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Peter Firstbrook

Peter Firstbrook spent many months in Kenya researching the history of Barack Obama's family. Peter is the only person to have traced Obama's roots from the present back through more than twenty generations, thanks to the Luo tribe's remarkable oral tradition. 
 
Seen though the eyes of the Obama family this will be the story of an African dynasty going back over 400 years. It is a truly astonishing drama culminating in the inauguration of Barack Obama on 20 January 2009, watched by Obama's African family on a flickering television clustered under a group of trees in the twilight of Kobama village in Kenya. A very special hundred or so men, women and children amongst billions all around the world who viewed the momentous event of the swearing in of the first black President of the United States. 
 
This book establishes the early ancestry of the Obama family in the Alego region, telling the story of farmers and fishermen, of love and tribal warfare, of families lost and found. It traces the Obama roots from famous tribal warriors in the seventeenth century to the first encounters with the white man in the early 1900s; generation by generation we follow the family through colonial rule and the fight for Kenyan independence, including the Mau Mau and the relationship of Barack Obama's father with President Kenyatta. 
 
This is a book about a family whose destiny is unknown to them. It is a true testament to the belief that any person can make their mark in the world no matter how humble their origins.

The Obamas

The Untold Story of an African Family

Katie Nicholl

Katie Nicholl, Royal Correspondent for the Mail on Sunday, has been at the centre of royal reporting since she joined the newspaper in 2001. There is no one who is more intimately acquainted with the lives and loves of Princes William and Harry. Katie has spoken to a wealth of contacts close to William and Catherine Middleton and reveals how their love affair really started at St Andrews, the hurdles the pair overcame and the challenges they still face. 
 
Originally published to great acclaim in 2010 as William and Harry, Katie Nicholl has updated and added to her original account of the princes' lives and recounts the definitive story of William's royal romance with the young woman destined to become Queen Catherine.

The Making of a Royal Romance

Graeme Garden

Barry Cryer

Hello there! You'll have had your tea? Dougal here. Well, here we go, with our wee book. It's a collection or pot pourri (I've no idea what Hamish means by that - it sounds like something to do with the Pope) of our activities or 'doings' in the village we call home, because that's exactly what it is. 
 
Together with our housekeeper, Mrs Naughtie, and of course, the Laird who lives up at the big hoose and shoots grouse and other bottles of whisky, these are the actual scripts of our wee show which we performed on the wireless, when most of you were probably in bed! 
 
Hamish and I have known each other all our lives - well, not yet, obviously! We have a very close relationship and also with each other. Mrs Naughtie been with us since we first met her at the Krankie Arms, where she was working as part-time barmaid and bouncer. 
 
In addition to the scripts you'll find all kinds of other things tucked away under its kilt. There's a hectic social life in the village. You'll visit the 'bide a wee' café, proud possessor of three Michelin tyres. You'll have a conducted tour of the big hoose by Big Tam, our local guide (not during opening hours). You'll marvel at the site of the Battle of Auchtermuchty, now allotments. You'll peek into the Laird's social diary in 'oot and aboot' (40p at the post office). And a great deal more. 
 
Well, I hope this wee note will make you hurry to the till and spend the terrible amount of money these wee books cost these days. But then again this particular wee book is Scotland's answer to Richard and Judy! Hurrah! 
 
Away now ...

The Doings of Hamish and Dougal

You'll Have Had Your Tea?

Stewart McCartney

In 1841 John Timbs wrote a book called Popular Errors Explained. It went on - with Timbs' other great series 'Curiosities of ...' - to become one of the great popular books of the 19th century, running into many editions and selling hundreds of thousands of copies. Some say the popularity of his one hundred and fifty volumes led him to outsell a certain Mr Dickens. 
 
Stewart McCartney, under the Timb's title of Popular Errors Explained has created a new book, capturing the zeal and enthusiasm of the original, to be 'agreeable, by way of abstract and anecdote so as to become an advantageous and amusing guest at any intellectual fireside.' 
 
The book has completely new material - around 200 or so 'popular errors' from science and literature, history, sport, popular culture and so on. Each entry will have that eyebrow raising 'I didn't know that!' or 'Surely that cannot be true!' feel. Every one will explode a commonly held misbelief.

Popular Errors Explained

Erasmus

When did you last tell your children to put their hand over their mouth when they yawn? When did you last suggest that when they are introduced to someone they should shake hands firmly and look them in the eye? Do you suggest that they should wait until everyone is served before they eat rather than hoover up the best bit for themselves? Do you demand that your young daughter dress decorously lest she elicit outraged looks? Do you think that the children of today have disgraceful manners? Unlike, of course, when you were young ... Well, that's certainly what Erasmus of Rotterdam thought in 1530 when he published De Civilitate Morum Puerilium: A Handbook on Good Manners for Children. He felt that learning good manners was crucial to a child's upbringing, and that the uncouth and ill-disciplined behaviour around him demanded a new kind of book. After all, as William of Wykeham memorably said in the 1350s, 'Manners maketh man'. 
 
A Handbook on Good Manners for Children is considered to be the first treatise in Western Europe on the moral and practical education of children. It was a massive bestseller - indeed the biggest-selling book of the sixteenth century - going into 130 editions over 300 years and being translated into 22 languages within ten years of its publication. In it, Erasmus concerns himself with matters such as how to dress, how to behave at table, how to converse with one's elders and contemporaries, how to address the opposite sex and much else. 
 
For example: Table Manners 
'It's just as rude to lick greasy fingers as it is to wipe them on your clothing, Use a cloth or napkin instead.' 
'Some people, no sooner than they've sat down, immediately stick their hands into the dishes of food. This is the manner of wolves.' 
'Making a raucous noise or shrieking intentionally when you sneeze, or showing off by carrying on sneezing on purpose, is very ill-mannered.' 
'To fidget around in your seat, and to settle first on one buttock and then the next, gives the impression that you are repeatedly farting, or trying to fart.' 
 
The advice is as relevant today as it was 500 years ago.

A Handbook on Good Manners for Children

De Civilitate Morum Puerilium Libellus

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