Curry Barker is “the best kind of nightmare,” said Nick Schager in the Daily Beast. “Knotty, amusing, and absolutely unhinged,” Barker’s low-budget horror breakthrough uses a simple be-careful-what-you-wish-for premise to dramatize the destructive selfishness of a certain breed of male desire for female attention. Michael Johnston plays Bear, a meek young man who makes a wish using a novelty store item that turns Nikki, his longtime crush, into an obsessively devoted girlfriend—so devoted that she’s ready to kill to keep anyone from coming between her and her man.

In Act 3, “Barker puts the pedal to the metal, dishing out gore with the glee of a genre purist.” A fully satisfying exploration of the themes Barker raises “would take a far more gifted filmmaker,” said Bilge Ebiri in NYMag.com. “Still, Obsession carries us along,” primarily because Inde Navarrette, playing Nikki, “so beautifully switches between sickly sweet devotion and wailing, tormented lovesickness.” Barker, who got his start as a YouTube prankster, also sprinkles in weird humor, and he clears the bar that any horror flick must: “We wish we could leave the theater, but we feel we must see what happens next.” Navarrette, previously known mostly for TV roles, “delivers the kind of instant classic horror performance that will surely traumatize Gen Z for years,” said Katie Walsh in the Chicago Tribune. At least it’ll traumatize Gen Z men, who apparently find nothing more terrifying than an unpredictable woman.

While there are still some holdouts against the idea that animated entertainment can be perfectly suitable for adults, even hardened skeptics would be moved to open their minds to these tremendous series. Though many fully grown adults enjoy shows like “SpongeBob SquarePants,” our list includes only shows explicitly designed for them.

‘The Simpsons’ (1989-)

The longest-running scripted series in television history, “The Simpsons” has become a ubiquitous piece of popular culture, making it easy to forget how groundbreaking it was in 1989. A zany sitcom about a family of five in a town called Springfield (no, we will never know which state), where Homer (Dan Castellaneta), a nuclear plant technician with anger management issues and no-nonsense Marge (Julie Kavner) are raising their kids, Bart (Nancy Cartwright), Lisa (Yeardley Smith) and baby Maggie. Over the course of more than 800 episodes, the series maintains a “joke-a-minute spectacle that veered between absurdist physical gags and heartfelt family squabbles” and still “functions as an education in American culture,” said Jesse David Fox at Vulture. (Disney+)

‘South Park’ (1997-)

One of several groundbreaking ’90s-era animated series still in production, Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s ultra-cynical comedy remains centered around a group of dyspeptic, cursing fourth-graders, one of whom (Kenny, voiced by Stone) dies during almost every single episode of the first five seasons, with his friends exclaiming, “Oh my God, they killed Kenny!”

Irreverent and provocative, the series offers a long-running satirical take on pop culture and American politics. The show’s “bestiary of Main Street America, its hapless parents and inept leaders, its weird small businesses and petty local politics, its moral pretensions and amoral vanities do ring true, however exaggerated,” said Jacob Bacharach at The New Republic. (Paramount+)

‘Family Guy’ (1999-)

As historically significant as “The Simpsons” in making animated series appeal to grown-ups, creator Seth MacFarlane’s pointed farce about the misadventures of a dysfunctional family that includes a malevolent baby named Stewie (MacFarlane) is still going strong. MacFarlane also voices the bumbling patriarch, Peter Griffin, with Alex Borstein as his wife, Lois, and Seth Green and Mila Kunis as their older kids, Meg and Chris. The show “has laughs, and lots of them, poking fun at targets as diverse as prison perversion, Hitler’s inferiority and football announcers,” said Barry Garron at The Hollywood Reporter. It is “bright, entertaining and often witty and warm.” (Hulu)

‘The Boondocks’ (2005-2014)

“The Boondocks,” adapted from Aaron McGruder’s popular comic strip, is one of the few animated series to make a serious effort to tackle issues of race and privilege in contemporary America, albeit in an often intentionally crass fashion. When Robert "Granddad" Freeman (John Witherspoon) and his grandsons, Huey and Riley (Regina King on both counts), move from Chicago to a predominantly white suburb, they struggle to maintain their connection to their roots and situate themselves in a radically different culture. The writing is “funny and pungent from the start,” and the “Asian-influenced animation” makes it the “American show truest to the look and feel of serious Japanese anime,” said Mike Hale at The New York Times. (HBO Max)

‘Archer’ (2009-2023)

H. Jon Benjamin is Sterling Archer, an agent with a spy agency that was called International Secret Intelligence Service (ISIS) in the early seasons before that became untenable. Archer is a jerk, a well-worn conceit made fresh by his dynamics with his colleagues.

Like “Parks and Recreation,” this is essentially an office comedy with a serving of espionage adventure on the side. A superb ensemble includes his mother, Malory (Jessica Walter), agent Lana Kane (Aisha Tyler) and nerdy Cyril Figgis (Chris Parnell) among many others. An “extremely silly show that consistently reveals itself as surprisingly mature via the thoughtfulness and expertise infused throughout all of its other production aspects,” it manages to be “at once categorically preposterous and occasionally brilliant,” said Mike LeChavillier at Slant Magazine. (Disney+)

‘Adventure Time’ (2010-2018)

Perhaps some might quibble with the inclusion of The Cartoon Network’s trippy, post-apocalyptic coming-of-age story on a list for adults, but Pendleton Ward’s endlessly inventive, uproarious and frequently touching series is for all ages. The show follows the adventures of a boy named Finn (Jeremy Shada) and his shape-shifting dog, Jake (John DiMaggio), who can bend and twist his body into anything from a brick house to a “Gut Grinder,” a monster who steals gold from local villages. “Adventure Time” is steeped in a “deeper, more earnest kind of surrealism that is distinct from some inchoate sense of oddity,” and the series “treats subjects like loss, romance and aging with great tact and feeling,” said Juliet Kleber at The New Republic. (Disney+)

‘Bob’s Burgers’ (2011-)

“Bob’s Burgers” is frequently contrasted with its more cynical fellow-travelers, like “South Park” and “The Simpsons.” Its bedrock appeal has always been its depiction of a more or less happy family struggling to get by while running a Jersey Shore burger joint.

