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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Michael Pitts

Mark Roberts

The discovery of the remains of 'Boxgrove Man', a 'Missing Link' hominid half a million years old in chalk pits in Sussex made world headlines in May 1994. This was the most sensational archeological find in the UK since Piltdown Man - only this time it was not a hoax. Continuing excavation by site archeologist Mark Roberts has enabled him and his team to build up a picture of this, the first Englishman, and to open up a unique window on life in Britain before the Ice Age. Because these human remains, the artefacts surrounding them and the remains of the local flora and fauna - including elephants and rhinoceroses of an extinct species - are preserved in an unprecedented way, we now discover how our ancestors hunted, ate, manufactured the implements they needed to survive and interacted; these were neither the opportunist scavengers nor the mindless killers that they have previously been supposed to be. Boxgrove, therefore, represents a revolutionary view of the origins of mankind, and changes our understanding of what it means to be human.

A Fairweather Eden

David Bellamy

David Bellamy is a natural story teller whose memoir will be packed full of funny anecdotes and observations. It is the story of how a city boy, brought up in the middle of London, went for a trip into the countryside one day, an event which was to transform his life by setting in motion the amazing love of nature which would make famous this larger-than-life character. In his infectious style he illumines on, amongst other things, the fact that his father, the manager of a branch of Boots, had to grease his hair straight - because in those days managers of Boots weren't allowed to have curly hair! Then there was the time he and his brother discovered an exploded bomb, kept in the garden shed - and then accidentally blew off the front of the house with it. He reveals his secret passion is  ballet dancing - and how his mother only found out about it when she saw him on stage at the Fairfield Hall in Croydon.  His career as an academic, then author, broadcaster, consultant and television personality, spans 35 years and his main passion - campaigning for the environment - have led to many adventures including his being twice imprisoned in the Third World.

Jolly Green Giant

James Patterson

Cory Friedman was an ordinary fun-loving little boy. That fateful March morning in 1989 started just like any other but later that day, he started to feel very different and the course of his life was set to change. It started with an irresistible urge to shake his head, and before long, his body became a volatile, explosive and unpredictable force. Overtaken by physical urges, tics and compulsions, the bright young boy started to feel and look like a puppet on a string. 
 
Cory had developed a rare combination of Tourette Syndrome, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Anxiety Disorder and other neurological conditions. The life he knew had been torn apart and his family was left watching him suffer. Desperate to help and hopeful of a cure, they embarked on a fifteen year plight which took them beyond breaking point. Cory was seen by thirteen doctors who in total prescribed sixty potent medicines. He was mistakenly sent to a psychiatric ward and. On the brink of utter despair, he and his family decided to try a form of intervention that had never been tried in cases such as Cory's: he was sent to a wilderness survival camp in a bitter, unforgiving snowy Utah winter. This felt like their final chance. 
 
Throughout his young life, Cory struggled to have the same childhood and adolescence as his friends. From time to time an overwhelming anger and frustration overcame him when one doctor after another and an unprecedented number of medicines continually failed him. Still, throughout it all, Cory battled against the extraordinary events that were unfolding, and would take him on one of the most terrifying personal journeys ever recorded. 
 
Torn Apart is a true story of one family's courage, heartbreak, sacrifice and ultimately, triumph.

Torn Apart

The Heartbreaking Story of a Childhood Lost

Mark Wallington

Boogie is an unattractive but street-wise mongrel from Stockwell, used to travelling everywhere on London Transport. His two-legged companion is Mark. This is a heroic study of survival against the odds, as together they take a journey, up hill and down dale, with rucksacks full of kennomeat, along Britain's longest coastal footpath - from Somerset to Devon, from Cornwall to Dorset.

Five Hundred Mile Walkies

Maggie Bennett

This gripping saga about midwives, on and off duty, is perfect for fans of Call the Midwife, Katie Flynn, Dilly Court and Catherine Cookson. Let much loved author Maggie Bennett take you on a heartfelt and passionate journey with a group of women whose emotions and reactions are ultimately no different from the women they serve... 
 
