Michael Symmons Roberts’s fourth book of poetry, Corpus, was the winner of the 2004 Whitbread Poetry Award, and was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize, the Forward Prize, and the Griffin International Prize. His sixth collection, Drysalter, was the winner of both the Forward Prize and the Costa Poetry Prize in 2013. He collaborated with Paul Farley on Edgelands (Cape/Vintage) and will do so again in The Deaths of the Poets (Cape, 2017). He has also worked many times with the composer James MacMillan. He has published two novels, and is Professor of Poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Michael Symmons Roberts

PublicationStatus

Brand

Format

AgeRange

Series

Imprint

CategoryLabel

Michael Bublé

Michael Bublé is currently the biggest male solo artist in the world. His albums have sold more than 25 million copies worldwide. And his live shows fill the world's biggest stadiums to capacity wherever he plays. Now for the first time he has granted his millions of fans an intimate glimpse into the life of the man they adore. 
 
Along with creating great music in the studio, performing on stage is pure paradise for Michael. He is that rare thing - an entertainer of the highest order, worshipped around the globe. Here he puts his words on paper, revealing what really makes him tick, as well as hundreds of gorgeous, exclusively shot photographs from all aspects of his life. 
 
A lot of people are going to be very happy to find Michael Bublé in their stocking on Christmas morning 2011...

Onstage, Offstage

(The Official Illustrated Memoir)

Maggie Campbell-Culver

Given the extent of his influence on 17th-century life, and his lasting impact on the British landscape it is remarkable that no book has been written before about John Evelyn. He was a longstanding friend of Samuel Pepys (who wrote of him, ' A most excellent person he is, and must be allowed a little for conceitedness; but he may well be so, being a man so much above others.'), a founder-member of the Royal Society and a prolific writer and diarist. He was an early advocate of the garden city but his most important work was Sylva: a Discourse of Forest Trees. Sylva was presented to the Royal Society to promote the planting of timber trees 'for the supply of the Navy, the employment and advantage of the poor as well as the ornamenting of the nation.' He was responsible for the first great raft of tree-planting and for a great influx of tree introductions to Britain. 
 
Maggie Campbell-Culver's book, like Sylva, has at its core a section detailing the characteristics, history and uses of 33 trees incorporating the advice Evelyn gave and demonstrating its relevance still in the 20th-century. Not only was Evelyn probably the first horticultural writer to show an appreciation of the aesthetic benefits of trees in our landscape, he is shown to be a founder-father of the modern conservation movement.

A Passion For Trees

The Legacy Of John Evelyn

James Hogg

Robert Sellers

Spontaneous, hilarious, irrepressible and, of course, trailblazing - Kenny Everett was revolutionary in television and radio comedy. Chris Evans, Chris Moyles, Rob Brydon and Steve Wright have all cited Kenny as a huge influence on their work - even the great Spike Milligan called him a genius. It was Kenny who developed the radio show format with which we are so familiar today: a mix of music, jingles, funny voices and sound effects. When he seamlessly made the move to television in the seventies, he created unforgettable characters such as Sid Snot, Cupid Stunt and Marcel Wave. 
 
Rarely seen without a smile on his face in public, in reality, Kenny was a deeply insecure man who suffered severe bouts of depression. He also struggled with his sexuality, only coming out to the public in 1985. Diagnosed with HIV in 1987, Kenny died in 1995. 
 
This in-depth and affectionate biography has been fully authorised by Kenny's family and contains original interviews with Kenny's sister, Kate and with his former wife, Lee, as well as entertainment figures such as Barry Cryer, Cliff Richard, Chris Tarrant and Paul Gambaccini. Packed with fabulous stories about the highs and lows of Kenny's life, his great friendships with The Beatles and Freddie Mercury, this is a book that any fan of comedy and entertainment must read.

Hello, Darlings!

The Authorized Biography of Kenny Everett

Stanislaus Kennedy

In Seasons of Hope, the follow up to her bestselling Day by Day, Sister Stan offers words of wisdom to calm the mind and refocus our energies. Through verse and inspirational quotations from many enlightened figures, she offers us a chance to step away from this frantic world – to stop, to look, to think – and be open to new possibilities. 
 
 Also included here are contributions on a range of subjects, such as the gift of life, compassion, meditation and the soul, from influential figures such as writer and playwright, Michael Harding, poets Theo Dorgan and Eavan Boland, and social campaigner, Ruairi McKiernan – each one offering a thought-provoking and unique perspective on our world.

