Canongate Books

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

'Brutally honest as well as poetic' DOLLY ALDERTON
'Necessary, urgent and totally original' AFUA HIRSCH
'Essential reading for men of all ages' CALEB FEMI

Someone once asked me how I'd want to be remembered. I said, 'As the boy who grew.'

Love is a gift, isn't it? From our early childhood years to growing up and pairing off, it's a feeling we chase knowing we're better off with it. But what if love is claustrophobic and conflicting? And what if at the same time we're chasing addictions to drugs, drink, sex and chaos?

Diagnosed twice with ADHD, Jordan Stephens found his teens and twenties a whirl of career success and nurturing friendships but also a brutal pattern of self-harm, hedonism, destructive coping mechanisms and heartbreak. When he tried to live up to his own damaged expectations and his world exploded, he stepped away from his previous existence completely and allowed himself to explore the pain he'd repressed his entire life.

Unsparingly digging into the fear, tenderness and trauma he carried in his body and mind, and the confusing assumptions of what a young man should be, Jordan Stephens discovers what it means to be a modern man, why we should all open ourselves up to life, and how the price we pay for love in all its forms is worth it.

The stark, vast beauty of the remote Arctic Europe landscape has been the focus of human exploration for thousands of years. In this striking blend of travel writing, history and mythology, Gavin Francis offers a unique portrait of the northern fringes of Europe. His journey begins in the Shetland Isles, takes him to the Faroes, Iceland, Greenland, Svalbard and on to Lapland. Following in the footsteps of the region's early pioneers, Francis observes how the region has adapted to the 21st century, giving an observed insight into the lives of people he encounters along the way. As with all the best travel writing, True North is an engaging, compassionate tale of self-discovery, whilst blending historical and contemporary narratives in the tradition of Bruce Chatwin and Robert Macfarlane.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE AND THE BOARDMAN TASKER AWARD FOR MOUNTAIN LITERATURE

With great lyricism, Anna Fleming charts two parallel journeys: learning the craft of traditional rock climbing and the developing appreciation of the natural world it brings her. Through the story of her progress from terrified beginner to confident lead climber, she shows us how placing hand and foot on rock becomes a profound new way into the landscape.

Anna takes us from the gritstone rocks of the Peak District and Yorkshire to the gabbro pinnacles of the Cuillin, the slate of North Wales and the high plateau of the Cairngorms. Each landscape, and each type of rock, brings its own challenges and invites us into the history of a place.

A luminous portrayal of a brilliant mind who is at once at battle with herself and with the constraints that society has placed on her.

A woman's life, erupting with brilliance and promise, is fissured by betrayal and the pressures of duty. What had once seemed a pastoral family idyll has become a trap, and she struggles between being the wife and mother she is bound to be and yearning for so much more.

The woman in question is Sylvia Plath in the final year of her life. As Plath's marriage to Ted Hughes unravels, Sylvia turns increasingly to writing to express her pain and loss, yet also her resilience and power. She has decided to die, but the art she creates in her final weeks will set her name, and the world, ablaze.

As Plath's marriage to Ted Hughes unravels through the heady days of their first summer in Devon together, Sylvia turns increasingly to writing to express her pain and loss, yet also her resilience and power. She has decided to die, but the art she creates in her final weeks will set her name, and the world, ablaze

'Extraordinary' Naoise Dolan
'Seriously good' Louise Nealon

PICKED AS 'ONE TO WATCH' FOR 2022 BY IRISH TIMES, STYLIST AND IRISH INDEPENDENT

Dublin student life is ending for Sophie and her friends. They've got everything figured out, and Sophie feels left behind as they all start to go their separate ways. She's overshadowed by her best friend Grace. She's been in love with Finn for as long as she's known him. And she's about to meet Rory, who's suddenly available to her online.

At a party, what was already unstable completely falls apart and Sophie finds herself obsessively scrolling social media, waiting for something (anything) to happen.

None of This Is Serious is about the uncertainty and absurdity of being alive today. It's about balancing the real world with the online, and the vulnerabilities in yourself, your relationships, your body. At its heart, this is a novel about the friendships strong enough to withstand anything.

People everywhere feel ever more alienated from - and mistrustful of - news and those who make it. We no longer seem to know who or what to believe. We are living through a crisis of 'information chaos'.

News and How to Use It is a glossary for this bewildering age. From AI to Bots, from Climate Crisis to Fake News, from Clickbait to Trolls (and more), here is the definitive user's guide for how to stay informed, tell truth from fiction and hold those in power accountable in the modern age.

What if there's a hidden dimension to Donald Trump; a sensitive, poetic side? Driven by this question, Rob Sears began combing Trump's words for signs of poetry.

What he found was a revelation. By simply taking the 45th President of the United States' tweets and transcripts, cutting them up and reordering them, Sears unearthed a trove of beautiful verse that was just waiting to be discovered.

This groundbreaking collection gives readers a glimpse of Trump's innermost thoughts and feelings on everything from the nature of truth, to what he hates about Lord Sugar. And it will reveal a hitherto hidden Donald, who may surprise and delight both students and critics alike.

Now with fifteen all-new poems as we lurch deeper into the Trump presidency, this timely publication also includes Sears' scholarly footnotes and introduction, in which he excavates new critical angles and insights into the President's poetry which the casual reader might initially overlook.

Published originally in two volumes in 1890, this extraordinary study of primitive myth and magic, collected from sources around the world, led Frazer to identify parallel patterns of ritual, symbols and belief across many centuries and many different cultures.
Frazer's learning inspired a whole generation of ethnographers and comparative anthropologists, and had a particularly powerful effect on many other thinkers and writers such as Sigmund Freud, D H Lawrence, Joyce, Yeats and T S Eliot.

The debut novel from award-winning poet Andrew McMillan exploring community, masculinity and post-industrialisation in Northern England

AN INDEPENDENT BEST FICTION TO READ IN 2024
AN i-D FICTION HIGHLIGHT TO BE EXCITED FOR IN 2024
AN INDEPENDENT AND LUNATE JOURNAL BOOK OF THE YEAR

'A deeply felt and rich enactment of love, loneliness and personal triumph that leaves an indelible mark on modern Queer life' OCEAN VUONG

The town was once a hub of industry. A place where men toiled underground in darkness, picking and shovelling in the dust and the sleck. It was dangerous and back-breaking work but it meant something. Once, the town provided, it was important; it had purpose. But what is it now?

Brothers Alex and Brian have spent their whole life in the town where their father lived and his father, too. Now in his middle age and still reeling from the collapse of his personal life, Alex must reckon with a part of his identity he has long tried to conceal. His only child Simon has no memory of the mines. Now in his twenties and working in a call centre, he derives passion from his side hustle in sex work and his weekly drag gigs.

Set across three generations of South Yorkshire mining family, Andrew McMillan's magnificent debut novel is a lament for a lost way of life as well as a celebration of resilience and the possibility for change.

The psychological toolkit for anyone feeling overwhelmed: award-winning author Claudia Hammond offers practical strategies to manage procrastination, regret, imposter syndrome, perfectionism and more

All of us are familiar with the unsettling sensation of overwhelm: it's as if there's ever more to do, and ever less time in which to do it. The good news is, even if you can't see it yet, there is a way out.

In this liberating new book, award-winning writer and presenter of BBC Radio 4's All in the Mind Claudia Hammond helps us to take the pressure off with a psychological toolkit that is both practical and evidence-based.

Each chapter addresses a particular problem that can trap us into feeling overwhelmed - from procrastination to the fear of regret, imposter syndrome, perfectionism and a seemingly never-ending to-do list - and offers science-backed solutions.

Calm, clear and convincing, Overwhelmed will give you the tools to take on everything life throws at you.

A luminous hybrid collection of short fiction, essay and memoir from literary giant Margaret Drabble

'One of Britain's most dazzling writers' New York Times

We all age differently, some stoically, some angrily, some calmly, some with an unfailing spirit of adventure and an undimmed curiosity

From one of our finest literary voices, The Great Good Places is a luminous collection of essays, stories and memoir that traverses the experience of growing older and looking back on a life deeply lived.

Drawing on decades of reading, writing and observation, Margaret Drabble reflects on the complex business of ageing, the strange workings of memory - its wonders and its fragility - and on the 'great good places', the childhood homes, coastal sanctuaries and cherished libraries that shape who we are.

Rich with a lifetime's worth of insight and wisdom and peppered with Drabble's trademark lucidity and wit, The Great Good Places is an elegantly layered and profoundly moving meditation on time, place and the enduring power of recollection.

A hugely timely subject and a book for any fans of Dr Julie Smith, Philippa Perry and Dr Meg Jay

'Harry Baker's way with words is entirely fascinating' DONNA ASHWORTH
'A charming, fun, funny, revelatory, relatable wordsmith' RAYMOND ANTROBUS

Tender captures all the tiny, fragile, perfect moments of new life and, with it, new parenthood. Full of sleepless wonder and with his characteristic wit and warmth, Harry Baker offers snapshots into the intense first 100 days with his son as they get to know each other.

A yawn from a tiny pink mouth, a kind word from a stranger on a difficult day, the weight of a body sleeping against your chest - parents will recognise both themselves and their children in Tender and find consolation in this collection.

