Steve Roud was Local Studies Librarian for the London Borough of Croydon and served as Honorary Librarian of the Folklore Society for over fifteen years. He has been researching British folklore for over thirty years and is the joint author of the Oxford Dictionary of English Folklore, plus other books on traditional drama and folk song, and the Penguin Guide to the Superstitions of Britain and Ireland, which won the Katharine Briggs Folklore Award in 2004. His publications include London Lore (2008) and The Lore of the Playground (2010). He also compiles the Folk Song Index and the Broadside Index, two internationally acclaimed computer databases of traditional folk and popular song. He lives in Sussex.

Steve Roud

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P.G. Wodehouse

Celebrating 120 years of P. G. Wodehouse with his very first novel. 
 
'What a mad thing to go and do. Jolly sporting, though.' 
 
Suspicion abounds at St Austin's School when two silver trophies, or 'pots', are stolen from the cricket pavilion. Jim Thomson, a talented sportsman who due to an unfortunate series of coincidences could be thought to be the burglar, resolves to clear his name. Featuring a man from Scotland Yard, chases through the woods and an exasperated headmaster, Wodehouse's first novel is a paean to his beloved, idyllic late Victorian schooldays, punctuated by bouts of gentlemanly sport and comic escapades. All the hallmarks of what makes Wodehouse the greatest comic writer of all are in evidence here, in a spiffing read for Wodehouse aficionados and the uninitiated alike.

The Pothunters

120th Anniversary edition

Tim Benson

Britain’s Best Political Cartoons 2025 offers a superbly sharp and wickedly witty visual record of a year of Labour tribulations, Trumpian endeavours, economic tremors, and almost ubiquitous political gaffes and missteps. This collection features the work of Peter Brookes, Morten Morland, Nicola Jennings, Christian Adams, Dave Brown, Ella Baron and many more of the nation’s finest cartoonists, alongside captions from Britain's leading cartoon expert. It’s a magnificent record of twelve months of political pandemonium and savage satire, and the perfect gift for friends, family, or just for yourself.

Britain's Best Political Cartoons 2025

'A welcome and important addition to this genre—especially given that it contains more than 300 cartoons, most of which have not been utilised in previously published books . . . With great skill Benson has created a highly readable, entertaining, and politically insightful description for each cartoon . . . Buy and read this delightful book.' INTERNATIONAL CHURCHILL SOCIETY 
________________________________________________ 
 
Following an unrivalled political career that spanned a remarkable sixty years and reached both the heights and the depths of political fortune, Sir Winston Churchill undoubtedly became the world's most caricatured politician of all time. From entering Parliament in 1900 through to his retirement in 1964, Winston Churchill in Cartoons will chart Churchill's illustrious and tumultuous political career through the work of leading cartoonists from around the world. 
 
Through these cartoons there developed very contrary views of Churchill; the glorious cigar-chomping wartime leader and the flawed politician. In America he was adored by cartoonists, while in Nazi Germany and in the post-war Soviet Union he was, unsurprisingly, painted as a bumbling buffoon. After his passing in 1965, great contemporary cartoonists including Peter Brookes, Steve Bell, Matt and Gerald Scarfe, continued to use him as a benchmark for the world leaders that followed. 
 
Featuring the work of the some of the greatest cartoonists of all time and providing a new perspective of an iconic figure, Winston Churchill in Cartoons will include the very best and wittiest portrayals of Churchill the glorious wartime leader, controversial politician, and emblematic British statesman.

Churchill: A Life in Cartoons

Britain’s Best Political Cartoons 2026 offers a superbly sharp and wickedly witty visual record of a year of Labour tribulations, Trumpian endeavours, economic tremors, and almost ubiquitous political gaffes and missteps. This collection features the work of Peter Brookes, Morten Morland, Nicola Jennings, Christian Adams, Dave Brown, Ella Baron and many more of the nation’s finest cartoonists, alongside captions from Britain's leading cartoon expert. It’s a magnificent record of twelve months of political pandemonium and savage satire, and the perfect gift for friends, family, or just for yourself.

Britain's Best Political Cartoons 2026

**With an introduction by Alan Titchmarsh** 
 
'The funniest writer ever to put words to paper' HUGH LAURIE 
 
'Sunlit perfection' STEPHEN FRY 
 
'Paper has rarely been put to better use' CAITLIN MORAN 
 
*** 
 
A collection of wit and wisdom from the world of Wodehouse 
 
Featuring the most iconic quotes from P.G. Wodehouse’s best-loved duo, Jeeves and Wooster, ACCORDING TO JEEVES is the perfect treat for fans old and new! 
 
This collection showcases Jeeves' enlightening views on everything from romance (‘the female of the species is more deadly than the male, sir’) to the best way to avoid an unwanted conversation (‘a trip abroad might prove enjoyable’). The unfaltering valet even offers up his approach to breaking and entering (‘the recognized method in vogue in the burgling industry’). 
 
From family life to travel, sports to fashion, and even philosophy – the ingenious Jeeves has always got the answer. And now readers can benefit from his boundless wit and wisdom in one neat package. 
 
