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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Melissa Wareham

Melissa Wareham always wanted to work with dogs. After failing her biology O-level she realised she'd have to start at the bottom, cleaning out kennels at Battersea Dogs Home. 
 
From frail old men looking for a four-legged companion to famous folk who've lost their favourite hound, it seemed that at some point everyone passes through Battersea's doors. Amongst the clamour of thousands of lost pets crying 'Rescue Me!' and the noise of the railway lines above, Melissa found she had come home. 
 
The first dog Melissa fell for was Tulip, a sweet, elderly and somewhat dotty mongrel who decided a solo bus ride into the West End might be fun. Next up was Roscoe: found by the ambulance team with his dead owner, he is rehabilitated with a little help from his master's hat. And then - many, many dogs later - there is Gus. With his owner in jail, Melissa finally finds the dog she is to take home as her own. 
 
Heart-warming and compulsively readable, Rescue Me is Melissa's memoir of her fifteen years at Britain's most-loved dogs' home.

Rescue Me

My Life with the Battersea Dogs

Alex Riley

'Boldly ambitious, deeply affecting, and magisterial in scope' Steve Silberman, author of Neurotribes 
 
'Expansive and thoughtful, it illuminates the complexity and elusiveness of his subject' New Statesman 
 
Depression is a leading cause of disability around the world today, a growing health crisis that affects us all. It is a complex and diverse condition. But it is also highly treatable. 
 
In this profound and sweeping history, Alex Riley charts the macabre, ingenious, and often surprising developments in the science of mental healthcare over the last 2000 years. In the pursuit to understand his own experiences with mental illness, Riley interweaves his own family history with fascinating stories of biological and psychological treatments which illuminate the past, question the current state of diagnosis, and investigate the hype and hopes for future treatments. 
 
From the re-emergence of long-forgotten therapies to a group of grandmothers who stand at the forefront of a revolution in mental healthcare, A Cure for Darkness is an essential exploration of one of the most pressing problems of our time.

A Cure for Darkness

The story of depression and how we treat it

Chas Griffin

In 1982 the Griffins left the security of suburbia to grow garlic in West Wales. From the struggle with rurality that ensued grew (organically) the very amusing, and informative, warts-and-all account Scenes From a Smallholding . 
 
Now in this sometimes touching, but always funny sequel, Chas reveals what happened four years after their arrival - when the dream had been well and truly dreamt and they were experiencing some rather rude awakenings. Did they ever achieve the blissful good life? Are they surrounded by organic veg? How have the family coped with their new rural life? 
 
Written with Chas Griffin's trademark charm and humour, enjoy another compelling romp through the countryside.

More Scenes From a Smallholding

In 1982 the Griffins left the security of suburbia to grow garlic in West Wales. This is a funny and sometimes touching, warts-and-all account of their first three years: of how they learned lambing and marketing and ploughing and hay-making: and of the dung-sodden joys of milking and the surreal terrors of bee-keeping. Be amused. Be very amused. 
 
Scenes from a Smallholding is by turns challenging, touching, and informative; but above all, it is very funny.

Scenes From A Smallholding

Adam Goodfellow

Nicole Golding

Adam Goodfellow and Nicole Golding run a stable in the Cotswolds and specialise in curing problem horses. It's never an easy task, and often requires changing the habits of the owner as much as the horse. The pair have travelled a long way to get where they are today - but they've been united by a common passion. 
 
After a chance meeting with Monty Roberts, they gave up everything to live out their dreams and show that it's possible for ordinary people to become 'horse whisperers'. Their world is extraordinary, particularly through their unusual methods of teaching, and as you meet the cast of characters, both animals and humans, that surround them, you'll find it impossible not to be won over by their life.

Whispering Back

Tales From A Stable in the English Countryside

Sheila Hocken

As a girl, Sheila never let her gradual descent into blindness prevent her from trying to do everything a sighted person could do. Then at 17, unable to see to find her way around the house she grew up in, she found herself dreading her future in an 'ever darkening vacuum'. 
 
But then the remarkable Emma enters her life, and Sheila begins a journey that brings her the independence, love and happiness she never dreamed possible. 
 
