Joseph Delaney used to be an English teacher, before becoming the best-selling author of the Spook's series, which has been published in 30 countries and sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide. The first book, The Spook's Apprentice, was adapted into a major motion picture starring Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore.

Joseph Delaney

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Meg Henderson

Glasgow in the 1950s was a deprived and often violent place. Meg Henderson was part of a large family, and when the tenement block in which they lived collapsed they had to move to the notorious Blackhill district where religious sectarianism and gang warfare were part of daily life. Yet despite appalling conditions , there was warmth, laughter and a remarkable spirit, andMeg's mother and her Aunt Peggy, both idealistic and emotional women, shielded her from the effects of her father's heavy drinking. 
 
A hopeless romantic, Peggy searched for a husband until late in life and then endured a harsh, unhappy marriage. When she died horrifically in childbirth her death devastated the family and destroyed Meg's childhood. Only later, after the death of her own mother, was Meg able to discover the shocking facts behind the tragedy.

Finding Peggy

Paddy Doyle

The past they tried to hide. 
 
His mother died from cancer in 1955. His father committed suicide shortly thereafter. Paddy Doyle was sentenced in an Irish district court to be detained in an industrial school for eleven years. He was four years old... 
 
Paddy Doyle's prize-winning bestseller, The God Squad, is both a moving and terrifying testament of the institutionalised Ireland of less than fifty years ago, as seen through the bewildered eyes of a child. During his detention, Paddy was viciously assaulted and sexually abused by his religious custodians, and within three years his experiences began to result in physical manifestations of trauma. He was taken one night to hospital and left there, never to see his custodians again. So began his long round of hospitals, mainly in the company of old and dying men, while doctors tried to diagnose his condition. This period of his life, during which he was a constant witness to death, culminated in brain surgery at the age of ten - by which time he had become permanently disabled. 
 
The God Squad is the remarkable true story of a survivor, told with an extraordinary lack of bitterness for one so shockingly and shamefully treated. In Paddy Doyle's own words: 'It is about a society's abdication of responsibility to a child. The fact that I was that child, and that the book is about my life, is largely irrelevant. The probability is that there were, and still are, thousands of 'me's.'

The God Squad

Andy McNab

They were like a band of brothers... 
 
In 1983 Andy McNab was assigned to B Squadron, one of the four Sabre Squadrons of the SAS, and within it to Air Troop, otherwise known as SEVEN TROOP. 
 
This is Andy McNab's gripping account of the time he served in the company of a remarkable group of men - from the day, freshly badged, he joined them in the Malayan jungle, to the day, ten years later, that he handed in his sand-coloured beret and started a new life. The links they forged then bound them inextricably together, but the things they saw and did during that time would take them all to breaking point - and some beyond - in the years that were to follow. He who dares doesn't always win...

Seven Troop

Martin Townsend

Father and son: arguably the most complex of all family relationships. But what happens when your dad is a manic-depressive who paints the front door in the middle of the night and sends good-wishes to Michael Crawford scrawled on a pair of underpants? 
 
Martin Townsend grew up with a father, Ron, who had suffered recurring mental illness since the early 1950s. At the slightest emotional trigger he could turn from a loving and compassionate dad to a restless, dead-eyed depressive or a spiteful, bullying monster. 
 
In The Father I Had, Martin Townsend, editor of the Sunday Express, paints a powerful, often painful portrait of life with his dad. From the soaring, often hilarious 'highs' to the horrific 'lows' of his father's three suicide attempts, he tells a story of pain, courage and resilience and produces a moving and account of a close family nearly torn apart by mental illness.

The Father I Had

Bridget Harrison

You're about to turn thirty, all your friends are getting engaged and pregnant - and your body-clock is ticking. Then you get an offer to move to New York. So you take a chance and break up with your boyfriend - only to land yourself in the singles capital of the world. 
 
