THE
SUNDAY
TIMES
BESTSELLERS
GENERAL HARDBACKS
Last
weekWeeks in
top 101
Hope
Tom Parker
(Blink £20)
Memoir by the late pop star who rose to
fame as a member of the Wanted
(15,185)—12
Good Pop, Bad Pop/Jarvis Cocker
(Cape £20) The musician catalogues his life through
a collection of objects stored in his loft (6,705)—13
Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?/Julie Smith
(M Joseph £16.99) Clinical psychologist’s advice
for navigating life’s ups and downs (6,285)1214
Russia: Revolution and Civil War/Antony Beevor
(Weidenfeld £30) The historian on the struggle that
followed the collapse of the Tsarist empire (5,750)—15
I Don’t Take Requests/Tony Marnoch and Michael
Hennegan (Coronet £20) The notorious DJ Fat Tony
shares stories of depravity and hedonism (3,115)—16
Regenesis/George Monbiot
(Allen Lane £20) Resolving the dilemma of how to
feed the world without devouring the planet (2,910)—17
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse/Charlie
Mackesy (Ebury £16.99) An illustrated
fable containing gentle life philosophy (2,250)5 1388
Buried/Alice Roberts
(Simon & Schuster £20) An alternative history
of the first millennium in Britain (2,235)—19
House Arrest/Alan Bennett
(Profile £6.99) Reflections on Covid-19 and
confinement from the English playwright (2,000)3410
The Palace Papers/Tina Brown
(Century £20) Biography of the House of Windsor
in the decades since Diana’s death (1,865)45GENERAL PAPERBACKS
Last
weekWeeks
in top 101
And Away...
Bob Mortimer
(Simon & Schuster £8.99)
The Shooting Stars and Gone Fishing
funnyman’s autobiography
(8,000)—12
Diddly Squat/Jeremy Clarkson
(Penguin £8.99) Stories of agricultural life from the
broadcaster’s farm in the Cotswolds (4,225)—13
The Wim Hof Method/Wim Hof
(Rider & Co £8.99) The Dutch extreme athlete’s life
story and mind-over-matter philosophy (3,540)174
Brothers in Arms/James Holland
(Penguin £9.99) The Sherwood Rangers tank
regiment’s war from D-Day to VE Day (3,435)235
Storyland/Amy Jeffs
(Riverrun £12.99) The art historian and printmaker’s
illustrated mythology of the British Isles (2,585)346
A Life on Our Planet/David Attenborough
(Ebury £9.99) On his broadcasting career, the planet’s
biodiversity loss and hopes for the future (2,575)537
The Seven Ages of Death/Richard Shepherd
(Penguin £9.99) The forensic pathologist shares more
insights on life, death and the human body (2,510)438
Atomic Habits/James Clear
(Random House £16.99) The minuscule changes
that can grow into life-altering outcomes (2,320)6419
Tornado/John Nichol
(Simon & Schuster £9.99) The story of the aircrew
at the heart of Operation Desert Storm (2,100)—110
The Power of Geography/Tim Marshall
(Elliott & Thompson £9.99) A study of ten regions
that could define global politics in the future (2,070)935BOOKS
For young people, attachment theory is the blueprint for love
relationships (a 1980s study
found that up to 56 per cent of
people were lucky enough to
be secure). If, on the other
hand, your attachment needs
were not met in childhood — if
you were left to cry for hours
as a baby (as some childcare
manuals now recommend), or
told not to express emotion,
or your parents were just too
busy to cuddle — you’ll have
insecure adult relationships.
Whether those unmet
needs are channelled into
becoming anxious or avoidant
is a bit of a lottery — one that
the therapist Jessica Baum, in
her book Anxiously Attached,
says can be linked all the way
back to evolutionary theory.
As humans evolved, she says,
our survival depended on
being part of a tribe, and our
automatic nervous system
adapted to keep us connected
to them. If we start to fear we
will be abandoned, the
automatic nervous systemof young people are looking at
their relationships through a
new lens: attachment theory.
The theory was pioneered
in the 1950s by the British
psychologist John Bowlby,
who split people into three
main camps: anxiously
attached, securely attached
and avoidantly attached.
Anxious people need
closeness and lots of
reassurance, and fear being
abandoned. Secure people
have a healthy attitude to
their relationships, enjoying
closeness without becoming
claustrophobic. Avoidants
shun intimacy and closeness,
because they want to remain
independent.
What decides our
attachment style? Larkin got
it in one: “They f*** you up,
your mum and dad.” If you
received consistent care and
affection in your childhood,
chances are you will become
secure in your adultPSYCHOLOGY
Laura Hackett
Anxiously Attached
Becoming More Secure in Life
and Love by Jessica Baum
Cornerstone £14.99 pp304
Do you often worry that your
partner will stop loving you or
abandon you? Do you think
about them all the time? Are
you hypersensitive to cues
that they might be annoyed?
Or are you on the other side
of the spectrum: you don’t let
partners get too close, you
find break-ups easy and are
happy to be on your own,
preferring casual sex to
committed relationships?
Not long ago most of us
would have put these
imbalances down to how
much you like someone: one
person is infatuated, the other
indifferent. But now millions
ALAMYwill activate the fight or flight
response. While some of us
will fight to retain closeness
with a partner — perhaps by
sending a stream of text
messages, turning up to theirhouse or apologising for
things that weren’t our fault
— other people will flee,
pushing their partner away to
remain self-sufficient, rather
than risk being rejected.
It’s a convincing
psychological theory, but
it has recently become al It’s always nice to see a
familiar face. Bob Mortimer
was one of autumn’s biggest
hits, spending 24 weeks in
the general hardbacks chart.
Now his memoir is in
paperback — and he has
shot straight to No 1.
l The children’s chart
is dominated by Alice
Oseman’s Heartstopper
series about a gay teenage
couple, thanks to the
runaway success of Netflix’s
new adaptation.
The lists are prepared by and
the data is supplied by (and
copyrighted to) Nielsen BookScan,
and are taken from the TCM for
the week ending 28/05/22.
Figures shown are sales for
the seven-day period.
Love? (500) Days of Summer
has an anxious/avoidant pairSnog, marry or avoid
22 5 June 2022