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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This enthralling book will take you, month-by-month, day-by-day, through all the festivities of English life. From national celebrations such as New Year&rsquo;s Eve to regional customs such as the Padstow Hobby Horse procession, cheese rolling in Gloucestershire and Easter Monday bottle kicking in Leeds, it explains how they originated, what they mean and when they occur. 
 
A fascinating guide to the richness of our heritage and the sometimes eccentric nature of life in England, The English Year offers a unique chronological view of our social customs and attitudes

The English Year

Are black cats lucky or unlucky? What should you do when you hear the first cuckoo? Since when have people believed that it's unlucky to shoot an albatross? Why does breaking a mirror lead to misfortune? This fascinating collection answers these and many other questions about the world of superstitions and forms an endlessly browsable guide to a subject that continues to obsess and intrigue.

The Penguin Guide to the Superstitions of Britain and Ireland

Steve Toltz

From his prison cell, Jasper Dean tells the unlikely story of his scheming father Martin, his crazy Uncle Terry and how the three of them upset - mostly unintentionally - an entire continent. Incorporating death, parenting (good and bad kinds), one labyrinth, first love, a handbook for criminals, a scheme to make everyone rich and an explosive suggestion box, Steve Toltz's A Fraction of the Whole is a hilarious, heartbreaking story of families and how to survive them.

A Fraction Of The Whole

Cameron Spence

With the outbreak of Gulf War hostilities a unit from 22 SAS slipped quietly over the border and into the enemy's backyard. It would be six weeks before any of the patrol again reached safety. 
 
Sabre Squadron recounts in graphic detail their scud-busting operations deep inside Iraq. They were operating alone and out of reach of reinforcements, with the threat of detection and its fatal consequences ever present. Yet their determination to wreak havoc behind enemy lines remained undimmed, culminating in an attack that decisively reconfirmed the regiment's awesome reputation. 
 
Cameron Spence, a senior NCO on the operation, takes you as close to the fighting SAS as you are ever likely to get, conveying the relentless tension, black humour and camaraderie punctuated by explosive, nerve-shredding action that characterized the mission. 
 
This is the true story of an SAS operation of breathtaking audacity and flair, carried out under unimaginable pressure, in the face of impossible odds.

Sabre Squadron

Tristram Hunt

Josiah Wedgwood, perhaps the greatest English potter who ever lived, epitomized the best of his age. From his kilns and workshops in Stoke-on-Trent, he revolutionized the production of ceramics in Georgian Britain by marrying technology with design, manufacturing efficiency and retail flair. He transformed the luxury markets not only of London, Liverpool, Bath and Dublin but of America and the world, and helping to usher in a mass consumer society. Tristram Hunt calls him 'the Steve Jobs of the eighteenth century'. 
 
But Wedgwood was radical in his mind and politics as well as in his designs. He campaigned for free trade and religious toleration, read pioneering papers to the Royal Society and was a member of the celebrated Lunar Society of Birmingham. Most significantly, he created the ceramic 'Emancipation Badge', depicting a slave in chains and inscribed 'Am I Not a Man and a Brother?' that became the symbol of the abolitionist movement. 
 
Tristram Hunt's hugely enjoyable new biography, strongly based on Wedgwood's notebooks, letters and the words of his contemporaries, brilliantly captures the energy and originality of Wedgwood and his extraordinary contribution to the transformation of eighteenth-century Britain.

The Radical Potter

Josiah Wedgwood and the Transformation of Britain

Noreen Masud

Noreen Masud has always loved flat landscapes - their stark beauty, their formidable calm, their refusal to cooperate with the human gaze. They reflect her inner world: the 'flat place' she carries inside herself, emotional numbness and memory loss as symptoms of childhood trauma. But as much as Britain's landscapes provide solace for suffering, they are also uneasy places for a Scottish-Pakistani woman, representing both an inheritance and a dispossession. 
 