H. Jon Benjamin voices Bob, with his wife, Linda (John Roberts), and their three goofy offspring, Tina (Dan Mintz), Gene (Eugene Mirman) and Louise (Kristen Schaal). Its “offbeat family dynamic is the show’s greatest asset,” and their often cringe-worthy foibles “remind us that families are often most tightly knit when they’re at their most pathetic,” said Joseph Jon Lanthier at Slant Magazine. (Disney+)

‘BoJack Horseman’ (2014-2020)

BoJack (Will Arnett) is a down-on-his-luck, hard-drinking horse and former sitcom star experiencing the familiar beats of post-stardom, including addiction and depression, in a lovingly realized alternate Hollywood in which animals and humans live side-by-side. That alone makes “BoJack Horseman,” which was the first adult animated series from Netflix, unique in the space.

In the first season, BoJack is on the comeback trail, half-heartedly working on a memoir with his biographer, Diane (Alison Brie), and possibly breaking up her marriage to Mr. Peanutbutter (Paul F. Tompkins). It’s “one of the wisest, most emotionally ambitious and — this is not a contradiction — spectacularly goofy series on television,” said Emily Nussbaum at The New Yorker. (Netflix)

‘Arcane’ (2021-2024)

With so much animated content out there, it’s not easy to make something that feels genuinely fresh and that looks like nothing else on TV, but that’s exactly what showrunners Christian Linke and Alex Yee deliver with “Arcane.” Based in the universe of the game League of Legends, it revolves around sisters Vi (Hailee Steinfeld) and Jinx (Ella Purnell) and a haves and have-nots struggle between the gleaming city of Piltover and the run-down, oppressed “undercity” of Zaun.

As children, Vi and Jinx lose their parents in an abortive revolution in Zaun, and years later find themselves on opposite sides of an unfolding power struggle between the two city-states. Easily “one of the most lavishly acclaimed animated series of the past decade,” it is carried out with a “fascinating collision of style,” in which “various forms of traditional animation are spliced together with computer-generated 3D,” said Kambole Campbell at Empire. (Netflix)

“Maxed out on matcha lattes?” said the Financial Times. Try swapping the trendy, green-hued drink for its “toasty cousin”.

Hojicha has many of the same benefits as matcha but with much less caffeine. Made from green tea leaves roasted at a high temperature over charcoal, it has a distinctive “nutty” flavour. While it’s not traditionally paired with milk in Japan, in the UK hojicha lattes are starting to appear in cafes up and down the country.

At London matcha chain Jenki, for example, sales of hojicha lattes were 55% higher between January and April than the same period last year, said the BBC. The popularity of hojicha “feels like where matcha was two or three years ago”, Rashique Saddique, director of How Matcha, told the broadcaster. “It’s moving from niche to mainstream quite quickly.”

Less bitter and more earthy than matcha, hojicha also contains “significantly lower” levels of caffeine, with around 7.7mg per cup, compared to matcha’s 70mg, said Country & Town House. But it still boasts a range of health benefits; hojicha is “packed with antioxidants” like catechins and polyphenols which help to protect cells from damage, and the amino acid L-theanine which may help to calm the nervous system and improve sleep quality while enhancing focus.

The roasting process also breaks down the tannins and lowers the acidity, making it perfect for aiding digestion after a meal as it’s “gentler on the stomach than raw green tea”.

Traditional hojicha is “steeped like a loose-leaf tea” but it can also be mixed with milk and served hot or cold in a latte, said Vogue. “Look out for organic, shade-grown hojicha from Japan to avoid contaminants and ensure purity”, nutritionist Rhian Stephenson told the publication. And if you don’t fancy a latte, try adding the powder to smoothies or mix it into cakes, cookies or even ice cream.

Billed as “humanity’s fastest shoe”, Adidas’s Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3s represent “the cutting edge of trainer technology”, said The Guardian. “Lighter and bouncier” than any other “super shoe” on the market, they are designed to help runners “chase records”, and the shoes, which weigh under 100g – less than a bar of soap – did exactly that at the London Marathon last month.

Sabastian Sawe was wearing them when he became the first person to run a sub-two-hour marathon, and Tigst Assefa wore them as she beat the women-only record.

Adidas has pushed the limits of racing shoes once again in its mission to create “the lightest, fastest marathon racer possible”, said Women’s Running. With new, more responsive foam, a carbon-fibre infused rim around the edge of the sole, and “obsessive” weight savings, the Evo 3 is aimed at “elite runners chasing every possible advantage”, not for training or park runners, let alone everyday use.

Inspired by kitesurfing materials, the upper is so ultra-lightweight it “feels almost non-existent”; there’s just enough structure to keep the foot in place, but some runners might find the feel “minimal to the point of harsh”.

Support is focused on the forefoot where high-level runners need it most, said Harry Bullmore in The Independent, and the front offers a lot of bounce. My first few steps in the shoes felt awkward, like “driving a Formula 1 car through a city centre”. But when I started to run on a self-powered treadmill, they came into their own. My feet delivered decent energy and turnover was “snappy”– so snappy I thought I might get thrown off. “The shoe does not make the runner”, but at the elite level, when every millisecond counts, this £450 pair could make a vital, marginal difference.

“The Venice Biennale is the world’s most prestigious international art exhibition,” said Katrin Bennhold in The New York Times. Every other year, a colossal central show aspires to distil the current state of contemporary art, while the nations of the world stage individual exhibitions in designated pavilions, each competing for the coveted top prize. Elsewhere, a host of satellite exhibitions take over the city’s museums and public spaces.

In 2026, however, the art has been overshadowed by “everything else”. For one thing, the main event’s curator, Cameroon-born Koyo Kouoh, died unexpectedly last May. Then Russia – absent since 2022 – returned to the fold. In response, the biennale jury said it wouldn’t award prizes to countries accused of war crimes – there were protests against Israel too – and resigned in protest.

