'Bracingly original' Kathryn Hughes, Guardian'A mixture of travelogue, local history and reportage, Swamp Songs brims with evocative word sketches' Times Literary SupplementFrom Romney Marsh to the Danube Delta, from Cyprus to the bayous of Louisiana and on to the Bay of Bengal, Tom Blass crosses swamps, marshes and wetlands to meet the people who have made these in-between worlds their homes.Here are true...

Saturnine and quick-tempered, the formidable North Sea is often overlooked – even by those living within a stone's throw of its steel-grey waters. But as playground, theatre of war and cultural crossing-point, it has shaped the world in myriad ways, forged villains and heroes, and determined the fates of nations.It's not all grim, though: the seaside holiday was born on North Sea beaches, and artists, poets and writers have been as equally inspired by glinting sun on the wave-tops ...

Bloomsbury presents Swamp Songs by Tom Blass, read by David Thorpe.'Bracingly original' Kathryn Hughes, Guardian'A mixture of travelogue, local history and reportage, Swamp Songs brims with evocative word sketches' Times Literary SupplementFrom Romney Marsh to the Danube Delta, from Cyprus to the bayous of Louisiana and on to the Bay of Bengal, Tom Blass crosses swamps, marshes and wetlands to meet the people who have made these in-between worlds their homes.

Over one million copies soldToo many broken hearts to count‘A book unlike any other’ – The Guardian‘This novel challenged everything I thought I knew about love and friendship’ – Dua LipaThe million-copy bestseller, Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life is an immensely powerful and heartbreaking novel of brotherly love and the limits of human endurance.JB, Jude, Malcolm and Willem....

Lost London is the story of the city as told through the buildings, parks and palaces that are no longer with us. Places like the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, the leading venue for public entertainment in the city for over 200 years, or the Palace of Whitehall whose 1500 rooms made it the largest royal residence in Europe until it was destroyed by fire at the end of the 17th century. From bull rings to ice fairs, plague pits to molly houses, this is a fascinating journey through London's for...

The epic life story of the Atlantic Ocean from the bestselling author, Simon WinchesterIn a narrative tour de force, Simon Winchester dramatises the life story of the Atlantic Ocean, from its birth in the farther recesses of geological time to its eventual extinction millions of years in the future.At the core of the book is the story of mankind's complex relationship with this immense sea, which stretches for 9,000 miles from pole to pole. The Atlantic has profoundly influ...

‘Sebald is the Joyce of the 21st Century’ The TimesWhat begins as the record of W. G. Sebald’s own journey on foot through coastal East Anglia, from Lowestoft to Bungay, becomes the conductor of evocations of people and cultures past and present. From Chateaubriand, Thomas Browne, Swinburne and Conrad, to fishing fleets, skulls and silkworms, the result is an intricately patterned and haunting book on the transience of all things human.‘A n...

Marking the centenary of the Titanic disaster, ‘Titanic Lives’ is an utterly compelling exploration of the lives of the passengers and crew on board the most famous ship in history.The RMS Titanic was built as one of the world's largest and most luxurious liners. A marine Ritz, it was a 45,000-tonne hotel of thin steel plates, travelling at a speed of 21 knots across the North Atlantic.On the night of 14 April 1912, midway through her maiden voyage, the seemingly unsinkable...

The hilarious bestselling travel book that journeys round areas made famous by Radio 4's Shipping Forecast'One of those simple yet brilliant ideas' Daily Mail'Engaging and often very funny' Sunday Times'A wonderfully eccentric study' ObserverThe Shipping Forecast is a curious piece of broadcasting; at once impenetrably baffling yet at the same time reassuringly f...

The story of more than sixty years of diving adventures, through starkly contrasting locations and extraordinary advances in technology. From boyhood dreamer to master treasure hunter, Hugh Edwards documents his life through tales of shipwreck and salvage.the story of more than sixty years of diving adventures including his significant find of the Batavia, Hugh Edwards documents his life through tales of shipwreck, treasure hunting and salvage.Brought up on tales of pirates and grea...

One summer, writer and musician, Jasper Winn set himself an extraordinary task. He would kayak the whole way round Ireland -- a thousand miles -- camping on remote headlands and islands, carousing in bars and paddling clockwise until he got back where he started. But in the worst Irish summer in living memory the pleasures of idling among seals, fulmars and fishing boats soon gave way to heroic struggles through storm-tossed seas ... and lock-ins playing music in coastal pubs. Circling the...

A startling new book, his most personal to date, from Philip Hoare, co-curator of ’Moby Dick: Big Read and winner of the 2009 Samuel Johnson Prize for ‘Leviathan’.The sea surrounds us. It gives us life, provides us with the air we breathe and the food we eat. It is ceaseless change and constant presence. It covers two-thirds of our planet. Yet caught up in our everyday lives, we barely notice it.In ‘The Sea Inside’, Philip Hoare sets out to rediscover the sea, its islands, ...