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

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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

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

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

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

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

Bill Mason

William Mason is arguably America's greatest ever jewel thief. During a thirty-year career he charmed his way into the inner circles of high society and stole over $35 million worth of fabulous jewels from people such as Armand Hammer, Phyllis Diller (twice), Bob Hope, Margaux Hemingway, Truman Capote, Johnny Weissmuller and even the Mafia. 
 
Along the way he seduced a high-profile Midwest socialite into leaving her prominent industrialist husband, nearly died after being shot in a robbery, tricked both Christie's and Sotheby's into fencing stolen goods for him, was a fugitive for five years and the object of a nationwide manhunt, and yet spent a total of less than three years in prison despite the best efforts of law-enforcement agencies from several states as well as the federal government. 
 
Shadowy, elusive and intensely private, Mason has been the subject of many magazine and newspaper features, but no journalist has ever come close to uncovering the true story. Now, in his own words and with no holds barred, Nine Lives: Confessions of a Master Jewel Thief reveals it all, and the real story is more incredible than any of the reporters, detectives or FBI agents who pursued Mason ever imagined.

Nine Lives

Confessions Of A Master Jewel Thief

Katy Morgan-Davies

'I was the shadow child no one ever saw...' 
 
From the day she was born until she escaped aged 30, Katy Morgan-Davies knew nothing but a life in captivity. Her father was the deluded and cruel leader of a cult based in South London who convinced himself that he was a god, and the immortal leader of the world. 
 
Her father's paranoia and his need to completely control those around him led to Katy being imprisoned indoors with the curtains drawn most of the time, denied any kind of love or friendship. From a young age, Katy's father subjected her to violence and mental abuse. She was not permitted contact with anyone outside the house and on the rare occasions she did have to go out, she was always chaperoned. When she did finally engineer her escape she realised just how little she knew of the world outside her front door. She had never before done the things we take for granted such as choosing what she wanted to eat from a menu or travelling by herself on public transport. Step by step, she learned the skills she needed in order to exist in a world that was completely unfamiliar to her. 
 
In this unique and powerful memoir, we see how Katy rose above what she suffered and found a way to freedom through her love of books. Reading the works of others enabled her to see her captivity for what it truly was, while writing gave her a voice when her own was silenced. Her story raises fascinating questions, such as how a child can be kept hidden from the world outside and how, in spite of years of being brainwashed, Katy still developed a clear sense of right and wrong.

Caged Bird

Paul Rosolie

Madre de Dios – ‘Mother of God’ – is a place where the Andean Cloud Forest intermingles with the steaming tropical jungle at the head of the Amazon river. Here can be found the greatest proliferation of living species that has ever existed on Earth, ever. And it is a place which is now under grave threat. 
 
Paul Rosolie has travelled to the very heart of this wilderness in search of rare flora and fauna. His adventures – with giant anacondas, huge cayman, the mighty jaguar and one very small anteater – are by turn thrilling, terrifying and revelatory. Paul crosses some of the world’s harshest terrain and encounters some of its most extreme weather conditions. He battles with life-threatening tropical diseases and the extreme mental challenges presented by being alone in the heart of the jungle. 
 
Mother of God is an astonishing tale of adventure and survival, set in one of the world’s few remaining truly wild places. It’s a story of nature, red in tooth and claw, and how we must both respect its awesome power and protect its extraordinary glory.

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