Pursuing this paradox across the wide open plains that she loves, Noreen weaves her impressions of the natural world with the poetry, folklore and history of the land, and with recollections of her own early life, rendering a startlingly strange, vivid and intimate account of a post-traumatic, post-colonial landscape - a seemingly flat and motionless place which is nevertheless defiantly alive.

A Flat Place

Alex Grecian

When State Trooper Skottie Foster moves back home to rural Kansas with her daughter, she's hoping for a new start. But then a chance encounter on a snowy highway changes everything. 
 
 Travis Roan is a Nazi hunter, and he needs her help. Roan suspects this isolated region is home to infamous World War Two villain Rudolph Bormann - and Bormann isn't one to give in without a fight. 
 
 As Roan encounters immediate resistance from the deeply suspicious community, it soon becomes clear that Bormann's new life in America is every bit as sinister as his awful past. 
 
Neither Roan nor Foster imagines how dangerous - and how personal - their task will become...

The Wolf

Stephanie Shirley

Richard Askwith

In 1962, Stephanie "Steve" Shirley founded an IT software company when the concept of software barely existed. The company created huge opportunities for women in tech, allowing them to work on projects like the programming of the black box flight recorder from the comfort of their own home. The business thrived and Shirley gradually transferred ownership of the company to those who worked for it, creating 70 millionaires in the process. 
 
Let it Go explores Shirley's trail blazing career as an entrepreneur but it also charts her incredible personal story - her dramatic arrival in England as an unaccompanied Kindertransport refugee from Germany and the tragic death of her son, Giles, who suffered severely from Autism. Today, Dame Stephanie Shirley is one of Britain's leading philanthropists, devoting most of her time, energy and money to supporting and creating charities in the areas of Autism and STEM. This is an engrossing story of an extraordinary life, filled with lessons in what it means to be human.

Let It Go

My Extraordinary Story - From Refugee to Entrepreneur to Philanthropist

Ahron Bregman

Ehud Barak's election as Prime Minister of Israel on 17th May 1999 and his determination to conclude a peace deal with the Palestinians inspired both Israeli voters and the international community. So where did it all go wrong? How did it end, less than two years later, in the total failure of Barak's peace efforts, his defeat at the polls and ejection from office? How did he open the way not to peace, but to Ariel Sharon? 
 
Drawing on exclusive interviews with all the major international figures involved, this book traces the history of the Middle East peace process from Barak's election, through the peace talks at Camp David to the current Road Map. It illuminates the characters of Clinton, Arafat, Sharon and many others, and offers many insights into one of the most complex political political situations in the world today.

Elusive Peace

How the Holy Land Defeated America

Steve Coll

The Bin Ladens are shrouded in secrecy, living in one of the most closed, unaccountable countries on earth. Little has been known about the world that created Osama - until now. 
 
In this gripping account prizewinning journalist Steve Coll has interviewed those closest to the family who rose from Yemeni peasants to jetsetting millionaires in two generations. In doing so, he reveals a Saudi Arabia torn between religious purity and the temptations of the West, telling a story of oil, money, power, patronage and dangerous cultural extremes.

The Bin Ladens

Oil, Money, Terrorism and the Secret Saudi World

Roald Dahl

'They didn't think for one moment that they would find anything but a burnt-out fuselage and a charred skeleton; and they were apparently astounded whn they came upon my still-breathing body, lying in the sand near by' 
 
In 1938 Roald Dahl was fresh out of school and bound for his first job in Africa, hoping to find adventure far from home. However, he got far more excitement than he bargained for when the outbreak of the Second World War led him to join the RAF. His account of his experiences in Africa, crashing a plane in the Western Desert, rescue and recovery from his horrific injuries in Alexandria, and many other daring deeds, recreates a world as bizarre and unnerving as any he wrote about in his fiction.

Going Solo

Benjamin R. Teitelbaum

Steve Bannon in the United States. Olavo de Carvalho in Brazil. Aleksandr Dugin in Russia. Gábor Vona in Hungary. All rising to power in the past decade. All affiliated with an obscure philosophical movement called Traditionalism. 
 