When Bridget Harrison arrived in Manhattan to work for America's most famous tabloid, the New York Post, she was in at the deep end from day one. Dispatched by day to cover murders and muggings in the roughest corners of New York, by night she began to write a column about her search for love in a dating shark tank. So far so Sex and the City - until she realised the one man she was falling for also happened to be her boss (and unfortunately this wasn't fiction). 
 
 
THE HIGHS: 
Being sent out to cover your first breaking news story 
Having the chance to go on a new blind date every week 
Realizing you love your editor 
 
THE LOWS: 
Finding no-one you interview can understand your accent 
Going on a new blind date every week 
Realizing you love your editor

Tabloid Love

Jilly Cooper

Pigeons carrying vital messages to and from the beleaguered city during the Siege of Paris; horses and mules struggling through miles of fetid mud to bring ammunition to the front in the Great War; dogs sniffing out mines for the British invasion force in the Second World War - countless brave animals have played their part in the long, cruel history of war. Some have won medals for gallantry - like G.I. Joe, the American pigeon who saved 100 British lives in Italy, and Rob, the black and white mongrel who made over twenty parachute jumps with the SAS. Too many others have died abandoned, in agony and alone, after serving their country with distinction. Jilly Cooper has here written a tribute to the role of animals in wartime. It is a tragic and horrifying story - yet it has its lighter moments too: a hilarious game of musical chairs played on camels during the Desert Campaign; and the budgie who remarked, when carried from a bombed-out East End tenement, 'This is my night out'. This is a vivid and unforgettable record of man's inhumanity to animals, but also an astonishing story of courage, intelligence, devotion and resilience.

Animals In War

Martyn Downer

Sir Howard Elphinstone, dashing hero of the Crimean War, was awarded the Victoria Cross in 1858 aged just twenty-nine. Handpicked by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to be governor to their third son, Prince Arthur, Elphinstone made an uncertain start at court, uncomfortabe within its cliques and clashing frequently with the impassioned Queen. But after Albert's death in 1861, Elphinstone became not only a surrogate father to Arthur, but also Victoria's most trusted confidant. 
 
Elphinstone's diaries and his prolific correspondence with the Queen shed remarkable new light on her complex personality and life at court. His story portrays in vivid detail the bitter rivalries and tragedies which rocked the palace during the Queen's long seclusion following Albert's death. It reveals the shocking effects of Prince Leopold's bleeding attacks, the security alarm caused by Irish republicans, and the truth behind Victoria's most notorious servant, John Brown. 
 
Artist and soldier, bodyguard and diplomat, confidant and spy: Elphinstone is the forgotten hero of the Victorian court. The Queen's Knight restores him to his rightful place at the heart of the most remarkable royal family in British history.

The Queen's Knight

Wendy Holden

Haatchi and Little B tells the inspiring and moving true story of Owen Howkins (also known as Little B, short for 'Buddy') and Haatchi, an Anatolian shepherd dog who was abandoned on a railway line as a puppy and left for dead. 
 
Thankfully, Haatchi was rescued, despite sustaining severe injuries. And so Haatchi, in turn, was able to rescue Owen, at the time an anxious and withdrawn little boy born with a rare genetic disorder, who found it hard to make friends. But Owen fell in love with his new three-legged canine housemate at first sight, and life would never be the same. 
 
The touching story of this dynamic and loveable duo is a life-affirming tale of happiness and friendship.

Haatchi and Little B

David Hall

Fred Dibnah was a man born out of his time. His era should have been the 'magnificent age of British engineering' - the nineteenth century - and his heroes were the great industrial engineers of the period whose prolific innovations and dedicated work ethic inspired a national mood of optimism and captured the hearts of the British public. 
 
Fred Dibnah's Victorian Heroes tells the stories of some of these men - including George and Robert Stephenson, Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Joseph Whitworth - and what it was that made them such inspirational figures to Fred. What were their backgrounds? Where did their drive and vision come from? What sort of people were they at work and at home? And what was their contribution to the history of industry and engineering? 
 
Most of them - like Fred - were colourful, larger-than-life characters for whom no challenge was too great. Taking these fascinating characters as inspiration, Fred Dibnah's Victorian Heroes gets to the very heart of what allowed nineteenth-century Britannia to rule the waves . . .

Fred Dibnah's Victorian Heroes

Robert Kugler

For fans of Nala's World and Arthur, this is an uplifting and unforgettable true story about how the love of a good dog can save your life. 
 
Rob Kugler adopted his chocolate Lab Bella as a puppy - a bundle of fun and love to keep his girlfriend company as he headed off to war. But when Rob's brother died and his relationship fell apart, it was Bella who was there to help heal the wounds, and make Rob's life worth living again. So when Rob was told Bella had cancer - first in her leg, which had to be amputated, and then in her lungs - he was devastated. 
 
With only months of Bella's life left, he knew just what he had to do for his furry best friend. Determined to show her the same unconditional love she had always shown him, Rob decided to give Bella the farewell adventure of her doggy dreams. Criss-crossing the USA from coast to coast, making many new friends along the way, Bella taught Rob never to give up and to live each day as though it's your last. 
 
A heartbreaking but ultimately uplifiting true tale, A Dog Named Beautiful is full of hope, love, tears and laughter. Enjoy the journey. 
_______________ 
 
'Teaches the reader a wealth about the value of making human connections.' FORBES

A Dog Named Beautiful

The true story of the Labrador who taught a Marine to love life again

Sean O'Callaghan

In 1988 IRA terrorist Sean O'Callaghan walked into a Tunbridge Wells police station and gave himself up. Two years later, in a Belfast courtroom, he pleaded guilty to all charges of which he was accused and received a sentence of 539 years. Since being a teenager he had been an active member of the IRA and had risen to be the head of their Southern Command. He was responsible for two murders and many terrorist attacks. He was a linchpin of the organization. 
 
But in 1996, he was released from prison by royal prerogative. For fourteen years he had been the most highly placed informer within the IRA and had fed the Irish Garda with countless pieces of invaluable information. He prevented the assassination of the Prince and Princess of Wales at a London theatre, he sabotaged operations, explained strategy and caused the arrests of many IRA members. He has done more than any individual to unlock the code of silence that governs the IRA's members, and has in effect made it possible to fight the war against the terrorists. Under constant threat of IRA revenge, he now works ceaselessly for peace in Ireland. As he says, 'I hope to use the time available to me now to tell the truth about the IRA. I will go on doing that for as long as it takes. 
 
The Informer is Sean O'Callaghan's story. It is the story of a courageous life lived under the constant threat of discovery and its fatal consequences. It is the story of a very modern hero, who is not without sin but who has done and is continuing to do everything in his power, and at whatever personal cost, to atone for the past.

The Informer

Evan Wright

Generation Kill is about the young men sent to fight their nation's first open-ended war since Vietnam. Despite the flurry of media images to come of the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, you have never really met any of these people, who serve as front-line troops. For whatever reason, the media simply doesn't get them. As we all know, news accounts of the last two wars focused almost exclusively on battlefield imagery of high-tech weapons wreaking astounding destruction, comply with analysis from retired army grandees and other experts, punctuated by the odd heart-warming patriotic sound-bite. The troops themselves play a role in the media's presentation of recent wars rather like extras in The Triumph of the Will. They are everywhere yet somehow invisible. When they speak you get the sense that what they are saying has been carefully scripted. Now Generation Kill tells the soldiers' story in their own words. 
 
The narrative focuses on a platoon of 23 marines, many of them veterans of Afghanistan, whose elite reconnaissance unit spearheaded the blitzkrieg on Iraq. This is the story of young men that have been trained to become ruthless killers. It's about surviving death. It's about taking part in a war many questioned before it even began. 
 
