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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Geraldine Bedell

"We didn't intend to build a house. We just wanted to move - somewhere a bit bigger, with more of a garden: commonplace enough ambitions, especially for families with young children, especially in Britain, where property is wealth, and so, in some vague and unexamined sense, identity. Not that we were thinking about anything like that." 
 
 
The true and very funny story of how journalist, Geraldine Bedell and her husband Charlie Leadbeater, with no savings and no knowledge of architecture nearly make themselves bankrupt in an attempt to build their dream home. Far more than that, it's about the ultimate fantasy - creating your own made to measure living space. 
 
The Handmade House tells the story, alternately comical and horrifying, of one family's ambitious and inept attempt to build the perfect home.

The Handmade House

A Love Story Set in Concrete

Robert Penn

An exuberant tale of craftsmanship for nature lovers and rugged outdoor types everywhere 
 
Robert Penn cut down an ash tree to see how many things could be made from it. After all, ash is the tree we have made the greatest and most varied use of over the course of human history. Journeying from Wales across Europe and Ireland to the USA, Robert finds that the ancient skills and knowledge of the properties of ash, developed over millennia making wheels and arrows, furniture and baseball bats, are far from dead. The book chronicles how the urge to understand and appreciate trees still runs through us all like grain through wood.

The Man Who Made Things Out of Trees

Carol Ann Lee

Otto Frank was the father of the most famous girl of the 20th Century. It was he who found her diaries after her death and his determination to see them published around the world. This is the first time his story has been told. 
 
Born into a prosperous Jewish family in Berlin, his life was a portrait in miniature of the century: decorated after the Battle of the Somme, forced to flee Germany in the 1930s, betrayed and imprisoned by the Nazis in the Holocaust and finally gaining recognition bybearing witness to the century's horrors though the writings of his young daughter. 
 
Carol Ann Lee has written a powerful biography of an extraordinary man's life caught up in history.

The Hidden Life of Otto Frank

Arthur Parkinson

Most of us want a dog, or a cat, or a pony when we are young &ndash; but for Arthur Parkinson, it was always hens. Growing up in an ex-mining town in Nottinghamshire, the other kids in the playground called him 'Chicken Boy'. The quiet fulfilment of keeping hens became his sanctuary, a tonic for mental and physical health, a connection with his family and the natural world. Illustrated with Arthur's own characterful watercolours and photographs of his &lsquo;girls&rsquo;, Chicken Boy is a one-of-a-kind memoir of a life in nature.

Chicken Boy

My Life With Hens

Callum Robinson

Ingrained is a love letter to trees, timber and craftsmanship – and to finding your own voice. 
The eldest son of a Master Woodworker, Callum Robinson spent his childhood absorbing craft lessons in his father’s rural Scottish workshop. As he grew older his passion for creating exquisite bespoke objects led him to establish his own workshop; to chase ever bigger and more commercial projects, to business meetings, bright lights, and to losing touch with his roots. Until the devastating loss of one major job threatened to bring it all crashing down. Faced with the end of his business, his team and everything he had worked so hard to build, he was forced to question what mattered most. 
Blending memoir and nature writing at its finest, Ingrained is an uplifting meditation on the joys and challenges of working with your hands in our modern age, on inheritance, community, and the beauty of the natural world.

Ingrained

The making of a craftsman

Raynor Winn

Nature holds the answers for Raynor and her husband Moth. After walking 630 homeless miles along The Salt Path, living on the windswept and wild English coastline; the cliffs, the sky and the chalky earth now feel like their home. 
 
Moth has a terminal diagnosis, but against all medical odds, he seems revitalised in nature. Together on the wild coastal path, with their feet firmly rooted outdoors, they discover that anything is possible. 
 
Now life beyond the Salt Path awaits and they come back to four walls, but the sense of home is illusive and returning to normality is proving difficult - until an incredible gesture by someone who reads their story changes everything. 
 
A chance to breathe life back into a beautiful farmhouse nestled deep in the Cornish hills; rewilding the land and returning nature to its hedgerows, becomes their saving grace and their new path to follow. 
 
The Wild Silence is a story of hope triumphing over despair, of lifelong love prevailing over everything. It is a luminous account of the human spirit's instinctive connection to nature, and how vital it is for us all.

The Wild Silence

Brendan O'Carroll

The first and only official Mrs Brown's Boys book, Mrs Brown's Family Handbook uniquely takes us into the wonderful world of Britain's favourite potty-mouthed mother and housewife. 
 
Packed with tips for running the perfect home - why every mammy's secret weapon is a tea towel; how to clean up Granddad - as well as contributions from members of the extended family - Dermot's Guide to Farting; Winnie's Joy of Seks - Mrs Brown dispenses advice in her own inimical fecking style. 
 
The perfect gift for the house proud and the slovenly, Mrs Brown's Family Handbook should offend all who receive it.

Mrs Brown's Family Handbook

James Wesley Rawles

This is the definitive guide on how to prepare for any crisis, from global financial collapse to a flu pandemic. 
 
It would only take one unthinkable event to disrupt our way of life. If there is a terrorist attack, a flu pandemic, or sharp currency devaluation, you may be forced to fend for yourself in ways you've never imagined. Where would you get water? How would you communicate with relatives? What would you use for fuel? 
 
Survivalist expert James Wesley, Rawles, editor of SurvivalBlog.com and a former US Army Intelligence officer, shares the essential tools and skills you will need for your family to survive, including how to find and build a retreat, store food, supply power, rear animals, administer medicine, barter, and defend your family. 
 
'Save those wine corks. Burned cork makes quick and cheap face camouflage.' 
'Store only foods with minimal spices. When you are surrounded by starving people, just heating up a can of spicy chili con carne could be a death warrant.' 
 
'If you are on a budget, you might get away with a good-quality bolt-action rifle...'

How to Survive The End Of The World As We Know It

From Financial Crisis to Flu Epidemic

Matthew Parris

The downloadable abridged audiobook edition of Matthew Paris' charming tale, A Castle in Spain, read by the author himself. 
 
Walking in the Pyrenees, twenty years ago, Matthew Parris and his sister came upon a magnificent medieval house. It had crests and a date - 1559 - chiselled into the stone: its walls and foundations were intact but the ancient oak ridge timber supporting the roof had split and was ready to collapse into the rotten floors beneath. Renovation would be an epic undertaking - a massive investment of time, money and emotion. And, the locals warned, nobody ever left L'Avenc with any money. A few years ago, Matthew (with his family's help) went back and bought the place. Astonishing and arguably idiotic, his decision resulted in a phenomenal amount of hard work, and this hugely enjoyable audiobook. Inspirational, instructional and utterly irresistible, this is the story of one man's dream to turn a forgotten ruin into his very own Castle in Spain.

A Castle in Spain

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