Since the early 20th century, Traditionalism has defined itself against modernity and Enlightenment values. Traditionalist thinkers such as René Guénon and Julius Evola celebrated hierarchy, denounced the idea of progress, and regarded liberal secularism, capitalism, and communism as aligned forces working to replace social, cultural and political norms. Ethnographer Benjamin Teitelbaum had been studying Traditionalism for years as a sort of novelty, associated with a restless subsection of the right - too antisocial for activism and largely without influence. And yet when Steve Bannon entered the White House in 2017, reports suggested he was an avid reader of Traditionalist teachings. 
 
Through exclusive interviews and deep historical context, Teitelbaum reveals the radical worldview infusing the thinking of powerful actors and inspiring a renegade reinterpretation of humanity, geopolitics and history. Fast-paced and gripping, War for Eternity is a must-read for anyone trying to understand the Far Right's vision to change the world.

War for Eternity

The Return of Traditionalism and the Rise of the Populist Right

Bee Wilson

Bee Wilson is the food writer and historian who writes as the 'Kitchen Thinker' in the Sunday Telegraph, and is the author of Swindled!. Her charming and original new book, Consider the Fork, explores how the implements we use in the kitchen have shaped the way we cook and live. 
 
This is the story of how we have tamed fire and ice, wielded whisks, spoons, graters, mashers, pestles and mortars, all in the name of feeding ourselves. Bee Wilson takes us on an enchanting culinary journey through the incredible creations, inventions and obsessions that have shaped how and what we cook. From huge Tudor open fires to sous-vide machines, the birth of the fork to Roman gadgets, Consider the Fork is the previously unsung history of our kitchens. 
 
Bee Wilson writes a weekly food column, 'The Kitchen Thinker' in The Sunday Telegraph, for which she has three times been named the Guild of Food Writers Food Journalist of the Year. Her previous books include The Hive: The Story of the Honeybee and Us and Swindled!. Before she became a food writer, she was a Research Fellow in History at St John's College, Cambridge. She has also been a semi-finalist on Masterchef. Her favourite kitchen implement is currently the potato ricer. 
 
'A cracking good read, as enjoyable as it is enlightening' Raymond Blanc, Chef-Patron 'Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons' 
 
'Wonderful ... Witty, scholarly, utterly absorbing and fired by infectious curiosity' Lucy Lethbridge, Observer 
 
'[A] delightfully informative history of cooking and eating from the prehistoric discovery of fire to twenty-first-century high-tech, low-temp soud-vide-style cookery' ELLE magazine 
 
'A graceful study' Steven Poole, Guardian

Consider the Fork

A History of How We Cook and Eat

Tim Benson

Britain’s Best Political Cartoons 2024 offers a superbly sharp and wickedly witty record of a year of landmark landslides, Trumpian trials, Post Office revelations, and one soggy Sunak. This collection features the work of Peter Brookes, Steve Bell, 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 2024

The news-breaking book that has sent schockwaves through the White House, Ghost Wars is the most accurate and revealing account yet of the CIA's secret involvement in al-Qaeada's evolution. 
 
Prize-winning journalist Steve Coll has spent years reporting from the Middle East, accessed previously classified government files and interviewed senior US officials and foreign spymasters. Here he gives the full inside story of the CIA's covert funding of an Islamic jihad against Soviet forces in Afghanistan, explores how this sowed the seeds of bn Laden's rise, traces how he built his global network and brings to life the dramatic battles within the US government over national security. Above all, he lays bare American intelligence's continual failure to grasp the rising threat of terrrorism in the years leading to 9/11 - and its devastating consequences.

Ghost Wars

The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden

Carlo Rovelli

One of our most beloved scientists, a fearless free spirit, Carlo Rovelli is also a masterful storyteller. In this collection of writings, the logbook of an intelligence always on the move, he follows his curiosity and invites us on a voyage through science, literature, philosophy and politics. 
 
Written with his usual clarity and wit, these pieces, most of which were first published in Italian newspapers, range widely across time and space: from Newton's alchemy to Einstein's mistakes, from Nabokov's butterflies to Dante's cosmology, from travels in Africa to the consciousness of an octopus, from mind-altering psychedelic substances to the meaning of atheism. Charming, pithy and elegant, this book is the perfect gateway to the universe of one of the most influential physicists of our age.

