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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John Robins

John Robins is a critically acclaimed stand-up comedian, Taskmaster champion, and an award-winning broadcaster. He is also an alcoholic.But what does that mean? What is an alcoholic? 
In Thirst, John tells the story of his life through the lens of alcohol, the drinks that made him, and those that broke him. From his earliest drinking experiences – pretending to be drunk after a sip of champagne aged five, spraying aftershave into his mouth at the school play afterparty, and university nights spent downing red wine alone in his room – to his last drink in 2022 and the journey into sobriety that followed, John explores our relationship with alcohol through reflections on decades of his own drinking.From hazy memory to sudden clarity he sheds light on subjects from mental health to friendship, from creativity to the lies we tell ourselves, and answers questions such as: are alcoholics born or made? How can we make sense of youthful missteps? And can Buddhism provide relief when dealing with haemorrhoids? 
Filled with insights and epiphanies from the world of addiction and recovery, Thirst blends John’s trademark raw honesty and hilarious digressions with the collective wisdom of alcoholics and those around them to offer a compelling, powerful and morbidly funny narrative for anyone who has ever asked 'why do we drink?', 'why do I drink?' or 'do I drink too much?'.

Thirst

Twelve Drinks That Changed My Life

Daniel Lavelle

From Orwell Prize-winning journalist Daniel Lavelle comes a wild road trip chasing aliens through the UFO heartlands into the soul of America 
 
The US government has been investigating unidentified aerial phenomena in a secret division of the Department of Defence. A former intelligence official urged the US to disclose evidence of UFOs after saying the government has possession of ‘intact and partially intact’ alien vehicles. And what about those sightings of Tic Tac, Gimbal, Go Fast and the infamous Oumuamua? Had an alien invasion been going on right under our noses? 
 
Danny Lavelle, our charming, borderline-bewildered investigator, sets out on a road trip through America’s UFO heartlands to get some answers (thankfully around 41% of Americans believe aliens have made contact, so he has plenty of sources to choose from). Talking to those in the know in government and the wider UFO scene – often the same thing – Danny follows everyone from Lue Elizondo to Jeremy Corbell, whilst attending sky watches (sometimes falling asleep in the American desert), listening to the stories of alien abductees and chatting with Starseeds (those human beings who claim to be actual aliens). 
 
Whether he’s smoking weed whilst holding dumortierite crystals to access his interdimensional past, or discussing the make-up of ‘space beads’ with the Harvard astrophysicist who’s convinced he’s found evidence of alien life, or investigating the clandestine Skinwalker Ranch, Danny’s journey becomes a deeper story about our unshakeable fascination with little green men – and our deepest wishes not to be alone in the universe. 
 
Encountering a fair amount of religiosity, conspiratorial thinking and plain old magical thinking, Chasing Aliens is a wild journey into the heart of America – where aliens are as American as George Washington and warm apple pie. This is a book for anyone who’s interested in our (possible) neighbours in the universe, and our ongoing search for meaning and answers to life’s great mysteries, trapped as we are in the uncertainty of our short, mortal lives.

Chasing Aliens

Faith and Conspiracy in the UFO Heartlands

Elna Baker

Growing up in a family shaped by conventional ideas of femininity, Elna Baker turned to food for self-expression. But at the age of 22, unemployed and with few romantic prospects, she faced the reality of her situation and it hit her hard. 
 
In one year, Elna Baker lost over 8 stone. 
 
Suddenly, strangers on the street who had once shouted insults were smiling spontaneously. Men who would never have given her a second glance were falling at her feet. Elna's new life was a fairytale, but adoration came at a price. She was reliant on appetite suppressants and weight loss shakes to keep her dream body alive. If old Elna became unlovable, new Elna would do everything she could to denounce her former self. 
 
Ten years later, on the eve of her dream wedding, a spell lifts. In choosing the version of herself that the world around her idolised, Elna had left her true self behind. Now, she would have to burn her dream life to the ground and rebuild it. 
 
Pretty for a Day is a vulnerable, witty and eye-opening story of the frivolity of beauty and the heartbreaking reality of extreme weight loss. This is the story of millions of women and, indeed, many men who are overwhelmed by impossible standards imposed through advertising, movies, celebrity culture, social media, and even our own friends and family. 
 
With the widespread availability of weight loss medication, like Ozempic and Mounjaro, we can choose to be thin for the first time in history. No one knows for sure what the medical or social consequences will be. 
 
Now, Elna Baker's searing memoir offers a roadmap to understand the devastating impact of weight loss. This is the story of how, after decades of undoing, Elna Baker finally got her body back.

Pretty for a Day

Luke Kemp

A radical retelling of human history through collapse – from the dawn of our species to the urgent existential threats of the twenty-first century and beyond. 
 
** FEATURED IN THE NEW BBC SERIES CIVILISATIONS: RISE AND FALL ** 
** THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER ** 
 
‘A brilliant, utterly convincing account of the evolution of human society and why we are probably reaching humanity's end days’ HENRY MARSH 
 
'Absolutely essential reading for understanding why past civilisations collapsed, and how to protect our own from the same fate' LEWIS DARTNELL 
 
For the first 300,000 years of human history, hunter-gathering Homo sapiens lived in fluid, egalitarian civilizations that thwarted any individual or group from ruling permanently. Then, around 12,000 years ago, that began to change. 
 
As we reluctantly congregated in the first farms and cities, people began to rely on novel lootable resources like grain and fish for their daily sustenance. And when more powerful weapons became available, small groups began to seize control of these valuable commodities. This inequality in resources soon tipped over into inequality in power, and we started to adopt more primal, hierarchical forms of organization. Power was concentrated in masters, kings, pharaohs and emperors (and ideologies were born to justify their rule). Goliath-like states and empires – with vast bureaucracies and militaries – carved up and dominated the globe. 
 
What brought them down? Whether in the early cities of Cahokia in North America or Tiwanaku in South America, or the sprawling empires of Egypt, Rome and China, it was increasing inequality and concentrations of power that hollowed these Goliaths out before an external shock brought them crashing down. These collapses were written up as apocalyptic, but in truth they were usually a blessing for most of the population. 
 
Now we live in a single global Goliath. Growth obsessed, extractive institutions like the fossil fuel industry, big tech and military-industrial complexes rule our world and produce new ways of annihilating our species, from climate change to nuclear war. Our systems are now so fast, complex and interconnected that a future collapse will likely be global, swift and irreversible. All of us now face a choice: we must learn to democratically control Goliath, or the next collapse may be our last. 
 
'An excellent survey of human history through the collapses of Goliath-like kings, states and empires' OBSERVER 
 
'A comprehensive overview of societal collapse, based on the analysis of dozens of cases spanning thousands of years from the Paleolithic to today. Highly recommended' PETER TURCHIN 
 
'A deeply sobering and strangely inspiring history of how societies collapse - and how we can still save ours. Read it now, or your descendants will find it in the ruins' JOHANN HARI 
 
'Like reading Thomas Piketty filtered through Mad Max' NEW YORK TIMES

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