Emma and I is the moving and inspirational story of the unique bond between Sheila and her dog, and shows that, sometimes, miracles do happen.

Emma and I

Amanda Leask

As seen on ITV's Britain's Got Talent, where they captured the hearts of the nation, this is Amanda and Miracle's incredible story of survival, love and hope 
 
Snatched from the streets of Thailand, loaded onto a truck with hundreds of other stolen dogs and destined for the restaurants of Hanoi, Miracle the dog shouldn’t be alive today. 
 
But an incredible rescue led to a fateful meeting with Amanda Leask, a dog lover from Scotland. Devastated by Miracle’s plight and the hopelessness of his situation, she knew she had to do everything in her power to save him. But Amanda could never have imagined that in doing so she was really saving herself… Amanda’s six year-old son Kyle, who was born with cerebral palsy and autism, built a deep and lasting connection with Miracle and their special bond has transformed not only Kyle’s life but that of the entire family. 
 
Heartbreaking, inspirational and ultimately life-affirming, this incredible tale is proof that miracles really can happen…

Miracle

Pen Farthing

'Nowzad was a gentle giant when it came to taking treats. He never, ever snatched. To me it was just further evidence that, deep inside, there was a great dog struggling to find his way out' 
 
When Pen Farthing brings stray dogs Nowzad and Tali back from his tour of Afghanistan, little does he know what he has begun. 
 
Suddenly he has four dogs to look after - two of whom have never been house-trained. And soon he is inundated with requests from other Marines and soldiers to help bring their rescued dogs home. Whether it's little Helmand, Fubar or Beardog, Pen does his utmost to give these dogs the chance they deserve. 
 
No Place like Home is the true story of one man's courage and persistence as he struggles to give his dogs at home, and those still in Afghanistan, the best possible chance. It will warm - and break - the hearts of dog lovers everywhere.

No Place Like Home

A New Beginning with the Dogs of Afghanistan

Anne Nolan

Linda Nolan

"It's ok to be scared, to feel lonely... we'll get through it, because we have to." 
 
For more than 40 years Linda and Anne have performed side by side as members of iconic Irish girl group The Nolans. But in 2020 the sisters sat next to each other for a very different experience. Soon after returning home from filming their hit TV series The Nolans Go Cruising, with their sisters Coleen and Maureen, Linda and Anne received devastating cancer diagnoses within days of each other and soon began gruelling rounds of chemotherapy together. It was a stark reminder of how cruel life can be and, of course, of their beloved sister Bernie, who also faced and lost the same battle. 
 
Stronger Together is Linda and Anne's story. A reflection on their close-knit relationship, in the limelight and behind the scenes, and of how family helped them hold it all together when things got tough. Deeply personal, incredibly moving and told with trademark humour, it's a story they hope will help you too.

Stronger Together

How We’re Living While Fighting

Kelly Corrigan

For Kelly Corrigan, family was everything. At thirty-six, she had a marriage that worked, two funny, active kids, and a weekly newspaper column. Yet even as a thriving adult, Kelly still saw herself as the daughter of garrulous charmer George Corrigan. She was living deep within what she calls the Middle Place - 'that sliver of time when parenthood and childhood overlap' - comfortably wedged between her adult duties and her parents' care. 
 
But Kelly is abruptly shoved into coming-of-age when she finds a lump in her breast - and gets the diagnosis no one wants to hear. When George, too, learns that he has late-stage cancer, it is Kelly's turn to take care of the man who had always taken care of her - and to show us a woman who finally takes the leap and grows up.

The Middle Place

Jon Katz

Jon and his wife live in a New Jersey suburb with two perfectly behaved Labradors. Then into the mix comes Devon, who creates havoc from the moment he arrives at the airport, when it takes Jon, two baggage handlers and three police officers to track him down after he escapes. 
 
Jon learns the hard way how to encourage Devon to behave. But amongst the difficulties of their first year together, Jon discovers his life is enlivened by a creature with so much mischievousness and joie de vivre. In fact, Jon finds that he is to change as much as Devon. 
 
By turns insightful, hilarious and deeply moving, A Dog Year is a delightful true story of the age-old bond between man and dog.