A stunning debut examining the ache we all have to belong, from a major new literary talent

'Beautifully written' LOUISE KENNEDY
'Full of verve and wit and humanity' MARY COSTELLO
'Clever and original' TLS
'A tremendous new talent' KEVIN BARRY


Mair�ad works tirelessly in a run-down West End theatre's wardrobe department - mending shoes, fixing broken zips and even handwashing underwear. She must also sidestep groping hands backstage and withstand the relentless bullying of the show's producer.
The job was meant to be the first step towards the life Mair�ad has always wanted, and yet half of her remains back home in Ireland, along with everything she abandoned there.
A reckoning with the past is coming and, with it, the need to forge a new present - one stitch at a time.

'Powerful' FINANCIAL TIMES
'Thought-provoking' NEW SCIENTIST
'Fascinating' DAILY MAIL

WINNER OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY TRIVEDI SCIENCE BOOK PRIZE

Award-winning author and leading neurologist Masud Husain shares seven fascinating cases of brain disorders from across his career – and shows what they can teach us about our own brains

What makes us who we are?

Through the stories of seven of his patients, acclaimed Oxford University neurologist Masud Husain shows us how our brains create, change and can even restore our identity. Husain introduces us to a man who ran out of words, a woman who lost all inhibitions and another who believed she was having an affair with the man who was really her husband.

These compelling human dramas reveal how our identities are created by different functions within the brain. It will ignite new ideas about who we really are - and why we act in the ways we do.

'The Gil Scott Heron of his generation' CHARLIE DARK

You've fought and you've run away.
You've danced with other Black queer bodies until sunrise.
Sometimes you wanted to be caught and sometimes you wanted to be held.
With all that you've endured, you are nothing less than miraculous.

From choirboy to drag act, grandson to mentor, poet to lover, Dean Atta has played many roles in his life. In this formally inventive, candid and courageous book, he explores what he has carried in his body: wins and losses, shame and pride, pain and joy. Dean also investigates how radical self-acceptance and a willingness to abide with discomfort open up the possibility of a life lived beyond definition: a person unlimited.

'Outrageously good . . . An unforgettable book' - OLIVIA LAING

'Reverie and road-trip, Aqua succeeds in turning the Cadillac Desert and Land of Little Rain into something lush and unexpected . . . Chiara Barzini ducts and dives through a wonderful and revelatory journey' - GEOFF DYER

In 1913, William Mulholland finished building the Los Angeles Aqueduct - a 233-mile engineering masterwork transporting water from the Owens Valley, across the desert, to a barren corner of California that would become the home of filmmaking.

Over one hundred years later, award-winning Italian author and filmmaker Chiara Barzini traces the geography of the aqueduct, from its source, across the desert, to the city that it helped into existence, all while reckoning with her personal history with the landscape. From the 'fake' waters of the Universal Studios Jaws attraction to Salton Sea - California's largest lake and 'the only man-made mistake visible from space' - Aqua explores how water, and its absence, shaped both a modern landscape and the history of film.

A blend of travel writing, philosophy, cultural history and memoir, Aqua is a hugely entertaining and wide-ranging exploration of water, film, dreams versus reality and an empire on the brink of catastrophe.

Huge social changes occurring in real time are leading us to rethink traditional roles in our homes, workplaces and in society. So why do women who outearn their male partners still tend to do more housework and childcare? Why are unemployed men generally happier if their female partners are also unemployed? Why is unpaid labour still seen as a less important contribution than paid work within family units?

In Breadwinners, award-winning science journalist Melissa Hogenboom interviews dozens of female breadwinners, stay-at-home dads and same-sex couples, comparing their stories to the latest research to demonstrate the consequences of changing dynamics. She reveals how pursuing and maintaining power is a key part of every human interaction, affecting every area of our lives. Breadwinners shows how, the closer we look, the easier it is to see the influence of power structures all around us. Ultimately, it gives readers the tools to address imbalances and improve our relationships at home and at work.

If we can share power more equally, we can improve not only our own wellbeing but also recognise how to dismantle social structures that are seemingly set in stone.

AN iPAPER BEST NEW BOOK OUT IN AUGUST 2025

'Beautifully written and deeply moving' CLARE BALDING
'An important voice' CATHY RENTZENBRINK
'I devoured it in a day . . . An open-hearted book' CLOVER STROUD

The Corner is a place where birds with broken wings will come to heal.

Looking to begin a new chapter after years on the move, Manni Coe and his partner take a risk and buy 'The Corner', a crumbling but beautiful 150-year-old farmstead tucked into a remote valley in Andalusia, surrounded by olive trees. It's perfect for their unconventional family of three: Jack, Manni and his youngest brother, Reuben. Secluded from the village by a river and in awe of the extraordinary Spanish landscape, Manni watches their land teem with mountain goats and wild boar, red deer and seasonal swallows. He begins to feel that this might be the place where each of them will find their peace.

But nothing is ever so simple. Though their hilltop village offers food, fellowship and guidance, many visitors bring their own problems and troubled pasts over the river. While Manni and Jack work to afford rebuilding The Corner, who will care for Reuben in the way that he deserves? And as Manni starts to realise that the scars from his childhood - kept hidden for all these years - might not have healed at all, a single, terrible event threatens everything the three of them have spent so long building together.

From landscape and poetry to family and friendship, Little Ruins is a heart-mending exploration of human connection, nature's gifts and the power of love in all its forms.

Zimbabwean girl meets gender-fluid Afro-Brit boy. They can’t stand each other but fall hopelessly in love, before being traumatised into separate paths by their mutual prejudices.

Shamiso is a young girl, thoughtful but uncertain, taken by her family from rural Zimbabwe to bustling Harare. As she grows up there, she watches the world: her distant, stern father, her angry stepmother and her father's strange, loving cousin, the elderly Jimson, who encourages Shamiso to discover her passion for art, her place in their family, and her voice in the world.

When she takes a leap to leave Zimbabwe behind for Brighton, England, Shamiso must find a new family and a new way of living. There she falls in love for the first time with George - whose female identity, Georgie, is everything Shamiso has ever wanted or needed. But can such happiness last, when neither of them knows yet who they truly are?

Quirky, challenging and mischievous, this tender coming-of-age story brilliantly examines selfhood, love and the many shapes family can take. From first moments to final steps, Shamiso is a thought-provoking, blazing work of modern existence and all its contradictions.

LONGLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR NATURE WRITING
A BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR THE INDEPENDENT, STYLIST, RHS, GARDENS ILLUSTRATED and more

Women have always gardened, but our stories have been buried with our work. Alice Vincent is on a quest to change that: to understand what encourages women to go out, work the soil, plant seeds and nurture them, even when so many other responsibilities sit upon their shoulders. To recover the histories that have been lost among the soil and to understand women's lives, their gardens and what the ground has offered them.

Wise, curious and sensitive, Why Women Grow follows Alice in her search for answers, with inquisitive fronds reaching and curling around the intimate anecdotes of others.

Renowned historian Alistair Moffat traces the windswept story of the North Sea throughout British history and examines how it has shaped who we are and how we see ourselves.

The North Sea, a maritime highway and the edge of the nation of islanders with a proud sea-faring past. Running from Kent and the Rhine estuary to the Norwegian coast and the tip of the Shetland islands, it has been home to warring tribes, foreign invaders, lost civilisations and holidaymakers. Its history spans millennia, since a seismic shift sent land retreating and water rushing in. Today, the North Sea continues to rise, claiming land mass as the east coast crumbles and sinks.

In The North Sea, renowned historian Alistair Moffat spends a year travelling its shores to better understand our relationship to the sea. He takes us on an epic, sweeping history from the white cliffs of Dover to flooded homes, crossing wild fenland and Brexit fault lines, visiting well-worn seaside towns and windswept island monasteries.

The story he tells is one of newcomers and the mark they left, of Roman invasions, the arrival of the Saxons and the Viking raids. But it is also a story of those they met, of Pictish citadels and Orcadian stone circles. It is a story of technological advancement, of submarine engineering and weather forecasting. It is a story of huge industry, from whaling expeditions and fishing trawlers to the boom of North Sea oil and offshore wind farms. This is the story of how the North Sea shaped us and will continue to do so; it is above all a story of insistent, inescapable change.

Before Klopp's arrival in 2015, the city of Liverpool had not seen such great success since The Beatles.

Neil Atkinson explores how Klopp, heralded as one of the most charismatic and successful managers in the history of football, has taken Liverpool FC to great heights over the past nine years. As Klopp's departure nears, Atkinson looks back on the trailblazing manager's time in Liverpool, the legacy he leaves behind and what it means for Liverpool: the club and the city.