READERS ARE LOVING NIGHTS ON, NIGHTS OFF 
'Loved this book' -- ***** Reader review 
'Extraordinary' -- ***** Reader review 
'Didn't want to put it down' -- ***** Reader review 
****************************************************************************************** 
SOMETIMES THINGS REALLY ARE A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH... 
 
In the heightened atmosphere of a busy maternity unit, there are inevitable tensions between modern technology and the demands by some mothers for a 'natural childbirth'. For widowed midwife, Shirley Pierce, there is no argument: the safety of the baby is always paramount. Feeling passionate about this, she is never afraid to speak her mind. 
 
Her strongly held views are further deepened when she meets a young man who has been irrevocably brain-damaged since birth - and friendship blossoms into love of a kind. 
 
 Shirley's defiant attitude and her refusal to heed the warnings of her friends lead to her involvement in a horrific tragedy, and she soon discovers that there is a heavy price to be paid for resisting authority...

Nights On, Nights Off

a thrilling saga set in the highly charged world of a busy maternity unit

Charles Handy

Elizabeth Handy

Twenty-eight women, ranging from Anita Roddick and Prue Leith to less well-known names, write their own personal stories which are accompanied by Elizabeth Handy's black and white photographs and an introductory essay by Charles Handy.   This generation of women is entering the sixties more healthy, more educated and more energetic than most of their mothers.    The subjects in this book provide the models for what has become, for the first time, a new age for many women.    Released from most of the cares and responsibilities that accompany midlife for women, they are free to reinvent themselves, to give more time to their career or calling, or to luxuriate in the serenity and friendships that few had time for in the past. Some enter new relationships, some start new careers or go back to study, some find that their work is only now reaching its peak. Many have survived traumas and tragedies, but 'the past is just the prologue' as one of them explains.

Reinvented Lives

Women at Sixty: A Celebration

James Watson

James Watson, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA and author of the international bestseller The Double Helix, tells the story of the amazing molecule since its discovery fifty years ago, following modern genetics from his own Nobel prize-winning work in the fifties to today's Dolly the sheep, designer babies and GM foods. Professor Watson introduces the science of modern genetics, along with its history and its implications, in this magnificent guide to one of the most triumphant achievements of human science.

The Secret of Life, Fully Revised and Updated

Richard Powers

Brought to you by Penguin. 
 
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION 2019 
 SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2018 
 THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 
 
 A wondrous, exhilarating novel about nine strangers brought together by an unfolding natural catastrophe 
 
 An artist inherits a hundred years of photographic portraits, all of the same doomed American chestnut. A hard-partying undergraduate in the late 1980s electrocutes herself, dies, and is sent back into life by creatures of air and light. A hearing- and speech-impaired scientist discovers that trees are communicating with one another. An Air Force crewmember in the Vietnam War is shot out of the sky, then saved by falling into a banyan. 
 
 This is the story of these and five other strangers, each summoned in different ways by the natural world, who are brought together in a last stand to save it from catastrophe. 
 
 ‘Really, just one of the best novels, period’ Ann Patchett 
 
 ‘The best book I’ve read in ten years’ Emma Thompson 
 
 ‘Dazzlingly written’ Robert Macfarlane 
 
© Richard Powers 2018 (P) Penguin Audio 2018

The Overstory

The sequel to "500-mile Walkies". When the author set off in a 100-year-old camping skiff to find the source of the Thames, he didn't want to take his dog, Boogie. He would have left him in kennels but the other dogs complained and things do not work out as he planned.

Boogie Up The River

One Man and His Dog to the Source of the Thames

David Lines

Continuing the tradition of parodying all things sacred, the author of The XXXX Files and PMT takes up the reigns of satire by rewriting the essential 1970s hippy handbook Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Instead of a seagull for a hero, this updated classic features a bloated, cynical, grungy pigeon, who looks not to the skies for inspiration, but to the London Underground. Cutting corners wherever possible and living the life of a fully fledged MTV-generation feral pigeon, Jonathan's rite of passage is more a celebration of modern-day teenage apathy set against a backdrop of 90s Pop Culture and Victorian underground architecture than a voyage of delicious self-discovery. Matching the original page-for-page in content and layout, Jonathan Livingston Trafalgar Square Pigeon is a modern-day morality tale that will, by its very nature, attract plenty of attention whilst ever so gently ruffling a few feathers along the way.

