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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Cam Whitnall

Lion Heart is the bold and uplifting memoir of Cam Whitnall, a man whose life has been defined by extraordinary bonds with wildlife and a dramatic warzone rescue that brought five lions to safety in the UK. 
 
The Whitnall story began in 1984, when Cam’s grandparents visited the dilapidated Broxbourne Zoo, once known as the worst zoo in the UK, and made the decision to trade in their business and rebuild it from the ground up. 
 
Cam grew up on those grounds, in a bedroom overlooking the tiger enclosure. His childhood playground was full of lions, tigers and snow leopards where he and his brothers played hide-and-seek after hours and even hand-reared a lion cub called Zara inside their family home. Under the guidance of their grandparents, Cam, Aaron and Tyler developed an unshakeable dedication to protecting the planet’s most threatened species. 
 
In 2024, as Director of The Big Cat Sanctuary in Kent, Cam made global headlines for leading a high-risk rescue mission of five abandoned lions from war-torn Ukraine. Changing their fate, he formed an unbreakable bond with Yuna, Vanda, Rori, Amani and Lira, and gave the lions the freedom to walk on grass for the very first time.

Lion Heart

How a lifelong love of big cats led to an incredible lion rescue

Greg James

THE NUMBER ONE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 
 
Brilliantly funny and life-affirming stories of growing up from much-loved Radio 1 presenter and bestselling children's author, Greg James. 
 
When Greg James was ten years old, his nylon shell suit-clad idols the Chuckle Brothers ('to me, to you') signed an autograph (from them, to him) with the message 'All the best for the future.’ It was a weirdly formal message for a kid. Ten-year-old Greg had no idea what the future held, no clue what was in store for him as he carried on through life. How could he? No one really knows what's coming. 
 
We all have big dreams and small ones, ideas about how we want our lives to pan out: when you'll get married, where you'll live, how many children you want, what you want to be when you grow up. We race through the milestones, desperate to unlock life's next level and before you know it, you’re a ‘grown up'. That’s all well and good but have you remembered to have fun along the way? 
 
Whether it's entertaining the nation with his hugely popular BBC Radio 1 Breakfast Show, writing big funny adventures for kids with his bestselling children's books, finding the joy in cricket and F1 in his podcasts Tailenders and The Fast and the Curious, or posting stupid videos of his adorable but quite thick dog Barney, Greg’s focus is to put a smile on people's faces because, let's face it, having fun is something we all forget to prioritise sometimes. 
 
In All the Best for the Future, Greg looks at how he thought his life would go and shares the things that wind him up, make him sad, make him laugh and the little passions and interests that he relies on to get him through the day - whether it was a good one or a bad one. He tells us who he is, who he thought he'd be and who he still thinks he could be. Most of all though, his message for everyone is not to let go of that inner child as he navigates how to grow up without growing old. It’s possible to be fully functioning adults, with bills to pay and a dog to look after, and still find time to play with a train set...

All the Best for the Future

Growing Up Without Growing Old

Giles Wood

Mary Killen

The Nutty Idyll 
 
Former townies Giles and Mary swapped city life for rural Wiltshire over thirty years ago, and they've each embraced it in their own very different ways. 
 
Mary has happily traded sophisticated London salons for monthly lectures at the Farmers' Club, competitive school quizzes, church interactions and local Auction House sales. While Giles has immersed himself in the catastrophic consequences of conventional farming, his organic no-dig veg-patch, the increasingly disproportionate response by local landlords to harmless trespassers and the strange death of the village house martins. 
 
For recent city escapees and indigenous country folk alike, Giles and Mary sift through the unhelpful dreamy myths and offer a practical reality, with robust back and forth on every aspect of life in rural outposts, including but not limited to planning wars, class wars, dog thefts, tree-felling fights, misunderstandings between incomers and natives and the role of the Heron Appreciation Society. 
 
The much-loved Wiltshire couple share their combined, hard-earned lessons, so we can learn the secret skills of grumbling and bumbling our way towards a new contented country life.

Country Life

A story of peaks and troughs

Jane McDonald

The instant Sunday Times bestseller 
 
'Life is what you make it, nothing is for free 
Stand up and be counted, and be who you want to be' 
'Let The Light In' Jane McDonaldJane was planning a golden retirement with her beloved partner Ed, when a shocking cancer diagnosis changed everything. Ed was terminally ill. Jane nursed him at home until the end, on her own, with the UK in lockdown. At first she was overwhelmed, but slowly gathered strength from caring for her loved one, and now sees that it was a privilege to be there for him. 
 
