Alex Dingwall-Main

Alex Duval

Alex Edelman

Alex Edmans

Alex Evans is Campaigns Director at Avaaz.org, a Senior Fellow at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation (CIC), and has nearly twenty years’ experience in climate and development policy. Alex has worked as Special Adviser to two UK Secretaries of State for International Development (Hilary Benn and Valerie Amos), as an expert on climate change in the UN Secretary-General’s office, and with think tanks including Chatham House and the Brookings Institution. He has also worked as a consultant on futures and foreign policy for organizations from Oxfam to the US National Intelligence Council. 
Alex lives in North Yorkshire and is married with two children.

Alex Evans

Alex Ferguson was born and brought up in Govan, Glasgow. He has always been a controversial figure, never far from the limelight, from the time he led an apprentices’ strike before entering full-time football. As a player with a reputation as uncompromising centre-forward his clubs included Glasgow Rangers, Dunfermline and Falkirk, and he became a spokesman for the player’s union. His first appointment as manager was with East Stirling, from where he moved to Love Street, where St Mirren’s crowds under his dynamic leadership rose from 3,000 to 12,000. He joined the Pittodrie set-up as manager in 1978.

Alex Ferguson

Alex Fryer

Alex Games

Alex Garland was born in London in 1970. He is the author of two novels, The Beach, The Tesseract and an illustrated novella, The Coma, in collaboration with his father. He has also written screenplays for films including 28 Days Later, Sunshine, Never Let Me Go and Dredd. In 2015, Garland made his directorial debut with Ex Machina.

Alex Garland

Dr Alex George was the UK’s Mental Health Ambassador for children and young people from 2021 until early 2025, and he currently hosts the Stompcast podcast. Dr Alex’s first children’s book A BETTER DAY was a Sunday Times No.1 bestseller, won a British Book Award and sold 42,000 copies through TCM. Dr Alex previously worked for the NHS as an A&amp;E doctor and is now passionate about helping to equip everyone – especially children and young people – with the tools needed to live a full, productive and meaningful life.

Alex George

Alex Gordon

Alex Grecian worked for an ad agency before returning to writing fiction full-time and raising his son. Alex is the author of the long-running and critically acclaimed comic-book series Proof, and the bestselling Scotland Yard Murder Squad series. He lives in Topeka, Kansas, with his wife and son.

Alex Grecian

Alex Gutteridge

Alex Halberstadt is the author of the award-winning Lonely Avenue: The Unlikely Life and Times of Doc Pomus. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, GQ and The Paris Review. He is a two-time James Beard Award nominee and a recipient of fellowships from the MacDowell Colony and Yaddo. He works and lives in New York.

Alex Halberstadt

Alex Haley

Dr Alex Hanna is Director of Research at the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR) and a former senior research scientist on Google's Ethical AI team. She is an outspoken critic of the tech industry and a proponent of community-based uses of technology.

Alex Hanna

Alex Hannaford

Alex Hely-Hutchinson

Professor Alex Hill is the co-founder and Director of The Centre for High Performance – a collaboration between the University of Kingston, Duke Corporate Education, London Business School and Green Templeton College, Oxford – which is dedicated to helping high-performing organizations develop a stronger and more robust economy, society and environment. The Centre has worked with organizations in sectors ranging from the arts and education to sport, technology and the military. 
 
He is also a Professor at Kingston University (UK), Educator at Duke Corporate Education (US), and Visiting Professor at Cass Business School (UK), Gordon Institute of Business Science (South Africa), The Academy of National Economy (Russia) and KEDGE Management School (France). 
 
He has written a number of books, published articles in leading academic journals such as the Harvard Business Review, advised the UK Government on educational policy, appeared on BBC Newsnight, presented at the Global Economics and Skills Forum and has written for The Times and Schools Week.

Alex Hill

Alex Hoffler and Stacey O’Gorman’s motto is ‘Follow your dream’. Just a couple of year ago Alex and Stacey quit their 9 to 5 jobs and began their Meringue Girls journey. Now they have a bakery HQ in Broadway Market with a staff of eight, which sells to Selfridges, Fortnum &amp; Mason, Recipease and Harvey Nicholls, as well as fashion events, weddings and their weekly market stall. They run masterclasses rated by the Evening Standard as one of the best in London. They have had a huge media and social media response including numerous TV appearance and over 80,000 Instagram followers. They are in talks to open a franchise in Dubai. 
 