Jonathan Livingston Trafalgar Square Pigeon

Paul Osborne

The full, true story of the dog featured on the cover of Clare Balding's HEROIC ANIMALS 
____________________ 
The incredible true story of Sherlock, the brave dog with a nose for saving lives. 
 
Firefighter Paul Osborne works with the Fire Investigation Dog unit, where he handles Sherlock - an excitable, bright-eyed cocker spaniel. 
 
What makes Sherlock different? He's the most talented investigative dog the Fire Brigade has ever produced, capable of identifying extraordinarily subtle traces and scents even after thousand-degree blazes - even when he has to wear special protective boots due to the dangerous environments. 
 
Today, Paul and Sherlock fearlessly plunge into the most dramatic fire scenes in London, helping to keep the capital safe around the clock. With remarkable insight into the life of London's most heroic working dog, this inspiring account of the London Fire Brigade's four-legged heroes will delight and amaze. 
 
Foreword by Dany Cotton, Commissioner for The London Fire Brigade 
____________________ 
Winners of the Mirror and RSPCA Animal Hero Awards 2017 
 
Written in collaboration with and with full support from the London Fire Brigade

Sherlock: The Fire Brigade Dog

Stephen Hawking

Essential listening for all those who want to understandthe universe in which we liveStephen Hawking is one of the most influential thinkers of our time, an intellectual icon, known not only for the adventurousness of his ideas but also for the clarity with which he expresses them. Seeking to uncover the holy grail of science: the elusive Theory of Everything that lies at the heart of the cosmos, Professor Hawking takes us the cutting edge of theoretical physics, where truth is often stranger than fiction, and explains in layman's terms the principles that control our universe.

Universe In A Nutshell

Carl Zimmer

In 1946, a twenty-year-old medical school student called Joshua Lederberg decided to find out whether microbes make love. Lederberg was motivated not by a displaced libido, but by scientific ambition. At the age of seven, he had declared that he hoped to become 'like Einstein' and to 'discover a few things in science.' 
 
The 'few things' Lederberg discovered would revolutionise modern science and earn him a Nobel Prize. He chose to observe the breeding habits of a certain bacterium called Escherichia coli, better known as E coli. His experiments used defective E coli strains lacking the essential molecules to reproduce by cloning which should, by rights, perish in the petri dish. But slowly, a few colonies of survivors began to spread accross the dishes. The only possible explanation for their survival was that they were a product of sex. Not only had Lederberg proved that bacteria have sex, he had also proved they have genes. 
 
Since then, a bacterium that was once nothing more than a humble resident of the human gut has become our best guide to what it means to be alive. Most of us might only know E coli for its lethal strain that causes food poisoning, but Zimmer uses E coli as a prism to understand what life is, what it was, and what it will become. We learn how E coli microbes talk to each other, how studies of their evolution represent the most powerful evidence in support of natural selection, and how they might just explain life on other planets...

Microcosm

E-coli and The New Science of Life

Paul Sherwood

After helping thousands of people with back and heart problems, Doctor Sherwood deals with more ailments - from the small but irritating symptoms of colds to the life-threatening diseases such as appendicitis. Having studied the human lymphatic system for most of his life Paul Sherwood has come to the conclusion that many of our afflictions are rooted in blockages and malfunctions of this vital but over-looked fluid network. Using case histories from his long experience as an eminent West-End physician he illustrates his theories with proven examples - explaining the causes of symptoms in simple terms and the means by which they were relieved. The book concentrates on preventative measures and especially in children where catarrh, ear and throat trouble can cause such misery. There is also an emphasis of this theory in the treatment of Asthma, the bane of modern urban life - with diet, exercise and environmental considerations all playing an important part in health recovery. His original theories on preventing cot-death, asthma, arthritis, sinusitis etc. have already cured his patients - this book will help many more suffers.

Asthma And Beyond

Susan Lewis

An inspirational collection of true stories, introduced and edited by Sunday Times bestselling author Susan Lewis and published in support of Breast Cancer Care. 
 