Yet some of the exhibits at this “massive mess” of a biennale still deserve a visit, said Eddy Frankel in The Guardian. The national pavilions are often interesting, and “some of them are even quite fun”. Denmark’s offering incorporates “a hi-tech sperm bank”; “a singing turd” is featured at Luxembourg’s; the Japanese show encourages visitors to carry around “fake babies”; and Malta’s features “a life-size chocolate Russell Crowe”.

Weirdest of all is Florentina Holzinger’s Austria pavilion, “a confrontational, stomach-turning” performance piece, in which naked female performers swim in urine and circle an artificial lake on jet skis. Ridiculous as it sounds, it’s “brilliantly obscene and vile” – and, beneath the wackiness, a scary portent of ecological catastrophe.

Russia’s display, on the other hand, is “wretched”, said Jackie Wullschläger in the Financial Times. I went in expecting a “whitewash” and was greeted with a “limp” display of flowers, some “embarrassed folk music performers” and insistent “offers of alcohol”. Nor is Lubaina Himid’s British pavilion up to much. Her paintings of “generic black figures characterised by profession (chef, tailor, gardener)” feel “lacklustre” and “predictable”.

The central exhibition, In Minor Keys, which foregrounds artists from the “global south”, aims to celebrate quiet pleasures and beauty in the face of tragedy, said Wullschläger. The idea is nice, but the overall quality is “poor”. Some exceptions aside – not least Theo Eshetu’s uprooted olive tree mounted on a revolving plinth, “superimposed with a film showing its earlier fullness” – it’s the same old melange of “identikit hanging textiles” and anti-colonial railing. I left feeling “alienated, hectored, patronised and bored”.

It’s not all bad, said Hettie Judah in Apollo. The Chilean artist Alfredo Jaar has his own room, “a vast lozenge of space flooded with disorienting red light”; at its end is a tiny metal cube forged from rare minerals necessary for modern technological gadgets. It’s “a temple to callous, extractive greed” and its “catastrophic human cost”. There are other highlights – but, true to its title, this is a show of “minor encounters” not “revelations”. And its very scale, alas, drowns out the “subtleties”. The show could have done with more “editorial rigour”.

Mother Nature shines at these seven protected areas, thanks to communities and coalitions that monitor and govern each spot so they remain pristine for generations. Travelers are asked to visit with this intent in mind and explore using official guides, treading lightly and leaving not a trace behind.

Banff National Park, Canada

Canada’s first national park is “brimming with natural beauty,” and its Rocky Mountain peaks and glacial lakes are only some of the “treasures” found in this “alpine wonderland,” said Condé Nast Traveler. The varied landscapes offer “geological drama,” filled with “spectacular” wildlife like moose, black bears and elk. There’s “no bad season to visit,” with canoeing popular in the summer, hiking and biking perfect for spring and fall, and skiing and snowshoeing made for winter.

Fiordland, New Zealand

Stretching across 5,000 square miles of southwestern New Zealand is Fiordland, the country’s largest national park. In a “land renowned for rugged beauty and heavenly wilderness,” Fiordland stands out with its “almost otherworldly splendor,” said Thrillist.

There is a lot to take in. The landscape includes forests, lakes, fjords, massive peaks and “craggy” coastlines, all home to “endangered wildlife found nowhere else on Earth,” said Thrillist. There are a few activities that every visitor should try to do, like take a cruise around Milford Sound. The sound is the park’s “most famous” fjord, and getting there involves a four-hour journey one of the “most scenic routes on the planet.”

Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia

The Andes’ Salar de Uyuni, at 4,000 square miles, is the world’s largest salt flat, formed by dried prehistoric lakes. Your experience depends on the time of year you visit.

It’s dry from May to November, and the flats are hard and can handle the weight of 4x4 vehicles. But when it rains December through March, the flats “transform into a gargantuan reflective mirror,” said Vogue. Stargazers should head to Salar de Uyuni between June and August, when the skies are at their clearest.

Tainui Atea, French Polynesia

On arrival, visitors to the Tahitian islands immediately notice the clear, clean waters of Tainui Atea. It’s the world’s largest marine protected area, spanning nearly 2 million square miles.

Seabed exploitation and fish-aggregating devices are prohibited, and as a result, the area has healthier reefs and lagoons, and stronger marine ecosystems. Travelers are encouraged to respectfully dive right in and go swimming, or hire local guides for outrigger canoeing and surfing lessons, kayaking trips, and diving and snorkeling excursions.

Trang An Landscape Complex, Vietnam

This “sublime” area is dominated by “hulking” limestone karst peaks and sweeping valleys dotted with pagodas and temples, said Afar. It is situated on the Red River Delta, and no visit is complete without climbing into a boat or kayak and meandering past the steep cliffs.

There are also dozens of ancient caves to explore, with many accessible only from the water. Trang An was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2014 as a mixed cultural and natural property.

Vatnajokull National Park, Iceland

The “stunning” Vatnajokull ice cap may be the main draw of Vatnajokull National Park, but there’s “plenty else for visitors to see and delight in,” said Travel and Leisure. Jokulsarlon, a lagoon with “very photogenic” blue waters, is a popular spot, as is Diamond Beach, where “chunks of ice wash up on its black sand shores.”

Visit during the winter to see the Skaftafellsjokull glacier when it “extends to lower elevations,” said Travel and Leisure. Iceland is known for its dramatic landscapes, and Vatnajokull National Park offers the finest examples of “millennia of interplay between fire and ice.”

Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda

Gorilla trekking in Volcanoes National Park is on countless bucket lists — for solid reason. The park is “one of the best places” to spot mountain gorillas, with expert rangers leading groups into the forests, said Travel and Leisure.

Once the animals are found, you can watch at “close range” as they “feed, interact with each other and appraise their human visitors,” said Travel and Leisure. There are “luxurious” accommodations inside the park, where you can unwind after the high of seeing gorillas in the wild.

In Steven Soderbergh’s dark comedy, Ian McKellen turns in one of his finest performances, said David Sexton in The New Statesman. He plays Julian Sklar, a once-brilliant painter who hasn’t produced anything for years. A “vain, irascible wreck of a man”, he lives in adjacent townhouses in Bloomsbury, and fills his time by appearing as a “sarcastic” judge on a brutal TV talent show and selling appearances on Cameo.