Weaving this story around 11 key games, taken from Klopp's first season to his last, Atkinson considers how Liverpool has evolved into one of the greatest teams in football, with millions of supporters across the globe, and how Klopp and his philosophy have restored to the city, devastated by Hillsborough and its aftermath as well as other economic travails, a genuine sense of hope, pride and

Read by Martin Jarvis, this joyous celebration of spring fever is an undisputed comic masterpiece. Once again we find ourselves at that idyllic country seat, Blandings. This time it's debonair charmer, Frederick Altamont Cornwallis Twistleton, fifth Earl of Ickenham (known to most as 'Uncle Fred') who has been lured to the castle by affable Lord Emsworth. His lordship requires an expert in human behaviour to prevent the egg-throwing Duke of Dunstable from stealing Emsworth's treasured pig, Empress of Blandings. The plot's eccentricities naturally include love and romance and, crucially, three imposters. Add to the cocktail some 'Mickey Finns', a brace of financially embarrassed nephews and a private investigator, 'Mustard Pott'. As the mixture boils there are shot guns in the night time - plus redoubtable Lady Constance, Emsworth's sister, who could halt a cavalry charge merely with her voice. A happy and appropriate ending is of course on the cards. But the joy is to marvel at how Wodehouse weaves the intricate threads in this tapestry of dottiness, and to hear him tie it up (and us) in knots of laugh-aloud hilarity.
Martin Jarvis is the quintessential reader for the 'Blandings' series, with an outstanding range of voices and a true passion for the works of P.G. Wodehouse, Britain's greatest comic writer.

Three Men in a Boat is one of the most amusing and durable books in the English language. Semi-autobiographical, it recounts the adventures and mishaps of George, Harris, J. (the author) and his remarkable dog Montmorency during a boat trip along the River Thames in England from London to Oxford. Jerome K. Jerome originally intended the book to be a guide to the Thames Valley but his publisher thought it so entertaining it was published as a comic novel and has endured as a classic of the genre ever since. Wonderfully light and surprisingly modern in tone, the sense of fun is irrepressible, the enjoyment unstoppable. Real laugh-out-loud stuff.

Hugh Laurie is one of Britain's most successful actors. Having started out with Stephen Fry in Jeeves and Wooster, Blackadder and A Bit of Fry and Laurie, he has become a superstar in America thanks to the success of the television series House, where he plays the eponymous doctor protagonist.

The Third Man is one of the truly great post-war films, starring Orson Welles and Joseph Cotton. A thrilling story of black-marketeering, it is set against a backdrop of Vienna in the immediate post-war era, when the city was divided into four zones amongst the major powers, Russia, Britain, France and America. Graham Greene wrote the novella first and then adapted it for the screenplay. Compelling and moving, it is written from the view of the British Chief of Police who is investigating the death of a certain Harry Lime. When Rollo Martins, a writer of Westerns, arrives in Vienna to visit his old school friend, he also becomes inextricably involved in the mystery surrounding Harry Lime.

Martin Jarvis is a widely acclaimed film, TV and stage actor who has also carved a name for himself in the world of audiobooks as a reader par excellence.

Machiavellian adj. elaborately cunning; scheming, unscrupulous.
Machiavellianism n. (N. dei Machiavello, Florentine statesman and political writer d. 1527, who advocated resort to morally questionable methods in the interests of the State).

How remarkable that an Italian living in the 15th and 16th centuries should lend his name to a word still in common usage in the English language today.
The Prince has remained a prominent classic ever since its publication in 1513; valued for its shrewd psychological insight, powerful words and prophetic quality. And even today, it has never lost its power to shock and influence.

Ian Richardson played machiavellian Francis Urquhart in the hit TV series The House of Cards, To Play the King and The Final Cut. His formidable reading of this modern unabridged translation is an accessible and entertaining way in to a truly compelling world view.

India, 1857 - the year of the Great Mutiny, when Muslim soldiers turned in bloody rebellion on their British overlords. This time of convulsion is the subject of The Siege of Krishnapur, widely considered to the one of the finest British novels of the last fifty years. A witty and individual take on the many traditions and follies of Empire, it is also a gripping account of survival under siege, illuminating how extreme conditions can influence and affect people's behaviour and the human spirit.

Reader Tim Pigott-Smith is a renowned British film and television actor.

Over twenty unabridged selections of Rudyard Kipling's stories, poems and letters, including famous works such as "If" and "How The Whale Got his Throat".

1. PRELUDE - "To Departmental Ditties" (1885) read by Rupert Degas
2. TODS' from "Plain Tales from the Hills" read by Martin Jarvis
3. THE BALLAD OF EAST AND WEST (1889) read by Rupert Degas
4. KIDKNAPPED from "Plain Tales from the Hills" read by Martin Jarvis
5. THE SONG OF THE SONS read by Rupert Degas
6. THE SONG OF THE CITIES read by Rupert Degas
7. ENGLAND'S ANSWER read by Rupert Degas
8. THE THREE MUSKETEERS from "Plain Tales from the Hills" read by Martin Jarvis
9. THE ROUT OF THE WHITE HUSSARS from "Plain Tales of the Hills" read by Martin Jarvis
10. RECESSIONAL (1897) read by Rupert Degas
ANIMAL STORIES
1. THE LAW OF THE JUNGLE from the "Second Jungle Book" read by Rupert Degas
2. MOWGLI'S BROTHERS from "The Jungle Book" read by Rupert Degas
3. THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES (1911) read by Rupert Degas
4. HOW THE WHALE GOT HIS THROAT from the "Just So Stories" read by Rupert Degas
CHILDREN AND FAMILY
1. A SCHOOL SONG - prelude to "Stalky & Co." read by Rupert Degas
2. THE PRODIGAL SON read by Rupert Degas
3. WEE WILLIE WINKIE, AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN read by Rupert Degas
4. THE CAT THAT WALKED BY HIMSELF read by Liza Goddard
5. KIPLING'S LETTERS TO HIS CHILDREN, JOHN AND ELSIE read by Rupert Degas
6. MERROW DOWN read by Rupert Degas
7. IF read by Rupert Degas
WAR AND OTHER
1. LETTERS BETWEEN KIPLING AND HIS SON JOHN Read by Rupert Degas
2. THE GARDENER Read by Rupert Degas
3. EPITAPHS OF THE WAR (1914 - 1918) Read by Rupert Degas
4. JUSTICE (October, 1918) Read by Rupert Degas
5. THE FIRES Read by Rupert Degas
6. THE MARK OF THE BEAST Read by Richard Pasco

Abridged novel depicting the sinister affair of the eighteenth century cow-creamer and the small, brown, leather-covered notebook tests the Wooster soul as it has never been tested before. Friends and relations, in urgent need, queue up to beg for assistance in a variety of troublesome situations, and ruthless enemies stop at nothing in their determination to bring Bertie down.

Does our hero blink at the burdens placed on his shoulders by his nearest and dearest? He does not. Does his courage fail him when he faces overwhelming odds? It does not. Aided by the magnificent Jeeves, Bertie Wooster looks after his pals and smites the ungodly in his own inimitable style.

Martin Jarvis is a much respected actor. Feted for his narration skills he also directs radio drama and divides his time between L.A. and London.

Pride and Prejudice - An elegant tableau revolving around the five Bennett daughters, including clever, strong-spirited Elizabeth. Austen's masterpiece is a study of love, loss and snobbery.

Sense and Sensibility - The engaging story of sisters Elinor and Marianne, whose lives are turned upside down when they are left almost penniless following the death of their father. Two men with whom the sisters form attachments present more unforeseen challenges along the way.

Emma - Emma is an exquisitely crafted social portrait of late Eighteenth-century society, widely considered to be Austen's most literarily accomplished work. Emma Woodhouse, self-appointed meddling matchmaker, stands to lose out on love herself if she isn't careful.

Persuasion - In part autobiographical, Persuasion has a quieter sense of humour, and takes a more serious tone, than some of Austen's other novels. Anne Elliot is revisited by her ex-fianc�e, coinciding with a downturn in her family's fortunes, and has some choices to make.

Northanger Abbey - Young and susceptible, Catherine Morland expects dark secrets and many dangers to be lurking in the hidden recesses of Northanger Abbey. In fact, the real obstacles lying in her path are more mundane but just as serious as her imagined horrors.

The collection also includes 2 Bonus CDs including The Watsons, an early Austen short story, and a collection of letters. Titles read by highly-acclaimed British actresses including Anna Massey, Harriet Walter and Joanna Lumley.

Charles Dickens classics read by Martin Jarvis. This master of character voices brings to vivid life so many of Dickens' memorable characters from Fagin to Scrooge, Pip to Magwitch. The six abridged novels combine two previous trilogies in one bumper edition comprising:
David Copperfield
Great Expectations
Oliver Twist
A Tale of Two Cities
A Christmas Carol
Nicholas Nickleby

Another laugh-aloud story of Blandings Castle, from one of the greatest humorists ever, P.G. Wodehouse. Read with masterly wit and style by highly-acclaimed British actor Martin Jarvis.

Clarence, the amiable dotty ninth Earl of Emsworth, dotes on his prize-winning pig, Empress of Blandings. His old rou� brother, Galahad, fears that Clarence's rival, Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe, is planning to nobble the Empress to prevent her taking the County prize once again. Parsloe lives in equal fear of Gally publishing scandalous tales of their wild younger days in his memoirs. Lady Constance, Clarence's formidable sister, is determined to stop publication. The castle is soon overrun with manuscript thieves! Romance also pervades the balmy air: Clarence's feisty niece Millicent loves handsome but penniless Hugo; gorgeous chorus girl Sue adores vapid Ronnie Fish. Thus, with the additional excitement of pig-napping, private detection and public absurdity - all overseen by Beach, the mountainous butler - the scene is set. Will love find a way? Of course; but so will sublime comedy, in this dazzling work of genius.