They also do weekly food styling for various publications including the Guardian. They live in east London. Alex has a new baby, and Stacey recently got married.

Alex Hoffler

Alex Holt is the Global Head of the multi-billion-dollar Technology, Media and Telecoms practice at KPMG. He leads a large team who work with all the major organisations across the sector on everything from multi-billion M&amp;A deals through to tax, audit and management consulting. As well as leading the TMT sector globally, Alex is also the Global Lead Partner for some of the largest tech companies in the world. 
 
 Alex also serves on the Board of the anti-poverty charity JobTrain.

Alex Holt

Alex Horne 
noun 
1. comedian, writer, gambler, taskmaster, podcaster, birdwatcher, potential neologist and father.

Alex Horne

Alex Hughes is an online recipe creator who is committed to making reaching your weight goals not only delicious but fun. All her recipes are comforting, low-calorie and will help you feel full. She can be found doing a little dance in her kitchen (the recipes taste that good) at @alexskitchenbangers on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.

Alex Hughes

Alex James is a writer, farmer, and the bass player with Blur. He lives in Oxfordshire with his wife and five children.

Alex James

Alex Kadis is half-British, half-Greek, and grew up in Leyton and Walthamstow, East London. She studied English Literature at Goldsmiths University before embarking on a music journalism career. She was Features Editor at Smash Hits in its heyday (RIP) and has also written for various newspapers and magazines, including Sunday Times Style and Q Magazine. She then went into artist management and now works as a consultant in the music industry. Alex suffers from delusions of grandeur and still believes she will, one day, headline Wembley Stadium.

Alex Kadis

Alex Kantrowitz is a senior technology reporter at BuzzFeed News and one of the ten most cited technology reporters in the world. His work has been referenced by dozens of major publications, from the New Yorker to the Wall Street Journal to Sports Illustrated. He is the founder of the tech publication and podcast Big Technology, which focuses on analysing tech giants. Kantrowitz is a graduate of Cornell University's College of Industrial and Labor Relations. This is his first book.

Alex Kantrowitz

Alex Kapranos

Alex Kerr is an American writer and Japanologist whose previous books include Lost Japan and Another Kyoto (with Kathy Arlyn Sokol). He was the first foreigner to be awarded the Shincho Gakugei Literature Prize for the best work of non-fiction published in Japan.

Alex Kerr

Alex Kershaw

PublicationStatus

Brand

Format

AgeRange

Series

Imprint

CategoryLabel

Noel 'Razor' Smith

As a gun-wielding bank robber, Noel 'Razor' Smith was top of the criminal tree, enjoying the excitement and benefits of a dangerous and adrenalin-filled career. But he'd also spent the greater part of his adult life in prison, an environment where respect and basic survival were guaranteed only to those prepared to use the most brutal violence. In his new book, Smith takes the story on from his highly acclaimed memoir A Few Kind Words and a Loaded Gun, and describes how he came to realize that the game wasn't worth the candle. In his mid-forties he applied to enter Grendon, then the only prison in Britain offering intense therapeutic treatment to hardened criminals. He went from a brutal high-security prison, HMP Whitemoor, to an institution where he was encouraged to investigate just why his life had been given over to violence and crime. Smith paints an unforgettable portrait of the hardened and severely damaged inmates of Grendon, many of them guilty of famous crimes, and their attempts to turn round their lives. And in particular his own arduous five-year journey to re-enter society as a straight citizen.