'Let The Light In', a song Jane wrote over twenty years ago during another dark time, points the way to finding a new kind of joy out of sorrow. It's a philosophy Jane has always lived by and, in this deeply personal book exploring the same themes, she reveals the lessons she's learned that have helped her grow, adapt and rise up through adversity. She looks back with candour and honesty on her experiences of heartbreak and loss, failure and burn-out. Cherishing the ring of support around her, taking the odd duvet day and keeping a sense of humour throughout, she grew stronger through each challenge, building resilience, trusting her gut, going for her goals.Read on and let Jane McDonald’s fabulous light into your own life.

Let the Light In

Lessons learned through life, love and laughter

Will Young

The Sunday Times Bestseller. New edition, updated with added content. 
 
Navigating day-to-day life can be a tricky business. By the time we are adults, our experiences have formed our way of thinking and we have learned patterns of behaviour that are not always helpful. We must unravel these to understand, accept, nurture and allow ourselves to rise with our vulnerabilities, not in spite of them. 
 
After having a breakdown in 2011, Will Young went about the process of interrogating everything he thought he knew: how he formed his identity, what he relied on for self-esteem and how he behaved and communicated. Everything he has learned over the past ten years, he has now condensed into this easy to access A-Z guide. He digs into how everyday life can affect our wellbeing, how we can navigate our emotions, where they come from and how to create a balanced mindset, offering practical techniques we can all use to ground ourselves and set boundaries. 
 
With wit and wisdom and revealing his own vulnerabilities along the way, Will shows us how to identify destructive patterns, develop good mindful habits, be true to who we are and grow into better versions of ourselves.

Be Yourself and Happier

The A-Z of Wellbeing

Fern Britton

‘I didn’t know it at the time, as I didn’t have a word for it then, but I’ve repowered several times in my life. Leaving home in my teens, changing careers from theatre to TV to author, battling my way out of the dark pit of postnatal depression and rebuilding my life as a single mother after the end of my marriage. All these were hard. All of them taught me big lessons. Perhaps the biggest of these was that I can do it. And so can you.’ 
 
Fern had recently entered her 60s when a series of life-altering events threw her into the eye of the storm. Both her parents passed away, her 20-year marriage ended, and the pandemic was looming.Faced with an uncertain future, Fern decided that if she wanted to start over, now was the time. She moved to Cornwall, where she reconnected with her true self and instead of fearing getting older, she chose to create a glorious new life full of friendship, fun and adventure.Fern explores the joy and challenges of aging with warmth and humour. She reflects back on all she has learnt, from enduring tough times to embracing new opportunities and learning how to be kinder to herself. This wasn’t a moment of empowerment, for that would suggest she never had any power to begin with. As women, we often put our needs aside, and she feels strongly that it’s time for us to repower and rediscover our happiness.In The Older I Get, join Fern as she candidly shares her experiences of grief and loss, rebuilding confidence and exploring new passions, as well as the importance of finding friends you can put the world to rights with over a couple of Cosmos.

The Older I Get…

How I repowered my life

Ted the Dog

Sunday Times Bestseller 
 
 
Join Ted, the beloved canine star of BBC2's Gone Fishing and bestselling author, as he embarks on a life-changing adventure, and discovers what truly matters to him. 
 
What's the real story behind Ted's suitcase? What's in it and why does getting it back mean so much to him? 
 
Maybe the answer lies with the film supremo Quentin Tarantino, who said the value of the briefcase in his classic movie Pulp Fiction lay not in its contents, but in the briefcase itself. 
 
Rather like fishing, it’s not always about the fish you catch, but the joy of the time you spend on the riverbank, as Ted well knows. Accompanying Paul and Bob on their angling expeditions is one of the greatest pleasures of his life, alongside pocket meat. 
 
In Pup Fiction, Ted tells the story of how all these delights collide in one life-changing, breathtaking European adventure.

Pup Fiction

An epic journey with Gone Fishing

The Nicholson Family

The instant no. 2 Sunday Times bestseller! 
 
Join the Nicholson family for this heartwarming journey through a typical springtime on their South Yorkshire farm. 
 
Throughout the book they reflect on the childhood stories, testing times, poignant memories and enriching experiences that have shaped the lives they lead today. With the coming of a new season, Roger and Cynthia Nicholson and their sons Richard, Robert and David show how the farming year is shaped around the arrival of baby goats, lambs, calves and piglets galore. 
 
As Yorkshire's premier open farm attraction, Cannon Hall Farm continues to play host to thousands of visitors and spring is the busiest time of the year. People flock to meet the new arrivals and catch up with old favourites such as the llama and alpaca posse, the stunning shire horses and the irrepressible Shetland ponies, including Ozzy Horsebourne and Jon Bon Pony. 
 
Along with all the animal antics, Springtime at Cannon Hall Farm features tales of bygone days when traditional skills, crafts and daily practices shaped life in the countryside. And for fans of Rob and Dave's Channel 5 shows, there are lots of behind-the-scenes secrets you won't want to miss...

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