There Are Places in the World Where Rules Are Less Important Than Kindness

Stephen Breen

Owen Conlon

Meet the Wilsons - the deadliest family in crime 
 
Brothers Eric, Keith and John Wilson, their cousin Alan, and nephew Luke shared a trade - assassination. Working for Ireland's criminal gangs they brought bloodshed and chaos to the streets. 
 
The Wilsons were not choosy about their targets. Hutches, Real IRA chiefs or random opponents from pub rows - they were all the same to them. Nor were they picky about motives - as long as the price was right, they asked no questions. 
 
The Hitmen is the shocking story of how a family cornered the market in intimidation and vengeance. It details the terrible cost in human suffering, particularly the death of an innocent teenage girl, Mariaora Rostas, when she randomly crossed their path. And it reveals how, one by one, each of the Wilsons was put out of business. 
 
The Hitmen draws on exclusive access to wire taps, case files and interviews with sources close to the gang who have never spoken before. No 1 bestselling authors Stephen Breen and Owen Conlon have written an extraordinary account of a family business like no other.

The Hitmen

The Shocking True Story of a Family of Killers for Hire

In war are we at our heroic best or our cowardly worst? Featuring the autobiographical stories from Roald Dahl's time as a fighter pilot in the Second World War as well as seven other tales of conflict and strife, Dahl reveals the human side of our darkest days. 
 
Among other stories, you'll read about the pilot shot down in the Libyan desert, the fighter plane lost in mysterious thick cloud and the soldier who returns from war but has been mysteriously changed by it. 
 
Roald Dahl reveals even more about the darker side of human nature in seven other centenary editions: Lust, Madness, Cruelty, Deception, Trickery, Innocence and Fear.

Nathan Thrall

Milad is five years old and excited for his school trip to a theme park on the outskirts of Jerusalem, but tragedy awaits: his bus is involved in a horrific accident. His father, Abed, rushes to the chaotic site, only to find Milad has already been taken away. Abed sets off on a journey to learn Milad's fate, navigating a maze of physical, emotional, and bureaucratic obstacles he must face as a Palestinian. 
 
Interwoven with Abed's odyssey are the stories of Jewish and Palestinian characters whose lives and pasts unexpectedly converge: a kindergarten teacher and a mechanic who rescue children from the burning bus; an Israeli army commander and a Palestinian official who confront the aftermath at the scene of the crash; a settler paramedic; ultra-Orthodox emergency service workers; and two mothers who each hope to claim one severely injured boy. 
 
A Day in the Life of Abed Salama is a deeply immersive, stunningly detailed portrait of life in Israel and Palestine, and an illumination of the reality of one of the most contested places on earth.

A Day in the Life of Abed Salama

A Palestine Story

Daniel Levin

In this eye-opening exploration of the human weakness for power, Daniel Levin takes us on a hilarious journey through the absurd world of our global elites, drawing unforgettable sketches of some of the puppets who stand guard. and the jugglers and conjurers employed within. Most spectacular of all, however, are the astonishing contortions performed by those closest to the top in order to maintain the illusion of integrity, decency, and public service. 
 
Based on the author's first-hand experiences of dealing with governments and political institutions around the world, Nothing but a Circus offers a rare glimpse of the conversations that happen behind closed doors, observing the appalling lengths that people go to in order to justify their unscrupulous choices, from Dubai to Luanda, Moscow to Beijing, and at the heart of the UN and the US government.

Nothing but a Circus

Misadventures among the Powerful

Jeremy Clarkson

Everyone knows that Jeremy Clarkson finds the world a perplexing place - after all, he wrote a bestselling book about it. Yet despite the appearance of The World According To Clarkson, things don't seem to have improved much. However, Jeremy is not someone to give up easily and he's decided to have another go. 
 