A Dog Year

Rescuing Devon, the most troublesome dog in the world

'Thick with rolls of gleaming new wire, the obstacle was designed to prevent a suicide bomber driving into the compound's thick mud walls. Today, however, it had only succeeded in stopping a terrified-looking small white dog. I knew that the Taliban could be hiding in any one of these buildings, just waiting for one of us. But I knew I couldn't just walk away.' 
 
In a remote outpost of Now Zad, in Helmand province, Pen Farthing's tour of duty will change his life forever, but for entirely unexpected reasons ... 
 
Appalled by the horrors of a local dog fight, he intervenes to free the victims. One of these dogs finds his way into the Marine compound - and into Pen's heart. Soon other strays are being drawn to the sanctuary provided by Pen's makeshift pound, including one young mum who crawls under the compound fence carrying her newborn pups to safety. 
 
But as his time in Helmand draws to an end, Pen cannot leave the dogs of Now Zad to their own fates. He begins hatching plans to help them escape to a better life.

One Dog at a Time

An inspiring true story of saving the strays of Afghanistan

Stuart Maconie

'He is as funny as Bryson and as wise as Orwell' Observer 
 
It was the spirit of our finest hour, the backbone of our post-war greatness, and it promoted some of the boldest and most brilliant schemes this isle has ever produced: it was the Welfare State, and it made you and I. But now it's under threat, and we need to save it. 
 
In this timely and provocative book, Stuart Maconie tells Britain’s Welfare State story through his own history of growing up as a northern working class boy. What was so bad about properly funded hospitals, decent working conditions and affordable houses? And what was so wrong about student grants, free eye tests and council houses? And where did it all go so wrong? Stuart looks toward Britain’s future, making an emotional case for believing in more than profit and loss; and championing a just, fairer society.

The Nanny State Made Me

A Story of Britain and How to Save it

Elaine Lordan

Elaine Lordan is well-known to millions as EastEnders' Lynne Slater. Yet the real-life heartache and loss she came to suffer eclipsed even the rollercoaster troubles of her TV character. After leaving the show, Elaine lost her beloved mother when she took her life under a train. Then later that same year, just two days after her wedding, Elaine lost James, her one-year-old son and only child, to a rare condition. 
 
Whatever It Takes is the story of a no-nonsense working-class girl who hit the big time and enjoyed several happy years as one of the nation's favourite soap stars. Things took a downward turn as her heavy drinking and affair with a married man led to her being hounded by the press. Yet Pete would become the love of her life and together they would experience the unfathomable joy of having a child. This flush of happiness was short-lived, though, as Elaine felt the full impact of her mother's death, while her son James battled for life. It wasn't long before family life revolved around the hospital - hoping for the best, but fearing the worst. 
 
Full of larger-than-life characters from her boisterous Irish family and close circle of north London friends, Elaine tells her story with heart-wrenching candour. In this life-affirming memoir of overcoming tragedy, we see how Elaine's indomitable spirit and innate humour have carried her through even the bleakest moments, and how one woman's 'sink or swim' approach has ensured her survival.

Whatever It Takes

A Story of Family Survival

Anish Sheth

With universal appeal (everyone poos, after all), this witty, illustrated description of over two dozen dookies (each with a medical explanation written by a doctor) details what one can learn about health and well-being by studying what's in the bowl. A floater? It's probably due to a buildup of gas. Now think back on last night's dinner, a burrito perhaps? 
 
All the greatest hits are here: The Log Jam, The Glass Shard, The Deja Poo, The Hanging Chad ... the list goes on. Sidebars, trivia, over 60 euphemisms for number two, and unusual case histories all make this the ultimate bathroom reader. Who knew you could learn so much from your poo? 
 
Previously published as The Book of Poo

What’s Your Poo Telling You?

Lucy Edge

What happens when an urban girl swaps her kitten heels in the city for karma in the country? 
 
It is a big year for Lucy - she has met the love of her life and they're planning to trade the city rat race for a Norfolk farmhouse, get married, and try for a baby. 
 
But country life isn't quite what Lucy imagined. Sure, there's time to stop and chat, but where does she find the people to stop and chat to? 
 
