Do you remember Melba chocolate, spud guns, Embassy records, pick 'n' mix, broken biscuits, Homemaker china, Californian Poppy perfume, and Ladybird children's clothes? Then you will love the book that brings these, and many other memories, flooding back. The Wonder of Woolies is a celebration of that great British store - Woolworth's - in the words of people who worked and shopped there. In addition to memories from every corner of Britain, the book describes the rise of the '3d and 6d st...

As human beings, we have an innate disposition to care about our well-being. We all care about staying alive, as well as about avoiding disease, physical pain, bodily harm, disability and assaults on our dignity. Adequate nourishment, water, shelter, security, satisfying work, autonomy, relationships with others and self-esteem are essential to human life and functioning. This illuminating study compares well-being across civic status, economic standing and gender during Amsterdam’s Golden...

Gothic Horror brings specific images to mind—crumbling castles, dark Parisian alleyways, mad wives in attics, dark and lonely moors, cathedrals where more evil than good exists. Georgia Gothic replaces those locations with antebellum plantations, creatures hidden in backyard sheds, rural folks who might or might not be making pacts with a variety of terrors because that's how it's always been done, city folks hiding their secrets in the trunks of their cars or in their correspondence, hous...

Do you remember Pathé News? Taking the train to the seaside? The purple stains of iodine on the knees of boys in short trousers? Knitted bathing costumes? Then the chances are you were born in or around 1950.To the young people of today, the 1950s seem like another age. But for those born around then, this era of childhood feels like yesterday. This delightful collection of photographic memories will appeal to all who grew up in this post-war decade; they include p...

Do you remember Beatlemania? Radio Caroline? Mods and Rockers? The very first miniskirts? Then the chances are you were born in the or around 1960.To the young people of today, the 1960s seems like another age. But for those who grew up in this decade, school life, 'mod' fashions and sixties pop music are still fresh in their minds. From James Bond to Sindy dolls and playing hopscotch in the street, life was very different to how it is now. After the tough and frug...

'Maeve's Times is funny and clever and kind, which are excellent qualities in both books and people' Irish Times'As someone who fell off a chair not long ago trying to hear what they were saying at the next table in a restaurant, I suppose I am obsessively interested in what some might consider the trivia of other people's lives.'Maeve Binchy is well known for her bestselling novels, but for many years Maeve was a journalist. From 'The Stu...

Whether in wartime or peace, tales of love, laughter and hardship from the girls in the Rowntrees factory in Yorkshire“On a warm Monday morning in 1932, just two days after leaving school, fourteen-year-old Madge was about to join her nine brothers and sisters at Rowntree’s. The smell of chocolate was in the air but as she walked up the road, her footsteps slowed at the daunting thought of what lay ahead…”From the 1930s through to the 1980s, as Britain endured war, depressi...

The world is full of pointless things. From rail replacement bus services to chip forks. From war to windchimes. From people who put cushions on beds to people who read the bit they write about the book on amazon. Look around you right now. Just about the only thing that isn't pointless is you. You look amazing. Join Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman, the hosts of BBC1 quiz show Pointless as they take you on a journey through The 100 Most Pointless Things in the World. Filled with play...

A hilarious compendium of all that's weird and wonderful about life in the British Isles - the eccentric, bizarre bureaucracy and outright oddity reported over the last year by the nation's newspapers, including: Guardian headline, 'Man with false leg hit with toilet lid.'; The Astrological Magazine, 'announces that it is to cease due to unforeseen circumstances.' Jack Crossley spent some 40 years in Fleet Street and has compiled this laugh-out-loud collection of anecdotes and strange goin...

THE ENTERTAINING, UPLIFTING STORY OF CELEBRITY TRAITORS STAR CELIA IMRIE'S ACTING LIFE: A MUST-READ FOR AUTUMN 2025Readers LOVE The Happy Hoofer:'Very interesting book from the beginning to the end, witty, funny, entertaining' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐'Full of pieces that make you giggle out loud . . . hard to put down' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐'A highly interesting read' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐-------'I've always been wilful... I've always been stubborn and always determined'

THE HILARIOUS DIARY BY MRS STEPHEN FRY - THE WIFE YOU NEVER KNEW HE HAD'Hilarious' - Daily Express'Buy the wife's book or I'll never hear the end of it' Stephen FryStephen Fry's secret wife speaks out at last...Enjoyed a nice cuppa this morning with a HobNob and Jeremy Kyle. There was a woman on there who'd been married 16 years without realising her husband was gay. Extraordinary! Which reminds...

The Blitz had made many families in the East End of London homeless. One solution was to erect prefabs on fields and open spaces to give temporary accommodation to those who had been bombed out. It was in one of these 'modern' boxes that young Norman Jacobs grew up through the 1950s and 1960s. In a lively, detailed and humorous picture of a postwar Hackney childhood, Norman takes us back to an age of rationing, bomb sites, street markets, colourful characters and camaraderie. And in remini...