A Rusty Gun

Paul Theroux

'Both unputdownable and utterly engaging' Jonathan Raban, The Times Literary Supplement 
 
'I started reading Theroux's Sir Vidia's Shadow, the story of his friendship with V. S. Naipaul over thirty years and five continents - its origins, development, and sad, enigmatic termination. I couldn't, as they say, put it down. I don't know of a more revealing study of the peculiar nature of friendship between professional writers, an unstable compound of empathy, solidarity and rivalry. Theroux's portrait of Naipaul . . . may be [his] finest literary creation' David Lodge, Guardian Books of the Year 
 
'Thoroughly compelling. We can call it a memoir, or a biographical sketch, but it has more in it - more candour, more intensity, more angry puzzlement - than we would normally expect from either of these genres. I can think of no other book that renders in such merciless detail a still-living public figure' Sunday Telegraph

Sir Vidia's Shadow

A Friendship Across Five Continents

Douglas Edwards

Comparing Google to an ordinary business is like comparing a rocket to a wheelbarrow. No academic analysis or bystander's account can capture it. Now Douglas Edwards, Employee Number 59, takes readers inside the Googleplex for the closest look you can get without an ID card, giving readers a chance to fully experience the potent mix of camaraderie and competition that makes up the company that changed the world. Edwards, Google's first director of marketing and brand management, describes it as it happened. From the first, pioneering steps of Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the company's young, idiosyncratic partners to the evolution of the company's famously nonhierarchical structure (where every employee finds a problem to tackle or a feature to create and works independently), through the physical endurance feats of the company's engineers (both on and off the roller-hockey field) to its ethos to always hire someone smarter than yourself, I'm Feeling Lucky captures for the first time the unique, self-invented, culture of the world's most transformative corporation. Welcome to the "Google Experience".

I'm Feeling Lucky

The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59

Rachel Johnson

'The whole place seemed completely bonkers: dusty, tatty, disorganized and impossibly old-fashioned, set in an age of doilies and flag-waving patriotism and jam still for tea, some sunny day.' 
 
Appointed editor of The Lady - the oldest women's weekly in the world - Rachel Johnson faced the challenge of a lifetime. For a start, how do you become an editor when you've never, well, edited? How do you turn around a venerable title, full of ads for walk-in baths, during the worst recession EVER? And forget doubling the circulation in a year - what on earth do you wear to work when you've spent the last fifteen years at home in sweatpants? 
 
Will Rachel save The Lady - or sink it?

A Diary of The Lady

My First Year As Editor

Toni Maguire

Jackie was an unwanted child. So unwanted that her mother regularly left Jackie at her uncle's house. Which was when the nightmare started. For when his wife went out, her uncle's friends came round. He had a Special Room. In it Jackie was tied up and molested, beaten, burnt by cigarettes and urinated on. Sometimes other children were brought along. Jackie got to know the Special Room intimately. 
 
Jackie could never bring herself to tell her mother. She ended up in a home for disturbed children. She ran away, and a life of homelessness, drugs, prostitution and psychiatric wards followed. 
 
Eventually, Jackie sought help. But could she turn her life around? Would her evil uncle and his Special Room haunt her forever? 
 
Can't Anyone Help Me? is the inspirational story of struggle and survival against all odds as one young woman attempts to put her torturous past behind her and make a future for herself.

Can't Anyone Help Me?

Greg Baxter

'Traditional autobiography is composed after the experience has passed. I wrote this book in the very panic of the experiences that inspired it ... ' 
 
In his early thirties, Greg Baxter found himself in a strange place. He hated his job, he was drinking excessively, he was sabotaging his most important relationships, and he was no longer doing the thing he cared about most: writing. Strangest of all, at this time he started teaching evening classes in creative writing - and his life changed utterly. 
 
A Preparation for Death is a document of the chaos and discovery of that time and of the experiences that led Greg Baxter to that strange place - an extraordinarily intimate account of literary failure (and its consequences), personal decay, and redemption through reading, writing, and truth-telling. Studded with vivid, loving portraits of the people closest to him - his Austrian grandmother, who narrowly survived the Second World War; his mother and father, both described with heartbreakingly close attention; and his cousin Walter, whose own demons provide a striking counterpoint to the author's - it is above all a stunningly vivid and searching self-portrait: possibly the most honest book you'll ever read.

A Preparation for Death

Alice B. Toklas

In this memoir-turned-cookbook, Alice B. Toklas describes her life with partner Gertrude Stein and their famed Paris salon, which entertained the great avant-garde and literary figures of their day. 
 