She has almost had it up to here when, one day, she stumbles across a local yoga club. There - in a small room above Knit and Knatter - she finds the laughter, friendship and wisdom to steer her through whatever dramas life throws at her. 
 
A funny and heart-warming true story about one woman's search for love and friendship in the lotus position.

The Handbag and Wellies Yoga Club

Julian Austwick

Tracy Austwick

‘The first time Shocks saw Amber coming, he lowered his head so she could wrap her arms around his nose. It was as if they understood each other’s pain. Like two broken beings, helping each other.’ 
 
When Shocks the donkey was left for dead on a farm in Ireland, no one ever thought he would make a full recovery. 
 
When Amber and her twin sister Hope were born 26 weeks premature, it was Amber who was separated from her family and rushed into theatre for an emergency tracheostomy. Her parents were given the devastating news that she had Cerebral Palsy and would be unlikely to walk or talk. 
 
Then Amber met Shocks at the Donkey Sanctuary and their lives were changed 
for good. 
 
This is their touching story of recovery through friendship.

Amber's Donkey

How a donkey and a little girl healed each other

Peter Gethers

There are only three things a cat needs for a fine life - good food, a comfortable bed, and universal praise and love. Luckily - after converting his human, Peter, from cat hater to cat lover - Norton has plenty of all three. And they're about to get better, as his Peter and girlfriend Janice decide to up sticks and spend a year in rural France. 
 
Norton in Provence is like - well - the cat who got the cream, whether he is hunting for mice in the rambling garden, hanging out with the local stray cats in the sun-drenched town square or being treated to delicacies in fine restaurants. And with Norton by his side, Peter finds that his Gallic neighbours welcome their new guests with open arms. 
 
Over the course of the year, Peter learns how to sit back, relax and enjoy the pleasures of a simple life. In A Cat Called Norton, the eponymous cat taught Peter how to love. Now, in For the Love of Norton, he teaches Peter what it is to truly live.

For the Love of Norton

The Cat who Taught his Human How to Live

When Jon took on a troublesome two-year-old Border Collie in A Dog Year, it turned his sedate life upside down and culminated in a move from suburbia to a rural farm. 
 
But the contrary Collie - incredibly loyal but incredibly misbehaved - never settles down. Jon tries everything, obedience training, changing his name from Devon to Orson, even acupuncture, and it all helps a little, but not enough. 
 
Together Jon and Orson chase sheep across high meadows, wade through snow, bask by a roaring stove and struggle to keep faith in each other. A story of great joy and heartbreak, in A Good Dog Jon faces the most difficult decision any dog lover has to make ...

A Good Dog

The Story of Orson, Who Changed My Life

Katie Piper

'I heard a horrible screaming sound, like an animal being slaughtered ... then I realised it was me.' 
 
When Katie Piper was 24, her life was near perfect. Young and beautiful, she was well on her way to fulfilling her dream of becoming a model. 
 
But then she met Daniel Lynch on Facebook and her world quickly turned into a nightmare ... 
 
After being held captive and brutally raped by her new boyfriend, Katie was subjected to a vicious acid attack. Within seconds, this bright and bubbly girl could feel her looks and the life she loved melting away. 
 
Beautiful is the moving true story of how one young woman had her mind, body and spirit cruelly snatched from her and how she inspired millions with her fight to get them back.

Beautiful

A beautiful girl. An evil man. One inspiring true story of courage

Mark Steel

‘I feel like there’s a leopard in my house, locked in a room. I’ve contacted the leopard authorities and they assure me they are used to dealing with leopards like this, and they have a plan for removing the leopard. It will take a while, though, and once in a while I can hear it growl.And that’s all very reassuring. Even so, several times a day I think to myself: “Hang on, there’s a leopard in my house.”’One morning, while shaving, the comedian Mark Steel noticed that one side of his neck seemed larger than the other. After a whistlestop tour of assorted medical professionals, a consultant delivered the ominous words that would define the next months of his life: ‘I’m afraid it’s not good news, Mr Steel’.And so began a journey into the heart of the NHS, as he embarked on the long and uncertain road to cancer recovery via a range of mildly torturous and entirely miraculous treatments. What, if anything, might he learn about himself – and our capacity for coping with life when times get tough – as he becomes part of a club that one in two British people will ultimately join?A frank and funny diary of one man’s rather trying year, this is an unforgettable and uplifting story of getting ill, getting on with it, and getting better.