All of us face challenges in our lives and when things get really difficult we often need someone to help us through. That someone can be the person closest to us, or someone we least expected, or even, in some cases, a total stranger. 
 
The Stories of Support campaign was set up for people to share their story of how someone helped them, in order to raise awareness and funds for Breast Cancer Care. In Susan Lewis’s novel, Never Say Goodbye, two strangers are brought together by tragedy and the bond that develops between them profoundly changes both their lives. Through Stories of Support Susan wanted to acknowledge the remarkable people who have given their support to friends, family, colleagues or the community. 
 
The five women who wrote the stories in this collection were selected by Susan Lewis because of their moving accounts of the exceptional support they have experienced from selfless friends and family through the most difficult of times. With an introduction from Susan Lewis, Shelley, Kate, Julie, Jane and Jeanette show the restorative power of love and friendship in a collection of stories they hope will inspire many others. 
 
Includes the first chapter of Never Say Goodbye.

Stories of Support

A collection of inspirational true stories

Anna Quindlen

What started as an ode to Quindlen's aging black Labrador in her Newsweek column has become a life-affirming short book about happiness, in the tradition of A SHORT GUIDE TO A HAPPY LIFE and BEING PERFECT. 
 
In this wise little book, Anna Quindlen writes: "The life of a good dog is like the life of a good person, only shorter, more compressed." Quindlen continues, with her trademark wonderful writing, sound wisdom and humor, to explain how her life has unfolded in tandem with Beau, and how she's learned how to enjoy life, in the simplest of ways, by watching him. 
 
She writes, "When I was a mixed-breed puppy, I could never have imagined how simple and basic contentment could be. And that's what I've learned from watching Beau: to roll with the punches, to take things as they come, to measure myself not in terms of the past or the future but of the present, to raise my nose in the air from time to time and, at least metaphorically, holler, "I smell bacon!"

Life with Beau

A Tale of a Dog and His Family

Christine Longaker

Many books have been written on the subject of death and dying over the last twenty-five years, yet none provides a comprehensive spiritual paradigm combined with practical guidance for resounding effectively and compassionately to be most common difficulties and challenges of the dying. Christine's Longaker's uncompromising and uplifting book does it all, and is based on her own personal experiences, her study and work with Sogyal Rinpoche and on the workshops she now holds all over Europe and the USA.

Facing Death And Finding Hope

A Guide to the Emotional and Spiritual Care of the Dying

Rosemary Conley

Rosemary Conley is one of the UK's most successful and best-loved diet and fitness experts. Rosemary Conley's Secrets of Staying Young is the book that she's been plannint to write for 20 years. In it she shares some of her own experiences of looking and feeling young as the years pass, as well as giving advice on diet; exercise (Including a special section of exercises for the over-70s, an age group that is often overlooked in beauty and fitness books); dressing for your age and shape, and gives medical advice about HRT, plastic surgery and how to stay fit despite the changes in your body. 
 
Rosemary Conley's Secrets of Staying Young is not only a practical and useful guide for women, but also a very personal story of how she has maintained her health and stayed looking youthful throughout the years.

The Secrets of Staying Young

Iain Stewart

Man with hammer, rucksack and GSOH offers gritty adventure holidays. Looking for sun, sea, sand and - science. 
 
Scheduled to tie in with a major new BBC series, Hot Rocks explores the Mediterranean - the cradle of western civilisation - and discovers alongside its tranquil, sun-lapped shores, one of the most volatile places on an ever-changing earth. The Mediterranean we know today has been forged in a violent crucible of clashing continents, rising mountains, restless seas and a turbulent climate. Millions of Britons are drawn to the Mediterranean every year and whether they go for the beautiful scenery and relaxing beaches or the culture and architecture or food, none of it would be there were it not for geology. Forward-thinking geologist and television presenter Dr Iain Stewart, uncovers the hidden Mediterranean and brings a fresh and dramatic eye to geology to show just why it is that geology should be restored to its rightful place as the grandfather of sciences. From earthquakes and volcanoes to Roman architecture and cuisine, Iain discovers just how geology has shaped our lives and how we can expect it to affect us in years to come.

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