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...

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...

The UK’s bestselling audio series for learning a language. The Easy Learning German course is the perfect language learning course for holidays and business trips abroad.  The accompanying booklet is also available at: collinsdictionary.com/resources. 

Jackson is aggressive, confrontational and often volatile. His mother, Kayla, is crippled with grief after tragically losing her husband and eldest son.  Struggling to cope, she puts Jackson into foster care. Cathy, his carer, encourages Jackson to talk about what has happened to his family, but he just won’t engage. His actions continu...

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...

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...

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,...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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.

'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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

A treasury of meditations for living from your heart—from a top teacher at the #1 online meditation service, InsightTimer.In our noisy, noisy world, it can seem nearly impossible to find ways to turn off our busy minds, which so often flood us with worry and unending lists of tasks. So how do you find your way off the negativity treadmill? Wh...