The judges have a hard task at this week’s Booker prize ceremony with five of the six shortlisted books worthy winners, though Percival Everett’s James – a retelling of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn – is the title to put your money on

Seven months to read more than 150 novels... how do the Booker judges do it? It’s “impossible”, said Robert Webb, serving on last year’s panel: “You finish as many as you can and the other ones you put to one side after a respectable but undisclosed fraction has been read.” Well, maybe, but somehow I doubt this has been the approach of the novelist Yiyun Li , one of this year’s judges, who once led an 85-day lockdown book club online to read War and Peace , a novel she rereads each year.

Either way, the 2024 panel, chaired by the artist and memoirist Edmund de Waal ( The Hare With Amber Eyes ), have whittled their tottering book stacks down to an excellent six-strong shortlist, five of which would make a worthy winner on Tuesday 12 November.

Staff at Brook House had warned it was ‘only a matter of time’ before someone died as a result of taking the drug

The death of a man in an immigration removal centre a fortnight ago is believed to be linked to the drug spice, in what is thought to be the first case of its kind.

The death comes a year after an official report into conditions at Brook House near Gatwick Airport warned that staff believed “it was only a matter of time before a detained person died as a result of taking spice”.

The musician enjoys slow, quiet Sundays in Germany, likes a catnap and tries to live in reality

Sunday work or rest? My job doesn’t differentiate weekends from weekdays. Most musicians would say that. But I do try to keep my Sundays something like what I think a Sunday should be. Concerts tend to happen on weekends, chances are I’ll be waking up in a hotel. But that doesn’t mean I won’t be piling up my pancakes at the breakfast bar, which is how I would be starting my Sunday if I was lucky enough to wake up in my own bed.

What time are you up? You have this phase in your 20s where you think, ‘I’m a rock star, I don’t have to get up for anything – ever.’ Well, I’m 52 now. I start losing steam at 6pm, and I’ve got way too much stuff to do to be laying in bed beyond a point.

If you don’t want to look like a backing singer in an 80s music video, treat your eyeshadow with a light touch

Back in the day I never understood eyeshadows. That was when people would use a million shades and textures and resemble extras on a dodgy 80s music video. These days, neutrals offer a really modern approach to eye (and lip) makeup. The low-key shades of taupes, browns and plums are perfect for anyone who shies away from complex eyeshadow looks and wants ease – I tend to use just fingers to be honest(with a cotton bud dipped in makeup remover on standby). And they are easy on the eye – yours and everyone else’s.

1. Ilia The Necessary Eyeshadow Palette £40, iliabeauty.com
2. Blink Brow Bar x Priya Alhuwalia Eyebrow Pencil £22, bbb-london.com
3 . Pucci x Guerlain Powder £68, guerlain.com
4. Jones Road Lip and Cheek Palette £28, jonesroadbeauty.com
5. Lisa Eldridge Rouge Experience Refillable Lipstick £49, lisaeldridge.com

Despite their huge untaxed duchy revenues, King Charles and Prince William are still trying to claim the moral high ground

The British public remains immensely forgiving of royal failings, understandably when the family is fragile and struggling with serious illness. Huge public sympathy has allowed for the revival of a doting, vintage style of reporting that only a year ago might have seemed as absurd as it is, in the longer term, unwelcome.

A recent palace announcement to the effect that Prince William is now a “global statesman” has been received, for example, with the same eager interest as his self-appointment as a homelessness expert, his decision to grow a beard and, a few days ago, his domestic hints: do remember to turn the palace lights out before you leave for another one down the road. Even a professionally made but excruciating video of sunkissed royals romping inspirationally in meadows was accepted, pretty much uncritically, as the new Windsor normal, and maybe it is.

Calls for UK to work more closely with the EU on everything from defence and trade to immigration grow following Trump’s re-election

Keir Starmer’s government is coming under fire for having failed over more than four months to appoint new MPs and peers to a key EU-UK inter-parliamentary forum, as pressure grows for closer co-operation with the European Union after Donald’s Trump re-election to the White House.

Today in an article for the Observer online the MEP and former Italian government minister Sandro Gozi, recently elected as the new chair of the 70-strong UK-EU parliamentary partnership assembly (PPA), and the chair of the Labour Movement for Europe Stella Creasy MP say failure to reconstitute the PPA since the July general election is an issue that “urgently” needs to be addressed.

With its smoky flavours and heady scents, this new west London restaurant showcases the best of Lebanese food

Joseph’s Brasserie, 221 Kensington High Street, London W8 6SG (020 3337 9356; josephsbrasserie.co.uk ). Wraps from £9; mezze £8.50 – £16; main courses £16.25 – £26.50; desserts £8.50. Wines from £26 a bottle

In one corner of the lengthy menu at Joseph’s Brasserie, a lovely new Lebanese restaurant in London’s Kensington, is a description which may give some people pause. It’s listed under Signature Dishes and begins “Tender lamb intestines stuffed with a savoury mixture of rice…” The sweet word “tender”, used for kisses and caresses, has to do an awful lot of heavy lifting there, when it’s shepherding the word “intestines” into view. It’s just too duodenal, isn’t it? Too redolent of lunch on the way out of the body as waste, rather than on the way in as pleasure.

Prince and Princess of Wales will join the king and senior politicians to remember those who have died in conflict

King Charles will lay wreaths at the Cenotaph and lead the nation in a two-minute silence at 11am to remember the dead who gave their lives in two world wars as well as those who have died in other conflicts involving British and Commonwealth forces.

The Prince and Princess of Wales will join the king and senior politicians for the national service of remembrance at the Cenotaph to honour all those killed.

Whether you’re foraging chestnuts, mushrooms or truffles, there is a perfect wine accompaniment

Vilarnau Chestnut-Aged Xarel·lo, Penedès, Spain 2018 (£20, ocado.com ) Chestnuts are a cheap and moreish autumn-into-winter delight that are all the better (and cheaper) for being one of the few foods I’ve managed to successfully forage. Versatile too: whether they’ve been roasted in a pan or on the proverbial open fire, they can be served simply with a sprinkling of salt, act as a soft, sweetly earthy contrast to brassica bitterness (sprouts or cavolo nero) or complement to umami mushrooms (risotto or pasta), or simmered in milk and herbs and pulped into a paste to go with roast bird or to spread on toast. They also have a long and historic connection with wine, since the wood of the chestnut tree was often favoured by barrel-makers who couldn’t easily get their hands on oak, especially in the Mediterranean. The practice is enjoying something of a revival, and what better wine to sip with the tree’s fruit than a golden, hazy-soft, nuts-and-apricot-scented chestnut barrel-aged dry white from cava county in Penedès in Catalonia?

Extra Special Chilean Pinot Noir, Leyda Valley, Chile 2023 (£8, Asda ) Barrel-aged whites using the more conventional vessels made from oak species Quercus alba, Quercus sessilis and Quercus robur are one of my choices to drink with that other much-foraged (although very much not by cowardly, risk-averse me) seasonal food: mushrooms. There’s something about the texture (ample, creamy, silky) and the flavours (which can have a decidedly savoury, almost mushroomy edge) of oak-influenced whites such as the suavely balanced Rustenberg Chardonnay, Stellenbosch, South Africa 2022 (reduced to £12.99 from £15.99 until Tuesday, Waitrose ) that goes so well with the comforting creaminess of a mushroom risotto. For reds, meanwhile, the go-to grape is pinot noir, which also has some of the slippery-silky feel and forest-floor earthiness of the fungus. Chile has some of the most convincing budget versions of this tricky-to-grow grape, with Asda’s own-label erring towards light and bright berry compote with just a hint of beetroot in flavour.