NASHVILLE, Tenn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 22, 2026--
Harper Select, an imprint of HarperCollins, is excited to announce a nine-city US book tour celebrating comedy legend Eric Idle and his new book, Idle in Provence: A Brief History of Thyme, publishing September 8, 2026. The tour opens in New York City on September 29, 2026 and will travel across the country through late October, offering audiences an evening with the founding Monty Python member as he shares stories behind his most personal work yet.
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Idle in Provence is equal parts memoir, travelogue and comedy master class. The book chronicles Idle's fifty-five-year journey restoring a crumbling stone shack—affectionately dubbed his "Shackeau"—into a beloved home in the French countryside. Purchased in 1971 at the height of Monty Python fame, the property had no electricity, water, or road access—only a view, a ruin, and endless opportunities for comic catastrophe. As the house transforms over the years, Idle’s life unfolds around it: Python, family, marriage, music, aging, friendship, fame, and the recurring indignities of French plumbing. Over the decades, the Shackeau becomes an unlikely gathering place for artists, comedians, musicians, and friends, including George Harrison and Robin Williams. Warm, irreverent, and moving, the book is as much about the people who pass through as the place itself—a portrait of creativity, resilience, absurdity, and the wild, unpredictable journey of being alive.
"This new book, Idle in Provence, is about what I did in the shadows, when I escaped the crowds, took off the grease paint, removed the silly costumes and became a poor forked animal on a tiny ball circling a star for a brief moment in a ginormous expanding Universe,” said Idle in an exclusive book announcement with People Magazine. "France gave me peace and wisdom, gave me the time to learn the names of some stars and constellations, as well as help me understand my place on the surface of a revolving and occasionally revolting planet.”
The tour features a mix of solo appearances and special conversations with acclaimed guests. Confirmed dates and venues include:
Idle in Provence will be available in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook formats with Idle narrating. You can find more information on the tour and can preorder today at: https://www.harpercollinsfocus.com/harper-select/books/idle-in-provence/.
ABOUT ERIC IDLE:
Eric Idle is a comedian, actor, author, and singer-songwriter who found immediate fame on television with the sketch-comedy show Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Following its success, the group began making films that include Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Monty Python’s Life of Brian, and Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life. Eric wrote, directed, and created The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash, the world’s first-ever mockumentary, as well as the Tony Award–winning musical Spamalot. His memoir Always Look on the Bright Side of Life was a New York Times bestseller.
ABOUT HARPER SELECT:
Harper Select, based in Nashville, TN, publishes an exclusive number of hand-selected memoirs and narrative nonfiction each year. Recent NYT Bestsellers include books from Joanna Gaines, Mark Harmon, Leon Carroll, Jr., and Loyola Chicago’s Sister Jean.
Courtesy of Harper Select, an imprint of HarperCollins Focus.
NEW YORK (AP) — Brent oil shot to its highest price since May after increased fighting in the Middle East on Thursday threatened to slow the global flow of crude. At the same time, sharp drops for two of Wall Street’s most influential companies, Alphabet and Tesla, yanked the U.S. stock market to its worst loss in a month.
The S&P 500 fell 1.2% and is on track for its first back-to-back weekly loss since March. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 506 points, or 1%, and the Nasdaq composite sank 2.2%.
Stocks fell under the pressure of rising oil prices, which raise costs for businesses and erode their customers’ ability to spend. The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil, the international standard, jumped 7% to settle at $100.69.
It touched $102 during the day, the highest price since May for the most actively traded Brent contract in the market. The cause: attacks on two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea. That threatens another avenue that oil companies use to move their crude from the Middle East to customers worldwide, along with the Strait of Hormuz.
Underscoring the importance of the sea route for the economy, President Donald Trump threatened “major military punishment” against the Houthi rebels in Yemen, who are backed by Iran, if they keep attacking ships.
It was just a few weeks ago that Brent had dropped below $72 per barrel, roughly back to where it was before the United States and Israel attacked Iran to begin their war, on hopes that a wind-down in the war would fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
The jumps in oil prices will worsen inflation, just when it had begun to decelerate by more than economists expected. That in turn could push the Federal Reserve and other central banks to raise interest rates, which would slow economies and undercut prices for stocks and other investments.
The European Central Bank held its main interest rates steady at its meeting Thursday. But traders are betting on a 36% chance the Fed will hike the federal funds rate at its meeting next week. That’s up from the nearly 12% probability seen a week ago, according to data from CME Group.
An increase by the Fed would be the first since 2023.
Higher oil prices pushed the yield of the 10-year Treasury up to 4.69% from 4.67% late Wednesday and from just 3.97% before the war with Iran began. That’s a significant increase, and it’s already brought long-term U.S. mortgage rates to their highest levels in nearly a year.
Gasoline prices tend to follow oil prices higher, and a gallon of regular costs an average of $4.09 across the United States, according to AAA. That’s still below highs of roughly $4.56 in May, but it was at just $3.93 a month ago.
On Wall Street, stocks of companies with big fuel bills fell to sharp losses on worries about higher expenses.
American Airlines fell 8.4% even though it reported a much bigger profit for the spring than analysts expected, something that usually sends a stock’s price higher. It raised airfares, which helped it offset its higher fuel prices, during the latest quarter.
Southwest Airlines lost 6.2%, even though it also reported better profit and revenue than analysts expected.
One of the heaviest weights on the U.S. stock market was Tesla, which tumbled 14.5% after Elon Musk’s electric-vehicle company reported a weaker profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Because it’s one of the largest stocks in the S&P 500 by market value, its stock has more influence on the index than nearly every other.
One of the few that’s larger is Alphabet, and its stock fell 7.1% even though the parent company of Google delivered stronger profit and revenue than analysts expected.
Investors focused instead on how much Alphabet is planning to spend on artificial-intelligence investments. Alphabet raised its forecast for capital spending over the full year after its investments last quarter doubled to nearly $45 billion from a year earlier.
CEO Sundar Pichai said AI helped its cloud revenue growth accelerate to 82% last quarter, but unease nevertheless remains about whether all the money going into AI will pay off in terms of productivity and profits.
Such worries have been shaking the AI industry broadly in recent weeks, leading to big swings for the overall stock market.
All told, the S&P 500 fell 90.66 points to 7,408.30. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 506.93 to 51,711.65, and the Nasdaq composite sank 553.21 to 25,137.69.
In stock markets abroad, indexes fell sharply in Europe after oil prices jumped. France’s CAC 40 dropped 1.6% for one of the larger losses.
Indexes in Asia were stronger earlier in the day, and South Korea’s Kospi jumped 4.4%.
AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed to this report.
The screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) is displayed at a dealing room of Hana Bank in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, July 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
A man walks in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei 225 index at a securities firm Wednesday, July 15, 2026, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
People walk in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei 225 index at a securities firm Wednesday, July 15, 2026, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