His artistic reputation relies on a series of portraits of his former male lover, “The Christophers”, that he produced 30 years ago, and which are now highly sought after. At home, he has some unfinished Christopher canvases: he hasn’t looked at them for years, yet they’re on the minds of his “grasping, despised children” (James Corden and Jessica Gunning). They bribe former art forger Lori (the “formidable” Michaela Coel) to become his assistant. The plan is that Lori – who turns out to have a painful backstory of her own with Julian – will finish the paintings, so that the children can sell them for millions after his death.

Soderbergh is “a big name”, said Deborah Ross in The Spectator, but with this “deliciously sly” take on the art world, he has “gone small”. In what is effectively a two-hander, we follow Lori and Julian around his cluttered house as they “joust and the power shifts. Who was Christopher? Why does Lori hate Julian? Can fake art be true? It all comes out.” It’s an intimate, talky film and, if the plot doesn’t quite stack up, it hardly matters when the acting is this good. The script isn’t as sharp as it should be, said Tara Brady in The Irish Times, and the film is surprisingly muted, visually. Still, the performances are good enough to keep you watching.

It is a little-known fact that although 800,000 British children were evacuated from British cities during the War, two million stayed put as the bombs fell, said James Walton in The Spectator. This “riveting” BBC2 documentary is about those children.

Made to commemorate the 85th anniversary of the end of the Blitz in 1941, it features interviews with the last survivors of that cohort, many of whom are in their 90s or older, and who tell their stories with “extraordinary vividness”. This is the type of programming that shows the BBC at its “still considerable, even nation-unifying best”.

A “huge story is told via dozens of tiny, shattering personal reflections”, said Phil Harrison in The Guardian. Liverpudlian Ernie Gaskell remembers his father’s reassurances that the slate tiles on their roof would be strong enough to protect them. They weren’t. Jean Whitfield recalls the day her mother was killed by a bomb as she hung out her washing in Sheffield. Afterwards, a neighbour plied her with freshly baked lemon tarts. It’s more than just a story about this war; it gives insights into the impact on children of any war, and it’s “priceless”.

The stories are so moving, “varied and vivid” that the 90 minutes “goes by in a flash”, said Ben Dowell in The Times. Many of the interviewees talk about the resilience of the age. Others worry about new wars coming. The final word, though, goes to Patsy from Belfast, who we learn died earlier this year, and who is seen dancing in her kitchen to the strains of “Oh, You Beautiful Doll”. “What a luminescent moment that was.”

Ava Pickett’s debut play, “1536”, became the hottest ticket in town when it premiered at the Almeida, said Isobel Lewis in Time Out. Film star Margot Robbie was so impressed, she came on board as co-producer for this West End transfer. As if that wasn’t enough of a flying start, Pickett is also adapting her play for the BBC, and has written a film about Joan of Arc with Baz Luhrmann. Indeed, her rise has been so stellar, I found myself wondering if “1536” – about the lives of three young women in rural Essex, in the month of Anne Boleyn’s arrest, trial and execution – could really live up to the hype.

The answer is that it absolutely does, and then some. A devastating mixture of comedy and chilling horror, superbly acted, directed and designed, it is a “once-in-a-blue-moon theatrical experience. I laughed. I cried. I probably could have screamed too.”

This “sharp-tongued” play is not about Anne Boleyn herself, said Alex Wood on WhatsOnStage. It is “about the trickle-down effect of misogyny and how political events can ripple through society – to impact everything from female friendship to economic survival”.

The three friends hang out in the countryside, gossiping about men, work, and the rumours they hear about goings-on in the distant court, said Dominic Maxwell in The Times. But the king’s brutality towards his wife is emboldening the local men in their own acts of violence, and as the women talk in a “very 21st-century way, they risk being cancelled in a very 16th-century way”. In particular, Pickett subtly and skilfully maps Boleyn onto the character of Anna (Siena Kelly), an attractive serving girl whose sexuality is first prized, then punished.

“The building momentum and deepening sophistication are perfectly judged,” said Dominic Cavendish in The Telegraph, “and the accusatory message about women’s constrained lives, then and now, emerges via consummate craft.” The last breathless line of the play is “Run!” And I recommend you do indeed run, to catch this superb production before it sells out.

Ambassadors Theatre, London WC2. Until 1 August

‘It’s Been Awful’ by Isaiah Rashad

★★★

Isaiah Rashad’s new top-20 album is “as concise a statement about men in rap struggling with their sexuality as has ever been made,” said Mosi Reeves in Rolling Stone. Rashad, a longtime labelmate of SZA and Kendrick Lamar, was forced to grapple publicly with his bisexuality in 2022 when he appeared in sex tapes that were leaked not long after his previous album reached Billboard’s top 10. On this record, the Tennessee-raised songwriter and producer is as bracingly honest about his sexual fluidity as he is about his reliance on booze, pills, and powders. But he’s also “subtly pushing the art forward” as he puts his own stamp on “the muddy, melancholy Southern blues of mid-’90s rap.” While some listeners may find the weight of the 35-year-old’s confessions too heavy, said Luke Morgan Britton in NME, “it’s Rashad’s stark specificity that makes the lyrics cut through.” And when the music lands, as it “often does,” it “sounds like Southern rap filtered through a roof-down, summer-drive R&B haze.” That blend hasn’t made its creator a superstar yet. Starting now, “nobody should be sleeping on Isaiah Rashad any longer.”

‘Train on the Island’ by Aldous Harding

★★★★

It’s “a fool’s errand” to try to locate the real Aldous Harding on any of her albums, said Jayson Greene in Pitchfork. On her new LP, a career best, the 35-year-old New Zealander “steps closer than ever to the camera lens without coming into focus” but only because she seems to present a new “I” on every song. Across four previous albums, “each a little deeper and stranger than the last,” Harding has been moving toward Train on the Island, an album of “warm and inviting” piano-and-guitar-driven music that’s also varied enough to serve as her ideal playground. Harding “cuts a divisive figure in the world of alt-rock,” said Alexis Petridis in The Guardian. Devotees find her cryptic lyrics and sometimes mannered vocals fascinating; skeptics find her too self-consciously weird. But “what isn’t really up for question is her skill as a songwriter.” Though the mood on this record “tends to the cozy and languorous,” the most striking thing about its 10 tunes is “how tightly written and, in their own understated way, punchy they are.” All that’s required to enjoy it is an appreciation of “utterly lovely” melodies set atop music “that’s subtle but never bland.”

When you make a purchase using links on our site, The Week may earn a commission. All reviews are written independently by our editorial team.

Philosopher Slavoj Zizek is the author of more than 50 books, including Liberal Fascisms, a new essay collection that explores authoritarianism packaged as freemarket capitalism. He credits the novels below with presenting catastrophe in ways that changed his thinking.

‘The Drowned World’ by J.G. Ballard (1962)

Ballard depicts a postapocalyptic future in which global warming has rendered much of the planet uninhabitable. In a flooded London, several characters take advantage of societal collapse to fulfill unconscious urges. The idea that a mega catastrophe could create an opportunity to experience jouissance—surrender to bliss—profoundly influenced me. Buy it here.

‘The Three-Body Problem’ by Liu Cixin (2008)

In Liu’s masterpiece, Earth is confronted with a planet whose unpredictable suns cause severe temperature shifts. I see it as Earth in the near future: Are we facing something for which the only appropriate term is “the end of nature”? Buy it here.

‘Never Let Me Go’ by Kazuo Ishiguro (2005)

This is arguably the most depressing novel I’ve ever read, presenting a society in which human clones are created solely to produce a supply of healthy organs, a practice that requires a major shift in public morals. Is this not our situation today? We cope with new threats by reshaping our ethical principles. Buy it here.

‘I Who Have Never Known Men’ by Jacqueline Harpman (1995)

Perhaps even darker is this novel about a girl and 39 women held prisoner in a bunker. When the male guards flee, the captives emerge into a barren plain, and the girl, the last to survive, writes about her life. Existentially, I feel like the girl: Even in a crowd, I am totally alone. My words will probably never reach their addressee, someone who will read them properly. Buy it here.

‘The Ministry for the Future’ by Kim Stanley Robinson (2020)

Socialist realism at its most noble and convincing. In the near future, a global heat wave that begins in India kills millions and spreads around the world. But humans decide on cooperation and gradually cope with the threat. Buy it here.

‘Station Eleven’ by Emily St. John Mandel (2014)

An apocalyptic novel with a sort of happy ending. After an epidemic devastates humanity, one group, the Traveling Symphony, connects disparate survivors by performing Shakespeare. I accept that in our catastrophic predicament we need more than art to survive. Buy it here.

‘The Things We Never Say’ by Elizabeth Strout

“The Things We Never Say is classic Elizabeth Strout,” said Adam Begley in The Atlantic. There’s the usual New England setting, some family secrets, and an unhappy marriage. There are a few differences, though. We’re not in Maine, the Pulitzer Prize winner’s usual locale, but in coastal Massachusetts, where we’re following a protagonist very unlike Strout’s most famous creation, the brittle, blunt Olive Kittredge. Artie Dam is a 57-year-old married high-school history teacher who is widely beloved by his students. Still, Artie, “suffers from the most common ailment in Strout’s world: loneliness.” When we meet him, he’s even contemplating suicide. However, it’s not a mortal threat that carries the story; it’s Strout’s usual magic—“harpooning the reader with language as plain as a Congregational church and a cast of characters no more exotic than your neighbors.”

“Strout’s capacious empathy and rigorous attention to the nuances of human behavior and psychology are as evident as ever,” said Priscilla Gilman in The Boston Globe. A decade after a fatal tragedy that Artie had no part in but has believably infected his relationships with his wife and son, Artie feels his isolation growing when his friend Flossie, one of the only people he feels he can confide in, reveals she’s moving away. Unfortunately, “this is by far Strout’s bleakest book,” and it isn’t helped by also being her most political, as she has tied Artie’s despair in part to the imminent 2024 re-election of President Trump. Her story “seems to lose its bearings” because she tries to make it a parable for where America is headed. You can agree that Trump is ruining the country and still not want to hear the 2024 or 2025 details repeated here, said Maggie Shipstead in The New York Times. “On the other hand, there’s a poignancy to the way Strout sets Artie’s personal disillusionment against the backdrop of a larger grief.”

Despite the novel’s accretion of tragedies new or remembered, said Ron Charles in his Substack newsletter, “the story keeps ascending toward a sense of astonishment at the interior complexity of life.” Artie eventually expresses amazement at the hidden layers of every person he knows, including himself. Yet he remains a relative innocent for a man his age, unable to accept the griminess of the world as it is outside his classroom. Strout has said she loves him, and while “such affection would typically be deadly for a serious novel,” hers is “the love of a Protestant God who spares us no agony on the path to beatitude.” At the end of his journey, he finds no simple answers. Still, the universe “feels a little more comprehensible with a novel this good in it.”

‘Selling Opportunity: The Story of Mary Kay’ by Mary Lisa Gavenas

“Mary Kay Ash could move product, regardless of what the product was,” said Dan Piepenbring in Harper’s. Long before 1963, when she founded the successful cosmetics company that bears her name, the Texas native established herself as a champion in-person seller of ointments, mitten dusters, and a wide range of other products. Ash wanted housewives everywhere to chase autonomy with similar tenacity, and by the time she died at 83 in 2001, hundreds of thousands of Mary Kay “consultants” were signed up to sell the company’s beauty items from Houston to Beijing. Author Mary Lisa Gavenas acknowledges in her new biography of Ash that most such salespeople fail, but she brushes worry aside, proving “more concerned with Mary Kay’s singular place in the peddler pantheon.”

Nothing in Ash’s family background predicted the success she achieved, said Barbara Spindel in The Wall Street Journal. At age 10, she was already running a household because her father was an invalid and her mother needed to work. A mother of two herself by 19, Ash remained ambitious enough that she was quick to sign on with Stanley Home Products shortly after the direct-sales outfit opened its sales force to women. Over the subsequent two decades, doors remained closed to her, but she absorbed enough capitalist scripture to go solo at 45, eventually becoming the first female CEO of a company listed by the New York Stock Exchange. In Gavenas’ “enthralling” account of the growth years, the blond-wigged, aphorism-spouting Ash turns out to be “a vivid presence.”

There are three stories told here, said Mimi Swartz in Texas Monthly. Besides Ash’s biography, readers get a history of the limits put on women’s financial independence and the evolution of in-home sales parties into the multilevel marketing model Mary Kay still employs today. But while Gavenas “has a gift for storytelling,” her book says too little about how that model operates as a kind of pyramid scheme in which early participants reap rewards for recruiting other sales representatives while the latecomers often lose money and hope. Though it’s not Ash’s fault that men still outearn women, “maybe she didn’t do as much as legend would have it to rectify the situation.”

Many people first discovered the martial arts, a loosely related set of hand-to-hand combat practices, most closely associated with China, through the magic of the movies. This rich tradition has been showcased in the plots and action sequences of countless films, including these eight exceptional, beloved classics.

‘Enter the Dragon’ (1973)

“Enter the Dragon” will always be linked with the untimely death of its young star, Bruce Lee, prior to the film’s wide release. Lee plays Lee, a martial artist recruited by British intelligence to infiltrate the island drug and human trafficking ring operated by Han (Shih Kien) under the guise of a martial arts tournament.

Competing alongside two Americans, Roper (John Saxon) and Williams (Jim Kelly), Lee methodically dispatches Han’s henchmen and avenges his sister’s death in the process. Unquestionably the “most influential martial-arts movie ever made,” its profits, likely in excess of $100 million on a budget of less than $1 million, “were astronomical,” and the film has “more than stood the test of time,” said Tom Gray at BBC. (HBO Max)

‘The Karate Kid’ (1984)’

The 1980s were a time of rising Japanese cultural influence in the U.S., from Hondas to hibachi restaurants. And while “The Karate Kid” might not be the kind of martial arts movie that devoted fans consider canonical, it helped make the Japanese art of karate as “ubiquitous on the extracurricular landscape as Little League and piano lessons,” said Newsweek.

Daniel (Ralph Macchio), freshly arrived in Los Angeles with his widowed mother, keeps getting beaten up by Johnny (William Zabka), a karate black belt and the ex-boyfriend of Daniel’s crush, Ali (Elisabeth Shue). Daniel enlists his building’s janitor, Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita), to teach him how to defend himself and compete in karate tournaments. The two develop a deeper bond than either anticipates. The film is an “exciting, sweet-tempered, heart-warming story with one of the most interesting friendships in a long time,” said Roger Ebert. (Prime Video)

‘Once Upon a Time in China’ (1991)

Wong Fei-hung (Jet Li) is a doctor and martial arts master in 19th-century Guangzhou, when the U.S. and other imperial powers were attempting to open China to the outside world by force. The film is a biopic of Fei-hung, a real-life Cantonese folk hero who resists efforts by a villainous American named Jackson (Jonathan Isgar) to create a human trafficking pipeline of sex workers and laborers to the United States.

Fei-hung finds himself fighting against Jackson’s local collaborators, including “Iron Vest” Yim (Yen Shi-kwan). A movie that moves “deftly between romping, fizzy martial arts action and sober depictions of the tense situation of China in the 1860s or ’70s,” it is “as much a grave history lesson as a giddy celebration of its stunt team’s physical prowess,” said Tim Brayton at Alternate Ending. (HBO Max)

‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ (2000)

In Qing Dynasty-era China, a renowned warrior, Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun-Fat), tries to track down the bandit who ambushed Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh) and made off with Li Mu Bai’s Green Destiny sword. The trail leads him to Jen (Zhang Ziyi), trained by Li Mu Bai’s nemesis, Jade Fox (Cheng Pei-Pei).

Directed by the legendary Ang Lee, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” was a global sensation, characterized by mesmerizing fight sequences enhanced with magical realism, including a scene where warriors square off while floating above the treeline. It is still by far the highest-grossing foreign-language film ever released in the U.S. The film is known as “wuxia,” a “subgenre of martial arts cinema” that “finds its roots in seventh-century romantic literature and poetry,” said Matthew Thrift at the British Film Institute. Buoyed by the “undeniable elegance of Ang Lee’s direction,” it is also noteworthy for its “explicitly feminist take on the genre.” (Tubi)

‘Kill Bill Vol. 1’ (2003)

A movie that cemented the status of martial arts as an international cinematic genre, “Kill Bill Vol.1” was the first film from director Quentin Tarantino (“Pulp Fiction”) in the six long years after the release of 1997’s “Jackie Brown.” Uma Thurman is Beatrix Kiddo, an assassin known as Black Mamba who tries to escape her life of crime.

On her wedding day, her former boss and lover, Bill (David Carradine), kills the entire wedding party and leaves Beatrix in a coma. When she wakes four years later, she embarks on the titular revenge mission. Its “over-the-top style contributes heavily to the films’ memorability,” said Justin Kim at Loud and Clear Reviews, including the iconic scene in which “Beatrix faces off against 88 assassins in a no-holds-barred katana battle.” The movie was split into two parts, with “Kill Bill Vol. 2” released six months later, in 2004. (Prime Video)

‘Ip Man’ (2008)

Ip Man (Donnie Yen) is a martial arts grandmaster whose life in the Chinese city of Foshan is upended by the 1938 Japanese occupation. He and his family are stripped of their home and possessions, and Ip Man takes work transporting coal.

When Japanese General Miura (Hiroyuki Ikeuchi ) begins organizing brutal matches between his occupying soldiers and Chinese martial artists, Ip Man agrees to a public fight with Miura himself. A loose biopic of a real historical figure who later trained the legendary Bruce Lee, “Ip Man” benefits from “slick, frenetic and plentiful” fighting and “high production values, with stunning set design, locations, camerawork and its atmospheric score making the setting of Foshan come alive,” said Daniel Hooper at Eye For Film. (Peacock)

‘The Raid: Redemption’ (2011)

A film that features and popularizes “pencak silat,” an Indonesian martial art, “The Raid: Redemption” revolves around the efforts of a 20-person police SWAT team including new recruit Rama (Iko Uwais) to storm a squalid apartment complex. Their mission: take down the crime lord Tama (Ray Sahetapy).

The team is quickly trapped, and survivors must fight their way through Tama’s henchmen, floor by floor. It’s a straightforward set-up carried out with unusual panache, although it is not for anyone who can’t tolerate ultraviolence. The result is a “skull-splinteringly violent, uncompromisingly intense and simply brilliant martial arts action movie in a nightmarish and claustrophobic setting,” said Peter Bradshaw at The Guardian. (Pluto TV)

‘Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons’ (2013)

Director Steven Chow (“Kung Fu Hustle”) adapts a prominent Chinese fable in this difficult-to-categorize romp that remains almost completely unknown in the U.S. Tang Sanzang (Wen Zhang) is a demon-hunter who uses nursery rhymes to pacify spirits and return them to their human forms.

He is pursued by Miss Duan (Shu Qi), a rival demon hunter who dispatches them the old-fashioned way—by killing them. Chow’s success in “translating this ancient tale from scroll to screen” is due in large part to the care he takes to “include as much fun, sincerity, and humor in his interpretation as possible,” said Justin Cummings at Critics At Large. (Tubi)

People across Europe were enraptured when the potential bones of the soldier Count d’Artagnan — the inspiration for the legendary fourth musketeer from Alexandre Dumas’ iconic 1844 novel, “The Three Musketeers” — were unearthed in the Netherlands in March. But genetic testing to prove the bones belong to d’Artagnan has run into several problems that could make getting a definitive answer difficult.

Where were these bones found?

The completed skeleton was found under the chapel floor of St. Peter and Paul’s Church in the Dutch village of Wolder. Potentially locating d’Artagnan’s remains here wasn’t exactly unexpected, as the church for “centuries was rumored to be the final resting place” of the fourth musketeer, said The New York Times.

The bones were “buried with a 17th-century coin and a musket ball,” and the discovery has drawn a “deluge of unaccustomed attention” to the village, said the Times. The count was a “close aide to France’s Sun King Louis XIV” and later “killed during the Siege of Maastricht in 1673,” said the BBC. D’Artagnan’s life and legacy were “immortalized in the adventure stories” of Dumas as a “friend of the Three Musketeers.”

Why has confirming the identity been a problem?

Since the bones were found, there has been a push to confirm their identity using DNA testing. But “genetic verification to prove whether the skeleton is that of d’Artagnan has run into bureaucratic troubles,” including a potential illegal excavation and a slew of “scientific obstacles that cast doubt on whether the bones’ identity will ever be known,” said National Geographic.

Also, the “first samples collected from the skeleton were too degraded to be used,” according to several reports, which forced scientists to use different samples, said National Geographic. And the municipality of Maastricht, where the church is located, alleges that the “initial excavations were improper,” because “under Dutch law, the church is a heritage site.” The municipality “intervened to ensure that the situation was handled in accordance with applicable archaeological standards,” said a spokesperson for the local government to National Geographic.

However, factors are working in the archaeologists’ favor. The skeleton, for example, does “match history,” said Nat Geo. D’Artagnan was killed when a “musket ball struck him in the throat,” and the grave “contained fragments of a musket ball near the skeleton’s chest,” said National Geographic.

And yet despite the history lining up, genetic testing could be difficult. D’Artagnan has living descendants, but “French nobility often had extramarital affairs,” so it’s “at least possible that they are not biologically related to the musketeer,” said the Times.

Scientists are striving for a definitive answer. At least one “sample taken from the skeleton’s jawbone is on its way to Germany for DNA sequencing,” and anthropologists will “examine the skeleton for clues about how old the person was when they died,” said Ars Technica.

Even with all the obstacles, most scientists believe there’s a “decent chance” it’s d’Artagnan buried under the church, said Ars Technica. “I have been researching d’Artagnan's grave for 28 years,” said Wim Dijkman, an archaeologist on the excavation, to the BBC. “This could be the highlight of my career.”

Food markets are a gift for travelers. Many of the tastes and flavors of a region are conveniently in one spot, the produce is often as fresh as it gets and you can meet the farmers, butchers, cheesemakers, fishmongers and chefs. These 10 markets offer visitors a crash course in their region’s local cuisine, one delicious stall at a time.

Borough Market, London

The “sprawling” Borough Market was established in 1756, making it the “mother of all artisan foodie markets in London,” said Time Out. Slowly stroll by the stalls — there are more than 100, and you won’t want to miss bites of soft cheese, flaky pastries and fresh fruit. After perusing the goods, pick up more grab-and-go items, like a “hulking” sandwich from The Black Pig or crème brûlée donut from Bread Ahead, or “knock back freshly shucked oysters” and an “impromptu glass of wine.”

Chatuchak Market, Bangkok

Adventure awaits at the gigantic Chatuchak Market. There’s no way to see it all — there are a “whopping” 15,000 stalls across 35 acres — but what you do experience will be memorable, said Food & Wine. The weekend market sells just about everything, and is split into 26 sections.

In the food area, visitors can try well-known local delicacies, like mango sticky rice, boat noodles, fried crickets and bamboo worms. The best way to “wash it all down” is with a big glass of fresh watermelon juice or Thai iced tea. If you go with a group, try to stay together — the market is so big that “even locals get lost.”

Ferry Building Marketplace, San Francisco

Come to the Ferry Building Marketplace hungry. You can pull together an “amazing meal” by “grazing” through the dozens of gourmet restaurants and vendors, said National Geographic. Notable names include The Acme Bread Company, which uses organic flour for its artisan loaves; Gott’s Roadside, a local favorite for cheeseburgers and onion rings; and Hog Island Oyster Co., where fresh oysters are served with a side of water views. Three days a week, the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market takes place outside the building.

Granville Island Public Market, Vancouver

Once an industrial area, Granville Island has transformed over the years into a “paradise” of “incredible” food with the Public Market the “star of the show,” said Vancouver Magazine. Its display cases are “bursting” with cheeses, pasta, pastries and “beautifully briny” olives, and you’ll find yourself reaching for the “crunchy, tangy-sweet” honey mustard pickles from Hobbs Pickles and “infinitely snackable” elk juniper salami at Oyama Sausage Co. For a more substantial meal, sit down at Sen Pad Thai, where chef Angus An takes Thailand’s most famous dishes and “absolutely knocks each familiar favorite out of the park.”

La Boqueria, Barcelona

This is the spot for traditional Catalan and Spanish cuisine, where visitors line up for samples of “hand-cut jamón Ibérico” and watch “fishmongers gut a sea bream,” said Food & Wine. Stock up on souvenirs to bring home, like tinned fish and bottles of extra-virgin olive oil, and carve out enough time to “brave the lines” at El Quim de la Boqueria for tapas. For a taste of fresh seafood “plucked from the Mediterranean,” swing by Ramblero and try the grilled prawns, calamari and clams.

Mercado Medellin, Mexico City

This market is small but mighty. It covers one square block in Colonia Roma but is known throughout Mexico City for its “quality” fruits, vegetables, spices and seeds, said Condé Nast Traveler. Vendors also offer “rare” veggies from other Latin American countries — just look for the “Colombian and Honduran flags flying from various stalls.”

Every visit to the market should include stopping at the Cuban heladería for its “incredible” ice cream. You can’t go wrong with cinnamon, chocolate or nata, “made from the cream that rises to the top of clabbered milk.”

Nishiki Market, Kyoto

Nishiki Market started in the early 1300s as a fish market and over time grew into Kyoto’s “best spot for seafood, produce and local street food,” said Atlas Obscura. More than 150 stalls offer “traditional delicacies” like “freshly pounded” mochi and Kyoto’s “famous” tofu, alongside more “adventurous” dishes like tako tamago, a candied baby octopus stuffed with a boiled quail egg. One of Japan’s “finest” knife-makers, Aritsugu, is here and has had a presence in the market since 1510.

Queens Night Market, New York City

You can get your fill at Queens Night Market without breaking the bank. No item costs more than $6, an affordable spot to try foods that “highlight the diverse cultures found around Queens,” said Mashed.

There are about 100 vendors and walking among them feels like taking a global journey, with “Pakistani paratha rolls, Taiwanese popcorn chicken, banh mis, pierogis and Peruvian ceviche” all found along the route. The outdoor market is open on Saturdays in Flushing Meadow Corona Park, from April through the end of October.

Reading Terminal Market, Philadelphia

Philadelphia’s “butchers, bakers and local makers” have been showcasing their goods at Reading Terminal Market since 1893, said USA Today. It’s a given that cheesesteaks are available, but you’ll want to branch out and enjoy the “sushi, crepes and Pennsylvania Dutch pretzels.”

Bassetts Ice Cream, established in 1861, is the oldest ice cream company in the United States, and was the first tenant to sign a lease with the market. They are still “going strong,” with visitors lining up for scoops of peanut butter swirl, matcha green tea and good old-fashioned vanilla.

Viktualienmarkt, Munich

Viktualienmarkt is one of Europe’s “best outdoor food markets,” its stalls and shops a great mix of fresh and prepared foods, said The New York Times. For a “heavenly” sandwich, head to Luiginos Bio Feinkost and order a pastrami and cheddar melt (or eggplant, chevre and spinach for vegetarians).

If you’re in the mood for comfort food, Caspar Plautz is known for its creative take on potato dishes, and the stuffed spuds are a favorite. Every visit should include stopping by Lea Zapf for a “decadent” cake and Kaffeerosterei Viktualienmarkt for a cup of house-roasted coffee, which “might be the best in town.”

The briefest spell of sunshine sends Brits rushing to the park or pub. But if you’re looking for somewhere a bit more special to soak up the rays, try a buzzy terrace with a view. From trendy, canal-side spots to swanky rooftop bars, these are some of the best places to catch up over a cocktail.

The Gun, Docklands, London

The waterfront terrace at the Gun “feels a little like one of many harbourside restaurants in Amsterdam”, said London’s The Standard. Open all year round thanks to the retractable roof and glass walls, the views are “superb”, looking out “where the river bends around the O2 on its way to the Thames Barrier”. Sip a glass of rosé and “feast on oysters” or, come summer, enjoy a pizza from a van in the riverside garden.

Lock 91, Manchester

This “charming canalside garden” is one of the city’s “best-kept secrets”, said Secret Manchester. The fashionable bar is set within a carefully restored 19th-century lock-keeper’s cottage, and you can usually “snag a spot” on the “intimate” outdoor terrace. Once you’ve settled with a drink and begun soaking up the “serene” views, it’s hard to “pull yourself away” from this “addictive little suntrap”.

Blackstock Roof Garden, Liverpool

Set atop the newly revamped Blackstock Market, this “Mediterranean-inspired rooftop brings a slice of coastal Europe to Liverpool”, said Condé Nast Traveller. “Sun-drenched” breaks can be spent here enjoying brunches, afternoon teas and cocktails, while in the evening the terrace transforms into “the perfect place to dance under the stars”. Inside, there’s a “chic” lounge, ensuring the party continues “rain or shine”.

The Raeburn, Edinburgh

This “smart boutique hotel” is “often unknowingly overlooked”, said Condé Nast Traveller. Its “secret rooftop terrace” becomes a “real suntrap” over summer, and there’s also a first-floor mezzanine looking out over the historic Raeburn Place sports grounds for an “out-of-the-city type view that you won’t find anywhere else”.

Rockwater, Hove

“A beach bar with a rooftop terrace, what more could you possibly ask for?” said The Telegraph. Rockwater offers a “huge wine collection, along with cocktails and spritzes”, all with a sea view. And if you’re feeling peckish there’s a great selection of “luxurious seafood dishes” and handmade pizzas. Down at the beach, you’ll find “extra food shacks”, too.