Evan Wright was the only reporter with First Recon, which operated well ahead of most other forces, usually behind enemy lines. They were among the first marines sent into the fight and one of the last units still engaged on the outskirts of Iraq, even after the city centre fell. Generation Kill is not just a combat chronicle but an inside look at how people fighting in war actually experience it. It is both an action narrative like Black Hawk Down and a detailed portrait of a generation at war along the lines of Band of Brothers. It is not a book you are going to forget in a hurry...

Generation Kill

James Hibberd

'Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon has it all. An amazing read.' 
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN 
 
THE UNTOLD STORY OF A GLOBAL OBSESSION DIRECT FROM THE SHOW'S CAST AND CREATORS... 
 
This official, complete history of HBO's Game of Thrones will draw on the author's many long days and nights spent on GOT sets all over the world and his countless interviews with cast and crew, many of which have never been published before. Packed with stunning photographs from the show and from behind the scenes, this is the only book that will be absolutely essential reading for every Game of Thrones fan. 
 
Game of Thrones is the biggest television drama ever to have graced our screens. The epic saga of warring families, huge battles, arduous journeys and dying heroes has captured the hearts and attention of millions of fans across the world. But its conclusion isn't necessarily the end of the story... 
 
James Hibberd has extensively covered the show since breaking the news of its pilot in 2008 and has had more access to the show's top-secret set than any other member of the media. He was in Croatia when Joffrey Baratheon perished; he was in Northern Ireland when Jon Snow desperately fought in the Battle of the Bastards. He has documented every part of the making of the show and has had exclusive access to cast members, writers and directors.

Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon

‘An amazing read’ George R.R. Martin

Harold G Moore

Joseph L. Galloway

'If you want to know what is was like to go to Vietnam as a young American... and find yourself caught in ferocious, remorseless combat with an enemy as courageous and idealistic as you were, then you must read this book. Moore and Galloway have captured the terror and exhilaration, the comradeship and self-sacrifice, the brutality and compassion that are the dark heart of war' THE TIMES 
 
THE MUST READ CLASSIC OF THE VIETNAM WAR 
 
In November 1965, 450 men of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, under the command of Lt.Col. Hal Moore, were dropped by helicopter into a small clearing in the Ia Drang Valley. They were immediately surrounded by 2,000 North Vietnamese soldiers. 
 
Three days later, only two and a half miles away, a sister battalion was chopped to pieces. Together, these actions at the landing zones X-Ray and Albany constituted one of the most savage and significant battles of the Vietnam War. How these men persevered - how they sacrificed themselves for their comrades and never gave up - is both inspiring and devastating. 
 
General Moore and Joseph Galloway, the only journalist on the ground throughout the fighting, have interviewed hundreds of the men who fought there, including the North Vietnamese commanders, to present a picture of soldiers facing the sort of brutal challenge they would have found unimaginable only a few hours earlier. 
 
It is a spellbinding true portrait of warfare at its most visceral and desperate, which reveals to us, as rarely before, the extraordinary resources man can summon in the darkest of hours.

We Were Soldiers Once...And Young

Lewis Alsamari

Aged 17, Lewis Alsamari was conscripted into the Iraqi army. Things went from bad to worse once his superiors discovered his ability to speak English, and Lewis was selected for Saddam's elite, top secret intelligence service, an offer he literally could not refuse. This left him with only one option - to escape from his native land, leaving his family behind him... 
 
Going under the wire of the army compound where he was posted, Lewis was shot in the leg, making his escape - which required a gruelling journey in disguise across the desert at night with a group of Bedouin, at the mercy of ravenous wolves - all the more arduous. Against the odds, Lewis survived this trek, made it across the border into Jordan, and eventually sought asylum the UK, where he had spent his childhood. 
 
Now he had to work out how to rescue his mother, brother and sister, who had been apprehended by security forces and thrown into jail once Lewis's escape became known. The only thing which could help was money and lots of it, so Lewis fraudulently transferred £37,000 from the accounts of William Hill (where he had a temporary job) into his own bank, and wired it to Baghdad in order to pay the necessary bribes. But, of course, it wasn't quite that simple... 
 
