A companion novel to the brilliant Writers & Lovers, this delightfully witty tale of college romance matures into midlife poignancy
The university experience is a risky business in fiction. Generally, the feelings are intense, but the stakes are low; it’s all very formative for the individual character, but it can feel a bit trivial to anyone else. In fact, reading an account of someone’s university days is surely only one or two stages removed from having to hear about the dream they had last night.
So my heart initially sank at Heart the Lover’s cover promise that our main character would soon be “swept into an intoxicating world of academic fervour, rapid-fire banter and raucous card games” – good grief, save me from the raucous card games! But obviously the caveat here is what it always is: a good writer will make it matter. I had faith, therefore, that everything would be all right, since Lily King is an exceptionally good writer. Indeed, she could probably write a book-length account of her most recent dream and I would still rush to read it.
The native woodland of Hoia-Baciu in Romania is a place where the human imagination can run riot. A guided night tour is the perfect way to discover its otherworldly charms
‘They call this place the Bermuda Triangle of Transylvania,” says tour guide Marius Lazin, his breath expelling a procession of cotton-wool ghosts into the sharp evening air. “So many people have disappeared here, some say it’s a portal to another dimension.” Marius is leading me on a night walk through what is often described as the world’s most haunted forest: Hoia-Baciu, a square mile of old-growth native woodland on the outskirts of the Romanian city of Cluj-Napoca. He’s been coming here three nights a week for the past 12 years, but even he looks a little uneasy as he arcs his torch like a searchlight against the knotted walls of elm and beech trees which embrace us on all sides, looking so thick that they might be the boundary of the known world.
Marius motions with his torch towards several pairs of slender beech trees, eerie in their symmetry, branches intertwined to form arches – portals or stargates, you might speculate, were you possessed of a particularly febrile imagination. “Many came in here and never came out. But don’t worry,” he adds, turning to me with a grin. “Our tours have a 100% return rate.”
Between 2019 and 2023, as the Taliban returned to power, Lorenzo Tugnoli took photos of families and fighters in Afghanistan, hoping to show a side to the country not seen in the news
Book-style Android with cutting-edge AI, good cameras and great tablet screen for media and multitasking on the go
Google’s third-generation folding phone promises to be more durable than all others as the first with full water and dust resistance while also packing lots of advanced AI and an adaptable set of cameras.
The Pixel 10 Pro Fold builds on last year’s excellent 9 Pro Fold by doing away with gears in the hinge along its spine allowing it to deal with dust, which has been the achilles heel of all foldable phones until now, gumming up the works in a way that just isn’t a problem for regular slab phones.
More than 100 business and charity leaders have called on ministers to “lead the country’s transition toward a shorter working week”, after the local government secretary criticised a council for shifting to a four-day work pattern.
Steve Reed wrote to South Cambridgeshire district council, the first English council to trial a four-day week, raising concerns about performance and value for money, and expressing his “deep disappointment” over the policy.
Though the probability is low, recent history shows there is a non-zero chance a celebrity – or monarch – may crash your wedding. However, not all big day cameos were created equal
There are a few things that celebrities simply love more than the rest of us: selling hot sauces, buccal fat removal, and crashing weddings. The most recent example is far sweeter than the term “gatecrasher” might suggest: the Lord of the Rings actor Elijah Wood, who surprised a bride and groom during their wedding ceremony in Hobbiton, a set from the films, in Matamata, New Zealand.
We last ranked celebrity wedding-crashers a decade ago, by how welcome they’d be at the average wedding; given how often it seems to happen, we’re due another go. In the case of Wood, everyone was screaming, he came in politely and left quickly, and he was the only one not wearing hobbity clothes – so, as gatecrashers go, we can confidently say he was very, very welcome. 10/10.
Donald Trump has described crucial trade talks with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, in South Korea as “amazing”, saying their dispute over the supply of rare earths had been settled and that he would visit China in April.