Short Stories: The Timeless Collection features 20 well-loved and unabridged tales from the best-loved authors in the history of English literature, including the deliciously sardonic Saki and a brilliant semi-autobiographical tale by Charles Dickens, inspired by the railway. An array of well-known readers including Nigel Hawthorne, Martin Jarvis, Brian Cox, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie.
LISTINGS: The Windmill as I First Knew It by Alphonse Daudet, Boil Some Water Lots of It by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Disappearance of Crispina Umberleigh by Saki, Idle Thoughts on Babies by Jerome K. Jerome, The Schartz-Metterklume Method by Saki, A Photographer's Day Out by Lewis Carroll, Gentlemen and Players by E. W. Hornung, Mrs Amworth by E. F. Benson, Timber by John Galsworthy, Into the Sun by Robert Duncan Milne, No 1 Branch Line The Signalman by Charles Dickens, The Squaw by Bram Stoker, The Loathly Opposite by John Buchan, The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe, The Mezzotint by M. R. James, Angela by W. S. Gilbert, The Barrister's Story by Sapper, Jeff Peters as a Personal Magnet by O. Henry, Oh Whistle & I'll Come to You My Lad by M. R. James, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County by Mark Twain.

Sherlock Holmes is the eternally likeable detective figure and never fails to be wise to the machinations of the criminal mind. Accompanied by his trusty sidekick Dr. Watson, the pair will delight a listener with their inimitable sleuthing style and ever-charismatic idiosyncrasies. This first volume contains six complete and unabridged stories as follows:
The Adventure of the Empty House, The Adventure of the Devil's Foot, The Adventure of the Abbey Grange, The Adventure of the Cardboard Box, The Man With the Twisted Lip, The Adventure of the the Bruce-Partington Plans.

The reader is Edward Hardwicke who played Dr. Watson to Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes in the enduringly popular television series.

When a valuable scarab belonging to an American millionaire is absent-mindedly stolen by Lord Emsworth, young writers Ashe Marson and Joan Valentine are tasked with infiltrating Blandings Castle to retrieve it. Meanwhile, vacuous Freddie Threepwood worries that some compromising letters may scupper his engagement to the millionaire's daughter. Wodehouse's comic masterpiece combines above and below stairs pretensions with all the fun of a romantic thriller.

Martin Jarvis is an award-winning British actor and the 'Olivier of audiobooks'.

Lucy Honeychurch, accompanied by her vigilant cousin Charlotte Bartlett, makes her first foray into the world, touring Italy. Thrown into new and exhilarating situations, Lucy experiences a very different life to her usual existence in the countryside of southern England.

As her horizons widen and many of her Italian connections follow her homeward, Lucy, a talented pianist with a good brain, finds herself in a surprising emotional struggle. Caught between two men - the unconventional and spirited George Emerson, and sophisticated Cecil Vyse - Lucy is pulled between the social and sexual proprieties of her upbringing and the spontaneous promptings of her heart. But can she make the right choice?

This audio version of the classic novel is read by Juliet Stevenson, one of Britain's best-loved actresses.

With this rich range of unabridged stories we celebrate the very best of contemporary writers and writing.
Among others the collections features thriller writer Ruth Rendell, witty William Boyd, the Japanese literary sensation Haruki Murakami, ever-inventive Helen Simpson, and Patrick O'Brien, world-famous for his nautical series.

Readers include top British actors Martin Jarvis, Rosalind Ayres and Janet McTeer.

Right Ho, Jeeves sees Bertie Wooster blithely attempting to assume the role of Jeeves himself as a matters-of-the-heart adviser. Very unwise: from Gussie Fink-Nottle's romance with Madeline Bassett, to Tuppy Glossop and his stop/go engagement to Angela Travers, the young master succeeds only in making a bally mess of everyone's love-lives.Toss into the mixing-bowl hot-headed chef Anatole, perpetually resigning from, returning to and re-resigning from the employ of Bertie's long-suffering Aunt Dahlia; and, shimmering over all, the lateral-thinking genius that is Jeeves. Here is more from the wonderously engaging world of Wodehouse, where laughter and inspired idiocy whirl together in warm-hearted celebration of great comic writing. Enjoy? Right ho!

Narrator Martin Jarvis is an award-winning actor and Wodehouse reader.

The debonair Uncle Fred makes a welcome return to Blandings, where plotting and confusion is rife. Blackmail, sabotage, jilted lovers and pigs under threat of kidnap all feature largely, making this hilarious instalment in the Blandings series irresistible to fans and newcomers alike.The story sees lovely debutante Myra Schoonmaker unhappily ensconced in Blandings at the insistence of Lady Constance Keeble, who objects to Myra's entanglement with down-at-heel curate Bill Bailey. But Blandings never has been a place to stifle the wants of the heart for long. Soon, all kinds of subterfuge and shifty goings-on are afoot to reunite the lovebirds, with the help of an unbeatable cast of misfits and society schmoozers including Pongo Twistleton, Lord Tilbury, Lavender Briggs and of course, amiably vague Lord Emsworth and his trusty 'man-mountain' butler Beach.

Read by the fantastic, critically-acclaimed Martin Jarvis.

My Family and Other Animals is the story of the adventurous time Durrell and his family spent on the island of Corfu during his childhood. Worn down by the miserable English weather, Gerry's family takes the unusual step - for a 1930s British family - of moving somewhere hotter. Treated to the sunshine of Greece with its array of flora and fauna, young Gerald is in a budding naturalist's utopia, with the added bonus of being able to observe the unusual creatures known as his relatives. His placid mother, gun-obsessed brother Leslie, angst and acne-plagued sister Margo, and eldest brother the irascible author Larry put on a dazzling display of human quirk, and combine with strays such as Spiro the local taxi-driver to brilliant comic effect. Animal and human life combine in this beautiful, timelessly entertaining memoir.

Hugh Bonneville is an acclaimed British stage, television, film and radio actor.

A collection of humourous stories about unscrupulous film writer Pat Hobby, a relic from the early days of Hollywood, looking for success in the changing world of the movies. F. Scott Fitzgerald's collection paints a comic portrait of a man unwilling to accept his fate as a thing of the past, an artless, insensitive writer suffering as the decades leave silent film behind. Hobby is stuck in a world which doesn't respect its elders, particularly not those as lazy and scheming as he.

Kerry Shale is a Canadian actor with an extensive career in radio, TV and theatre. He injects much wit and atmosphere into his reading and interpretation of Fitzgerald's famous stories.

Jimmy Crocket, a.k.a. Piccadilly Jim is a lively young American ex-newspaper man who meets Ann Chester, the girl of his dreams, in London. Problem is Jim once wrote a bad review of her first book of poetry. They set sail for New York together with Ann still not knowing he's the dastardly critic! Add a brilliantly colourful Manhattan setting, an unlikely butler, odd spies, eccentric 'tecs, scientific secrets, plus an odious boy called Ogden, and the ingredients are here for one of P.G. Wodehouse's most dazzlingly comic feasts.

Wonderfully funny listening that keeps up a swift pace, thanks to the classic combination of Martin Jarvis, award-winning voice actor, reading Britain's finest comic writer, P.G. Wodehouse (1881-1975).

The novel was first published in 1862 in serial form. This production read by Juliet Stevenson marks the first audio release of one of Victorian England's most sensational reads. Dealing with bigamy, murder and madness it begs the question: can women and men ever really depend on one another, even within marriage...?

When young Lucy Graham marries Sir Michael Audley all seems well and good. Sir Michael is thoroughly devoted to his new bride and Lady Audley takes great pleasure in her privileged position at Audley Court. But Sir Michael's daughter Alicia is frustrated and uncomfortable with her stepmother's girlish ways.
Shortly afterwards, Sir Michael's nephew, the attractive but lazy barrister Robert Audley, welcomes back to England an old friend of his, George Talboys. The pair visit the Court for some sport, where George disappears in mysterious circumstances. Robert Audley is spurred into action, taking up the case with a newfound passion and energy. Like the best detective novels, and with some wonderful melodrama thrown in for good measure, the plot unravels at a pace until the truth is revealed about Lady Audley's Secret.

Journalist Mike Watson and his wife, Phylis, trace it back to the strange showering lights they noticed on the final day of their honeymoon cruise: lights which appeared to land and disappear into the water. Reports mount of similar sightings all over the world. Governments embark on missions to investigate the sea, but ships disappear and diving crews never return to the surface. Something deep in the ocean does not want to be disturbed.The Kraken Wakes is a tale of humanity's efforts to resist alien invasion, narrated by Mike, who unfolds the story as experienced by the couple - from the earliest signs of trouble, to the conflict between the sea-dwelling creatures and the human world. John Wyndham's classic science-fiction masterpiece is powerfully brought to life in this unabridged production.
Reader Alex Jennings is an acclaimed British stage, television and radio actor.

