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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From conkers to marbles, from British Bulldog to tag, not forgetting 'one potato, two potato' and 'eeny, meeny, miny, mo', The Lore of the Playground looks at the games children have enjoyed, the rhymes they have chanted and the rituals and traditions they have observed over the past hundred years and more. 
 
Each generation, it emerges, has had its own favourites - hoops and tops in the 1930s, clapping games more recently. Some pastimes, such as skipping, have proved remarkably resilient, their complicated rules carefully handed down from one class to the next. Many are now the stuff of distant memory. And some traditions have proved to be strongly regional, loved by children in one part of the country, unknown to those elsewhere. All are brilliantly and meticulously recorded by Steve Roud, who has drawn on interviews with hundreds of people aged from 8 to 80 to create a fascinating picture of all our childhoods.

The Lore of the Playground

One hundred years of children's games, rhymes and traditions

Rabia Chaudry

AFTER 23 YEARS IN PRISON, ADNAN'S CONVICTION HAS FINALLY BEEN OVERTURNED - BUT HAE MIN LEE'S REAL KILLER IS STILL OUT THERE. 
 
'This book provides a far stronger argument . . . than Syed's defence lawyer did in 1999' INDEPENDENT 
 
'The first letter I received after being arrested in 1999 was from Rabia. Since that time until now, she has believed in my innocence and been committed to my exoneration . . . There is no one better to help tell my story, and no one that I trust more to tell it, than Rabia.' ADNAN SYED 
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THE CASE THAT INSPIRED THE PODCAST PHENOMENON SERIAL, AND THE HBO DOCUSERIES THE CASE AGAINST ADNAN SYED 
 
On February 28, 2000, Adnan Syed was convicted and sentenced to life plus thirty years for the murder of his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee, a high school senior in Baltimore, Maryland. From the moment of his arrest, Syed has consistently maintained his innocence. Rabia Chaudry, a family friend, always believed him and has never given up the hope that he might someday be released. By 2013, however, after almost all appeals had been exhausted, things looked bleak. That's when Rabia contacted Sarah Koenig, a producer at This American Life, in the hopes of finding a journalist who would bring greater attention to Adnan's story and might shed new light on the case. Koenig's investigation turned into Serial, an international phenomenon and Peabody Award-winning podcast. 
 
In 2022, after 23 years in prison, Adnan's conviction was overturned, and he was finally freed. But Hae Min Lee's real killer is still out there. 
 
Adnan's Story re-examines the investigation that led to Adnan Syed's arrest, shares his life in prison, covers new evidence and possibilities that have since come to light, and reviews the recent court successes - including a ruling by a Maryland judge to reopen Syed's case. Woven with personal reflections from Adnan himself, including new never-before-seen letters he penned from prison, the story of his family, community, and public advocate Chaudry, the book gives brilliant insight into the story that captivated the attention of millions as his legal team and investigatory team, along with countless others who have crowd-sourced an investigation like never before, seek to exonerate him and find out the truth of what really happened on that day in 1999. 
 
But this is not only a personal story, but a testament to a thoroughly broken system that convicts tens of thousands of innocent people, and how the power of the media and public can move rigid institutions to bring about justice.

Adnan's Story

The Case That Inspired the Podcast Phenomenon Serial

Vincent Bugliosi

Part Seven: Murder in the Wind 
 
Three female members of the Manson family attempt to testify that they committed the murder without the aid of Charles Manson, prompting Manson himself to speak, martyring himself as the leader of what he calls 'wayward men'. 
 
Manson’s attorney, Ronald Hughes, fails to appear at court. Had he been killed by the Family?

Helter Skelter: Part Seven of the Shocking Manson Murders

Part Two: Meet the Killers. 
 
Twenty-four members of a hippie cult known as the Manson family, led by ex-con Charles Manson, are arrested in connection with the murder of a music teacher Gary Hinman, killed on the same night in Hollywood. 
 
Susan Atkins aka Crazy Sadie, is one of the imprisoned. Seemingly high and excited, she tells everyone in gruesome detail how they did it, and how they were going to unleash hell. 
 
She reveals that the Manson family were also involved in the Cielo Drive murders, the horrifying place Sharon Tate Polanski and her friends were bludgeoned to death.