Seasons of Hope

Eric Haney

The story of America's elite military unit told by one of its founding members 
 
They are the U.S. Army's most élite top secret strike force. They dominate the modern battlefield, but you won't hear about their heroics on CNN. No headlines can reveal their top-secret missions; and no book has ever taken readers inside-until now. Here, a founding member of Delta Force takes us behind the veil of secrecy and into the action-to reveal the never-before-told story of 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-D (Delta Force). 
 
INSIDE DELTA FORCE 
 
In this dramatic behind-the-scenes chronicle, Eric Haney, one of the founding members of Delta Force, takes us inside this legendary unit from the beginning. Here, for the first time, are details of the grueling selection process, designed to break the strongest of men, that singles out the perfect soldier, and then the years of training that turns him into the ultimate modern warrior that is the Delta Force Operator. 
 
From fighting guerrilla warfare in Honduras to close VIP protection in Beirut, from rescuing missionaries in Sudan to the abortive attempt to extract American hostages from Tehran, and leading the way onto the island of Grenada, Eric Haney captures the daring and discipline that distinguish the men of Delta Force. Inside Delta Force puts the reader right at the heart of the action and gives a breathtaking glimpse of a life that is as driven, inspiring and terrifying as they come. 
 
Eric L. Haney, Command Sergeant Major, USA (Ret.), served for more than twenty years in the United States Army's most demanding combat units: as a combat infantryman, a Ranger, and ultimately as a founding member of Delta Force. In his retirement, Haney has protected princes, presidents and CEOs alike.

Inside Delta Force

Ian Gregg

When Ian Gregg was just a boy he joined his father at work selling pies from his van to miners’ wives around Newcastle. Now retired, he can look back on a business that began as a husband-and-wife team in the 1930s, and survived a world war and two major recessions to become our favourite bakery, beloved by everyone from children to office workers to soldiers overseas. 
 
Ian Gregg led the family firm as it grew, employing generations of families from around Newcastle and then becoming a public company with bakeries in Scotland and across the North, and now with shops on every high street. This is a story of extraordinary success, but it is also a triumphant tale of how doing right by your people makes for great business. Bucking every trend, Greggs have always put their customers, employees and local communities before quick profits for directors and shareholders. Their astounding record of charitable works includes hardship grants, an environment fund, sponsorship of the North East Children’s Cancer run and over £1 million raised annually for Children in Need. 
 
Ian Gregg will donate all of his royalties and Greggs plc will donate all its profits from the sale of this book to the Greggs Foundation to help fund more Breakfast Clubs for children.

Bread: The Story of Greggs

Robert Crampton

From rom coms to wrestling and fatherhood to fist fights, Robert Crampton's How to Be a Beta Male is a brilliantly funny and sometimes moving insight into being a modern-day bloke. 
 
Robert Crampton has been writing his Beta Male column for The Times since 2001. A much-loved weekly insight into modern masculinity – whatever that might mean – Beta Male strives to unlock the secrets of contemporary relationships in all their frequent glory, occasional frustration and on-going complexity. While by his own admission totally failing in this task, Crampton is at any rate amusing as he goes about his business, as his legions of loyal fans would attest. 
 
How to be a Beta Male is a carefully curated selection, bursting with observational nuggets on the minutiae of daily domestics and disasters in the Crampton household, and offering the very best of a sixteen-year-long account of what it is to be a beta male married to an alpha female. From his attempts at DIY to disciplining their children to trying once in a while to put his foot down to getting involved in a punch-up in the street in her defence, Robert continues to fail to impress his wife but always delights his readers. 
 
It's a very smart, extremely funny and yet surprisingly sensitive exploration of the trials, tribulations – and, ultimately, triumphs – of not being young, free and single.

How to Be a Beta Male

Bear Grylls

Bear Grylls is no stranger to extremes. During a three-year stint in the SAS he was involved in a horrific parachuting accident in Africa and broke his back in three places. Months of rehabilitation followed but, never losing sight of his childhood dream of climbing Everest, Bear went on to become the youngest Briton ever to reach the summit and survive. It was a close-run thing, however, as during the descent he was almost killed in a crevasse, his life saved only by his team-mate and a rope. In 2003 Bear completed another world-record-breaking expedition, leading his team through freezing spray and icebergs across the North Atlantic Ocean in a small inflatable boat. More drama followed as Bear, a karate black belt, set out to show the viewers of Channel 4 what it is really like to complete the gruelling basic training of the Foreign Legion. 
 