In this story, an engagingly vague Lord Emsworth battles to prevent a pig-napping, Lord Tillbury lurks, desperate to filch Gally Threepwood's sensational memoirs, and those formidable sisters, Julia and Constance, will do anything to sabotage the nuptials of Ronnie Fish and chorus girl Sue. Also thrown into the proverbial mix are: Parsloe-Parsloe, Monty Bodkin and Percy Pilbeam. Confused? So is Beach the butler, drawn into events by a heady cocktail of loyalty and self-interest. But surely, the storm will conk out and the thunder will grumble away...This is Wodehouse's comic genius at its most magical, so expect sunshine - and even a bally rainbow - when the weather lightens and all the confusions of the castle are finally resolved. Pip, pip!

Martin Jarvis inhabits this masterpiece of cross-purposes with dazzling vocal dexterity, adding another laugh-out-loud performance to his many Wodehouse readings.

Orwell's darkly comic novel centres around the life of Gordon Comstock, onetime advertising copywriter turned bookshop employee and struggling poet. Gordon's disdain for money and artistic compromise preclude his earning enough of a living to escape constant public embarrassment. On top of this, it gives him terrible trouble holding on to his girlfriend. Unwilling to dilute his stubborn stance on capitalistic pursuits, he constantly obsesses "money, money, money, all is money". Gordon's problems mount while his only published volume, "Mice", gathers dust on a shelf, and his attempts at a new collection stagnate.
Written during Orwell's time living in Notting Hill and set in London during "the year of blight, 1934", the novel is a fine example of Orwell's wit, and a masterpiece of fiction. It also hints towards themes about power and relationships that would colour his later works Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm.
Reader Richard E. Grant is one Britain's best-loved actors, and best remembered for his role in Withnail & I. In 1997. Grant also appeared as Gordon Comstock in a film version of Orwell's novel.

The second instalment of Jeeves and Wooster's bally spiffing adventures is chock-full of unabridged stories of sparkling brilliance. Martin Jarvis is on top form, voicing a whole range of colourful characters, including the hapless incurable romantic Bingo Little, superbly.

From money-making schemes involving placing wagers on the lengths of vicars' sermons to poor Bingo producing the village school Christmas entertainments, every one of Wodehouse's celebrated short stories is guaranteed to raise chortles from even the most stony-faced listener!

Martin Jarvis is a leading British actor, whose acclaimed audiobook reading is always a delight to hear.

Goodbye to All That is Robert Graves' searing autobiography and an emotional first-hand account of life in the Great War trenches. A graphic storyteller, Graves begins with the petty cruelties of his public school upbringing. Then, almost in 'fly-on-the-wall' documentary style, he paints devastating portraits of war: of a young man's hell, of meaningless sacrifice, of everyday heroism, and of the idiocy of the military command. Even accomplishing some moments of humour, Goodbye to All That is an enthralling listen, bringing the listener into the midst of the battle. It is widely recognised as one of the most powerful insights into the trauma of war.
Read by award-winning British stage, television and voice actor, Martin Jarvis

I, Claudius is Robert Graves' riveting account of Ancient Rome in all its madness and debauchery. First published in 1934, and written in the form of Claudius' autobiography, it endures as one of literature's most celebrated and compelling historical novels.
Abhorred by his weakness and viewed by his family as little more than a stammering fool, the nobleman Claudius quietly survives the cruelties, bloody purges and intrigues of the imperial Roman dynasties. From the sidelines he observes the reigns of its emperors: from the wise Augustus and his wicked wife Livia to the sadistic Tiberius and the excellent Caligula. I, Claudius paints a vivid, sometimes funny, picture of the ancient world, highlighting the complexities and politics inherent in Empire-building.

Read by Derek Jacobi, one of Britain's best-loved stage and screen actors who famously appeared in the BBC series of I, Claudius.

Set in the north of England during the 19th century, 'Hard Times' is the story of Thomas Gradgrind, a schoolmaster, who has strong and overbearing views on how his children, Louisa and Tom, should behave in order to become 'models in society'. As the children get older their father's teachings start to impact significantly on their lives, Grandgrind starts to question his own resolve and begins to wonder whether he has been misguided and blind to their needs Set against a background of wealth and poverty where the rich rule and the poor are left to suffer, 'Hard Times' is more than a vehicle highlighting social injustice, it is also full of drama, romance, comedy, pathos and a tantalisingly elusive, but none-the-less compelling, sliver of 'hope'.
Read by the accomplished actress and narrator Dame Harriet Walter.

Jeeves and Wooster are a case-in-point of chalk and cheese coexisting to make an enduring partnership of sublime comedy. Hapless, though always engaging, Bertie Wooster would be lost without his 'man' Jeeves, to advise him, not only on sartorial good taste but, crucially, to be on hand to rescue the young master from a variety of social and romantic entanglements. Immortalised on-screen by Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie - and on the Broadway stage by Martin Jarvis himself - the duo have won the hearts, minds and laughter of generations since the first Jeeves story was published in 1916.
STORY LISTINGS: 1. Jeeves Exerts the Old Cerebellum 2. No Wedding Bells for Bingo
3. Aunt Agatha Speaks Her Mind 4. Pearls Mean Tears 5. The Pride of the Woosters is Wounded
6. The Hero's Reward 7. Introducing Claude and Eustace 8. Sir Roderick Comes to Lunch
9. A Letter of Introduction 10. Startling Dressiness of a Lift Attendant 11. Comrade Bingo
12. Bingo Has a Bad Goodwood

Martin Jarvis is an award-winning actor renowned for his readings of P.G. Wodehouse.

Although it can be listened to or read as a stand alone novel, In Chancery forms the second part of John Galsworthy's Forsyte Saga, chronicling the downfall of an upper middle class family in the turbulent period of social change at the end of the 19th and start of the 20th centuries. It tells of the struggle between Soames and his beautiful wife Irene, who leaves him but cannot persuade him to grant a divorce.
Reader Martin Jarvis is a well-respected British actor, whose acclaimed audiobook narration is always a delight to hear.

George Mallory's collected writings on his mountaineering - and his motivations. Famously impelled to climb Mount Everest simply because it was there, Mallory made three attempts to be the first to reach its summit, and perished on the third. His writing reveals the emotional life of the mountaineer. With eloquence, Mallory captures the struggles and the rewards involved, the climber's sense of triumph, and experiences of staggering beauty.
The reader is Tim Pigott Smith.

Read in the style of a secret diary, this famous sequel to I, Claudius gives a wry and human view of the Roman world, bringing to life some of the most scandalous and violent times in history.
Claudius has survived the murderous intrigues of his predecessors to become, reluctantly, Emperor of Rome. He recounts his surprisingly successful rule; how he cultivates loyalty of the army to repair the damage caused by his nephew Caligula; his friendship with the Jewish King Herod Agrippa; and his invasion of Britain. Yet beneath the surface Claudius' good fortune is under threat. With the growing paranoia of absolute power, and his young wife Messalina causing trouble, how long can Claudius survive?

Sir Derek Jacobi narrates; the only true voice of Claudius, having played him in the 1976 BBC series. Jacobi is a beloved stage and screen actor.

Another excellent installment in the Jeeves and Wooster canon and a bestselling audio. The seven unabridged short stories included here begin with Jeeves' arrival to look after Bertie Wooster, and many take place in the big world of New York City. Enjoy the usual blend of chaos and hilarity read by the superb Martin Jarvis.

Martin Jarvis, winner of the first ever Talkies 'Best reader' award, is thoroughly at home with Carry On, Jeeves adding that extra sparkle to Wodehouse's witty words and extracting every nuance of humour from the characters' dialogue and the hilarious narrative.

"This is not a political book, but simple a somewhat impressionistic study of the moods and atmospheres of Cyprus during the troubled years 1953-6." So wrote Lawrence Durrell in the preface to Bitter Lemons. Durrell, who lived abroad for much of his life, brilliantly captures the romance, beauty, excitement and sadness of the island, and the lives of the people of Bellapaix where he bought a house. In a compelling and atmospheric account beautifully suited to the Spoken Word medium, Durrell charts affectionately the romances and relationships of the many characters he befriended there.

Bitter Lemons of Cyprus is both an evocative and memorable picture of village life and a social and historical document of a lost community. Written during the gradual uprising of the Greek Cypriots who wanted union with Greece, Durrell observes the people's struggles on an intimate and personal level. Sadly some fifty years later the Cypriot situation remains unresolved.
The reader Andrew Sachs is one of Britain's best-loved actors, famous for playing the role of Manuel in Fawlty Towers.

The greatest ever selection of fictional detectives, all together in one superb CD collection. Find Sherlock Holmes with his long suffering colleague, Dr. Watson in The Dying Detective, Father Brown as a witness in court in The Man in the Passage, and J.G. Reeder in The Poetical Policeman and The Green Mamba. In Chimes, a very clever story by Dam Muriel Spark, her hitherto undiscovered detective will keep you guessing right up to the surprise ending. Popular favourite Inspector Morse features in The Burglar by Colin Dexter. Discover Nicholas Blake's intellectual young toff sleuth Nigel Strangeways in The Assassin's Club, and the very eccentric antique dealer and psychic Morris Klaw in Sax Rohmer's unusual and memorable story set in a museum.
There's something for everybody in this brilliantly baffling collection to keep listeners of all ages in suspense.
Narrator Edward Hardwicke was a British actor most famous for his role as Dr Watson opposite Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes in the popular 1980s television series.