Helter Skelter: Part Two of the Shocking Manson Murders

Part Five: "Now is the time for Helter Skelter" - Charles Manson 
 
Manson family member Linda Kasabian becomes a key witness for the case, recalling the night the murders were committed in detail. Charles Manson’s positioning as a Christ like figure for his followers is revealed in its full extent, as his followers treat the violence as a game. 
 
This terrifying new part will delve into the case built around Charles Manson and the kind of man he truly was.

Helter Skelter: Part Five of the Shocking Manson Murders

Leslie Thomas

They came on a distant, secret night, armed and ready to kill. Their ghosts are still with us today. 
 
In June 1942 a party of German saboteurs landed by submarine in the United States of America. They were betrayed and executed within eight weeks of their landing. Their treacherous leader served a prison sentence and then disappeared. 
 
Orders for New York takes this historical fact as its starting point and tells the story of Michael Findlater, a British journalist who is in the USA researching for a book. Invited to meet his ex-wife Madelaine for the first time since their divorce and to see his twelve-year-old daughter, Findlater finds he is in fact being recruited for a well-paid secret mission. 
 
Madelaine's father-in-law, a wealthy and successful newspaper proprietor, wants him to take on theassignment of finding the vanished Nazi saboteur, Peter Karl Hine, and writing his story. Spurred on partly by the huge reward on offer and partly by curiosity, Findlater embarks on his quest and rapidly discovers that there are ruthless parties involved, who will stop at nothing to prevent him. 
 
This is an enthralling and astonishing new novel, from the author of The Magic Army and The Adventures of Goodnight and Loving.

Orders For New York

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

Momoko Williams

Peter Pagnamenta

Simon Winchester, author of A Crack in the Edge of the World and The Professor and the Madman: 
 
"The essence of this inexpressibly beautiful story will remain with me, I believe, for the rest of my life. This exquisitely crafted account of the loves and lives of Arthur and Masa, Violet and Kiyoshi - such very ordinary names, yet names that conceal extraordinary passions and confusions - is a tone poem to duty and honour, courage and enduring passion, set against the fantastically rich recent histories of Japan and Ireland, England and France. It is a long time since I have read so moving and haunting a book" 
 
This is the true story of an extraordinary love affair. When Captain Arthur Hart-Synnot, a disciplined, conservative officer, met Masa Suzuki, a bright, beautiful Japanese girl, when the British army posted him to Tokyo, he fell for her and within weeks they were living together. Arthur told her she was the 'supreme woman in the world' and they pledged they would love each other for the rest of their lives. But he could not tell the army about her, and they faced almost insuperable barriers of race and class. When he was recalled to London the question was whether Masa had, all the time, just been what expatriates referred to as 'a temporary wife', an exploited Madam Butterfly. 
 
Though separated for years at a time, and by huge distances, they remained devoted to each other. Based on a cache of over 800 letters found in Tokyo, the story is set against the wider history and the wars of the first half of the twentieth century. This is a record of enduring love and great loss, where events beyond Arthur and Masa's control dictate the final tragic outcome.

Falling Blossom

Part Six: The Official Trial Begins 
 
The prosecution decides to pursue ‘vicarious liability’ via conspiracy, meaning that all who were involved in the conspiracy to commit murder can be charged. On trial, Manson proves to be surprisingly honest, though his ego and tendency to play word games with his own testimony is called into question. 
 
Prosecution hints they will reveal a 'surprise motive'. 
 
Key witness Linda Kasabian is called to testify.

Helter Skelter: Part Six of the Shocking Manson Murders

Part Three: The Investigation - November 18 - December 31, 1969 
 
Investigations into the 'Family' begin in earnest. Follow the detailed forensic account of the investigation; from witness statements to the questioning of the suspects and the examination of the compounds in Chatsworth and the surrounding Death Valley, California. 
 
The quasi-religious devotion of the 'Family' to leader Charles Manson is revealed in the suspects' chilling statements, while a substantial amount of stolen vehicles and fire arms are discovered on the Manson property - a remote ranch in the Death Valley.

Helter Skelter: Part Three of the Shocking Manson Murders

Anika Scott

Brought to you by Penguin. 
_____________________________________________ 
'FINDING CLARA is the kind of novel we need now more than ever, [and] achieves what the best historical fiction can . . . pushing us to see ourselves in that past, demanding: Who would you have been then? What would you have done? Unflinching and absorbing, [it] does not let you look away.' Sarah Blake, New York Times bestselling author of THE POSTMISTRESS 
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1946. The ruins of Essen, Germany. A place that can't quite believe the Second World War has been lost. 
 