Out of Iraq is an exhilarating and terrifying story of one man's escape from one of the harshest regimes of the modern era. It is testament both to the strength of the human spirit and to the extremes we'll go to in order to keep our loved ones safe.

Out of Iraq

John Man

Genghis Khan is one of history's immortals: a leader of genius, driven by an inspiring vision for peaceful world rule. Believing he was divinely protected, Genghis united warring clans to create a nation and then an empire that ran across much of Asia. 
 
Under his grandson, Kublai Khan, the vision evolved into a more complex religious ideology, justifying further expansion. Kublai doubled the empire's size until, in the late 13th century, he and the rest of Genghis’s ‘Golden Family’ controlled one fifth of the inhabited world. Along the way, he conquered all China, gave the nation the borders it has today, and then, finally, discovered the limits to growth. 
 
Genghis's dream of world rule turned out to be a fantasy. And yet, in terms of the sheer scale of the conquests, never has a vision and the character of one man had such an effect on the world. 
 
Charting the evolution of this vision, John Man provides a unique account of the Mongol Empire, from young Genghis to old Kublai, from a rejected teenager to the world’s most powerful emperor.

The Mongol Empire

Genghis Khan, his heirs and the founding of modern China

Sattareh Farman-Farmaian

Sattareh Farman Farmaian, the daughter of a once-powerful and wealthy Iranian prince, was raised and educated in the 1920s and 1930s in a Persian harem compound, along with numerous mothers and more than 30 brothers and sisters. As a young woman, she broke with Muslim tradition and travelled to America, where she became the first Persian to study at the University of Southern California. Her new life in the West fired a vision to lift her own people out of backwardness and poverty, and she returned to Iran to found the Tehran School of Social Work. For more than 20 years, Sattareh and her students waged a war against poverty, disease and overcrowding, and then, soon after the collapse of the Shah's regime, she was forced to flee the country in fear of her life. In this account of her experiences, she provides an insider's view of Iran's journey through the 20th century and of the events which led up to, and followed, the Islamic revolution.

Daughter Of Persia

James Carnac

This memoir was recently discovered and appears to have been written in the 1920s by somone who asserts that he was Jack the Ripper. 
 
This person is James Carnac, this memoir written shortly before his death is an account of his entire life, including a few short months in 1888 when he became the murderer known to posterity as Jack the Ripper. 
 
This book introduces a new suspect for the infamous murders in Whitechapel in 1888. There is information in this book that does not appear to be derived from contemporary newspapers or any other publications and the descriptions of Tottenham in the 1870s, the visits to performances of Jekyll and Hyde, the intricate geography of Whitechapel in 1888 are written with pin-point accuracy. There is also a credible motive given for James becoming the murderer Jack and also a reason for the end of the murders. Given the fact that the author also appear to have knowledge about aspects of the case not in the public arena at the time it could be that this actually is the autobiography of Jack the Ripper. 
 
Ultimately it is up to the reader to decide if they believe the mystery has been solved at last but even if they end up deciding the account to be a work of fiction it would still be one of the very earliest imaginings of the Ripper case, written in the early years of the twentieth century, a fascinating piece of period writing and a worthy addition to the Ripper canon. 
 
Whatever side they come down on there is no question that this book will be a source of much debate.

The Autobiography of Jack the Ripper

Christabel Bielenberg

Following the extraordinary success of her wartime memoirs, The Past Is Myself, Christabel Bielenberg received thousands of letters from readers begging her to describe what happened next. The Road Ahead takes up the story at the moment the first volume left off - with the outbreak of peace. 
 
Germany was devastated by war and its aftermath, while Britain seemed grey and exhausted to Christabel. She was soon appointed the Observer's special correspondent in Germany, and, reunited with her husband, Peter (technically an enemy alien), she joined the struggle for reconciliation with, and the rebuilding of, a defeated nation. It was Peter's near-fatal accident and her own illness which decided the young couple to turn their backs on England and Germany and make a new start farming in Ireland. 
 