In And Another Thing, our exasperated hero discovers that: 
 
 He inadvertently dropped a bomb on North Carolina 
 
 We're all going to explode at the age of 62 
 
Russians look bad in Speedos. But not as bad as we do. 
 
 No one should have to worry about being Bill Oddie's long lost sister 
 
He should probably be nicer about David Beckham 
 
Thigh-slappingly funny and - as ever - in your face, Jeremy Clarkson bursts the pointless little bubbles of the idiots while celebrating the special, the unique and the sheer bloody brilliant ...

And Another Thing

The World According to Clarkson Volume 2

Quentin Blake

It was truly the most breathless and in a way the most exhilarating time I have ever had in my life. 
 
 
This beautiful edition of Going Solo, part of The Roald Dahl Classic Collection, features official archive material from the Roald Dahl Museum and is perfect for Dahl fans old and new. 
 
So, enter a world where invention and mischief can be found on every page and where magic might be at the very tips of your fingers . . . 
 
The Roald Dahl Classic Collection reinstates the versions of Dahl’s books that were published before the 2022 Puffin editions, aimed at newly independent young readers.

Dan Mills

We all saw it at once. Half a dozen voices screamed 'Grenade!' simultaneously. Then everything went into slow motion. The grenade took an age to travel through its 20 metre arc. A dark, small oval-shaped package of misery the size of a peach ... 
 
April 2004: Dan Mills and his platoon of snipers fly into southern Iraq, part of an infantry battalion sent to win hearts and minds. They were soon fighting for their lives. 
 
Back home we were told they were peacekeeping. But there was no peace to keep. Because within days of arriving in theatre, Mills and his men were caught up in the longest, most sustained fire fight British troops had faced for over fifty years. 
 
This awe-inspiring account tells of total war in throat-burning winds and fifty-degree heat, blasted by mortars and surrounded by heavily armed militias. For six months, they fought alone: isolated, besieged and under constant enemy fire. Their heroic stand a modern-day Rorke's Drift.

Sniper One

‘The Best I’ve Ever Read’ – Andy McNab

Gerald Durrell

In this second collection of tales concerning the Durrell family on the island of Corfu, young Gerry continues to be captivated by the fascinating flora and fauna of their adopted home - much to the bemusement and upset of his long suffering siblings and mother. 
 
Whether it's lamp fishing by night or roving the countryside with his mentor Theodore, Gerry encounters intoxicated hedgehogs, tarantulas, dung beetles, water spiders and other animals, some of which become the family's very unwanted pets.

Birds, Beasts and Relatives

Suzi Brent

Suzi: "Ambulance service, what's the problem?" 
 Caller: "Help! My baby's not breathing!" 
 
 
 When you dial 999 for an ambulance, Suzi's could be the voice you hear on the other end of the phone. Working in one of the country's busiest control rooms, it is her job to stay on the phone until the ambulance arrives, and to give instructions that could save your life. 
 
 From taking the first calls after the terrorist attacks on 7th July 2005, to delivering a baby over the phone, whether helping the child whose mum has attempted suicide, or dealing with the many regular callers - serial hoaxer The Banana Man, Sally the young alcoholic and Mad Brenda, each with their own surprising stories to tell - Suzi has heard it all. 
 
 Nee Naw will take you on a whirlwind tour of life in the emergency lane, introducing you to some unforgettable characters. Suzi Brent will make you laugh, she'll make you cry, but never again will you dial 999 for a broken finger... 
 
 
 Suzi: "Ambulance service, what's the problem?" 
 Caller: "I've eaten too much, and now I feel really sick. Can you die from eating too much?"

Nee Naw

Real Life Dispatches From Ambulance Control

Crikey, the world according to Clarkson's been a funny old place of late . . . 
 
For a while, Jeremy could be found in his normal position as the tallest man on British television but, more recently, he appears to have been usurped by a pretend elephant. 
 
But on paper the real Jeremy remains at the helm. That's as it should be. For nearly thirty years he has been fearlessly leading the charge as one the best comic writers in the country. And in 2015, he shows no sign of slowing down. 
 
