BAFTA Nominated entertainer and Gold Award recipient from The British Academy of Composers, Richard Digance is also a respected poet with his works published in 14 different countries as English teaching aids. Richard Digance justly deserves humourist Bill Bryson's description of him as "brilliant". In amusing doggerel, Rhymes of the Day describes the what, where and who facts for each day of the year, allowing you to quickly check the important events that took place on your own birthday....

Twenty years ago, Bill Bryson went on a trip around Britain to celebrate the green and kindly island that had become his adopted country. The hilarious book that resulted, Notes from a Small Island, was taken to the nation’s heart and became the best-selling travel book ever, and was also voted in a BBC poll the book that best represents Britain. Now, to mark the twentieth anniversary of that modern classic, Bryson makes a brand-new journey around Britain to see what has changed.

With dazzling wit and astonishing insight, Bill Bryson—the acclaimed author of The Lost Continent—brilliantly explores the remarkable history, eccentricities, resilience and sheer fun of the English language. From the first descent of the larynx into the throat (why you can talk but your dog can't), to the fine lost art of swearing, Bryson tells the fascinating, often uproarious story of an inadequate, second-rate tongue of peasants that developed into one of the world's largest g...

Bryson brings his unique brand of humour to travel writing as he shoulders his backpack, keeps a tight hold on his wallet and heads for Europe. Travelling with Stephen Katz—also his wonderful sidekick in A Walk in the Woods—he wanders from Hammerfest in the far north, to Istanbul on the cusp of Asia. As he makes his way round this incredibly varied continent, he retraces his travels as a student twenty years before with caustic hilarity.

The New York Times bestseller and I****nternational PhenomenonOne of the Top Ten Books of 2015, Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times."It's bloody marvelous." - Helen Macdonald, New York Times bestselling author of H IS FOR HAWK"Captivating... A book about continuity and roots and a sense of belonging in an age that's increasingly about mobility and self-invention. Hugely compelling....

Bill Bryson was struck one day by the thought that we devote a lot more time to studying the battles and wars of history than to considering what history really consists of: centuries of people quietly going about their daily business - eating, sleeping and merely endeavouring to get more comfortable. And that most of the key discoveries for humankind can be found in the very fabric of the houses in which we live.This inspired him to start a journey around his own house, an old rectory in ...

SUNDAY TIMES NO 1 FICTION BESTSELLERFROM THE AUTHOR OF THE HUNDRED-YEAR-OLD MAN WHO CLIMBED OUT OF THE WINDOW AND DISAPPEAREDJust because the world ignores you, doesn’t mean you can’t save it . . .Nombeko Mayeki was never meant to be a hero. Born in a Soweto shack, she seemed destined for a short, hard life. But now she is on the run from the world ‘s most ruthless secret service, with three Chinese sisters, twins who are o...

Maggie Smith stars in this BBC radio adaptation of Alan Bennett's highly acclaimed autobiographical stage playAn eccentric old lady moves into a quiet street in Camden Town. There she remains, installed in her van in glorious self-sufficiency, until the council instructs her to move on. Then a kind homeowner invites her to move her van into his garden – where she stays for the next fifteen years. This is the fascinating story of the genteel vagrant who found a unique place in Alan ...

Now a PBS Masterpiece television miniseries starring Tom Hollander and Saskia Reeves“I loved this book. Funny, sad, tender: for anyone who wants to know what happens after the Happy Ever After.” — Jojo Moyes, author of Me Before YouDavid Nicholls brings the wit and intelligence that graced his New York Times bestseller, One Day, to a compellingly human, deftly funny novel about what holds marriages and families to...

HOW DO YOU SOLVE A MYSTERY WHEN YOU CAN'T REMEMBER THE CLUES?In this darkly riveting debut novel—a sophisticated psychological mystery that is also an heartbreakingly honest meditation on memory, identity, and aging—an elderly woman descending into dementia embarks on a desperate quest to find the best friend she believes has disappeared, and her search for the truth will go back decades and have shattering consequences.Maud, an aging grandmother, is slowly...

A brilliant novel from the bestselling author of High Fidelity, About a Boy, and A Long Way Down.Set in 1960's London, Funny Girl is a lively account of the adventures of the intrepid young Sophie Straw as she navigates her transformation from provincial ingénue to television starlet amid a constellation of delightful characters. Insightful and humorous, Nick Hornby's latest does what he does best: endears us to a cast of charact...

The suicide of William Goldacre is devastating to those left behind. But what was the cause of his tragedy and how far might the consequences reach? Is there a link between the young man's leap from a Dorset cliff and a horrific poisoning in Cambridge?Following various career-threatening misdemeanours, Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers is desperate to redeem herself. So when a past encounter with bestselling feminist writer Clare Abbott and her pushy personal assistant Caroline Gol...