There's Clara. Once a wartime icon and heiress to the Falkenberg iron works, she now finds herself on the run from the Allied authorities, accused by the zealous Allied occupiers of complicity in her father's war crimes. 
 
There's Jakob. A charming black marketeer, badly wounded in the war but determined to help what's left of his family survive the peace. 
 
There's Willy. A teenage boy diligently guarding a mine full of Wehrmacht supplies, his only friend a canary named Gertrud. Convinced the war isn't over, he refuses to surrender his post. 
 
When Clara returns to her hometown expecting to find her best friend, she finds everything she once knew in ruins. But in war-ravaged Germany, it's not just the buildings that are scarred: everyone is changed, everyone lives in the wreckage of their own past. 
 
To survive, Clara must hide who she is. But to live, she must face up to the truth of what she's done. 
_____________________________________________ 
'What a great debut! It still haunts me, days after finishing it.' Liz Trenow, author of The Poppy Factory and The Silk Weaver 
 
'Anika Scott's finely drawn characters in FINDING CLARA bring to life not only the struggle to rise from the ashes of war, but also the depth of resolve often required to gain redemption. Illuminating and beautifully rendered.' Susan Meissner, author of The Last Year of the War 
 
'Meticulously researched and plotted like a noir thriller, Finding Clara tells a different story of WWII - of characters grappling with their own guilt and driven by the question of what they could have done to change the past.' Jessica Shattuck, author of The Women in the Castle 
 
'A moving story of courage and everyday heroism rising to meet unbearable challenges.' Alex Marwood, author of The Wicked Girls 
_____________________________________________ 
© Anika Scott 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

Finding Clara

a page-turning epic set in the aftermath of World War II

Sue Elliott

Steve Humphries

In association with the flagship BBC2 series. 
 
This is the story of the men and women of a truly remarkable generation. Born into a world still reeling from the earth-shattering events of the Great War, they grew up during the appalling economic depression of the 1930s, witnessed the globe tear itself apart again during the Second World War, and emerged from post-war austerity determined to create a new society for their children. 
 
It is the story of people who raised their families during the immense social upheaval of the Fifties and Sixties, as the world in which they had grown up changed inexorably. It is the story of the people who shaped the way we live now. 
 
Britain's Greatest Generation tells this multi-faceted story through the eye-witness accounts of those who were there, from Japanese prisoner of war Fergus Anckorn to Dame Vera Lynn, from Bletchley Park veteran Jean Valentine to Dad's Army creator Jimmy Perry, and from fighter pilot Tom Neil to the Queen's cousin Margaret Rhodes. Together their testimony creates a vivid, often deeply moving picture of an extraordinary epoch – and the extraordinary people who lived through it.

Britain's Greatest Generation

Colin Wilson

Colin Wilson is the bete-noir of the Oxbridge literary establishment. He never went to university, let alone Oxbridge, yet wrote The Outsider, a brilliant account of the pain of being alive today, when he was just twenty-four. It sold millions of copies around the world, and he was acclaimed as one of the leading intellectuals of the age, finding a huge audience with the anti-establishment, alternative and underground thinkers. Because of his radically new attitudes he was - with John Osborne - dubbed an 'angry young man' in the article that originally coined that phrase. In this way a young man from a working class background suddenly found himself moving in the most colourful literary and artistic circles of the day. In his autobiography he tells stories about, among others, Aldous Huxley, Angus Wilson, John Osborne, Kingsley Amis, Kenneth Tynan, Francis Bacon and Norman Mailer - all observed with a true outsider's eye for absurdity. He is regarded by many as a true literary hero - Julian Cope stopped a recent concert to pay tribute to Wilson who as sitting in the audience and Donovan Leitch dedicates his new autobiography to him - but he also has huge mass market appeal. His insightful, brilliant books on the Occult, the Mysteries and Atlantis and the Sphinx were all huge bestsellers netting millions of copies. In this return to the themes of The Outsider, looked at from the point of his own life story, he again proves himself one of the great intellectuals of our age, never ceasing to wrestle with the great questions of life and death, and writing with an erudition and an easy way with ideas that is rare in English literary life.