Life was harsh at first, but predictably Christabel found humour in the accidents of poverty and the many mishaps of country life. The beautiful scenery of the Wicklow Mountains provided a haven for the family and for the hosts of young people from all over the world who joined them each summer. Christabel became involved with the Peace Women of Northern Ireland and learned as much as she could about the adopted country she had grown to love so passionately. Taking her seventieth birthday as a stopping point for a life that even now, some fourteen further years on, is as rich and full as it ever was, she looks back with characteristic modesty and gratitude. Her readers will be enchanted by this second volume of memoirs, as clear-sighted and generous, as honest, funny, touching and brave as The Past Is Myself.

The Road Ahead

Jeff Bridges

Bernie Glassman

Jeff Bridges is one of the world's most popular actors and his unforgettable performance as The Dude in Coen Brothers film, The Big Lebowski, made him a cult hero. His remarkable career as an actor, performer and songwriter has brought him an Oscar, a Golden Globe and a Critics Choice award. Away from the spotlight, Bridges is a dedicated practitioner of Zen Buddhism and for more than a decade has been close friends with Zen leader Bernie Glassman. It is Glassman who has helped guide Bridges' lessons on the path to enlightenment and the two have spent many hours discussing life, love, the movies, creativity, happiness and death. 
 
With wit, charm and profound insight, Bridges and Glassman discover the Zen in iconic scenes and lines from The Big Lebowski. With honesty and humour, Bridges explores how his Zen practice and his life experience inform one another as he discusses his loving relationship with his parents, his marriage, his highly successful career and his warm connection with his fans.

The Dude and the Zen Master

Alan Johnson

'The best memoir by a politician you will ever read' Philip Collins, The Times 
 
School on the Kings Road, Chelsea in the Swinging 60s, the rock-and-roll years, the race riots; this boy has seen it all. 
________ 
 
Alan Johnson's childhoodwas not so much difficult as unusual, particularly for a man who was destined to become Home Secretary. Not in respect of the poverty, which was shared with many of those living in Britain's post-war slums, but in its transition from being part of a two-parent family to having a single mother and then to no parents at all... 
 
This is essentially the story of two incredible women: Alan's mother, Lily, who battled against poor health, poverty, domestic violence and loneliness to try to ensure a better life for her children; and his sister, Linda, who had to assume an enormous amount of responsibility at a very young age and who fought to keep the family together and out of care when she herself was still only a child. 
 
This Boy is one man's story, but it is also the story of England and the West London slums which are hard to imagine in the capital today. No matter how harsh the details, Alan Johnson writes with a spirit of generous acceptance, of humour and openness which makes his book anything but a grim catalogue of miseries. 
________ 
PRAISE FOR THIS BOY: 
'Moving and unforgettable' Sunday Times 
'Poignant' Telegraph 
'Eloquent' Guardian 
'Wonderful' Spectator 
'Tribute to two strong women' Daily Mail

This Boy

Tom Fletcher

Danny Jones

Harry Judd

Dougie Poynter

The intimate - and surprising - autobiography of Britain's most adored band 
 
 Prepare to meet the real McFly … 
 
 In 2003, Tom Fletcher, Danny Jones, Harry Judd and Dougie Poynter came together and formed what would become one of the most popular and successful bands in the UK. Just teenagers at the time, they were catapulted into the limelight and had to adapt quickly to their new-found fame – and everything that came with it. Now, at last, they have decided to tell their story, in full and revealing detail. 
 
 Speaking with candour and their trademark humour, Tom, Danny, Harry and Dougie share both the stories of their own lives and that of McFly. They give their personal insights into their contrasting childhoods, the individual paths that led them to the band, the struggles they have each overcome, their love lives and, of course, their music. 
 
 Packed with previously untold stories, a lot of laughter and the occasional tear, Unsaid Things offers a privileged look into the lives of four guys who started out as bandmates and became best friends. Their unique camaraderie radiates from every page and by the end of the book, you’ll know them almost as well as they know each other … 
 
 Tom Fletcher, Danny Jones, Harry Judd and Dougie Poynter have been together as McFly since 2003. They hold the record for being the youngest band to have a debut No 1 album in the UK. Their hits include: 'Five Colours in Her Hair', 'All About You', 'Please, Please' and 'Shine a Light'. They are one of the biggest bands in the UK.

McFly - Unsaid Things...Our Story

Leslie Morgan Steiner

When Leslie met her husband Conor she felt she'd found the man of her dreams. Smart, attentive and devoted to her, he was all she'd ever hoped for and it wasn't long before they were married. 
 
But worrying cracks began to appear in this seemingly perfect relationship. For whilst Conor could sometimes make Leslie feel loved and cherished, at other times his abrupt, violent mood swings left her deeply troubled. And as the violence escalated, Leslie felt trapped in a world of terror - a world from which she knew she had to escape. 
 
Harrowing and yet compulsively readable, Crazy Love throws a spotlight on a brutal, hidden world of abuse. As it takes you on a rollercoaster ride through hell, it tells the story of how one woman was forced to confront a painful truth: the man she loved seemed determined to kill her.

Crazy Love

Jo Bailey-Merritt

When Sam Bailey-Merritt was just two years old, almost overnight he lost the ability to communicate or function. His mother, Jo, was at a loss as to what to do as she saw her son grow increasingly isolated and begin to suffer from uncontrollable meltdowns. Eventually, Sam was diagnosed with autism. 
 
Sam's condition continued to worsen and, just when Jo had all but given up hope of being able to help him, the family went on a day trip to a nearby miniature pig farm. Sam immediately bonded with a tiny ginger piglet called Chester, who stood sad and alone, apart from the rest of the litter. The connection between the boy and the animal was immediate and their unusual friendship blossomed from the moment the family brought Chester home. The tiny pig refused to leave Sam's side - it was as if he knew that Sam needed a friend. And, for the first time in five years, Jo saw her son really laugh. 
 
While Sam's confidence grew, Chester grew in a different way: the micro pig that was supposed to become the size of a Cocker Spaniel in fact ballooned to three times that size - with hilarious consequences for the family! Chester has turned Sam's life around. He now has the ability to communicate his feelings, make friends and is caring and kind towards others. 
 
Sam and Chester is the heart-warming story of how a teacup-sized ginger pig helped to transform the life of a boy with autism. It is the emotional story of a mother's fight to win back her son.

Sam and Chester

How a Mischievous Pig Transformed the Life of My Autistic Son

Romesh Ranganathan

Confronted by the realities of adulthood, Romesh Ranganathan must face an uncomfortable truth: this is not quite how he imagined it. 
 
Watching his friends descend into middle age, his waist thicken with every meal and his finances dwindle to fund his family’s middle class aspirations, Romesh reflects on the demands of daily life and the challenges of adulting in the modern world. 
 
As he reluctantly concludes that he is indeed a grown man, Rom wrestles with the greater questions that threaten his being: Could I save my family in a crisis? Do I possess the skills to assemble flatpack furniture? Am I too old for streetwear? Is it alright to parent my kids through the medium of Fortnite? Is celibacy the secret to a passionate marriage? 
 
From one of the countries most beloved comedians and author of the Sunday Times bestseller STRAIGHT OUTTA CRAWLEY comes the hilarious and painfully accurate dissection of what it really means to grow up.

As Good As It Gets

Life Lessons from a Reluctant Adult

Pauline Collins

In 1964, in a bare room in Waterloo, a young actress gave her baby for adoption.They were to be parted for more than twenty years.The actress was Pauline Collins.The baby was her daughter Louise. 
 
