Christmas Britain

’Tis the season! The Crown meets When Harry Met Sally in the latest heartwarming historical novel from Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb, bestselling authors of Last Christmas in Paris, Meet Me in Monaco, and Three Words for Goodbye. December 1952. While the young Queen Elizabeth II finds her feet...

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Rosamunde Pilcher, Winter Solstice (the basis for the TV movie) is the story of five unforgettable characters, lonely and haunted strangers who find love and loyalty as a reborn family of friends during the Christmas holidays. Elfrida Phipps, once of...

A collection of three medieval English poems, translated by Tolkien for the modern-day reader and containing romance, tragedy, love, sex and honour. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Pearl are two poems by an unknown author written in about 1400. Sir Gawain is a romance, a fairy-tale for...

J.R.R. Tolkien’s writings on the Second Age of Middle-earth, collected for the first time in one volume. J.R.R. Tolkien famously described the Second Age of Middle-earth as a ‘dark age, and not very much of its history is (or need be) told’. And for many years readers would need to be...

Read by the author. An extraordinary historical journey through England with Alice Loxton, author of the acclaimed bestseller Eighteen. ‘Alice Loxton is the star of her generation’ – Dan Snow, historian and host of History Hit ‘Beautiful, elegiac, honest and compelling . . . a modern-day...

Combined into one volume, this is the definitive collection of Tolkien’s five acclaimed modern classic ‘fairie’ tales in the vein of The Hobbit, read by Derek Jacobi. The five tales are written with the same skill, quality and charm that made The Hobbit a classic. Largely overlooked...

The clever and compelling tale of a war-scarred journalist caught in the lives of a country rebuilding itself from one of the greatest chroniclers of our times, Kate Atkinson. It's the summer of 1951 and everyone is looking to put the dark days of the war behind them. The government’s solution...

Charles Dickens never sat on the throne, commanded an army or governed the British Empire. Yet few figures did more to shape the way Victorian Britain saw itself. He turned streets, prisons, workhouses, offices, schools, debt, childhood, hunger, ambition, hypocrisy, cruelty, laughter, Christmas and conscience into a national mirror. Through unforgettable characters such as Oliver Twist, Ebenezer Scrooge, David Copperfield, Pip, Little Nell, Mr Micawber, Jo the crossing sweeper and countless others, Dickens gave Victorian Britain a language for its own contradictions. Charles Dickens: The ...

Read by the author. Historian and bestselling author of Eleanor, Alice Loxton, presents a scintillating history of Britain, told through portraits of eighteen figures in British history at the age of eighteen. 'The star of her generation' – Dan Snow, host of History Hit 'Utterly, utterly...

Brought to you by Penguin. A SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER The hilarious and heartwarming memoir from one of Britain's best-loved comedians and Women's Prize longlisted author, Dawn French. Dawn French is one of the greatest comedians of our time with a career that has spanned nearly four...

Bloomsbury presents the 250TH BIRTHDAY EDITION of What Matters in Jane Austen? by John Mullan, read by Charles Armstrong "An Austen lover’s greatest wish is for more of her novels. This intimate guide to the world of her books in the next best thing." —The Atlantic Marking the 250th...

Brought to you by Penguin. The fascinating new history of the British Aristocracy since the Second World War There are fewer than 5000 people who can genuinely claim to be members of the British aristocracy, and yet they loom large in the popular consciousness. We're fascinated by their houses...

On Christmas morning in the 1640s, a Scottish minister walked through his parish and looked inside every house in it. He was checking that nobody had roasted a goose. That is British midwinter folklore as its own records describe it. Not snow and spirits — cold, hunger, obligation, and a great deal of enforcement. A household in Shropshire is still blamed, a century later, for an avalanche that killed its neighbours, because it once lent a man a light. A young woman stands in a Nottinghamshire street at one in the morning, locked out of her own home until a male relative can be found to ...

From ARNIE to DOLLY, BLACKADDER to SCORSESE; GRAHAM NORTON to HARRY POTTER; the VAGINA MONOLOGUES to ZOOM, welcome back to the irrepressible and unstoppable world of Miriam Margolyes. Packed with her wit, wisdom and unfiltered stories, The Little Book of Miriam is a memory palace of Miriam's...

From Blackadder to Call the Midwife, from the Cadbury's Caramel Rabbit to Harry Potter, Miriam Margolyes is the outspoken great aunt (after two sherries) we all wish we had -- this is (at last) her extraordinary life story and it's well worth the wait. 'There is no one on earth quite so...

'Oh Miriam! risks the curse of the sequel, and pulls it off . . . A force of nature, a tour de farce. Bold, brave and bright, but also revealing, shocking and touching. Miriam is an icon, a cocksucker - and the star of her show' ROBERT McCRUM, Independent 'Our naughtiest national treasure...

Building on the story begun in The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring, this is the second part of Tolkien’s epic masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings. Frodo and the Companions of the Ring have been beset by danger during their quest to prevent the Ruling Ring from falling into the hands of...

Brought to you by Penguin. Michael Palin’s latest adventure sees him exploring one of the most fascinatingly complex and contradictory countries on earth: the Philippines. It’s a popular tourist destination, but also a place of extreme poverty for many. It’s a nation where religious...

'When a robin appears, a loved one is near' In 2019, Tony Putman was working as a gardener in Edenbridge, Kent, when he noticed a bold robin sitting on a branch of an old plum tree. The robin glanced in his direction as he approached, but he didn't move, so Tony grabbed his camera and took a...

There is only one Arsène Wenger - and for the very first time, in his own words, this is his story. 'A surprising honest self-portrait of an obsessive, driven man, who decided that the game really could be beautiful, and was prepared to sacrifice himself for that belief' TLS In this definitive...