ACCORDING TO JEEVES is the ultimate stocking filler, and a little slice of joy to satisfy even the most learned Wodehouse fan. 
 
***** 
 
'Ingenious. Worth reading again and again' SPECTATOR 
 
'Incomparable and timeless genius' KATE MOSSE

According to Jeeves

Sebastian Faulks

'A wise and heartfelt piece of writing' THE TIMES 
 
'Witty' INDEPENDENT 
 
'Wry and reflective . . . a soulful look at a life in words' i PAPER 
 
‘A wonderful portrait of an age, and of a writer’ RORY STEWART, author of Politics on the Edge 
 
‘Utterly fascinating’ DAVID KYNASTON, author of A Northern Wind 
 
'Shot through with the kind of depth and detail that can only come from a masterful writer finally turning his pen to his own life. Fresh, wise and finely-wrought' ALICE WINN, author of In Memoriam 
 
‘As charming and funny in schoolboy episodes as he is thought-provoking in the darker environs of mental health, Sebastian Faulks is always resonant, civilised and sane’ MARK KNOPFLER 
 
***In Fires Which Burned Brightly, Faulks, a reluctant memoirist, offers readers a series of detailed snapshots from a life in progress. They include a post-war rural childhood – ‘cold mutton and wet washing on a rack over the range’ – the booze-sodden heyday of Fleet Street and a career as one of the country’s most acclaimed novelists. 
 
There are not one, but two daring escapes from boarding school; the delirium of a jetlagged American book tour; the writing of Birdsong in his brother’s house in 1992; and memorable trips across the channel to France. Politics, psychiatry and frustrated ventures into the world of entertainment are analysed with patience and rueful humour. 
 
The book is driven by a desire ‘to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.’ It ends with a tribute to Faulks’s parents and a sense of how his own generation was shaped by the disruptive power of war and its aftermath.Sharply perceptive and alive with a generous wit, Fires Which Burned Brightly is a work of subtle yet profound intelligence and warmth. 
PRAISE FOR SEBASTIAN FAULKS 
 
'Faulks writes with great emotional authority' SUNDAY TIMES 
 
'A prodigiously talented writer' NEW YORK TIMES 
 
'Faulks is beyond doubt a master' FINANCIAL TIMES 
 
'The most impressive novelist of his generation' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

Fires Which Burned Brightly

A Life in Progress

Hannah Murray

In 2017, Hannah Murray was a successful actor whose career had taken her to Hollywood and given her the opportunity to act with A list stars and Oscar-winning directors. But as the daily costs of acting grew, from the degradations of auditions to repeating violent scenes over and over, Hannah found herself searching for something to make her feel better. One day, a reiki healer promises her a new kind of treatment, a kind of magic, and all of a sudden Hannah’s life is changed. 
 
Back in London, she becomes increasingly involved with the organisation behind the magic, an organisation whose charismatic leader, promises of secret knowledge, and increasingly complex rituals, are seductive, cult-like – and ultimately destructive, as Hannah finds herself on a week-long course from her friends and family - and her sanity falls apart. Detained in hospital, she struggles to understand the difference between what’s real, and what’s imagined. The result is a propulsive, shockingly honest, and extraordinarily intimate portrayal of a mind taken over the edge. 
 
From the outer edges of fame, through Hollywood film sets and London parties, Hannah’s life has slowly moved from that of a successful starlet to that of a young woman seduced by the magical thinking of an organisation that promises health and happiness beyond her wildest dreams, but her reality becomes far more disturbing than she could ever have imagined. 
 
Shocking, intimate and compulsive, The Make-Believe is an ultimately uplifting and inspiring story of empathy, resilience and the power of belief.

The Make-Believe

A memoir of magic and madness

Eleanor Doughty

There are fewer than 5000 people who can genuinely claim to be members of the British aristocracy, and yet they loom large in the popular consciousness. We're fascinated by their houses and estates, their lives and loves, their foibles and eccentricities. And we entertain the strong suspicion that, while they may be fellow citizens, they are very far from being People Like Us. 
 
In Heirs and Graces Eleanor Doughty draws on her unparalleled access to a bewildering range of dukes, duchesses, earls and others to create a vivid picture of who they are and how they tick. En route she traces their progress from a post-war era when they and their like were described by one future Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer as 'selfish, depraved, dissolute and decadent' to their diverse current roles as guardians of vast ancestral mansions, farmers, financiers and much else beside. She looks at key rites of passage, from cradle, via boarding school to grave. And she tells stories of their ups and downs, and of the doings of the heroes and villains who fill their ranks. 
 
The result is a wonderfully rich, often amusing, always revealing account of the fortunes of the aristocracy over the past century and a series of fascinating glimpses into what it is like to be an aristocrat in Britain today.