The Leopard in my House

One man’s adventures in cancerland

Grace Maxwell

In February 2005, Edwyn Collins suffered two devastating brain haemorrhages. He should have died. Doctors advised that if he did survive, there would be little of him left. If that wasn't enough, he went on to contract MRSA as a result of an operation to his skull and spent six months in hospital. Initially, Edwyn couldn't speak, read, write, walk, sit up or feed himself. He had lost all movement in his right side and was suffering from aphasia - an inability to use or understand language. When he initially recovered consciousness the only words he could say were 'Grace', 'Maxwell', 'yes' and 'no'. 
 
But with the help of his partner Grace and their son Will, Edwyn fought back. Slowly, and with monumental effort, he began to teach his brain to read and speak all over again - with some areas of his mind it was if he had been a slate wiped utterly clean. Through a long and arduous road of therapy he began to re-inhabit his body until he could walk again. 
 
Grace's story is an intimate and inspiring account of what you do to survive when your husband is all but taken away without warning by a stroke.

Falling and Laughing

The Restoration of Edwyn Collins

Anna Lowe

'I squeezed through the narrow gap and out into the hallway and I stood for a moment, unable to decide where to go. Should I make a dash for the kitchen, where my mother would be swigging from a bottle? Or should I run upstairs and try to find somewhere to hide? It was a choice I didn't really need to make, because there was no escape' 
 
Anna Lowe grows up on the doorsteps of pubs, waiting for her mum to come out. Having to give up her bedroom to her mother's drunken friends. And regularly calling out the ambulance, after finding her mother unconscious and covered in vomit. 
 
But it is when they move in with her mother's boyfriend Carl that things take the ugliest turn. Not only is he violent with her mother, but he also sexually abuses Anna from the age of six - destroying any semblance of normal childhood she had left. 
 
Wake Up, Mummy is the heartbreaking true story of a little girl who eventually found the courage to break free from the past.

Wake Up, Mummy

The heartbreaking true story of an abused little girl whose mother was too drunk to notice

Marc Abraham

When his father sat him down and told him to 'make something' of himself, young vet Marc Abraham decided to do it the hard way - by setting up an emergency 'out of hours' clinic. 
 
If getting used to the long night shifts wasn't bad enough, emergency cases are rarely straightforward. Whether it was dog who swallowed golf balls, or a gerbil in urgent need of a caesarean, every case had the potential for heartbreak. But animals and their owners could also be hilarious, such as the breeder who unwittingly gave his German Shepherd four testicles. . . 
 
Over the course of twelve tough months, the clinic began to flourish. Would Marc finally make something of himself after all? 
 
Marc Abraham writes guilelessly about his early mistakes, and the terror and joy involved in saving an animal's life. His memoir is a heart-warming, compelling and thoroughly entertaining look at the life of a vet on call.

Vet on Call

My First Year as an Out-of-Hours Vet

Rory McGrath

Bearded Tit is Rory McGrath's story of life among birds. From a Cornish boyhood wandering gorse-tipped cliffs listening to the song of the yellowhammer with his imaginary girlfriend, or drawing gravity-defying jackdaws in class when he should have been applying himself to physics, to quoting the Latin names of birds to give himself a fighting chance of a future with JJ - the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. 
 
As an adult, or what passes for one, Rory recounts becoming a card-carrying birdwatcher, observing his first skylark - peerless king of the summer sky - while stoned; his repeatedly failed attempts to get up at the crack of dawn like the real twitchers; and his flawed bid to educate his utterly unreconstructed drinking mate Danny in the ways of birding. 
 
Rory's tale is a thoroughly educational, occasionally lyrical and highly amusing romp through the hidden byways of birdwatching and, more importantly, a love story you'll never forget.