Now, in Born Survivor which accompanies a brand new eight-part series for Channel 4, the world's ultimate survivor shows us how to stay alive in the most unforgiving conditions on Earth. From crossing piranha-infested rivers and finding fresh food to building bush fires and fighting off grizzly bears - all manner of survival techniques from our most dangerous environments are covered. So, whether you find yourself stranded on a desert island in the Pacific, lost in the Lake District, or stuck in the snow on Greenland, once you've read this book, you too will be able to beat the elements and survive the wild.

Born Survivor: Bear Grylls

Lucy Irvine

Eighteen years later, in 1999, Lucy took her three children to the farthest corner of the Solomons to live for a year on remote Pigeon Island. This time the invitation had come from an intrepid eighty-year-old, Diana Hepworth, who, in 1947, set sail from England and embarked on a hazardous journey to find a faraway paradise where she and her husband Tom could raise a family. 
 
Faraway is the fascinating tale of two extraordinary worlds - 'primitive' and modern 'colonial' - in which tragedy, heroism, danger and pure joy combine in one remarkable story. This is a classic account by a writer who has dug deep into her psyche to illuminate the darkest reaches of our own.

Faraway

Les Pringle

This book has been re-issued as Dial 999! ISBN 9780552165310. 
 
Card-playing corpses, unfaithful husbands and 'flying' ladies - life as an ambulance driver in the 1970s was certainly varied ... 
 
At the age of twenty-three, Les Pringle decided to escape from office life, broaden his horizons and become an ambulance driver. Little did he realize how broad those horizons would turn out to be. 
 
Filled with warmth and humour, Blue Lights and Long Nights takes us back to a time when lonely old ladies could call 999 and have a cup of tea waiting when the drivers turned up for a chat; when learning to drive the ambulance meant going out for one test drive and managing not to hit a pedestrian; and every day brought a glimpse into other people's lives. 
 
Gripping, poignant and darkly funny, Blue Lights and Long Nights is an affectionate, warm-hearted look at a world gone by.

Blue Lights and Long Nights

Patrick Robinson

Daniel Topolski

WINNER OF THE FIRST WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK AWARD Strikingly reminiscent of Chariots of Fire, this classic bestseller tells the story of the sporting event which shook both Oxford University and its Boat Club to the very foundations during the harsh winter of 1986/7. 
 
A group of American students arrives at Oxford, hoping to put some steel into a Boat Race crew still reeling from their recent humiliating defeat at the hands of Cambridge. But disagreements over training methods soon bring to a head a bitter clash between the elected President of the Dark Blues and a fiery-tempered rower from California. 
 
Much more than the race is at stake in this clash between the amateur sporting tradition of the Boat Race and New World big-star sportsmanship. In the resulting battle, which made headline news worldwide, the rebels, having failed to remove the Boat Club President, pull out six weeks before the race. 
 
Can Oxford Coach Topolski, against all odds, mould an inexperienced and demoralized reserve crew of no-hopers into a winning team?

True Blue: The Oxford Boat Race Mutiny

June Vendall Clark

Starlings Laughing is a vivid memoir of life during the waning phase of colonial Africa. June Vendall Clark came to love passionately the wildlife, people and land of Southern Africa during the forty-three years she spent there. Living with her philandering husband, Robert Kay, on Far Lamorna, a farm in the Rhodesian bush, June surrounded herself with animals, befriended the local Africans and steeped herself in tribal legends. Despite the hardships of farm life and a stormy marriage, the magical quality of the land itself, reflected in the beauty of the changing seasons and in the wild animals, gave her a sense of purpose and belonging. 
 
On a whim, Robert decreed the move to the remote Okavango delta on the edge of the Kalahari Desert. Shaku Zulu, a converted army surplus amphibious transporter, made an eccentric but practical home and for eight years they organised safaris, hunted crocodiles for a living and learned the practical lessons of survival in the wild. June became foster mother to lion cubs and other orphan animals, including a serval kitten, a jackal and a buffalo calf – ‘all of which either died or bit people’. 
 
