A Town of Ghosts is a collection of 19 original illustrated ghost stories set in the Buckinghamshire town of Stony Stratford in Milton Keynes. The stories are loosely inspired by the history, characters and landscape of the town; most have an element of dark humour, though several nod towards the cryptic, brooding tales of the great ghost story writer MR James. You will meet a host of bizarre and macabre characters such as the resentful decomposing corpse of Thomas Farrar residing at the b...

Would you cheer if they sent you to Coventry? Could you stick up for Stoke or big-up Bracknell?Can you handle the thrill of Rhyl, the heaven of Hull or the mirth of Tydfil?In You are Awful, Tim Moore drives his Austin Maestro round all the places on our beloved island that nobody wants to go to - our most miserable towns, shonkiest hotels, scariest pubs, and silliest sea zoos...But as the soggy, decrepit quest unfolds he finds himself oddly smitten...

New York Times BestsellerNamed one of the Best Books of the Year by NPR, the Washington Post, Kirkus Reviews, and Library JournalWinner of the Audie AwardThe New York Times bestseller from the author of Watchmen and V for Vendetta finally appears in a one-volume paperback.Begging comparisons to Tolstoy and Joyce, this “magnificent, sprawling cosmic epic” (Guard...

What is visible to the naked eye has been exhaustively raked over; in UNDERGROUND LONDON, acclaimed travel writer Stephen Smith provides an alternative guide and history of the capital. It's a journey through the passages and tunnels of the city, the bunkers and tunnels, crypts and shadows. As well as being a contemporary tour of underground London, it's also an exploration through time: Queen Boudicca lies beneath Platform 10 at King's Cross (legend has it); Dick Turpin fled the Bow Stree...

NATIONAL BESTSELLERLONGLISTED FOR THE 2025 ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN NONFICTIONA captivating memoir that immerses readers in the life of a Scottish carpenter as he perfects his craft, builds a business, and reflects on what inheritance and shared responsibility really mean.The eldest son of a master woodworker, Callum Robinson spent his childhood surrounded by wood and trees, absorbing the lessons of c...

A groundbreaking collection of stories, including four never-before-published tales, from the award-winning author of Perdido Street StationWhat William Gibson did for science fiction, China Miéville has done for fantasy, shattering old paradigms with fiercely imaginative works of startling, often shocking, intensity. Among the fourteen superb fictions in Looking for Jake, including one set in Miéville’s signature fantasy world of New Crobuzon, ar...

Villages are full of tales: some are forgotten while others become a part of local folklore. But the fortunes of one West Country village are watched over and irreversibly etched into history as an omniscient, somewhat crabby, presence keeps track of village life.In the late sixties a Californian musician blows through Underhill and writes a set of haunting folk songs that will earn him a cult following. Two decades later, some teenagers disturb a body on the local golf course. In ...

An astounding reaction to a life-changing momentUrsula Martin never thought she would walk 3700 miles around Wales, but following a cancer diagnosis it seemed like the only reasonable thing to do. In 17 months, she traversed beaches and mountains, farms and urban sprawl. She received unimaginable support – people offered beds, food, cups of tea, donated to her chosen charities. Walking Wales rooted her in the country and in herself; her account of the physical and ...

Philip Larkin (1922-1985) remains England's best-loved poet - a writer matchlessly capable of evoking his native land and of touching all readers from the most sophisticated intellectual to the proverbial common reader. The late John Betjeman observed that 'this tenderly observant poet writes clearly, rhythmically, and thoughtfully about what all of us can understand'. Behind this modest description lies a poet who made greatness look, in Milton's prescription, 'simple, sensuous and passio...

A book that tells the story of London since the thirties through the 28 streets, stations and utililties of the Monopoly board. In the wonderful world of Monopoly it still only cost -50 to buy a house in Islington, you can move around London with the shake of a dice and even park your car for free.In Do Not Pass Go Tim Moore, belying his reputation as a player who always paid that -10 fine rather than take a Chance, fearlessly tackles the real thing and along the way tells...

ONE OF BRITAIN'S FAVOURITE NATURE BOOKS AS FEATURED ON BBC's WINTERWATCHSHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE 2016'Bold and beautiful.' Robert Macfarlane'Sensitive, thoughtful and poetic ... leading us into a whole new way of looking at the world' Michael Palin'Touched by genius' John Lewis-Stempel'Absolutely mesmerizing, utterly beautiful and engross...

A warm, witty memoir of one man’s escape from the city in an unlikely quest to create out of a mountainous Welsh landscape a garden fit for inclusion in the prestigious Yellow Book – the ‘Gardens of England and Wales Open for Charity’ guide – in just one year.It was a derelict smallholding so high up in the Black Mountains of Wales it was routinely lost in cloud. But to Antony Woodward, Tair-Ffynnon was the most beautiful place in the world.Equally ill-at-ease in town and c...