With dry wit and characteristic understatement Toklas ponders the ethics of killing a carp in her kitchen before stuffing it with chestnuts; decorating a fish to amuse Picasso at lunch; and travelling across France during the First World War in an old delivery truck, gathering local recipes along the way. She includes a friend's playful recipe for 'Haschiche Fudge', which promises 'brilliant storms of laughter and ecstatic reveries', much like her book.

Murder in the Kitchen

Neil McCormick

'Squirm-inducing, excruciatingly honest and painfully funny' Joseph O'Connor 
 
We all went to school with friends who've turned out more successful than ourselves. But they don't all phone from improbably glamorous places and drive us mad by telling us about it. And they're not all Bono. 
 
Neil McCormick always dreamed of life as a rock star. Instead, he had to watch while his friend became one of the most famous men on the planet. Killing Bono tells the story of the less-than-successful rival band which he set up with his brother Ivan in the late 1970s. 
 
While the young brothers struggled to find success Bono and his friends went on to achieve superstar status. A heartwarming story of friendship, loyalty, rivalry and ambition, read it and weep - with sympathy and laughter.

Killing Bono

Margaux Fragoso

I still think about Peter, the man I loved most in the world, all the time. 
 
At two in the afternoon, when he would come and pick me up and take me for rides; at five, when I would read to him, head on his chest; in the despair at seven p.m., when he would hold me and rub my belly for an hour; in the despair again at nine p.m. when we would go for a night ride, down to the Royal Cliffs Diner in Englewood Cliffs where I would buy a cup of coffee with precisely seven sugars and a lot of cream. We were friends, soul mates and lovers. 
 
I was seven. He was fifty-one.

Tiger, Tiger

A Memoir

Alex McBride

Every day, criminal barrister Alex McBride stands up in court and attempts to save people from conviction, prison, even a lifetime behind bars. Sometimes it's a hopeless case. Sometimes he has the chance to right a wrong. But mostly his clients are just plain guilty. 
 
In Defending the Guilty, McBride takes us behind the scenes of Britain's criminal justice system. He introduces us to its extraordinary characters and arcane eccentricities, and tells astonishing stories of courtroom triumph and defeat. Whether he's defending hapless teenagers at Harlow Youth Court or prosecuting gold bullion robbers at the Old Bailey, these hair-raising tales reveal that justice rarely operates in quite the way we expect. Throughout, McBride grapples with that most important of questions: how do we ensure that the guilty are convicted and the innocent walk free?

Defending the Guilty

Truth and Lies in the Criminal Courtroom

Gervase Phinn

Known for his anecdotes about others, Gervase Phinn finally reveals his own story in this long-awaited autobiography. 
 
Gervase tells of a life full of happiness, conversation, music and books shared with his three siblings, mother and father. This book is a snapshot of growing up in Yorkshire in the 1950s - reminisce with Gervase, and share in his personal journey - of school days and holidays as well as his tentative steps into the adult world. 
 
Devour numerous uproarious stories including the incident involving a broken greenhouse, crashing his brother's newly restored bike as well as secrets about his first dates, adventures at summer camp, family trips to Blackpool and many other captivating tales. 
 
With a wicked ear for the comical, and a sharp eye for detail, this beautifully written book visits poignant moments, significant events and precious memories from a boy called Gervase.

Road to the Dales

The Story of a Yorkshire Lad

Natascha McElhone

Natascha McElhone was away filming in LA, with her two sons and pregnant with her third child when she received news that her beloved husband, Martin, had died suddenly of a heart attack. 
 
Unable to accept this devastating loss, she began writing letters to her husband, telling him how she felt, and how she and her children were adapting to life without him. The result is After You, a triumphant testament to the resilience of the human spirit. It is a profoundly moving tribute to Natascha McElhone's three sons, whose appetite for life led the author through her darkest moments, and to their remarkable father.

After You

David Shields

Mesmerized and somewhat unnerved by his 97-year-old father's vitality and optimism, David Shields undertakes an original investigation of our flesh-and-blood existence, our mortal being. 
Weaving together personal anecdote, biological fact, philosophical doubt, cultural criticism, and the wisdom of an eclectic range of writers and thinkers - from Lucretius to Woody Allen - Shields expertly renders both a hilarious family portrait and a truly resonant meditation on mortality.

The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead

Katharine Birbalsingh

A third of teachers leave within their first term on the job. This one wouldn't quit for all the world. 
 
Meet Furious - sixteen, handsome and completely out of control. Nothing frightens him and no one can get through to him. Now meet Munchkin - a sweet kid with glasses who's an easy target and needs protecting. Then there's Seething and Deranged, two girls who are brimming with bad attitude; Fifty and Cent, who act like gangsters but are afraid of getting beaten up; and Stoic, a brilliant young mind struggling to survive. In the midst of them all, there is a bodyguard and bouncer, a counsellor and confidante, a young woman whose job it is to motivate and inspire them and somehow keep them out of trouble: their teacher. None will make it through the year unscathed. Some may not even make it at all... 
 
Spanning a year of shocking truths and hard-won victories, of fights and phone-thefts, teenage pregnancies and the dreaded OFSTED report, this is the remarkable diary of an inner-city school teacher. Revealing the extraordinary chaos, mismanagement and wrong-thinking that plague our education system, it is a funny, surprising and sometimes heartbreaking journey from the frontlines of the classroom to the heart of modern Britain.

To Miss with Love

Alan Davies

When Alan Davies was growing up he seemed to drive his family mad. 'What are we going to do with you?' they would ask - as if he might know the answer. 
 
Perhaps it was because he came of age in the 1980s. That decade of big hair, greed, camp music, mass unemployment, social unrest and truly shameful trousers was confusing for teenagers. There was a lot to believe in - so much to stand for, or stand against - and Alan decided to join anything with the word 'anti' in it. He was looking for heroes to guide him (relatively) unscathed into adulthood. 
 
From his chronic kleptomania to the moving search for his mother's grave years after she died; from his obsession with joining (going so far as to become a member of Chickens Lib) to his first forays into making people laugh (not always intentionally); Teenage Revolution is a touching and funny return to the formative years that make us all.

Teenage Revolution

Judith Summers

Judith Summers' life is about to change dramatically. 
 
Her five-year relationship with her on-off boyfriend has finally ended. Her son, Joshua, is off to university, and for the first time since her husband died she's living alone. Well, not entirely alone. She still has George, her King Charles Spaniel. 
 
Judith knows she needs a new challenge. But how free can she ever be with George in tow? He is, of course, immensely lovely. But he's also spoilt, lazy, and prone to flouncing around the house like a fluffed-up diva. 
 
But then, during a chance encounter , Judith finds out about Many Tears, a dog rescue centre. Before she knows it, she has joined a nationwide network of canine foster carers. Far from having Judith all to himself, George suddenly finds he has to share his owner with lots of other less fortunate dogs. And he's finding adjusting to this new way of life a bit of a challenge...

The Badness of King George

Julie Powell

Julie Powell spent a year cooking her way through Julia Child's impossible Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Her experiences were recorded in the hilarious bestselling book and film Julie and Julia. But what she did next took even adventurous Julie by surprise. 
 
She trained as a butcher. 
 
Apprenticed at Fleisher's, she cut, chopped, hammered, sliced and cleaved her way through herds of meat; got splattered in gore; grew big muscles; and showed she had what it took to make it as a woman in a man's world. At the same time she embarked on a passionate, red-blooded affair that threatened her marriage, and, at times, her sanity. 
 
Cleaving is a riveting memoir of love, marriage and meat.

Cleaving

Rose Callaly

The day Rose Callaly found her daughter Rachel's battered body was only the start of her nightmares. 
 
Shortly afterwards Rose became certain that the person who had killed her beautiful daughter was Rachel's husband, Joe O'Reilly. After what seemed like an eternity, O'Reilly was charged. But that was the start of another ordeal - the revelation of just how much he despised his wife and the unfolding of his ingenious plan to kill her, a plan that set Rose up to discover the murder scene. 
 
Remembering Rachel is the shocking and heart-breaking story of Rachel Callaly's short life and brutal death. It is also a remarkable account of what it is like to be at the heart of a sensational and tragic murder case. And finally, it is a touching portrait of motherly love and the bond that survives death.

