Ben Aitken

Not everything that glitters is gold - which is why Ben Aitken went to Wolverhampton for the weekend. Over the next year, the bestselling author of AChip Shop in Poznan and The Gran Tour visited twelve of the least popular spots in the UK and Ireland for a city break, as ranked by national tourism boards. The motivation wasn''t to take the biscuit or stick the boot in, but to seek out the good stuff, to uncover the gems, to have a nice time. By doing so, he hoped to demonstrate that anywhere - like anyone - can be interesting and nourishing and enjoyable if approached in the right fashion.Ben went skiing in Sunderland, to the football in Wrexham, and fell in love with Dunfermline. He kissed an alpaca in Bradford, suffered jellied eels in Chelmsford, and had more craic in Limerick than was wise. The upshot is a celebration of the underdog; a hymn to the wrong direction; and evidence that there''s no such thing as a shitty break. What''s more, by spreading its affection beyond the usual suspects (which are often overdone and overpriced), Shitty Breaks promotes a less expensive and more sustainable brand of travel.By going against the grain, the book champions the unsung in an algorithmic, over-signposted world dominated by celebs and hotspots. Cheeky weekend in Milton Keynes anyone?

'One of the funniest books of the year' - Paul Ross, talkRADIO WARNING: CONTAINS AN UNLIKELY IMMIGRANT, AN UNSUNG COUNTRY, A BUMPY ROMANCE, SEVERAL SHATTERED PRECONCEPTIONS, TRACES OF INSIGHT, A DOZEN NUNS AND A REFERENDUM. Not many Brits move to Poland to work in a fish and chip shop. Fewer still come back wanting to be a Member of the European Parliament. In 2016 Ben Aitken moved to Poland while he still could. It wasn't love that took him but curiosity: he wanted to know what the Poles in the UK had left behind. He flew to a place he'd never heard of and then accepted a job in a chip shop on the minimum wage. When he wasn't peeling potatoes he was on the road scratching the country's surface: he milked cows with a Eurosceptic farmer; missed the bus to Auschwitz; spent Christmas with complete strangers and went to Gdansk to learn how communism got the chop. By the year's end he had a better sense of what the Poles had turned their backs on - southern mountains, northern beaches, dumplings! - and an uncanny ability to bone cod. This is a candid, funny and offbeat tale of a year as an unlikely immigrant.