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A A Gill

Andrew Swanston read law at Cambridge, but was inspired to write by his lifelong interest in early modern history. His Thomas Hill novels – The King’s Spy, The King’s Exile and The King’s Return – are set against the backdrops of the English Civil War, Cromwell’s Commonwealth and the early Restoration respectively. He is also the author of Waterloo: The Bravest Man and Beautiful Star and Other Stories. His first historical thriller set during the reign of Elizabeth I – Incendium (published in paperback as The Incendium Plot) – introduced readers to the academic, lawyer and intelligencer Dr Christopher Radcliff, whose adventures continue in Chaos. Andrew Swanston lives in Surrey.

A D Swanston

A E Langsford

A G Hopkins

A. J. BAIME is the New York Times best-selling author of The Arsenal of Democracy: FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War and Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans. Both books are in development for major motion pictures. Baime is a longtime regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal, and his articles have also appeared in the New York Times, Popular Science, and Men’s Journal. He lives in Granite Bay, California. Visit him at facebook.com/ajbaime and trumanbook.com.

A J Baime

A J Jacobs

A J P Taylor

Anthony James Pollard is a British medieval historian, specialising in the fifteenth century and in particular the Wars of the Roses. A leading authority in the field, he is profesor emeritus of Teesside University. His books include North-Eastern England during the Wars of the Roses, Richard III and the Princes in theTower, Imagining Robin Hood: the Late Medieval Stories in Historical Context and Warwick the kingmaker: Politics, Power and Fame.

A J Pollard

A J Rochester

A K Benjamin is a clinical neuropsychologist and the author of Let Me Not Be Mad: A Story of Unravelling Minds.

A K Benjamin

A. L. Berridge read English at Oxford, and taught for ten years before moving into television, where her production credits range from period drama and thrillers to long-running soaps. She has written two previous novels, Top Ten besteller Honour and the Sword and In the Name of the King. Into the Valley of Death is her third novel.

A L Berridge

Alison Gaylin's first job was as a reporter for a celebrity tabloid, which sparked a lifelong interest in writing about people committing despicable acts. More than a decade later, she wrote and published her Edgar-nominated first novel, HIDE YOUR EYES. 
 
She's since published nine more books, including the USA Today and international bestselling Brenna Spector suspense series, which has been nominated for the Edgar, Anthony and Thriller awards and won the Shamus award. 
 
She lives in upstate New York with her husband, daughter, cat and dog.

A L Gaylin

A Maxwell-Hyslop

A McArthur

A P Wavell

A.S. Webb is the Sunday Times bestselling author of Daughter of Chaos, the first instalment of The Dark Pantheon Trilogy. She is inspired by stories rooted in history and mythology, that push the boundaries of imagination and urge us to reflect on what it means to be human.

A S Webb

A. A. Dhand is the author of six previous novels, and has been shortlisted for the CWA Steel Dagger Award. His DI Harry Virdee novels are currently being adapted for TV by the BBC. He was raised in Bradford and spent his youth observing the city from behind the counter of a small convenience store. After qualifying as a pharmacist, he worked in London and travelled extensively before returning to Bradford to start his own business and begin writing. The history, diversity and darkness of the city have inspired all his novels. For more information about A. A. Dhand and his books, follow him on X @aadhand, and on Instagram @aa_dhand.

A. A. Dhand

A. A. Gill

A. A. Milne

A. Anatoli

A. B. Poranek grew up sharing her time between Ontario, Canada and rural Poland, and eventually completed a veterinary degree at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences. A lover of mythology and history, she enjoys exploring both in her writing. Her debut novel, Where the Dark Stands Still, an instant New York Times bestseller, is an ode to Poland's folktales, while A Treachery of Swans transports readers to a world inspired by 17th century France.