It was an enthralling but difficult existence. On top of endless financial problems, there were tropical diseases, terrifying encounters with killer lions and crocodiles and the final disintegration of the marriage to contend with. But then Robert and June found common cause in a battle to curb the random slaughter of wild animals, mostly by visiting ‘sportsmen’. Decades in advance of today’s concern for conservation, they embarked on a campaign to persuade local hunting tribes to create the Moremi Wildlife Reserve. 
 
This, however, is not just another animal book. Beautifully written, in the tradition of Isak Dinesen’s Out of Africa and Elspeth Huxley’s The Flame Trees of Thika, Starlings Laughing is the richly rewarding chronicle of a courageous woman’s extraordinary times, told with honesty and humour.

Starlings Laughing

David Hall

In 2004, after felling his last chimney and retiring from steeplejacking, Fred took to the road on his beloved traction engine for the BBC series Made in Britain. Travelling the length and breadth of the country, the intention was to seek out the remarkable achievements of the craftsmen, engineers, inventors and industrial workers whose endeavour made engines like Fred's possible. It was a journey that took him to Britain's most iconic engineering marvels as well as less familiar sites: from the Forth Bridge and the Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge to Europe's last deep-working iron ore mine in Cumbria and a local castings workshop in Bo'ness. 
 
This behind-the-scenes account of that ambitious journey is made all the more remarkable by Fred's heroic efforts to complete it while suffering from terminal cancer. It is not only a glorious testament to our nation's industrial achievements but also a story of the friendships, unfailing courage and determination of the nation's favourite steeplejack.

Fred Dibnah - Made in Britain

John Irving

John Irving's memoir begins with his account of the distinguished career and medical writings of the novelist's grandfather Dr Frederick C. Irving, a renowned obstetrician and gynaecologist, and includes Mr Irving's incisive history of abortion politics in the United States. But My Movie Business focuses primarily on the thirteen years John Irving spent adapting his novel The Cider House Rules for the screen - for four different directors. 
 
Mr Irving also writes about the failed effort to make his first novel, Setting Free the Bears, into a movie, about two of the films that were made from his novels (but not from his screenplays), The World According to Garp and The Hotel New Hampshire; about his slow progress at shepherding his screenplay of A Son of the Circus into production. 
 
Not least, and in addition to its qualities as a memoir - anecdotal, comic, affectionate and candid - My Movie Business is an insightful essay on the essential differences between writing a novel and writing a screenplay.

My Movie Business

Dennis Smith

When disaster struck at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, Dennis Smith was among the first to arrive on the scene. Report from Ground Zero is his insider's account of the heroic efforts of the firefighters, police and emergency workers who rushed to downtown New York to face the greatest challenge of their lives. 
 
In all, 343 firefighters gave their lives. Entire companies were lost. Among the dead were a father and son; the department's beloved chaplain; commanders and rookies. Smith, author of the classic bestseller Report from Engine Company 82 and once described as 'the Poet Laureate of firefighters' by the New York Post, tells their stories and those of their families, the camaraderie in their companies and the massive recovery efforts following the catastrophe. 
 
As the world tries to come to terms with the horror of what happened, the firefighters' courage and fortitude in the face of enormous personal danger and bereavement offers a beacon of hope and redemption. Report from Ground Zero is a tribute to those heroes for our troubled times.

Report From Ground Zero

Charlie Oatway

Charlie Oatway was born into a family who were often in prison and always on the wrong side of the law. Unable to learn his lessons in school, Charlie was soon involved in petty crime and it seemed his life would follow that of his dad and uncles. He managed to become a professional footballer, but when he was sent to jail himself, it seemed that there was no turning back for this bad lad either. 
 
Tackling Life is the story of how Charlie managed to turn his life around. Even though trouble was always just around the corner, his fighting spirit made him a success on the football pitch. And after becoming captain of Brighton and Hove Albion, Charlie went public with his problems with reading and writing. His book tells how people can be inspired and educated through the power of football.

Tackling Life

Goldie Hawn

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 
In A Lotus Grows in the Mud, Goldie Hawn takes us on an inspiring odyssey and, with her trademark effervescent humour, reveals the lessons she's learned and the wisdom she's gained along the way. This is Goldie's chance to talk about everything from anger and fear, to love, compassion, friendship, and the many challenges she's faced in her career. 
 