Dreaming To Some Purpose

Aeneas Gunn

Newly married, Jeannie Gunn accompanies her husband to 'The Elsey', the huge cattle station in the Northern Territory, several hundred miles from the nearest town. 
 
She is one of the few white women in the area and her presence is at first resented by the stockmen until her warmth and spirit win their affection and respect. This is one of the few autobiographies written by a woman to chronicle the life of the pioneers of the outback. In the style of the bush storyteller, Mrs Gunn conveys with moving simplicity the beauty and cruelty of the land, and the isolation and loneliness, comradeship and kindness of the early settlers.

We Of The Never Never

Keith Cory-Jones

Equally courageous, equally deadly, the British mercenaries in Bosnia have a story to tell as amazing as 'The One That Got Away', but a story without official blessing. 'War Dogs' follows the fortunes of a gang of eight British mercenaries, a mixed bunch, old and cynical, young and naive, mean and psychotic, two idealists, and the rest just in it for the money. Each of these rogue warriors has his own special skills, strengths and weaknesses, and are all tested in an increasingly terrifying and desperate series of engagements with the enemy. Both sides fight dirty; this is an insider's account of the war in Bosnia that goes far beyond what we read in the newspapers. Not all of them make it back to Britain; one boy with no military experience has told his mother he is working in Eurodisney, and she only finds out the truth when he comes back in a box.

War Dogs

British Mercenaries in Bosnia Tell Their Own Story

Paul Donovan

All Our Todays is the first book about the BBC's most influential news and current affairs programme, published to celebrate Today's 40th anniversary in October 1997. Paul Donovan tells the programme's story from the early days of Jack de Manio, through the great partnership of Brian Redhead and John Timpson, to the current triumvirate of Jamies Naughtie, John Humphrys and Sue MacGregor. He analyses the reasons for the programme's success, examines its ofter fiery relationship with prominent politicians, and takes the reader behind the scenes in the Today studio. Full of funny and touching anecdotes, this book will be essential reading for Today's five million listeners.

All Our Todays

Raymond Williams

A collection of the writings of Raymond Williams, who many considered to be the most significant post-war intellectual in Britain. He wrote on diverse subjects, and his books included "Culture and Society", "The Long Revolution", "The Country and the City", "Towards 2000" and "The Black Mountain".

What I Came To Say

Part Four: The Search for the Motive 
 
Why did the Manson family commit the murders? 
 
How did Charles Manson convince his 'family' to kill for him? What was their connection to ‘Helter-Skelter’, a popular hit song by The Beatles? What was the end-of-the- world race war Manson believed would happen? 
 
The gripping account of the Manson murders continues with this next instalment of the eight-part true story. Find out how as Manson’s influence as a counter-culture figure grows, the cultural influence and fascination with the Beatles are discovered.

Helter Skelter: Part Four of the Shocking Manson Murders

The New Yorker Magazine

The 1950s are enshrined in the popular imagination as the decade of poodle skirts and “I Like Ike.” But this was also a complex time, in which the afterglow of Total Victory firmly gave way to Cold War paranoia. A sense of trepidation grew with the Suez Crisis and the H-bomb tests. At the same time, the fifties marked the cultural emergence of extraordinary new energies, like those of Thelonious Monk, Sylvia Plath and Tennessee Williams. 
 
The New Yorker was there in real time, chronicling the tensions and innovations that lay beneath the era’s placid surface. In this thrilling volume, classic works of reportage, criticism, and fiction are complemented by new contributions from the magazine’s present all-star line-up of writers, including Jonathan Franzen, Malcolm Gladwell, and Jill Lepore. 
 
Here are indelible accounts of the decade’s most exciting players: Truman Capote on Marlon Brando as a pampered young star; Berton Roueché on Jackson Pollock in his first flush of fame. Ernest Hemingway, Emily Post, Bobby Fischer, and Leonard Bernstein are also brought to vivid life in these pages. 
 
Among the audacious young writers who began publishing in the fifties was one who would become a stalwart for the magazine for fifty-five years: John Updike. Also featured here are great early works from Philip Roth and Nadine Gordimer, as well as startling poems by Theodore Roethke and Anne Sexton. 
 
Completing the panoply are insightful and entertaining new pieces by present day New Yorker contributors examining the 1950s through contemporary eyes.

The New Yorker Book of the 50s

Story of a Decade

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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