A radical look at Jane Austen As you've never seen her – as a lover of farce, comic theatre and juvenilia. The Genius of Jane Austen celebrates Britain's favourite novelist 200 years after her death and explores why her books make such awesome movies, time after time. Jane Austen loved the theatre. She learned much of her art from a long trad...

'Captures both Barbara and her writing so miraculously' JILLY COOPER Picked as a Book to Look Forward to in 2021 by the Guardian, The Times and the Observer A Radio 4 Book of the Week, April 2021 Barbara Pym became beloved as one of the wittiest novelists of the late twentieth century, revealing the inner workings of domestic life so brilliantly th...

Written as a diary, and starting in September, this is the story of Nigel Slater's love for winter, its fables and its family feasts. Here are legends and folktales, myths and memoir, all told in Nigel's warm and intimate signature style. Nigel Slater's new book will have everything you need to prepare for midwinter, and at the heart of the book ar...

This is the story of Dido Belle, whose adoption by an aristocratic family challenged the conventions of 18th century England Dido Belle was the illegitimate, mixed-race daughter of a Royal Navy captain and a slave woman, adopted by the Earl of Mansfield. As Lord Chief Justice of England he would preside over the drowning of 142 slaves by a shipping...

This classic memoir of the First World War is now a major motion picture starring Alicia Vikander and Kit Harington. In 1914 Vera Brittain was 20, and as war was declared she was preparing to study at Oxford. Four years later her life - and the lives of her whole generation - had changed in a way that would have been unimaginable in the tranquil p...

If you complain of brain fog to a medical professional, you're likely to be told that it isn't a recognised condition. But if you mention brain fog to your friends, they'll know exactly what you mean: fuzzy thinking, trouble concentrating, a sense of grasping for the right word, feeling like your brain is somehow slowed down. In truth, brain fog is...

People 'know' my on-stage comedy persona or my scripted ballsy characters and wrongly assume that at home, I must stomp around all day in designer dresses eviscerating those who dare to cross my path and denouncing the existence of men in general. But mostly, I'm just sat eating pickles and being nice to some dogs.Whatever strangers think of me is...

In 1992 Franziska Thomas had her first seizure and her whole world was turned upside down - literally. In Fits and Starts Franziska gives a compelling personal description of living with Epilepsy, an illness shrouded in secrecy and antiquated myths. Laden with self-deprecating humour she describes her own coming of age - as an epileptic, a teacher,...

'I wanted it to look like how it feels like, and how it feels to be Irish sometimes is that you are in a murder mystery.' Caroline O'Donoghue, host of Sentimental Garbage and author of Promising Young Women, Scenes of a Graphic Nature and the forthcoming YA novel All Our Hidden Gifts, tells Jess about playing with different genres, how some endings...

From April 15, 2021 Actor and audiobook narrator Kobna Holdbrook-Smith talks about what it was like to voice Rivers of London as his first audiobook, what he had to unlearn to do voice work and how Frank Sinatra inspired his mic technique.

Author Francis Spufford talks about what it's been like to launch his new novel, Light Perpetual, during a pandemic, the many talents and accents required of audiobook narrator Imogen Church, the fondness he holds for his 'unlikable' characters, and why the narrator was especially important for his historical novel Golden Hill. To top it off, he de...

It does play huge roles in describing the character and circumstances, but really it’s there because I love food! Author Claire Fuller talks with Jess about her latest novel, Unsettled Ground, shortlisted for the 2021 Women’s Prize for Fiction, and her third novel, the simmering, suspenseful Bitter Orange. Claire reflects on the roles m...

From Jul 15, 2021 'The kayak gives this incredible perspective on the world, where you are really embedded in the worlds of the species, you're surrounded by other animals, they don't respond to you in the way that they respond to humans on foot because obviously they are so much more skilled in and on the water than you are.' Writer and historia...

From Aug 12, 2021 'My reading experience with poetry is that I'm in the presence of some...body and we're in that kind of potentially ... it might be that slightly late night kitchen table moment where you've sort of got through all the news and the stuff and you actually enter into where you really are, and what's going on, and what you really n...

Brought to you by Penguin.Discover the healing power of nature through the stories of these characterful birds.Can you recognise the cheerful chirrups of the house sparrow? A song thrush singing out at winter's darkest hour? Or the beautiful, haunting call of the curlew?At a time of great anxiety and uncertainty, while coping with the untimely deat...

One small soul like me won't make much difference' Captain TomIf Captain Tom's big heart and generosity of spirit helped see us through difficult days, this was his parting gift.Full of the wit, warmth and wisdom that made him so special, his reflections and guiding principles form a long life, well lived; Life Lessons will be a sour...

Why do we feel what we feel?Mental illness is one of the greatest causes of human suffering, but the reasons we bear this burden, and the nature of these diseases, have remained mysterious. Now, our understanding has reached a tipping point. In Connections, Professor Karl Deisseroth intertwines gripping case studies from his experience as an e...

When Dr Rahul Jandial operated on Karina, an eleven-year-old girl whose spinal cord was splitting in two, he had to make an impossible decision. He followed his head over his gut and Karina was left permanently paralysed, altering both patient and surgeon's lives for ever. This decision would haunt Rahul for decades, a constant reminder of the fine...

Brought to you by Penguin.A dazzling, passionate polemic against anti-science movements of all kindsKeats accused Newton of destroying the poetry of the rainbow by explaining the origin of its colours. In this illuminating and provocative book, Richard Dawkins argues that Keats could not have been more mistaken, and shows how an understanding of sc...

The long-awaited first autobiography by national treasure Bob Mortimer.Bob Mortimer's life was trundling along happily until suddenly in 2015 he was diagnosed with a heart condition that required immediate surgery and forced him to cancel an upcoming tour. The episode unnerved him, but forced him to reflect on his life so far. This is the framework...

Provocative and illuminating essays from women at the forefront of the climate movement who are harnessing truth, courage, and solutions to lead humanity forward. There is a renaissance blooming in the climate movement: leadership that is more characteristically feminine and more faithfully feminist, rooted in compassion, connection, creativit...