First recalling her early days as the little girl from suburbia who longed to be a ballerina but felt like an ugly duckling, Goldie then takes us on a whirlwind tour through her go-go dancing years in 1960s New York, her phenomenal success on TV's Rowan &amp; Martin's Laugh-in, Hollywood stardom and her extraordinary experiences in films such as the Oscar-winning Cactus Flower, Swing Shift, and Private Benjamin. She also speaks about her relationship with her family - partner Kurt Russell, her children Kate Hudson, Oliver Hudson and Wyatt Russell, and her stepson Boston. 
 
Written with compassion and integrity, A Lotus Grows in the Mud is an insightful and inspiring look back at a life well lived by a woman well loved.

A Lotus Grows In The Mud

Wayne Johnston

I am foreborn of spud runts who fled the famines of Ireland in the 1830s, not a man or woman among them more than five foot two, leaving behind a life of beggarment and setting sail for what since Malory were called the Happy Isles . . .' 
 
So begins Baltimore's Mansion, Wayne Johnston's story of his grandfather Charlie, his father Arthur and of the small community of Ferryland on Newfoundland's Avalon Peninsula, founded as a Catholic community by Lord Baltimore in the 1620s. Charlie, a fisherman and blacksmith, is an ardent Newfoundland nationalist. His son Arthur, forced from boyhood to fish the freezing seas with his father, vows never to earn his living from Newfoundland's dangerous waters, and leaves the island in the heady months leading to the fateful 1948 referendum held to decide Newfoundland's future. While Arthur is away Charlie dies and Newfoundland cedes its independence to Canada, plunging Arthur into a lifelong battle with the personal demons that haunted the end of their relationship. 
 
In 1981, aged 23, Wayne Johnston himself leaves Newfoundland and old patterns threaten to repeat themselves. At times harrowing, at others both moving and funny, Baltimore's Mansions speaks to us all about the hardships, blessings and power of family relationships, of leaving home and returning.

Baltimore's Mansion

Will Davies

When Will Davies discovered the manuscript for Somme Mud he knew he had found a lost treasure. Private Lynch's powerful, personal story of his time in the trenches of the Somme has become a classic. 
 
In this new book, Will Davies meticulously follows in the footsteps of Lynch and his battalion, the 45th - from their long route marches to lice ridden billets, into the frontline and seeing action at such infamous battles as Messines, Dernancourt, Stormy Trench and Villers Bretonneux, and on the last great push to final victory after August 1918. 
 
The author assesses the impact Lynch and those like him had both on the battlefield and in the greater context of the war on the Western Front. Written in a lively and accessible style, it sheds light on the campaigns and offensives, the weapons and the equipment, the food, the living conditions and the neglected minutiae of war and in so doing brings to life the young men who sacrificed their youth over 90 years ago.

In The Footsteps of Private Lynch

John O'Farrell

A doctor in America has just invented a 'sperm sorting machine'. At least that's what he claimed when his receptionist burst into the office to find him doing something peculiar with the Hoover attachment. Apparently the system used for separating the male and female sperm is remarkably simple. A sample is placed in the petri dish with a microscopic pile of household items on a tiny staircase. All the sperm that go straight past without picking anything up are obviously boys. 
 
John O'Farrell's first collection of columns GLOBAL VILLAGE IDIOT was a huge success prompting fulsome praise from such major public figures as the Queen Mother, Roy Jenkins and Cardinal Hume. Sadly, since their deaths, their glowing endorsements cannot be officially verified. So here instead is another collection of funny, satirical essays on a hundred and one 21st century subjects. Read how the government plans to introduce 'Santa loans' that will leave school children £10,000 in debt for all the presents that used to be free from Father Christmas. Learn how the EU is being expanded to include Narnia. And did you know that American war planes now have a little sticker on the back saying 'How's my bombing?' with an 0800 number to call if they blow up any Muslim country in a discourteous of aggressive manner . . .

I Blame The Scapegoats

Jay Nussbaum

In the tradition of The Celestine Prophecy and Jonathan Livingston Seagull, THE BLUE ROAD TO ATLANTIS is an inspirational retelling of Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. This is a gently humorous and ultimately touching story told from the perspective of a remora who is travelling with his mentor, a wise and beautiful marlin, to Atlantis in order to save the lives of all the fish in the ocean. En route to Atlantis, the marlin is hooked by a fisherman, who turns out to be Hemingway's character from The Old Man and the Sea. As the marlin struggles for survival, he ponders the meaning of life, the importance of love, friendship and forgiveness, the power of fear and the importance of following one's dreams at all costs. His thoughts encourage readers to 'go with the current' by accepting the ebb and flow of life and not fighting against our instinct and our intuition, but rather following the current of our heart and soul to happiness and contentment.