So, whether it's pondering 
 
 If Jesus might have been better off being born in New Zealand 
 Why reflexive pronoun abuse is the worst thing in the world 
 How Pam Ayres's head trumps Gordon Gecko's underpants 
 Or what a television presenter with time on his hands gets up to 
 
Jeremy is still trying to make sense of all the big stuff. 
 
Circumstances change. Nothing's forever. But As I Was Saying provides glorious proof that Jeremy remains as funny, puzzled, excitable, outspoken, insightful and thought-provoking as ever. As if you ever doubted it . . .

As I Was Saying . . .

The World According to Clarkson Volume 6

Winner of the the National Book Critics Circle Award for Non-Fiction 
 
'Spellbinding ... a magisterial account of the great tragedy of our age ... it is a classic' Evening Standard 
'In the finest traditions of American investigative journalism' The Times 
'Spectacular ... makes Bourne movies pale in comparison' Financial Times 
 
From the Pulitzer Prize winning of the acclaimed Ghost Wars, this is the full story of America's grim involvement in the affairs of Afghanistan from 2001 to 2016. In the wake of the terrible shock of 9/11, the C.I.A. scrambled to work out how to destroy Bin Laden and his associates. The C.I.A. had long familiarity with Afghanistan and had worked closely with the Taliban to defeat the Soviet Union there. A tangle of assumptions, old contacts, favours and animosities were now reactivated. Superficially the invasion was quick and efficient, but Bin Laden's successful escape, together with that of much of the Taliban leadership, and a catastrophic failure to define the limits of NATO's mission in a tough, impoverished country the size of Texas, created a quagmire which lasted many years. 
 
At the heart of the problem lay 'Directorate S', a highly secretive arm of the Pakistan state which had its own views on the Taliban and Afghanistan's place in a wider competition for influence between Pakistan, India and China, and which assumed that the U.S.A. and its allies would soon be leaving. 
 
Steve Coll's remarkable new book tells a powerful, bitter story of just how badly foreign policy decisions can go wrong and of many lives lost.

Directorate S

The C.I.A. and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, 2001–2016

Well, someone's got to do it: in a world which simply will not see reason, Jeremy sets off on another quest to beat a path of sense through all the silliness and idiocy. 
 
And there's no knowing what might catch Jeremy's eye along the way. It could be: 
-The merits of Stonehenge as a business model 
-Why all meetings are a waste of time 
-The theft of the Queen's cows 
-One Norwegian man's unique approach to showing his gratitude 
-Fitting a burglar alarm to a tortoise 
-Or how Lou Reed was completely wrong about what makes a perfect day 
 
Pithy and provocative, this is Clarkson at his best, taking issue with whatever nonsense gets in the way of his search for all that's worth celebrating. Why should we be forced to accept stuff that's a bit rubbish? Shouldn't things work? Why doesn't someone care? I mean, is it really too much to ask? 
 
It's a good thing we've still got Jeremy out there, still looking, without fear or favour, for the answers.

Is It Really Too Much To Ask?

The World According to Clarkson Volume 5

David Shields

Mesmerized and somewhat unnerved by his 97-year-old father's vitality and optimism, David Shields undertakes an original investigation of our flesh-and-blood existence, our mortal being. 
Weaving together personal anecdote, biological fact, philosophical doubt, cultural criticism, and the wisdom of an eclectic range of writers and thinkers - from Lucretius to Woody Allen - Shields expertly renders both a hilarious family portrait and a truly resonant meditation on mortality.

The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead

Rick Stanton

Thailand, July 2018. Twelve boys and their football coach vanish into Tham Luang caves. 
 
 Rick Stanton, a retired Midlands firefighter, races to save them. The boys have been missing for days. Each hour, their chance of escape shrinks. Rick must swim, crawl and squeeze through treacherously tight submerged tunnels hunting for them. 
 
 But that is not the impossible part. Because if by some miracle they're alive then somehow Rick must bring the boys back out again . . . 
 
 He doesn't know it yet but all his life he's been training for this very moment . . .

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