From the author of Misadventures and Appleby House comes another volume of true-life tales. In My Holidays, Sylvia Smith remembers in precise and amusing detail the various trips she has taken, from Shanklin, Isle of Wight in 1962, right up to her catastrophic holiday to New York in 2001. Jinxed traveller that she is, Sylvia good-humouredly conjures up the difficulties that beset a nice East End girl on holiday: whether it be a fight in a Paris strip club, struggling to change out of her swimsuit with an audience of two fascinated German men, or learning to ski. The result is one of the most refreshing and amusing travel books of our time, and another Sylvia Smith classic.

'Sylvia Smith's done it again. In her latest memoir, My Holidays, she bickers and tuts her way around the globe. This is travel writing as it should be - tales of crumbling friendships and bad caravans, all told in her beautifully deadpan voice. Give me Sylvia over William Dalrymple any day' Dan Rhodes, 'Books of the Year', Daily Telegraph