Born in 1725 to Italian and Spanish parentage, Giacomo Casanova lived a long and exciting life. A scholar and an adventurer Casanova travelled widely throughout Europe and Russia associating with rulers and Kings. For a time he was in the service of the army and he became a great political stirrer. But he vacillated between fortune and misfortune and often resorted to gaming and fiddling too. Of course Casanova is most well-known for his womanizing and he reveals time after time how he just couldn't help falling in love! His eloquence and charm will not be lost on the listener either: the writing is remarkably modern, accessible and funny too. It took Casanova eighteen years to write his memoirs and a further one hundred for them to be classified as genuine. Available now for the first time on audio and brilliantly brought to life by the effervescent Benedict Cumberbatch, in this first volume of his memoirs Casanova charts his childhood and life as a young man in Venice and Italy.

Benedict Cumberbatch is one of Britain's brightest young actors. He starred as Stephen Hawking in the BBC's celebrated Hawking and plays the lead role in Michael Apted's 2006 film Amazing Grace. As well as his screen credits, Benedict has worked extensively in theatre and radio drama and recently as Sherlock Holmes in the popular TV series.

Joe Tucker's Uncle Eric was a beloved yet unconventional figure throughout Joe's life. A shambolically dressed man who lived with his mother for almost eighty years, he had an almost compulsive need to charm strangers with working men's club comedy routines, and appeared to exist only for daily trips to the bookie - and yet had also amassed over five hundred of his own remarkable paintings without anyone ever realising his achievements.

Towards the end of his life, Eric requested an exhibition of his work. As Joe and his family sorted through hundreds of paintings of street scenes, circus and theatre performers, and busy pubs, they began to ask more questions about Eric's life: why had this fanatically sociable man never left his mother's home? Had Eric ever experienced love when he painted it so beautifully? And what had driven him to create so much, yet share it so rarely?

In this touching, funny and thoughtful investigation of the nature of expression, the ownership of art and the secret life of those nearest to us, Joe Tucker brings us into his uncle's extraordinary and compelling world. Perhaps more importantly, he also brings Eric Tucker's life's work into ours.

Now is the time for the new, the beautiful and the humane.

In Together, award-winning political thinker, author and poet Ece Temelkuran provides an inspiring manifesto for change by revealing fresh possibilities for the better world we might want to live in and gives us a new vocabulary for the political action that the twenty-first century demands.

Above all, this book will challenge you to have faith in the other human beings we share this planet with, to turn away from an uncaring world and instead build a new one with compassion.

A FINANCIAL TIMES BEST NEW DEBUT

'This is a party I'm glad I was invited to' EILEEN MYLES
'Fizzing with ideas' OBSERVER

*

Isn't every family home a monument? The provocative debut novel from the award-winning author.


Olga Pavic's house has been requisitioned.
The council will bulldoze it.
Her home will become a monument to a massacre.

But Olga cannot ascertain which massacre. Three different architects visit, each with a proposal to construct a different monument, to memorialise a different horror.

Within an atmosphere of razor-sharp political surreality, Lara Haworth spins a tender, magical story of familial love and loss. Via a panoply of perspectives Monumenta compellingly and playfully explores remembrance and how tragedy can be the catalyst for remarkable transformation.

We're told women are good at listening, but we rarely examine what they're listening to, what their worlds sound like, or how it feels to be expected to listen in a world of noise made by men.

Like so many of us, Alice Vincent had become overwhelmed by the sensory overload punctuating our every moment. And then, a baby's heartbeat arrived. A rapid, pulsing whoosh of white noise. An undeniable rhythm. Once again, Alice's life became cacophonous - both with a new child, but also with the societal pressures that motherhood holds.

What followed was a personal quest to rediscover sound as something alive and vital and restorative. Beyond music, Alice's journey takes her into new corners of listening: from the phantom crying heard by mothers across the world to the nightingale's song and the crackle of the Aurora Borealis. As our attention spans shrink and our sense of disconnection grows, Alice wants to find out if sound - seeking it, trying to hold on to it, making space for it in her life - can reconnect her not only to lost parts of herself but to a life more consciously lived. Hark is a book for women who feel unheard and a means of listening more deeply in a world that has grown too loud.

Mairead works all hours in a run-down West End theatre's wardrobe department, her whole existence made up of threads and needles, running errands to mend shoes, fixing broken zips and handwashing underwear. She must also do her best to avoid groping hands backstage and the terrible bullying of the show's producer.

But, despite her skill and growing experience, half of Mairead remains in her windy, hedge-filled home in Ireland, and the life she abandoned there. In noughties London, she has the potential to be somebody completely new - why, then, does she feel so stuck? Between the bustling side streets of Soho, and the wet grass of Leitrim and Donegal, Mairead is caught, running from the girl she was but unable to reveal the woman she'd hoped to become.

Told with rare honesty and equal measures of warmth and bite, The Wardrobe Department is a story about reckoning with the past, finding the courage to change the present - and asking what comes next.

You're nine when you get your first computer. It's not long before you discover porn. You don't know what you're watching, but you do know that you shouldn't tell anybody.

Later, older, your first kiss is captured on camera and shared with everyone in your year. Part of the incessant cycle of posting, sharing and liking.

Now, you can't remember a time when you didn't feel hollow inside. Now, you know that something has to change.

Chilling, potent and intensely intimate, This Is How You Remember It is about a life lived online, and about finding another way, when it's all you've ever known.

1854, Edinburgh.
Respectable public faces hide sordid private sins.

Apprentice Sarah Fisher is helping to fund Dr Will Raven's emerging medical practice in exchange for being secretly trained as a medic, should the rules barring women ever change. Sarah needs no instruction in the inequalities that beset her gender, but even she has her eyes opened to a darker reality when a relative seeks her help in searching for her missing daughter. Annabelle Banks was promised a situation in a prestigious household, but there has been no word from her since she left home, and the agency that arranged her position says she never appeared.

Sarah's inquiries lead her to reforming campaigners trying to publicise the plight of the hundreds of girls ensnared in Edinburgh's houses of assignation. Sarah learns how young women are lured, deceived, trafficked and raped, leaving them ruined in the eyes of a society obsessed with moral purity, and where virginity is prized as a lucrative commodity.

Drawing upon real historical events, The Death of Shame takes Raven and Sarah into a treacherous labyrinth of exploitation, corruption, high-level complicity and Victorian-style revenge porn.

A young woman is missing, but has she run away - or been captured?

A dying cop asks DCI Christine Caplan to investigate a cold case that's still preying on her mind. The naked body of a man found in a remote wood, dismissed as a down and out by her superiors. Caplan connects the case to other victims left to die in Scotland's Dark Skies forests, injured and unable to escape. When the trail leads from the down and outs to the hunt for the missing woman, the cold cases seem suddenly dangerously hot.

In this terrifying game of cat and mouse, Caplan must trace where love and control twist together, and question where power lies in any relationship. But the darkest skies hide the darkest secrets . . .

Recognised by five literary awards and receiving instant acclaim, this is bestselling author Gavin Francis's account of a year as base camp doctor in Antarctica

WINNER OF THE SCOTTISH BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD

Gavin Francis spent fourteen months in one of the remotest places in the world: Halley, a research station in Antarctica. Storm-locked and frozen, it is said to be easier to evacuate a casualty from the International Space Station than it is to bring someone out of Halley in winter.

In the icy emptiness of Antarctica, where one misstep outdoors can mean death but the confined corridors of Halley can drive you mad, Gavin challenges himself to thrive at the ends of the earth. In the penguin colonies, a species utterly adapted to the harsh environment, he finds community, inspiration and joy. Filled with stories of early travellers, the sparse beauty of the place, auroras, clouds, stars, sunlight, darkness, ice and snow.

With introduction by fellow writer and traveller Sara Wheeler.

In a busy maternity ward, first-time father Dan meets Jada, a dad welcoming his fifth - no, sixth? - child into the world. Dan and Jada come from very different places: both called Glasgow. Dan is a successful TV writer with a townhouse in the West End and a shiny Tesla ready to drive his wife and baby home. Jada is a hustling, small-time criminal who is already planning how to separate Dan from some of the luxuries Jada has never been able to enjoy in his tiny flat in a Brutalist sixties council block.
Both men find that the birth of their sons has fired their ambitions. Dan plans to walk away from his saccharine TV success and finally knuckle down to writing that novel he always felt he had in him. While, for Jada, it's the opportunity for one last get-rich-quick scheme - ripping off a local airport. When a tragedy occurs, their worlds are brought closer than either could ever have imagined - close enough that it could mean destruction for both of them . . .

Jim Brennan is flying high. Against all odds, he is tipped for the head job at Glasgow's prestigious university; an office at the top of the ivory tower. Not bad for the son of a hardman who grew up in a room and kitchen.

When Jim's son Elliot is arrested on drugs charges, he is approached by men he thought he had left safely in his past. Their demands threaten his family, students and reputation. The question is, how far will Professor Jim Brennan go to save the life he built?

The 20th anniversary edition of Margaret Atwood’s iconic tale with a new foreword by the author and an afterword by Philip Pullman.