Bearded Tit

A Love Story with Feathers

John Elder Robison

From the time he was three or four years old, John Elder Robison realised that he was different from other people. He was unable to make eye contact or connect with other children, and by the time he was a teenager his odd habits - an inclination to blurt out non-sequiturs, obsessively dismantle radios or dig five-foot holes (and stick his younger brother in them) - had earned him the label 'social deviant'. It didn't help that his mother conversed with light fixtures and his father spent evenings pickling himself in sherry. 
 
Look Me in the Eye is his story of growing up with Asperger's syndrome – a form of autism – at a time when the diagnosis simply didn't exist. Along the way it also tells the story of two brothers born eight years apart yet devoted to each other: the author and his younger brother Chris, who would grow up to become bestselling author Augusten Burroughs. 
 
This book is a rare fusion of inspiration, dark comedy and insight into the workings of the human mind. For someone who has struggled all his life to connect with other people, Robison proves to be an extraordinary storyteller.

Look Me in the Eye

My Life with Asperger's

As Izzy settles down to life on Bedlam Farm, Jon is amazed that all signs of the troubled rescue dog who first arrived have disappeared. More than this, the Border collie demonstrates an uncanny sensitivity to, and tenderness towards, humans who are troubled or ill. 
 
Izzy's unusual gift leads Jon off the farm and into new, extraordinary friendships, as they together begin volunteer hospice work. Izzy shows Jon what dogs can do for people at our most desperate times. But the work isn't easy, and Jon is reminded that at times he is needy himself. 
 
Enter Lenore, a glossy jet-black Labrador retriever puppy, whose seemingly boundless capacity for love reminds Katz why he'd come to the farm in the first place - and why he'd devoted so much of his life to working with dogs. 
 
The Dog who Loved is a moving and inspiring story of love, compassion, and the incredibly rich and complex relationships between dogs and humans. 
 
Please note, The Dog who Loved is the UK title for the book published in the US as Izzy and Lenore.

The Dog who Loved

Lenore, the Puppy who Rescued Me

Jennifer Craig

'What is your name?' she asks, staring at me. 
'Jennifer Ross.' 
'Jennifer Ross, Sister. Well, Nurse Ross, you are dressed in the uniform of a nurse from the Leeds General Infirmary. Such a uniform is not worn with a cardigan. Take it off at once.' 
'Yes Sister.' I can feel my face turn red. 
 
A trainee nurse in the 1950s had a lot to bear. In Jennifer Craig's enchanting memoir, we meet these warm-hearted yet naïve young girls as they get to grips with strict discipline, long hours and bodily fluids. But we also see the camaraderie that develops in evening study sessions, sneaked trips to the cinema and mischievous escapades with the young trainee doctors. 
 
The harsh conditions prove too much for some girls, but the opportunity to help her patients in their time of need is too much of a pull for Jenny. As she commits to her vocation and knuckles down to her exams, she is determined that when she reaches the heights of Ward Sister herself she will not become the frightening matron that struck fear into her student heart ... 
 
Rich in period detail, and told with a good dose of Yorkshire humour, Yes Sister, No Sister is a life-affirming true story of a life long past.

Yes Sister, No Sister

My Life as a Trainee Nurse in 1950s Yorkshire

Phil Shoenfelt

Camden Town. The late 1980s. A hinterland of rundown squats, petty crime and hard drugs. 
 
Amid this sordid milieu, junkies Phil and Cissy go about their daily routine of sex, shooting up and dodging the police. For a while they have each other and nothing else seems to matter. But as their addictions worsen, money runs short and Cissy's psychotic ex-boyfriend is released from prison, their relationship begins to disintegrate into mutual distrust and loathing... 
 
Raw, repellent and yet shot through with mordant wit, Junkie Love is Phil Shoenfelt's semi-fictionalised account of the heroin addiction that almost cost him his sanity and his life.

Junkie Love

Peter was a confirmed loner and cat hater, until he was given a small, grey (and impeccably handsome) kitten with folded ears by his then girlfriend. The girlfriend went but Norton stayed - in fact, he and Peter became inseparable. 
 
Trotting along beside him down the street, having his own chair in restaurants or sitting on Peter's lap on plane journeys, Norton made his presence felt and Peter was a loner no more. But, after learning how to love his cat, would Peter now learn how to love another human too?

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