A. B. Poranek

A. Bradley

Professor A. C. Grayling is Principal of the New College of the Humanities at Northeastern University, London, and a Supernumerary Fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford. He has written and edited over thirty books on philosophy, history, science and current affairs. For several years he wrote columns for the Guardian newspaper and The Times and was the chairman of the 2014 Man Booker Prize.

A. C. Grayling

A.D. Miller is the author of Snowdrops, The Earl of Petticoat Lane and The Faithful Couple. Snowdrops was a bestseller and was shortlisted for many prizes including the Man Booker and the CWA Gold Dagger. It was translated into 25 languages. As Moscow Correspondent of The Economist A.D. Miller has travelled across the former Soviet Union and covered the Orange Revolution in Ukraine; he is now the magazine’s Culture Editor based in London. 
 
admillerbooks.com

A. D. Miller

A. E. Ellis

A. E. W. Mason

A. Humphreys

A. Igoni Barrett was born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, in 1979 and lives in Lagos. He is a winner of the 2005 BBC World Service short story competition, the recipient of a Chinua Achebe Center Fellowship, a Norman Mailer Center Fellowship, and a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Residency. His short story collection, Love is Power, or Something Like That, was published in 2013. In 2014 he was named on the Africa39 list of sub-Saharan African writers under 40. Blackass is his first novel.

A. Igoni Barrett

The short life of A.J.A. Symons (1900-41) was described by his biographer as an intricate and largely harmless confidence trick. His many interests included the collection of musical boxes and rare books as well as the study and practice of forgery; they left him time to edit an anthology of Edwardian verse and compose studies of H.M. Stanley and other notable figures. He is remembered for The Quest for Corvo, one of the most remarkable biographies ever written, and for co-founding the Wine and Food Society.

A. J. A. Symons

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Becky Barnicoat

'The most accurate account of becoming a parent I have ever read.' PHILIPPA PERRY 
 
‘So clever, so funny, so astute, so healing. Becky Barnicoat is a stone cold genius.' LUCY JONES 
 
A glorious antidote to parenting books, this darkly humorous, candid and insightful graphic memoir brings the early years of parenthood to life – in all their chaos, wonder and delirium. 
 
Intimate, relatable and very funny, Becky Barnicoat explores everything from the anatomy of the hospital bag to the frantic obsession with putting your baby down drowsy but awake, to the tyranny of gentle parenting. From pregnancy to the feral toddler years, Barnicoat extends a sticky hand to all new parents grappling with the impossible but joyous jigsaw puzzle of their lives. 
 
Barnicoat gives us permission to cry when the baby cries – and also laugh, snort, lie on the floor naked, drool and generally revel in a deeply strange new world ruled by a tyrannical tiny leader, growing bigger and more loved by the day. 
 
 
'Tender, moving, beautifully drawn and also, extremely hilarious.' ISABEL GREENBERG 
 
'It made me laugh, weep, cheer and howl... essential reading for parents and their peers.' NELL FRIZZELL

Cry When the Baby Cries

Helen Fielding

‘Bridget is a creation of comic genius’ NICK HORNBY 
 
8.45 P.M. Realise there have been so many times in my life when have fantasised about going to a scan with Mark or Daniel: just not both at the same time. 
 
Before motherhood, before marriage, BRIDGET JONES, with biological clock ticking very, very loudly, finds herself unexpectedly pregnant at the eleventh hour.Her joyful pregnancy is dominated, however, by a crucial but terribly awkward question – who is the father? Mark Darcy: honourable, decent, notable human rights lawyer? Or Daniel Cleaver: charming, witty, notable fuckwit?

Bridget Jones’s Baby

The Diaries

Jon Harvey

A BBC Arts & The Reading Agency's Big Sporting Read selection 
 
'Warm, sad and funny... There is something very eccentric and British about A Fan for All Seasons' - Sunday Times 
 
A hilarious, heartfelt, nostalgia-infused story of sport, loss and the journey of a lifetime. 
 