A fresh take on what follows Homer’s The Odyssey by the international best-selling author of The Handmaid’s Tale.

Now that all the others have run out of air, it’s my turn to do a little story-making . . . So I’ll spin my own thread.

Penelope. Immortalized in legend and myth as the devoted wife of the glorious Odysseus, silently weaving and unpicking and weaving again as she waits for her husband's return.

Now Penelope wanders the underworld, spinning a different kind of thread: Her own side of the story is a tale of lust, greed and murder.

Atwood breathes new life into the classic story by giving a voice to Penelope and daring to ask what led to the hanging of twelve maids.

The anticipated follow up to poyums, from a singular voice in modern Scots poetry 

"A second, blistering collection that confronts patriarchy, gender-based violence and societal injustice with tenderness, a jousting wit and not a little righteous fury"—Caroline Sanderson, The Bookseller 

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

There isn't a timescale for how you should heal

Your bad days are valid, your heartache is real

But so is the day that your smile will return

That fire within you continues to burn

You will overcome this and continue to thrive

You are here, you are loved, you are whole, you're alive.

A formidable follow up to her award-winning debut poetry collection, Len Pennie's poyums annaw is just like her: defiant, angry and trailblazing. These poems are a call to arms, confronting ideas of patriarchy, gender-based violence and societal injustice with equal parts tenderness, quick-wit and righteous fury. poyums annaw firmly cements Len as a defining voice in contemporary Scots poetry.

In a world increasingly preoccupied by borders, bridges celebrate the possibility of connection, allowing the flow of goods, people and ideas. Bridges are among our grandest physical structures with the power of transforming lives and economies, but we also stand (or fall) upon the simple arch of bones in our feet. Text is a bridge between writer and reader, and conversation builds bridges of understanding between minds.

Dr Gavin Francis has spent his life fascinated by the power of bridges to improve human connection. In The Bridge Between Worlds he examines bridges both actual and metaphorical, on a journey through more than twenty countries, across four decades of travel.

From Rome's Ponte Sant'Angelo to Brooklyn, Victoria Falls to London, Singapore to Siberia, this thought-provoking book reflects on connections between nations and between individuals. Francis demonstrates what the building of bridges has meant to our civilisation, how crossings can enrich our lives, and the price we pay when we tear them down.

There is something special about the night. For many, just the idea of it conjures thoughts of starlit skies, romance, refuge, of being tucked up in bed. For some, the night means fear, vulnerability, danger, sleeplessness. For others still, nightfall signals the start of work. At night things go bump, monsters hide under beds, owls take wing and foxes prowl.

Overnight is a celebration of all things nocturnal, of those who labour while the rest of us sleep: the bakers, health workers, sailors, couriers, broadcasters, drivers, fishers, the men and women of the emergency services and more. And it is also a hymn to nighttime wildlife, dreams and art. We'll hang out with bats and look at the stars. We'll learn what Moomintroll has to teach us about insomnia. We'll travel by ship, train, racing car and foot. There will be more than one surprise along the way.

Through a series of personal journeys Dan Richards explores what the night means to a fascinating array of people, taking us from night terrors to the glow of watching the dawn break on the summer solstice. Overnight will change the way you think about the hours after dark.

This is the remarkable and mind-expanding story of how we shape the lives of animals and plants - and how they shape us - by professor David Farrier

For nearly four billion years, life on Earth has found new ways to adapt, reproduce and thrive, taking on new forms to meet the environment of the moment. Human impact on the planet, and the potentially devastating threat of climate change, have stressed that adaptability as never before. Yet life still finds a way. Animals, plants and insects rise to the challenge and are still adapting, reproducing and thriving, even in our rapidly transforming environment. In their example we may just find ways that we too can adapt, ways to stop the destruction we're causing to the planet.

In Nature's Genius David Farrier takes us on a profound journey into this ever-changing natural world. What we discover could change us. The ways animals adjust to the urban landscape can help us design sustainable cities. Examining other intelligences can help us remake our economies. Learning from bacterial evolution may help solve our waste problem. Synthetic biology could rescue animals from the brink of extinction. Thinking in timescales of the natural world could help us choose a better future.

As life on Earth changes, the question is can we change too? Can we remake the world to be fit for all life to thrive once more?

From Len Pennie, the performance poet sensation, comes an electric debut collection about loving, learning, surviving, growing and giving - an instant Sunday Times bestseller

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES, THE TIMES, SUNDAY POST AND iPAPER BESTSELLER

And I have done more than just simply get by
So much more than escape or survive
Through the galvanisation of love, time and patience
I'll take hold of my story and thrive.
After life that was seldom what life ought to be
Through laughter and love I'll be whole
This story is mine from the cover to spine
And the narrative I will control


Whether she's writing letters to her younger self, advocating for women's rights or adapting fairy tales to process an abusive relationship, Len's voice is bold, unashamedly frank and unmistakably hers.

The poems in this collection, both funny and fiercely feminist, announce a formidable new talent. Moving deftly between English and Scots, poyums is as approachable as it is affecting.

A UK debut by a critically acclaimed author - a novel that combines lyrical storytelling with urgent contemporary themes of gender violence, tradition and patriarchy


In the Black Mountains of Pakistan, the discovery of an unconscious, unknown man is the first snowball in an avalanche of chaos. The head of the village is beset with problems - including the injured stranger - and failing to find his way out. His daughter receives a love letter and incurs her father's wrath. A lame boy foretells disaster, but nobody is listening. Trapped in terrible danger, a wolf-dog is battling ice and death to save a soldier's life. Beaten by her addict husband for bearing him only daughters, a woman is pregnant again - but can this child save her?

As the elements turn on the village, can humanity find a way to co-exist with nature that doesn't destroy either of them?

An uplifting poetry collection from the number one bestselling author of My Name Is Why, Lemn Sissay OBE

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

For the past decade, Lemn Sissay has composed a short poem as dawn breaks each morning. Life-affirming, witty and full of wonder, these poems chronicle his own battle with the dark and are fuelled by resilience and defiant joy. Let the Light Pour In is a collection of the best of these poems, and a book celebrating this morning practice.

'How do you do it?' said night
'How do you wake up and shine?'
'I keep it simple,' said light
'One day at a time'

A walking tour of the border region where England and Scotland meet by the award-winning writer, meditating on a complicated, storied relationship through history


The border between England and Scotland is rich in history. It has been the site of battles, treaties, castles and crossroads. But it can also be a lens through which to look at the changing history and identities of these two countries.

Between Britain is a one-hundred-mile journey through eight centuries. It is a history book, a travelogue, a personal reminiscence and a gently prodding examination of national identity. But above all it is a celebration of a place and the people who live there.

A vital and honest book exploring the pain of the immigrant experience and the turmoil it can carry across generations, from the winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize

DEREK OWUSU NAMED GRANTA'S BEST OF YOUNG BRITISH NOVELISTS 2023
LONGLISTED FOR THE JHALAK PRIZE 2023
LONGLISTED FOR THE DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE 2023
SHORTLISTED FOR PEOPLE'S BOOK PRIZE - FICTION 2023
LONGLISTED FOR THE DIVERSE BOOK AWARDS 2023


'A highly enigmatic, affectionate and robustly written portrayal of a mother-son relationship . . . very relatable' Diana Evans

Driven by a deep-seated desire to understand his mother's life before he was born, Derek Owusu offers a powerful imagining of her journey. As she moves from Ghana to the UK and navigates parenthood in a strange and often lonely environment, the effects of her displacement are felt across generations.

Told through the eyes of both mother and son, Losing the Plot is at once emotionally raw and playful as Owusu experiments with form to piece together the immigrant experience and explore how the stories we share and tell ourselves are just as vital as the ones we don't.

An illuminating collection of interviews between the prestigious Shakespeare and Company bookshop and the best writers of our time

Shakespeare and Company, Paris, is one of the world's most iconic and beautiful bookshops. Located on the banks of the Seine, opposite Notre-Dame, it's long been a meeting place for anglophone writers and readers.

In that tradition, determined for the bookshop to remain a place of meaningful and transformative conversation, owner Sylvia Whitman and novelist and literary director Adam Biles have hosted several hundred interviews with writers, ranging from prize-winning novelists to visionary non-fiction writers.

The Shakespeare and Company Book of Interviews is a selection of the best of these interviews from the last decade. Packed with warmth, sensitivity and humour, it's a celebration of the greatest writers of our age and an insight into the lives and thoughts behind some of today's most talked-about books.

An ultra-vivid, carnivalesque memoir of Jennifer Clement's early life from 60s Mexico to 80s New York City - the prequel to Widow Basquiat

'Clement has lived a life like no other, and made of it a shimmering mosaic, a masterpiece, which is this book' Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less

Growing up in 1970s Mexico City, Jennifer Clement lived next door to Frida Kahlo's house. It was a bohemian childhood, living alongside artists, communists, revolutionaries and poets, which allowed an awakening of creative freedom and curiosity about the world.

Leaving behind Latin America for the burgeoning counter-culture scene in '80s New York, Clement inhabited the world of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Colette Lumiere and William Burroughs. Spanning two great cities, The Promised Party explores what it means to be young, free and alive.