The Blue Road To Atlantis

Bruce Forsyth

Bruce Forsyth, the consummate performer and much-loved face of British entertainment, shares his story of a remarkable life lived to the full. 
 
A dancer, comedian, singer, actor, musician and all-round entertainer, Bruce achieved national recognition as the host of Sunday Night at the London Palladium in the 1950s. With his classic one-man shows, appearances alongside some of the world’s greatest performers, and hugely popular TV shows ranging from The Generation Game to Strictly Come Dancing, he was a household name renowned for putting a smile on the nation’s face. 
 
Charting his life story from talented young lad growing up in north London to achieving national treasure status, Strictly Bruce is full of warm anecdotes spanning over eight decades of Bruce’s life, man and boy. It’s a chance to take a trip down memory lane, celebrate the golden age of British showbiz and step behind the scenes of Bruce’s personal life, meeting the people he loved and learning what made him tick.

Strictly Bruce

Stories Of My Life

Erik Larson

'A big, bold approach to the writing of narrative non-fiction . . . it shows how tiny lives may occasionally become caught up in the wonders of the age' GUARDIAN 
 
In 1910, Edwardian England was scandalized by a murder. 
 
Mild-mannered American Hawley Crippen had killed his wife, buried her remains in the cellar of their North London home and then gone on the run with his young mistress, his secretary Ethel Le Neve. 
 
A Scotland Yard inspector, already famous for his part in the Ripper investigation, discovered the murder and launched an international hunt for Crippen that climaxed in a trans-Atlantic chase between two ocean liners. 
 
The chase itself was novel, but what captured the imagination was the role played by a new and little understood technology: the wireless. Thanks to its inventor Marconi's obsessive fight to perfect his machine, the world was able to learn of events occurring in the middle of the Atlantic as they unfolded - something previously unthinkable. 
 
It was the Crippen case that helped convince the world of the potential of Marconi's miracle technology, so accelerating the revolution that eventually produced the modern means of communication we take for granted today . . .

Thunderstruck

Craig Phillips

In summer 2000 a new media phenomenon was born - Big Brother. Rivetting the viewing public and the media alike, it was watched by over 10 million people. 
 
The very first winner was Craig Phillips, the endearing Liverpudlian 'chippie with a heart of gold'. He emerged from the big Brother house with 3.7 million votes and promptly gave his entire £70,000 winnings to a friend with Downs Syndrome. 
 
Craig already had an established and successful construction business and after leaving Big Brother went on to combine this with his new-found media savvy to forge a brilliant career spanning both worlds. 
 
He went on to present and produce shows for BBC, ITV and Discovery Channel, as well as making guest appearances on some of the most popular shows on TV including The Weakest Link, Bo! Selecta, and Children in Need. 
 
Alongside this he has set up a skills centre to train young people. He gives inspirational talks to schools and universities and has raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for numerous charities. 
 
Not bad for a dyslexic working class boy from a deprived area of Liverpool. Craig's is the ultimate story of triumph over adversity. But it could have been so different...

My Story

Building Beyond Big Brother

Diana Wynne Jones

Reflections is a witty and insightful collection of essays, talks and interviews by beloved fantasy author Diana Wynne Jones, spanning thirty years of her life and work. 
 
Drawing on her experiences studying under Tolkien and C.S Lewis at Oxford, Jones explores fantasy literature with sharp intelligence and humour. Alongside literary analysis, she shares anecdotes from her peculiar childhood during WWII and life with dyslexia to her notorious travel jinx and the memorable time her sister was reprimanded by Beatrix Potter. 
 
Highlights include: 
 
<ul><li>Practical advice on writing fantasy, including what worked for Jones – and what might work for you</li></ul> 
<ul><li>The ethical responsibility of writing for children</li></ul> 
<ul><li>Insight into the inspirations behind her own books</li></ul> 
<ul><li>Moving tributes from her sons, Colin and Richard, reflecting on her legacy and the family bonds shaped by her storytelling</li></ul> 
Full of wisdom, humour and passion, Reflections showcases the distinctive voice that helped shape modern British Fantasy and inspired writers such as Neil Gaiman, J.K. Rowling, Philip Pullman and Cressida Cowell. 
 