In early comments, Chinese state media reported Xi as saying a “consensus” with Trump had been reached on trade issues, and that there were good prospects for cooperation on trade, immigration and fraud.
“Nobody anticipated this or foresaw this. At this point, there’s an awful lot of loose ends. All I can say is it would be premature for anyone to rush to judgment. Obviously, this is a tragic situation.”
An associate dean at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has publicly called former President Donald Trump a racist and co-authored an academic paper suggesting the American education system, and even mathematics, is "inherently violent" toward Black students.
Rogueish comedy comes to a close with climactic 50th episode. Plus, it’s Peter Pansy – The Rusical in Drag Race! Here’s what to watch this evening
10pm, Sky Max
Joseph Gilgun and Danny Brocklehurst are bringing the curtain down on their comedy about a tight-knit bunch of likable chancers running riot in a rural Lancashire town. You might expect the finale to be a greatest hits victory lap of booze, drugs and cheeky thievery. But the vibes are distinctly darker as Vinnie (Gilgun) and the gang hole up in a pub with gangster Davey MacDonagh (Neil Ashton) for a climactic 50th episode apparently inspired by Quentin Tarantino. Graeme Virtue
The pricing standoff between government and industry has stalled research and put thousands of jobs at risk
‘We want to see more investment flow to Britain,” the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, urged of big pharmaceutical companies this month, as she indicated that the government was willing to increase the price it pays for NHS drugs. Ministers are likely to announce a rethink on pricing soon, potentially by the end of this week.
But the size of that rise remains uncertain. The big question is whether it will be generous enough to convince pharmaceutical companies, which account for a near-£100bn slice of the UK economy, to resume the investments they had paused in a strong-arm campaign to secure concessions from government.
Nawal Khalil had been volunteering as a nurse for three years at El Fasher South hospital when the city was captured on Sunday by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). She was busy treating patients, including an elderly woman who needed a blood transfusion, when the attack began.
“They killed six wounded soldiers and civilians in their beds – some of them women,” she says. “I don’t know what happened to my other patients. I had to run when they stormed the hospital.”
Ahead of the budget, Rachel Reeves should be out making her arguments. Instead, there is silence – and a huge opportunity for Labour’s opponents
Scroll back three years. The person sitting opposite me is yet to take their place at the top of Keir Starmer’s government. Instead, they are a star of the Labour opposition, for whom power advances or recedes with every poll and front page. They have just done a spot of electoral marketing, a photo op at a supermarket 100 or so miles from Westminster, and what they’ve brought home is the politics of the staff.
Stuffed, roasted, sauteed or mashed, pumpkin and squash truly are the great culinary chameleons of autumn
Pumpkins and squash seem the perfect symbol of autumn and winter cooking. The cook has the job of getting through that tough skin before finding the tender flesh, and they give off their best only after slow cooking. But it’s worth it. They are great culinary chameleons, able to soak up and marry well with ingredients as diverse as gruyere, chipotle, rosemary, sage and nutmeg. Their smoky, sweet flavours are just right for the season of turning leaves.
Confusion reigns, however, about the difference between a pumpkin and a squash. It is a difficult area, and often local usage dictates what is a squash and what is a pumpkin. Both are members of the same family and, although the terms are often used interchangeably, pumpkins are usually the jack-o’-lantern shape we associate with Halloween, with thick, orange skins, while squashes can be smooth, warty, striped, stippled, their skins as green and shiny as old leather books, pale yellow, flame orange or delicate amber. They come in myriad shapes – acorns, turbans, melons and curled, snake-like creatures – and sizes.
This is an edited extracted from Around the Table: 52 Essays on Food & Life, by Diana Henry, published by Mitchell Beazley at £20. To order a copy for £18, visit guardianbookshop.com
The department’s medical centers, outpatient clinics and veterans centers remain open and are operating normally during the shutdown because of advanced appropriations from Congress, the agency said.
About 30 minutes after being handed the flyers, which appeared to contain a typed religious message, the employees began feeling shaky, dizzy, and experienced hot flashes.
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