The ideal present for that rare breed of person mostly to be found head-down in the compost bin, with just a pair of legs with gumboot finials waving ecstatically at passers-by or spouses, l... read more
M.F.K. Fisher is, in our opinion, the greatest and most entertaining writer about food there has ever been - but we are far from alone in this. A wonderful reprint.
Often hilarious and certainly astonishing, this is the novelist's memoir of growing up in Sheffield in the 1950s. His father, an insecure bully, adopted a toupée, which functioned as an ins... read more
Shortlisted for both the Women's Fiction Prize (2022) and the Booker (2021), this stirring novel pulls together the lives of a fictional female aviator in the 1950s aiming to circumnavigate ... read more
A brilliant, perky novella about the foibles of Professor Timofey Pnin, an eccentric Russian teacher at a school in New England. 'Pninian' should really be part of our daily vocabulary; it w... read more
This fictionalised account of his life was one of the last things Kazantzakis wrote before his death. A vivid picture of his childhood in Crete, still occupied by the Ottoman Turks, develops... read more
Those familiar with the exquisite vagaries that have come from the pen of this author (also known as Jack Robinson and Jennie Walker) will rejoice at these 99 paragraphs observing and enjoyi... read more
Stoppard's libretto for André Previn's Penelope - a monodrama by Odysseus's wife - first performed in 2019 by Renée Fleming, Uma Thurman and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Sadly not the lost early version of 'Romeo and Juliet' called 'Ethel the Pirate's Daughter' (vide 'Shakespeare in Love', screenplay by Tom Stoppard and Marc Norman) but nevertheless this wil... read more
"...It was on the afternoon of Christmas Eve, and I was in Mrs Protheroe's garden, waiting for cats, with her son Jim...". Every adult and every childs needs to have Thomas's words and image... read more
A neglected Irish girl is fostered out to her mother's sister for the summer in this perfect, understated story. Almost too short even to be called a novella. Keegan is short-listed for this... read more
The Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins descends on seventeen-century Essex, where he finds himself oddly fascinated by a 'peculiar' young woman. A historical novel with real bite, which rec... read more
Susanna, a stylish self-made woman and arch-observer of her Viennese neighbours, has secrets of her own to hide in the years before WWI. A more grown-up and melancholic novel than Ibbotson's... read more
Enacted first in 1689 to address abuses by the Crown, the Bill of Rights was recently invoked to check abuses by Government acting in the name of the Crown - the unlawful attempt to prorogue... read more
Gorgeous story of a princess and her quest to restore joy and music to a grey realm; tales within tales reveal the evil enchantment. First published in 1969. Ages 7-10.
A 'chapter book' about Clementine, a genius who dreams in Latin and who also happens to be a mouse - and the prize specimen in a laboratory, from which she makes a prodigious bid for freedom... read more
An evacuee moves to his aunt's house in Devon, loves life on the farm and the new friends he makes there. But this rural idyll is jarred by rumours of an ancient ritual, set amongst the stan... read more