Moving between Ghana and London, Hold is an intimate, powerful coming-of-age novel. It’s a story of friendship and family, shame and forgiveness; of learning what we should cling to, and when we need to let go.‘You have to imagine. That’s how I told myself.’‘Imagine what?’‘Imagine that you are the kind of girl that can cope with it, even if you are not.’Belinda knows how to follow the rules. She has learnt the right way to polish wate...

A beautifully written, spirited and deeply moving novel about a young man finding the courage to expand the limits of who he might become, from the acclaimed author of Hold.'An elegant coming-of-age tale about confronting the ghosts of our childhood, queer love and finding the courage to live a bigger and better life for ourselves' The i***Bright and precocious ten-year-old Kwame Akromah knows how to behave. He kno...

Brought to you by Penguin.Bright and precocious ten-year-old Kwame Akromah knows how to behave. He knows the importance of good manners, how to stay at the top of the class and out of the way when his mother and father are angry with each other. But when his charismatic cousin Yaw arrives from Ghana to live with the family while he looks for work, the rules Kwame has learned about the world can no longer guide him.Twenty years later, Kwame is a secondary-sc...

Moving between Ghana and London, Hold is an intimate, powerful coming-of-age novel. It’s a story of friendship and family, shame and forgiveness; of learning what we should cling to, and when we need to let go.Belinda knows how to follow the rules. As a housegirl, she has learnt the right way to polish water glasses, to wash and fold a hundred handkerchiefs, and to keep a tight lid on memories of the village she left behind when she came to Kumasi....

What is it to pursue a goal, to strive for an ideal, to follow a dream?These are the questions explored by The Balvenie in this unique collection compiled by award-winning novelist Alex Preston. The stories – from some of the brightest and most exciting voices writing today – tell of determination, endeavour and perseverance against the odds. They range across wildly different contexts and cultures, from the epic to the intimate, in fiction and non-fiction, illustrating and illumin...

22 writers talk about their memorable excursions and the act of walking, and share their creative observationsIn these six series, taken from BBC Radio 3's The Essay, an array of novelists, poets, journalists and biographers chart the varied and inspiring walks they have taken around Britain and elsewhere. Here are treks taken at daybreak and after dark; in winter and in spring; in the footsteps of the past; and - in the case of Robert Macfarlane - along t...