An urgent call to action from one of Europe’s most well-regarded political thinkers and a field guide to spotting the insidious patterns and mechanisms of the populist wave sweeping the globe – with a new foreword to the 2024 edition

How to Lose a Country is a warning to the world that populism and nationalism don’t march fully-formed into government; they creep.

Award-winning author and journalist Ece Temelkuran identifies the early warning signs of this phenomenon, sprouting up across the world from Eastern Europe to South America, in order to arm the reader with the tools to recognise it and take action.

Weaving memoir, history and clear-sighted argument, Temelkuran proposes alternative answers to the pressing – and too often paralysing – political questions of our time. How to Lose A Country is an exploration of the insidious ideas at the core of these movements and an urgent, eloquent defence of democracy.

This 2024 edition includes a new foreword by the author.

An insider critique of the food business by award-winning chef Pam Brunton, interrogating sustainability in food culture and documenting the early days of her Green Michelin Star restaurant Inver

When world-class chef Pam first opened Inver, her restaurant on the shores of Loch Fyne, she set out to discover what makes 'modern Scottish food' - or if it even existed. This book traces Pam's journey to answer that question and in doing so reveals what we can all gather from our culinary heritage. Part memoir, part manifesto on the future of feeding the world and a feminist critique of the food business, it documents the difficult early days of her now multiple award-winning restaurant, reflecting on how the immersive experience of 'destination restaurants' can both help and hinder our understanding of wider land and food culture.

From the soil to the kitchen, Between Two Waters interrogates the influences on what we eat: capitalism, colonialism and gender, as well as our own personal and cultural histories. Yet it also captures with real heart all that the dinner table has to offer us: sustenance, both physical and imaginative, challenges and adventure and, most importantly, communion with others.

More than anything, it is a blisteringly original work from one of the world's most innovative thinkers about food, sustainability and landscape.

'Does anyone in this room think that I can do wonders? I’m a normal guy from the Black Forest… I am the "normal one"' Jurgen Klopp, 9 October 2015

Jürgen Klopp’s announcement in January 2024 that he was to step down as Liverpool manager at the end of the season would see an unprecedented outpouring of grief from his adopted city. The Anfield Wrap has followed Liverpool through nine remarkable years, ten cup finals, and eight trophies, and now the ‘normal one’ is finally set to return to a normal life.

But the story of Klopp and Liverpool is a special one. A city haunted by tragedy and economic hardship rapidly found itself reinvigorated and redrawn by one man's philosophy, and an approach to life and football that was driven by joy, passion and inclusivity. Klopp’s arrival led not only to spectacular footballing success, but also saw Liverpool itself becoming more culturally relevant than at any point since the height of Beatlemania.

Neil Atkinson, host of The Anfield Wrap, tells the story of this unique relationship with a passion, zeal and humour befitting of the man himself. Structured around nineteen notable games in Klopp’s Liverpool career, Atkinson expertly weaves the personal and the political into this retelling of one of football's most improbable journeys, one that would change both the landscape of the sport and the city of Liverpool forever.

1957. Sonny is working on a whaling ship in the South Atlantic, reckoning with the most vicious storms he has ever seen. It’s a brutal way to make a living. When he finally returns to his Shetland home to build a life with his wife and young son, the legacy of his time at sea is felt by all of them.

In present day Shetland, Jack is an old man, living alone in the cottage where he grew up, in the shadow of a hill. And it is here, one evening, that something appears on his doorstep. Something that throws off the rhythm of his solitary existence in the most profound way.

This is a story of unlikely friendship, longing, the power of music and the pull of home. It is about a life revisited – and reimagined.

Does a poet's heart beat under Donald Trump's brash exterior? This international bestseller rearranges his quotes and tweets into hilarious poetry. It's a new word order and the perfect present idea

What if there's a hidden dimension to Donald Trump; a sensitive, poetic side? Driven by this question, Rob Sears began combing Trump's words for signs of poetry.

What he found was a revelation. By simply taking the poetic POTUS' tweets and transcripts, cutting them up and reordering them, Sears unearthed a trove of beautiful verse that was just waiting to be discovered.

This groundbreaking collection gives readers a glimpse of Trump's innermost thoughts and feelings on everything from the nature of truth, to what he hates about Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi. And it will reveal a hitherto hidden Donald, who may surprise and delight both students and critics alike.

Now with all-new poems! As we lurch deeper into life post-Trump and the impeachment era, this timely publication also includes Sears' scholarly footnotes and introduction, in which he excavates new critical angles and insights into the Poet-in-Chief's work which the casual reader might initially overlook.

The debut work of non-fiction by award-winning slam poet Vanessa Kisuule, this is a love letter to the musicians we adore and an unflinching look at the costs of hero worship

Why do famous musicians mean so much to us? How does the pop culture industry both mirror and magnify the worst aspects of human nature? Why is it so hard to accept that the people we love, famous or not, can be capable of doing terrible things?

As conversations about abuse perpetrated by public figures become louder and from her very personal perspective as a Michael Jackson obsessive, Kisuule examines the nuances of 'fandom': of celebrities as symbols and fantasies, of child stars and power imbalances. Neverland invites us to question the dangers of idolising and villainising individuals and asks us to be unafraid of scrutinising the ugly and contradictory aspects of these issues. It also holds space for the joy we all get from music and explores ways we can preserve this.

With verve and incisiveness, Kisuule explores her own experience of being a mega fan and the evergreen question of whether we can, or should, separate the art from the artist. With references to R Kelly, Michael Jackson, Britney Spears and other famous figures, this is both a love letter to the musicians we adore and an unflinching look at the costs of hero worship.

The frank and offbeat debut collection from award-winning comedian and broadcaster Josie Long

From a comic mastermind comes this brilliant collection of stories

Three teenagers believe they are witches.
A woman defaces a local billboard.
A bored landlord tries to influence his son's best friend.
A cul-de-sac WhatsApp group discusses eggs at length.
A heavily pregnant woman finds a way to time travel and a girl discovers joy on a stolen bicycle . . .

Each tale paints a life in miniature and offers an escape chute from the mayhem of modern life.

For Paul Carty, 19, and his mystical, Joy Division-loving mate Elvis, life revolves around The Pack, a mob of violent Tranmere Rovers supporters. Carty and Elvis travel the Northern wastelands, always by train, causing mayhem in the 'woollyback' strongholds of Halifax, Crewe and Chesterfield. For most of the mob, The Pack is their reason for living. But Elvis, who loves Ezra Pound, and Carty, still getting over the death of his mother, are starting to get bored of it all.

The question is: will the Pack let them go? And can they get by without each other?

When a body is discovered in the water at the Falls of Lora, it looks like a straightforward suicide to DCI Christine Caplan. But when her superior officer alerts her to similarities with a locked case – and a legal minefield – she discovers that darker truths lurk beneath the surface. 

‘Girl A’ was convicted of murdering three people when she was a child. Now she’s missing and a man is dead. The top brass are screaming for a quick resolution, and ‘Girl A’ is a media sensation and a risk to herself as well as others. The clock is ticking for Caplan to bring her to justice – but the truth may be darker than even she fears . . .

SHORTLISTED FOR WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR 

In Island Dreams, Gavin Francis combines stories of his own travels with psychology, philosophy and myth, shedding new light on the importance of islands and isolation in our collective consciousness. Francis draws on thirty years of island adventures from the Faroe Islands to the Aegean, from the Galapagos to the Andaman Islands. He contrasts these quests for freedom with the demands for commitment required as a doctor, community member and parent. Island Dreams riffs on the twin poles of rest and motion, independence and attachment, never more relevant than in today’s ever-connected world.

An instant Sunday Times bestseller, O Brother is by turns heart-breaking and hilarious - evoking a working-class childhood of the 1970-80s and trying to answer the questions that often haunt the survivors of suicide

SHORTLISTED FOR THE GORDON BURN PRIZE
A GUARDIAN BEST MEMOIR OF 2023
A WATERSTONES BEST BOOK OF 2023

John Niven's little brother Gary was fearless, popular, stubborn, handsome, hilarious and sometimes terrifying. After years of chaotic struggle against the world took his own life at the age of 42.

Tracking the lives of two brothers in changing times - from illicit cans of lager in 70s sitting rooms to ecstasy in 90s raves - O Brother is a tender, affecting and often uproariously funny story. It is about the bonds of family and how we try to keep the best of those we lose alive. It is about black sheep and what it takes to break the ties that bind. Fundamentally it is about how families survive suicide, 'that last cry, from the saddest outpost.'

Winner of the Nan Shepherd Prize, this lyrical book moves between Trinidad and an idyllic English country garden as it grapples with big questions about what we call home

What is home? It's a question that has troubled Marchelle Farrell for her entire life. Years ago she left Trinidad and now, uprooted once again, she heads to the peaceful English countryside - the only Black woman in her village.

Drawn to her new garden, Marchelle begins to examine the complex and emotional question of home in the context of colonialism. As her relationship with the garden deepens, she discovers that her two conflicting identities are far more intertwined than she had realised. Full of hope and healing, Uprooting is a book about finding home where we least expect it, and which invites us to reconnect to the land - and ourselves.