Essential reading for anyone who writes – or dreams of writing.

Reflections

Released to coincide with the 60th Anniversary of the first ever ascent of Mount Everest and updated with a new introduction from Bear Grylls. 
 
On the 29th May 1953 Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay made history as they took their first triumphant steps on the top of the world. 
 
On 16 May 1998, Bear Grylls followed those same footsteps, achieving a childhood dream and entering the Guinness Book of Records, as the youngest Briton, at 23, to summit Mount Everest. 
 
Taken from his bestselling autobiography, Mud, Sweat and Tears, Climbing Everest tells the gripping story of Bear’s gruelling expedition, one which tested him to his very limits and nearly cost him his life.

Climbing Everest

An extract from the bestselling Mud, Sweat and Tears

Kitty Ferguson

The extraordinary, unlikely tale of Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler and their enormous contribution to astronomy and understanding of the cosmos is one of the strangest stories in the history of science. 
 
Kepler was a poor, devoutly religious teacher with a genius for mathematics. Brahe was an arrogant, extravagant aristocrat who possessed the finest astronomical instruments and observations of the time, before the telescope. Both espoused theories that seem off-the-wall to modern minds, but their fateful meeting in Prague in 1600 was to change the future of science. 
 
Set in one of the most turbulent and colourful eras in European history, when medieval was giving way to modern, Tycho and Kepler is a double biography of these two remarkable men.

Tycho and Kepler

The Unlikely Partnership that Forever Changed our Understanding of the Heavens

Jilly Cooper

More infectious humour and witty observations from Jilly Cooper, whose latest collection of articles, originally published in The Sunday Times and the Mail on Sunday, includes a light-hearted and irreverent account of a visit to Australia, published for the first time in its entirety. Scenes nearer home, viewed with equal disrespect include th ediverse worlds of a vet's conference, fashionable charity balls, the London to Brighton run and Hen Night in Wandsworth. And, as always, Jilly Cooper is a devastating, hilarious and sometimes moving chronicler of the minutiae of family life, with some fascinating sidelights and side-swipes at the middle-class educational rat race along the way.

Jolly Marsupial

Josceline Dimbleby

A chance encounter with Andrew Lloyd Webber at a summer party sent Josceline Dimbleby on a quest to uncover a mystery in her own family's past. Her great-aunt Amy Gaskell was the subject of a beautiful dark portrait by the Pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne-Jones, but all that was known about Amy, according to family lore, was that she had 'died young of a broken heart'. 
 
In her search, Josceline discovered a cache of unpublished letters from Burne-Jones to her great-grandmother May Gaskell, Amy's mother.They formed a passionate and prolific correspondence, of up to five letters a day, from the last six years of the painter's life. As she read, more and more questions were raised: why did Burne-Jones feel he had to protect May from an overwhelming sadness? What was the deep secret she had confided to him? And what was the tragic truth behind beautiful Amy's wayward, wandering life, her strange marriage and her unexplained early death?

A Profound Secret

May Gaskell, her daughter Amy, and Edward Burne-Jones

Peter FitzSimons

Love him or loathe him, Ned Kelly has been at the heart of Australian culture and identity since he and his Gang were tracked down in bushland by the Victorian police and came out fighting, dressed in bulletproof iron armour made from farmers’ ploughs. 
 
Historians still disagree over virtually every aspect of the eldest Kelly boy’s brushes with the law. Did he or did he not shoot Constable Fitzpatrick at their family home? Was he a lawless thug or a noble Robin Hood, a remorseless killer or a crusader against oppression and discrimination? Was he even a political revolutionary, an Australian republican channelling the spirit of Eureka? 
 
Peter FitzSimons, bestselling chronicler of many of the great defining moments and people of Australian history, is the perfect person to tell this most iconic of all Australian stories. From Kelly’s early days in Beveridge, Victoria, in the mid-1800s, to the Felons Apprehension Act, which made it possible for anyone to shoot the Kelly Gang, to Ned’s appearance in his now-famous armour, prompting the shocked and bewildered police to exclaim ‘He is the devil!’ and ‘He is the bunyip!’. FitzSimons brings the history of Ned Kelly and his Gang exuberantly to life, weighing in on all the myths, legends and controversies generated by this compelling and divisive Irish-Australian rebel.

Showing results for: ‘Michael Symmons Roberts’

Filters

Category

Publication Date

Format

Imprint

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter