Book a plum getaway – with The Plum Guide

Book a plum getaway – with The Plum Guide By You Magazine Published: 00:01 GMT, 9 February 2020 | Updated: 11:54 GMT, 10 February 2020 Similar to Airbnb, but each of the homes – and hosts – featured have been vetted to ensure a top-notch stay with seriously affordable options in 12 cities   Peregrine in Milan … Read more

MUST READS | Daily Mail Online

MUST READS By Jane Shilling for the Daily Mail Published: 22:00 GMT, 6 February 2020 | Updated: 20:35 GMT, 9 February 2020 QUICKSAND TALES by Keggie Carew (Canongate, £9.99, 272 pp) QUICKSAND TALES by Keggie Carew (Canongate, £9.99, 272 pp) As we look back on our lives, most of us can recall moments of embarrassment … Read more

‘Sing me a song or I’ll slit your throat’: Former inmate has written about his time in prisons

SOCIETY A BIT OF A STRETCH: THE DIARIES OF A PRISONER by Chris Atkins (Atlantic Books £16.99, 336pp)  Documentary maker Chris Atkins is in a rundown cell with a psychotic prisoner discussing the intricacies of quantum mechanics. He has more prison access than any journalist could dream of, but there’s just one catch: he is … Read more

Martini and the recipe for an age-gap friendship: Isabel Vincent’s charming tale of platonic love

MEMOIR  Dinner with Edward  by Isabel Vincent (One £12.99, 240pp)  You’ll be familiar with the magic of the ageless friendship if you’ve ever treasured a close attachment to someone 30 or 40 years older or younger. It’s a magic tinged with poignancy, because you both know that the older one will probably die first, leaving … Read more

Jenny Offill, Jacqueline Woodson and Emma Jane Unsworth: This week’s best new fiction 

From Jenny Offill’s sublime Weather to a powerful new novel from Jacqueline Woodson and Emma Jane Unsworth’s Adults, this week’s best new fiction By Hephzibah Anderson and Catherine Taylor and Eithne Farry For Event Magazine Published: 22:01 GMT, 8 February 2020 | Updated: 11:24 GMT, 9 February 2020 Weather  Jenny Offill          … Read more

Tom Parker Bowles picks Britain’s 50 most romantic restaurants

Ah, Valentine’s Day, scourge of chefs the world over. Those once-vibrant rooms, now packed with despondent tables for two. The heavily marked-up ‘romantic’ menus, the soppy specials with a side order of schmaltz. And all those flaccid, overpriced roses. It’s enough to send Venus running for cover. But worry not. The following restaurants are chosen … Read more

Former speaker John Bercow is alert to pomposity in others but never in himself

Unspeakable John Bercow W&N £20  Rating: The shortest sentence in this autobiography is also the truest. ‘Brevity,’ writes John Bercow, ‘is not my strong suit.’ You can say that again! Unspeakable might have been better titled Unstoppable, as it goes on and on and on, surfing the wave of its own long-windedness. Bercow never uses … Read more

Will there be a Joker in the Oscar pack? Event’s film critic tips tonight’s big winners

Whisper this softly, but we might just be falling out of love with film awards. The television ratings for last weekend’s Bafta awards were the lowest for 12 years, which, given that the coverage was recorded and you could have discovered the winners online some time before they were ‘revealed’ on TV, is perhaps not … Read more