What’s On

There’s a sea lover in every Brit. The Shipping Forecast on BBC Radio 4 has been keeping people up to date with the latest changes to British weather for a century – seafarers and armchair travellers alike. Since its first broadcast, the programme has captured the hearts and imaginations of this island nation, as well ... Meg Clothier – The Shipping Forecast

From the international bestselling author, an unmissable new retelling of the life of one of the most captivating and misrepresented female figures in history. A story of female power and vulnerability, of love and loss, fierce friendship and terrible betrayal. It’s time to meet the real Cleopatra.Cleopatra, Egyptian Princess, grows up the favoured daughter of ... Natasha Solomons – Cleopatra

One in three people over the age of 50 has grandchildren. These grandparents are the first generation to be both psychologically aware and very hands on, playing an integral role in their grandchildren’s lives. When a child becomes a parent themselves, existing family structures are radically altered. Old tensions between parents and their adult children ... Terri Apter – Grandparenting: On Love and Relationships Across Generations

A Journey Through Two Centuries of British Railway History 1825–2025.In 1825 the Stockton & Darlington company strode into history with the opening of the world’s first public steam railway. What the S&DR had pioneered soon picked up speed, transforming lives and landscapes, connecting far-flung corners of the nation and creating its own distinctive environments and ... Simon Bradley – Bradley’s Railway Guide

A bold and brilliantly inventive historical novel, set in the reign of James II at a time of rebellion and unrest, from a 25-million-copy bestselling author. England, 1685. Decades after the end of the civil war, the country is once again divided when Charles II’s illegitimate son, the Protestant Duke of Monmouth, arrives in Dorset ... Minette Walters – The Players

Beautiful and strange, ancient monuments have long captured our attention and curiosity. We stand in awe before them, asking who created the Uffington White Horse – and why? What was it like to live in the shadow of Hadrian's Wall? What stories would the towering megaliths of Stonehenge and Avebury tell if they could speak? ... Peter Ross – Upon a White Horse

So secret was this mission, the SAS seizure of a train to raid deep into enemy territory to liberate a concentration camp, that it wasn’t until 1968 – twenty-seven years after the formation of the SAS – that a short mention of it was made in the Rover and Wizard annual, under the headline ‘Who ... Damien Lewis – SAS: The Great Train Raid

In 1979, aged only seven, Monica Macias was sent from West Africa to the unfamiliar surroundings of North Korea by her father, the President of Equatorial Guinea, to be educated under the guardianship of his ally, Kim Il Sung. Within months, her father was executed in a military coup led by her cousin (the still ... Monica Macias – Black Girl from Pyongyang

Born into an impoverished aristocratic family, and raised on the family’s Minterne estate near Dorchester, Pamela Churchill Harriman became Winston Churchill’s daughter-in-law and trusted confidante, and American ambassador to Paris under Bill Clinton, one of the most influential women in twentieth century politics, dismissed by many as the greatest courtesan of the age. Bestselling author ... Sonia Purnell – Kingmaker: Pamela Churchill Harriman’s astonishing life of seduction, intrigue and power

Close to Adam Nicolson’s home in Sussex, there is a forgotten field overrun by bracken and thicketed by brambles. It is the haunt of deer and many birds – nightingales, the occasional cuckoo, ravens, robins, owls and in summer the sweet-singing warblers that come north from Africa to breed in English woods. Adam Nicolson wanted ... Adam Nicolson – Bird School

Ray Mears has accumulated his tracking skills over 35 years of practice in the field, all over the world, and this book will be the first authoritative but accessible and ... Ray Mears – Outdoor Tracking Handbook

The first memoir from one of British cycling’s most enigmatic characters. In the summer of 2020 sportswriter David Walsh asked Pippa York if she’d be his travelling companion for the ... David Walsh and Pippa York – The Escape: The Tour, The Cyclist and Me