Letter to Louise is a poignant, yet often funny, memoir of the months leading up to that day in Waterloo.In it, Pauline Collins recalls the idyllic time spent in rep in Killarney, playing in a different play every night, seven days a week, living in digs - and falling in love.After the season had finished, she found she was pregnant.Frightened and alone now, she decided to have the baby, hiding the fact from family, agents and friends. 
 
Going to ground, she waited for the baby to be born in a home for unmarried mothers, buoyed up by the kindness and humour of the other residents, and the nuns who cared for them.Yet she soon came to realise that she had no choice but to give her daughter away. 
 
Reluctantly she got on with life, finally achieving success and personal happiness.But she never forgot Louise and their story has the ultimate happy ending - the day they were reunited twenty-two years later.

Letter To Louise

Deric Longden

The little cat Deric Longden saw sitting forlornly on an upturned bucket belonged to the neighbours, but somehow when it began to rain it seemed only natural to bring him inside. Once there he slipped so easily into Deric and Aileen's lives that there was an unspoken agreement that he had found his real home. Little did he know that he had entered the Longden world, in which the unexpected (almost) always happens. . . 
 
Aileen being Aileen, it was probably inevitable that sooner or later the kitten would be trapped in the refrigerator. And Deric being Deric, the obvious way to thaw him back to life was to make a little coat for him out of a shrunken thermal vest. Thus the cat who came in from the cold got his name - Thermal - and joined the wonderful cast of characters in the ongoing Longden saga.

The Cat Who Came In From The Cold

Jack Charlton

'I know who you are: you're the Boss.' The words of His Holiness Pope John Paul II, on meeting Jack Charlton and his Republic of Ireland team before the 1990 World Cup Finals. 
 
Indeed Jack Charlton was the Boss - a man whose strength of character drove him to achievements beyond the scope of his own natural talents or those of the teams who played under him. 
 
His book tells of his childhood in a Northumberland mining village and how he escaped a life down the mine by joining Leeds United, where he played for twenty years. As a footballer, he touched the pinnacle in England's legendary 1966 World Cup winning team. As a manager, he dragged the Republic of Ireland from the backwaters of international football to compete with the world's best. As a man, he was noted for his forthright personality - one whose views were as honest as they were respected. 
 
This is his story, the life of a man who specialised in the improbable, told in his own words.

Jack Charlton: The Autobiography

David Merron

As Hitler’s bombs threatened London during World War Two, eight-year-old David Merron was removed from his family and close-knit Jewish community in the East End and evacuated to the safety of the English countryside. 
 
Placed into the car of strangers, life was sometimes unpredictable and lonely. But, with time, the rural world became an exciting adventure playground in which he flourished. 
 
Set against a dramatic wartime backdrop, Goodbye East End is about the conflict between a London boy’s unexpected love of the countryside and his guilt about not missing home as much as he might. It’s the moving story of a childhood experience that changed a young boy’s life forever.

Goodbye East End

An Evacuee's Story

Johnny Kingdom

When a farmer on Exmoor found a frightened and badly injured red deer calf hanging by the leg from a barbed wire fence, he knew there was only one man he could call. Johnny Kingdom took Bambi home and became her surrogate mother, nursing her through the night after the dangerous operation to amputate her now infected limb. 
 
Against the odds, Bambi survived and, as she grew bigger, became a part of Johnny's family, taking over his garden and developing a taste for custard creams (and Johnny's wife's roses). But it wasn't just Johnny and his family who loved Bambi - friends, neighbours and even complete strangers would occasionally drop by with tasty treats they thought she might enjoy. But the doe in his back garden was by no means Johnny's only contact with the red deer of Exmoor. Over the years he followed the wild herds over moor and farmland as the seasons changed, filming every detail of their lives and trying to understand what Bambi was missing out on. 
 
Millions of viewers fell in love with Bambi during Johnny's BBC television series and accompanying book, but now he tells her full story. Sometimes poignant and sometimes hilarious, this is both the tale of all of Exmoor's wild deer and the story of how one very special animal came to live a very different life.

Bambi and Me

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