Heirs and Graces

A History of the Modern British Aristocracy

Liaquat Ahamed

Over the course of the 1850s and 1860s, during the first era of globalisation, the world experienced an unprecedented economic boom. Fuelling this expansion was an explosion in borrowing through the global bond market, which provided financing for the century’s most costly and transformative innovation: the railroad. The boom predictably swelled into a series of bubbles that burst simultaneously in the early 1870s, cascading from one country to the next across the globe. Through the eyes of a cast that includes Karl Marx, Mark Twain and the Rothschild family, Liaquat Ahamed weaves a compelling narrative of build-up, collapse and world-changing aftermath.

1873

The First Great Depression and the Making of the Modern World

Thomas Crawford

How many daily calories would you need to feed a Charizard?Could the Death Star's laser actually blow up a planet?What is the half-life of the Incredible Hulk?And is the meaning of life really ‘42’?Join Dr Tom Crawford on a tour through the real-world maths of the most absurd fantasy universes. Drawing on a decade's research at some of the world's leading universities, he answers all the most bamboozling maths questions raised by Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Star Wars and more: from calculating Frodo Baggins' life insurance premium for his journey to Mordor, to what it would take to make the Weasley family car fly, to how rich Super Mario would be after he'd gobbled up all those coins. The result is both a dizzying compendium of fantastical ‘did you know?’ facts and a guide to the mathematics of life, the universe and everything.

How Many Pikachus Would It Take to Power a Lightbulb?

The Real Maths of Imaginary Worlds

Amber Husain

If you are what you eat, what does that make you? Virtuous, cool, immortal? Or deviant, pitiful, ill? Is it useful to make these judgements? Do they help us improve our lives? 
 
In a world where it feels as though the value of your life can be gauged by the goodness in your dinner, it is possible, even easy, to lose the will to live. This became particularly obvious to writer Amber Husain when suddenly, despite almost thirty years of practice, it seemed she had forgotten how to eat. 
 
Medical wisdom tries fix the problem non-eater by teaching them the rules of Good Diet. But what if the problem is precisely the narrowing of life to questions of personal goodness? Suspecting there might be more to her stand-off with food than matters of identity and diet, Husain embarked on an enquiry into the special role of eating in our relationship with the world. 
 
Combining a personal account of modern eating-disorder treatments, from the disturbing to the sublime, with a sprawling collective history of eating in hard times, Tell Me How You Eat unearths the astonishing effect of how we feed ourselves and others, not just on who we are, but on how we perceive our own political power. In doing so, it marks a bold and inspiring confrontation with our very understanding of food.

Tell Me How You Eat

Food, Power and the Will to Live

Michael Palin

With his eightieth birthday looming, it crossed Michael Palin’s mind that now might be the time to hang up his boots, to lounge about at home, to take things easy. Then the opportunity to visit Africa’s most populous nation arose. A few weeks later, he was at Lagos airport, camera crew in tow. 
 
 The journal he kept during his trip offers a fascinatingly kaleidoscopic view of a country where some 500 languages are spoken and which contains within its borders everything from tropical rainforests to grasslands to desert plains. At one moment he is in vibrant but chaotic Lagos, the next in the seemingly deserted streets of Nigeria’s hyper-modern capital, Abuja, the next in the polluted oil fields of the Niger Delta. He is welcomed as an honoured guest by a powerful emir and harangued by a passerby in Benin City. He hears the testimony of a kidnap victim of the terrorist group Boko Haram and experiences the collective spiritual ecstasy of one of Nigeria’s mega churches. And throughout his trip, he experiences at first hand the contradictions of a country that has so much natural wealth and human talent and yet simultaneously grapples with corruption, religious strife and deep inequality. 
 
 Illustrated throughout with colour photographs taken on the trip, and brimming with wry humour and fascinating insights, this is a vivid and varied portrait of a complex country.

In Nigeria

Robbie Robertson

'Intense, exciting, delirious' THE TIMES 
'Thrilling, beautiful, honest' TELEGRAPH 
'A wild ride' ROLLING STONE 
 
For four decades, Robbie Robertson produced music for Martin Scorsese's films, a relationship that began when Robertson convinced Scorsese to direct The Last Waltz, the iconic film of the Band's farewell performance at the Winterland Ballroom on Thanksgiving 1976. 
 
The closing of the Band's story with that landmark concert thrust Robertson into a new and uncertain world. With his relationship with his bandmates deteriorating and his marriage collapsing, Robertson arrived on Scorsese’s Beverly Hills doorstep only to find his friend in similar straits. Before the night was out, Scorsese had invited him to move in. Both men, already culture-transforming stars before the age of thirty-five, stood at a creative precipice, searching for the beginning of a new phase of life and work. As their friendship deepened into a career-altering collaboration, their shared journey would take them around the world and down the rabbit hole of American culture in the long hangover of the seventies. Buffeted on either side by temptation and paranoia, veering closer to self-destruction than either wanted to admit, together they had devoted themselves to a partnership defined by equal parts admiration and ambition. 
 
With a cast of characters featuring Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, Federico Fellini, Sophia Loren, Sam Fuller, Liza Minelli, Tuesday Weld, and many more, Insomnia is an intimate portrait of a remarkable creative friendship between two titans of American arts, one that would explore the outer limits of excess and experience before returning to tell the tale.

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