After the sudden death of his older brother, Dan, Jon Harvey turned to the thing that had provided their strongest connection: sport, in all its myriad sublime and ridiculous forms. He made it his mission to visit as many events as he possibly could in a single year – to build the ultimate season ticket. 
 
A kaleidoscopic twelve months took him from London Olympia to ancient Olympia, from rugby balls to Rubik's Cubes, Wimbledon tennis to Wimbledon greyhounds, from tennis legend Roger Federer to darts hero Martin 'Wolfie' Adams, and much, much more. It's a celebration, of sport, life, and an unbreakable bond between two brothers.

A Fan for All Seasons

A Journey Through Life and Sport

Ryan Wilson

'A frank, funny and long overdue ode to teachers and teaching' ADAM KAY 
 
The malodorous horrors of Sports Day. 
Bracing yourself for Parents' Evening. 
Refereeing teenage relationship dramas... 
 
From the age of eight, Ryan Wilson dreamed of being a teacher. This is the inside story of his time at the chalkface, from fresh-faced trainee with grand ideals to exhausted assistant head battling ever-changing demands. 
 
It is a tribute, too, to the colleagues who befriended him and to the students who inspired him. Above all, it's about the lessons they taught him: how to be patient and resilient, how to live authentically and how to value every day. 
 
'Hilarious, inspiring and so terrifyingly true' Lucy Kellaway 
 
'Delightfully frank and funny' Jacqueline Wilson 
 
'A hilarious love letter to teaching' Christie Watson 
 
'Funny, sensitive and clever' Victoria Derbyshire

Let That Be a Lesson

A Teacher’s Life in the Classroom

'A frank, funny and long overdue ode to teachers and teaching' Adam Kay

Scott Murray

Simon Farnaby

The hilarious, heartwarming and - unbelievably - true story of Maurice Flitcroft, the World's Worst Golfer 
 
'The story of its greatest anti-hero is just what the game needs' Spectator 
 
When 46-year-old crane driver Maurice Flitcroft chanced his way into the Open - having never before played a round of golf in his life - he ran up a record-worst score of 121. The sport's ruling classes banned him for life. 
 
Maurice didn't take it lying down. In a hilarious game of cat-and-mouse with The Man, he entered tournaments again - and again, and again - using increasingly ludicrous pseudonyms such as Gene Pacecki, Arnold Palmtree and Count Manfred von Hoffmanstel (more often than not disguised by a fake moustache). 
 
In doing so, he sent the authorities into apoplexy, and won the hearts of fans from Muirfield to Michigan, becoming arguably the most popular - and certainly the bravest - sporting underdog the world has ever known 
 
'Hilarious' Esquire

The Phantom of the Open

Maurice Flitcroft, the World's Worst Golfer - NOW A MAJOR FILM STARRING MARK RYLANCE

Jenny Landreth

'With spot-on injections of humour and a frequently raised sardonic eyebrow, joy and warmth shine from this fascinating and funny book' Jo Brand 
 
A joyful celebration of amateur theatre 
 
From the Mystery Plays of the Middle Ages, via the Georgian aristocrats who built opulent private theatres in their own homes, to the radical lefties taking political theatre to the streets, this is the story of amateur dramatics in Britain. We meet a cast of characters who tell us about the joy amateur theatre brings them and we follow the full arc of a production, from first auditions to last night party, with all the mishaps and forgotten lines that come in between. In a triumphant mix of memoir, social history and manifesto, Jenny Landreth opens our eyes to am-dram and shows us a vibrant world that is a crucial part of our culture.

Break a Leg

A memoir, manifesto and celebration of amateur theatre

Bill Buford

From the author of the widely acclaimed Heat, an exhilarating account of Bill Buford's adventures in the world of French cooking. 
 
'A romping, chomping, savoury tour de force... Hilarious' Simon Schama 
 
What does it take to master French cooking? This is the question that drives Bill Buford to abandon his perfectly happy life in New York City and (with his wife and three-year-old twin sons in tow) move to Lyon, the so-called gastronomic capital of France. 
 
But what was meant to be six months in a new city turns into a wild five-year odyssey. As Buford apprentices at Lyon's best boulangerie, studies at a legendary culinary school and cooks at a storied Michelin-starred restaurant, he discoveries the true grit, precision and passion of the French kitchen. 
 
'Hugely entertaining' Observer 
 
'Rollicking, food-stuffed entertainment... Gourmets and gourmands will savour this' Spectator

Dirt

Adventures in French Cooking from the bestselling author of Heat

Sophie Heawood

'Deftly explores expectations of modern womanhood . . . Full of adventure and awe' Dolly Alderton 
 
People always said I'd find love where I least expected it. I always said they were idiots. 
 
I had no idea how to commit to another human being. 
 
I could barely commit to reading a magazine, and I wrote for magazines for a living. My specialist subject was celebrities, and my own relationships made their marriages look eternal. 
 
I'd never paid a household bill that didn't mention bailiffs, and my idea of exercise was to go and stand outside a famous person's house and stare until I'd convinced myself that I lived in it. 
 
 But my life in LA was happy; free of care and consequence. That was, until I came down to earth - with a bump. 
 
 So this is the story of how I staggered from partying in Hollywood to bringing up a baby in Piss Alley, Dalston; how I never did find a copy of What To Expect When You Weren't Even Fucking Expecting To Be Expecting, and why paternity testing is not a good topic for a first-date conversation. 
 
**AN EVENING STANDARD AND COSMOPOLITAN BEST BOOK OF 2020** 
**AN OBSERVER NON-FICTION BOOK TO LOOK OUT FOR IN 2020** 
___________________ 
 
Praise for THE HUNGOVER GAMES: 
'Funny, dark and true' Caitlin Moran 
'A deeper, funnier, realer, more poignant Bridget Jones' Philippa Perry 
'Sharply observed and funny' Guardian 
'Frank and fearless' Red 
'Outrageously entertaining' David Nicholls 
'This is the first time I've read anything about motherhood that didn't bore me' Sara Pascoe

The Hungover Games

The gloriously funny Sunday Times bestselling memoir of motherhood

The Hotbed Collective

A FRANK, FUNNY AND EMPOWERING CELEBRATION OF FEMALE PLEASURE 
 
An orgasm will help you sleep and keep you looking younger, it doesn’t cost money and isn’t a scarce resource. So why is it that, like the pay gap, there is an ‘orgasm gap’ between women and men? 
 
The Hotbed Collective began life as a podcast with a mission ‘to make life better one orgasm at a time’. Their debut book, More Orgasms Please is an open, honest and at moments hilarious dive into all aspects of sex for women. It covers feminist porn, body image, menopause and much more. 
 
Like the podcast that inspired it, More Orgasms Please is like the best sort of chat between friends: punchy and playful, normalising and educating. It is an eye-opening read that puts women’s bodies and our right to pleasure firmly on the map. Think of it as ‘Couch to 5k’ ... for orgasms.

More Orgasms Please

Why Female Pleasure Matters

Gretchen McCulloch

THE ACCLAIMED NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER. 
 
Have you ever puzzled over how to punctuate a text message? Wondered where memes came from? Fret no more: Because Internet is the perfect book for understanding how the internet is changing the English language, why that's a good thing, and what our online interactions reveal about who we are. 
 
'McCulloch is such a disarming writer - lucid, friendly, unequivocally excited about her subject - that I began to marvel at the flexibility of the online language she describes, with its numerous shades of subtlety.' New York Times

Because Internet

Understanding how language is changing

Lucy Mangan

'Beautiful and moving... It will kickstart a cascade of nostalgia for countless people' Marian Keyes 
 
When Lucy Mangan was little, stories were everything. They opened up different worlds and cast new light on this one. 
 
She was whisked away to Narnia - and Kirrin Island - and Wonderland. She ventured down rabbit holes and womble burrows into midnight gardens and chocolate factories. No wonder she only left the house for her weekly trip to the library. 
 
In Bookworm, Lucy brings the favourite characters of our collective childhoods back to life and disinters a few forgotten treasures poignantly, wittily using them to tell her own story, that of a born, and unrepentant, bookworm. 
 
'Passionate, witty, informed, and gloriously opinionated' Jacqueline Wilson

Bookworm

A Memoir of Childhood Reading

Stuart Heritage

Stuart Heritage got where he is today by being decent, thoughtful, hardworking and kind. He is, in short, a model citizen. The favourite son. 
 
His younger brother Pete is quick-tempered, peevish and aggressively pig-headed and, for a while, known to his friends as 'Shagger'. 
 
But now, Stu has returned to his hometown to discover that Pete has taken his place. 
 
Don’t Be A Dick, Pete is a hilarious examination of home and family; sons, fathers, fatherhood, sibling relationships and how hard it is to move on in a system that’s loaded with several decades of preconceived ideas about you.

Don't Be a Dick Pete

Gabourey Sidibe

The Oscar-nominated Precious star and Empire actress delivers a much-awaited memoir which is wise, complex, smart and funny. 
 
This Is Just My Face is the whirlwind tour of Gabourey Sidibe’s life so far. In it, we meet her polygamous father, her gifted mother who fed the family by busking on the subway, and the psychic who told her she’d one day be ‘famous like Oprah’. 
 
Gabby shows us round the Harlem studio apartment where she grew up, relives the debilitating depression that hit her at college, and reminisces about her first ever job as a phone sex ‘talker’ (less creepy than you’d think). 
 
With exhilaratingly honest (and often hilarious) dispatches on friendship, depression, celebrity, haters, fashion, race, and weight, This Is Just My Face will resonate with anyone who has ever felt different - and with anyone who has ever felt inspired to make a dream come true. 
 
'Frank, funny, and insanely charming' Lena Dunham 
 
'A read that lives up to the unforgettable attitude of its name' Glamour 
 
'You’re the BOMB, girl!' President Barack Obama

This Is Just My Face

Try Not to Stare

Tim Parks

Thomas needs to speak to his mother before she dies. 
 
But he's set to give a talk to a conference of physiotherapists in the Netherlands; if he leaves now will he get to her deathbed in time? 
 
Will he be able to say what he couldn't say before? He can't concentrate on what is happening now: his mind won't sit still. Should he try to solve his friend's marital crisis? Should he reconsider his separation from his own wife? And why does he need to pee again? 
 
In Extremis is Tim Parks's masterwork: a darkly hilarious and deadly serious novel about infidelity, mortality and the frailties of the human body.

In Extremis

David Lodge

The first collection of short stories from one of Britain's finest novelists and critics 
 
A nameless man who has fallen out of love with life, refuses to get out of bed, with unexpected consequences. A sociologist recalls how he learned his first and formative lesson about the oppressive power of capitalism selling newspapers and magazines up and down the platforms of Waterloo station. Some years before the era of the Pill and the Permissive Society, four university friends travel to the Mediterranean for their first holiday together, where the climate is sultry and sex is on everyone’s mind. And a strong-willed young woman defies adverse circumstances to pursue the perfect wedding at all costs. 
 
These are some of the characters that populate David Lodge’s shrewd, funny and delightfully entertaining short stories, collected here for the very first time. What prompted their publication in this form is a short story in itself, told by the author in his Foreword. 
 
LONGLISTED FOR THE EDGE HILL SHORT STORY PRIZE 2017

The Man Who Wouldn't Get Up and Other Stories

Paul Robert Smith

Benton Kirby is in a spot of bother... 
 
His life hasn't exactly gone to plan. This is hardly surprising, however, as he never really had one in the first place. Armed with a philosophy degree, a dead fiancé, a brother who drives Death around London in his black cab, and a girlfriend with a history of suicidal pets, Benton - ambitionless and emotionally disengaged - embarks, for no apparent reason, on an affair with a beautiful, sexually adventurous, Korean virgin. 
 
Following a strange snowballing of even stranger events, he finds himself, at last, exactly not where he ever imagined he would be, up a tree at night in the park with a hedgehog...

Up a Tree in the Park at Night with a Hedgehog

Michael Booth

The Danes are the happiest people in the world, and pay the highest taxes. 
 
'Neutral' Sweden is one of the biggest arms manufacturers in the world. 
 
Finns have the largest per capita gun ownership after the US and Yemen. 
 
54 per cent of Icelanders believe in elves. 
 
Norway is the richest country on earth. 
 
5 per cent of Danish men have had sex with an animal. 
 
Michael Booth has lived among the Scandinavians, on and off, for over ten years, perplexed by their many strange paradoxes and character traits and equally bemused by the unquestioning enthusiasm for all things Nordic and hygge that has engulfed the rest of the world. 
 
He leaves his adopted home of Denmark and embarks on a journey through all five of the Nordic countries to discover who these curious tribes are, the secrets of their success and, most intriguing of all, what they think of each other. Along the way a more nuanced, often darker picture emerges of a region plagued by taboos, characterised by suffocating parochialism and populated by extremists of various shades. 
 
'The next Bill Bryson.’ New York Times 
 
'Beautifully observed and very funny' Rory Stewart 
 
Winner of the Best Narrative Travel Book Award from the British Guild of Travel Writers

The Almost Nearly Perfect People

Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia

Tim Moore

Would you cheer if they sent you to Coventry? 
 
Could you stick up for Stoke or big-up Bracknell? 
 
Can you handle the thrill of Rhyl, the heaven of Hull or the mirth of Tydfil? 
 
In You are Awful, Tim Moore drives his Austin Maestro round all the places on our beloved island that nobody wants to go to – our most miserable towns, shonkiest hotels, scariest pubs, and silliest sea zoos... 
 
But as the soggy, decrepit quest unfolds he finds himself oddly smitten, and the result is a rousing, nostalgic celebration of mad, bad But I Like You Britain.

You Are Awful (But I Like You)

Travels Through Unloved Britain

Grant Morrison

In 1938 Action Comics #1 introduced the world to Superman. In a matter of years, the skies of our imaginations were filled with mutants, aliens and vigilantes. Batman, Wonder Woman and the X-Men - in less than a century they've gone from not existing at all to being everywhere we look. But why? 
 
For Grant Morrison, possibly the greatest of contemporary superhero storytellers, these heroes are not simply characters but powerful archetypes whose ongoing story arcs reflect and predict the lives we live. In this exhilarating book, Morrison draws on history, art, mythology, and his own astonishing journey to provide the first true chronicle of the superhero.

Supergods

Our World in the Age of the Superhero

Andrey Kurkov

Viktor – last seen in Death and the Penguin fleeing Mafia vengeance on an Antarctica-bound flight booked for Penguin Misha – seizes a heaven-sent opportunity to return to Kiev with a new identity. Clear now as to the enormity of abandoning Misha, then convalescent from a heart-transplant, Viktor determines to make amends. Viktor falls in with a Mafia boss who engages him to help in his election campaign, then introduces him to men who might further his search for Misha, said to be in a private zoo in Chechnya. 
 
What ensues is for Viktor both a quest and an odyssey of atonement, and, for the reader, an experience as rich, topical and illuminating as Death and the Penguin.

Penguin Lost

Marina Hyde

Celebrity

How Entertainers Took Over The World and Why We Need an Exit Strategy

In 1989, Tim Moore moved into the last house in Chiswick with an outside toilet. Intrigued by a subsequent encounter with an elderly former resident, he finds himself inspired to travel back to the land before now, experiencing the hardships and pleasures enjoyed and endured by Moores gone by. 
 
The journey that follows takes him through the world of historical re-enactment: living on bramble leaves, Johnny cake and porridge, Moore travels from the Iron Age to the Steam Age, from Roman legionary to Tudor master to Yankee spy, sharing straw beds and daft hats with period obsessives driven by socio-historical curiosity, disillusionment with the modern world, or a simple nostalgia for campfires, flatulence and brutality. 
 
I Believe in Yesterday is an odyssey through 2,000 years of filth and fury, to a time where men were men, the nights were black, the world was your outside toilet and everything tasted faintly of leeks.

I Believe In Yesterday

A 2000 year Tour through the Filth and Fury of Living History

Irvine Welsh

Roy Strang is engaged in a strange quest in a surrealist South Africa. His mission is to eradicate an evil predator-scavenger bird, the marabou stork, before it drives away the peace-loving flamingo from the picturesque Lake Torto. 
 
But behind this world lies another: the world of Roy's bizarre family, the Scottish housing scheme in which he grew up, his mundane job, a disastrous emigration to Africa, and his youthful life of brutality with a gang of soccer casuals. As one world crashes into the other, this potentially charming story of ornithological goodwill mutates into a filthy tale of violence, abuse and redemption.

Marabou Stork Nightmares

Howard Marks

Howard Marks was released from Terre Haute Penitentiary, Indiana in April 1995 after serving seven years of a twenty-five year sentence for marijuana smuggling. It was time for a change of career. 
 
So he wrote two best-selling books, became a sports writer and travel writer, stood as a parliamentary candidate in Norwich North, Norwich South, Southampton Test and Neath, applied to become the country's Drug Czar, and embarked on a long-running sell-out series of one man shows. 
 
While performing in his home town of Kenfig Hill, he fell among old friends who made extraordinary claims for Welsh culture (Was Elvis really Welsh? Was there really a tribe of Welsh-speaking Native Americans?) At the same time his elderly aunt told him of his outlaw ancestry: William Owen, the legendary Welsh smuggler (who had operated for some time in South America) and his great-great-grandfather Patrick McCarty, the half brother of Billy the Kid, who had joined Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in Patagonia. He decided to explore South America. 
 
His travels took him to Jamaica and Panama in the footsteps of the Welsh buccaneer Henry Morgan; he went to Brazil looking for groups of Welsh settlers so obscure he never found them (although he did succeed in finding his musical idol Jimmy Page); and he searched among the thriving Welsh community in Patagonia for signs of Billy the Kid's half brother. Richly comic and charged with the sense of adventure that would induce an Oxford graduate to become the world's most notorious marijuana smuggler, Señor Nice is the hugely entertaining sequel to Mr Nice.

Senor Nice

Straight Life from Wales to South America

Mireille Guiliano

Experience the joie de vivre with this revolutionary non-diet book that is changing the way women eat and live everywhere 
 
How do French women do it? This is the book that unlocks the simple secrets of 'the French paradox' - how to enjoy food and stay slim and healthy. Classy, chic and expertly well-written, this is the book that we have all been waiting for. It's the ultimate non-diet book; instead, showing how to eat with balance, control and above all pleasure. Eat, like a French woman.

French Women Don't Get Fat

Nicholas Shakespeare

In this fascinating history of two turbulent centuries in an apparently idyllic place, Shakespeare effortlessly weaves the history of this unique island with a kaleidoscope of stories featuring a cast of unlikely characters from Errol Flynn to the King of Iceland, a village full of Chatwins and, inevitably, a family of Shakespeares. But what makes this more than a personal quest is Shakespeare's discovery that, despite the nineteen century purges, the Tasmanian Aborigines were not, as previously believed, entirely wiped out.

In Tasmania

Adventures at the End of the World

Ludicrous, heart-warming and improbably inspirational, Spanish Steps is the story of what happens when a rather silly man tries to walk all the way across a very large country, with a very large animal who doesn't really want to. 
 
Being larger than a cat, the donkey is the kind of animal Tim Moore is slightly scared of. Yet intrigued by epic accounts of a pilgrimage undertaken by one in three medieval Europeans, and committed to historical authenticity, he finds himself leading a Pyrenean ass named Shinto into Spain, headed for Santiago de Compostela. 
 
Over 500 miles of extreme weather and agonising bestial sloth, it becomes memorably apparent that for the multinational band of eccentrics who keep the Santiagan flame alive, the pilgrimage has evolved from a purely devotional undertaking into a mobile therapist's couch. 
 
'Hailed as the new Bill Bryson, he is in fact a writer of considerably more substance and the jokes come thick and fast' Irish Times

Spanish Steps

A book that tells the story of London since the thirties through the 28 streets, stations and utililties of the Monopoly board. In the wonderful world of Monopoly it still only cost -50 to buy a house in Islington, you can move around London with the shake of a dice and even park your car for free. 
 
In Do Not Pass Go Tim Moore, belying his reputation as a player who always paid that -10 fine rather than take a Chance, fearlessly tackles the real thing and along the way tells the story of a game and the city that frames it. Sampling the rags and the riches he stays in a hotel in Mayfair and one in the Old Kent Road, enjoys quality time with Dr Crippen in Pentonville Prison and even winds up at the wrong end of the Water Works pipe. And, solving all the mysteries you'll have pondered whilst languishing in jail and many other you certainly wouldn't, Tim Moore reveals how Pall Mall got its name, which three addresses you won't find in your A-Z and why the sorry cul-de-sac that is Vine Street has a special place in the heart of Britain's most successful Monopoly champion. 
 
The stirring travelogue of one man's erratic progress around those 28 streets, stations and utilities, Do Not Pass Go is also an epic and lovingly researched history of London's wayward progress in the 66 years since the launch of the world's most popular board game

Do Not Pass Go

Chuck Palahniuk

Victor Mancini has devised a complicated scam to pay for his mother's hospital care: pretend to be choking on a piece of food in a restaurant and the person who 'saves you' will feel responsible for you for the rest of their lives. Multiply that a couple of hundred times and you generate a healthy flow of cheques, week in, week out. 
 
Victor also works at a theme park with a motley group of losers, cruises sex addiction groups for action, and visits his mother, whose Alzheimer's disease now hides what may be the startling truth about his parentage.

Choke

Walter Moers

A delightfully illustrated cult novel, literary satire and epic adventure. 
 
'Within the first 15 pages I was carried away by the sheer craziness of it all. Some Minipirates find a baby bear with blue fur inside a walnut shell floating on the ocean towards a giant whirlpool. They rescue him and teach him about knots and waves, and that a good white lie is often considerably more exciting than the truth. Then, when he outgrows their ship to such an extent that he is in danger of sinking it, they abandon him on an island with a bottle of seaweed juice and a loaf of seaweed bread. Thus Bluebear comes to the end of his first life and embarks on his second. By the end of the book, he has expended exactly half of his 27 lives. Again and again, Moers confounds our expectations as the narrative twists and turns, travels backwards and forwards in time. Part science fiction, part fairy tale, part myth, part epic, the book is a satire on all these genres and so constantly satirises itself. Very amusing' - Daily Telegraph

The 13.5 Lives Of Captain Bluebear

The year is 1Q84. This is the real world, there is no doubt about that. But in this world, there are two moons in the sky. Discover the 1Q84 Trilogy by Haruki Murakami.

1Q84

365 Days of Art

A BBC Christmas

A Black Book Thriller

A Box Full of Murders

A Cal Leandros Novel

A Christmas Mystery

The intelligent and capable police commissioner Guido Brunetti confronts crime in and around his home town of Venice.

A Commissario Brunetti Mystery

A DC Smith / Kings Lake Investigation Series

A Daisy Story

Chronicling the lives of over three hundred characters, unrivalled for its scope and humour, this is a unique evocation of life in twentieth-century England.

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