Remembering Rachel

A True Story of Betrayal and Murder

Natascha McElhone, star of The Truman Show and Californication, was filming in LA, seven months pregnant with her third child with her other two young children playing in the gym across the road when she got a call from a friend that would change her life forever. Her husband, Martin, the love of her life and father to her delightful children and an apparently healthy man in his early 40s had died suddenly of a heart attack. 
 
In the weeks and months that followed the devastating shock Natascha continued to write her diary and letters to Martin (something she had always done as, due to her work, she was used to being far from home). They were letters of love, letters about their gorgeous boys, letters about the birth of the new baby and diary entries detailing the mundane and heartbreaking details of her new life: house repairs and terrifying family finances; trying to keep the children's lives as normal as possible in the face of such abnormal new circumstances. 
 
The result is a powerful, honest and moving story of a magical love affair and all-consuming grief, of being a mother alone and trying to live for the future.

Letters of Love, and Loss, to a Husband and Father

Penelope Lively

The only child of divorced parents, Penelope Lively was often sent to stay at her grandparents' country house Golsoncott. Years later, as the house was sold out of the family, she began to piece together the lives of those she knew fifty years before. 
 
In a needlework sampler, she sees her grandmother and the wartime children that she sheltered under her roof in 1940. Potted meat jars remind her of the ritual of doing the flowers for church. The smell of the harness room brings her Aunt Rachel - avant-garde artist, fervent horserider - vividly back to life. 
 
In A House Unlocked, Penelope Lively delves into the domestic past of her former home, and tells of her own youth and the contrasts between life today and the way they lived then.

A House Unlocked

Patrick Hennessey

Patrick Hennessey is a graduate in his 20s. He reads Graham Greene, listens to early-90s house on his iPod and watches Vietnam movies. He has also, as an officer in the Grenadier Guards, fought in some of the most violent combat the British army has seen in a generation. 
 
This is the story of how a modern soldier is made, from the testosterone-heavy breeding ground of Sandhurst to the nightmare of Iraq and Afghanistan. Showing war in all its terror, boredom and exhilaration, The Junior Officers' Reading Club is already being hailed as a modern classic.

The Junior Officers' Reading Club

Killing Time and Fighting Wars

Emily Christie

No little girl could have been safer. Emily Christie grew up surrounded by relatives whose job it was to protect her. Her father was a hard-working policeman, her grandad was a respected paramedic; they were the perfect family. 
 
Or so it seemed. 
 
Evil lurked beneath the surface. When she was just five years old, Emily's beloved grandad started grooming her, calling her his 'special little girl'. In the years that followed she was subjected to countless unforgivable acts of sexual abuse at his hands, that escalated in severity and threatened to tear her life apart. 
 
Knowing her grandad was considered to be a pillar of the community, Emily was too scared to tell the truth. But one day she found the courage to stop the abuse and the strength to start rebuilding her life. 
 
No Safe Place is the inspirational story of a little girl's journey from helpless victim to triumphant survivor.

No Safe Place

Ian Clayton

'An astonishing work' - Joanne Harris 
 
Every parent's worst nightmare became a reality for Ian Clayton. On a short holiday break in Hay-on-Wye he took his nine-year-old twins canoeing, and in a freak accident his daughter Billie was drowned. In a remarkably frank and vivid way Clayton describes what happened on that spring day, his desperate attempts to save his two children, and then what it felt like two years later to come face to face with the men who hired out the canoe. 
 
But Our Billie is not a story of bitterness and recrimination. Instead it's the story of how a family attempts to come to terms with something which makes no sense at all. Through his memories of Billie and his wonderfully affectionate portrait of the small town in Yorkshire where the family has lived for generations, he weaves a story of loss and remembering, of gratitude and forgiveness.

Our Billie

'Could you tell me how to spell "sex" please?' 
 
Gervase Phinn thinks he's heard just about everything in his two years as a school inspector, but a surprising enquiry from an angelic six-year-old reminds him never to take children for granted. 
 
This year Gervase has lots of important things on his mind - his impending marriage to Christine Bentley (the prettiest headteacher for miles around), finding somewhere idyllic to live in the Yorkshire Dales, and the chance of a promotion. All of which generate their fair share of excitement, aided and abetted as usual by his colleagues in the office. 
 
Join Gervase in the classroom where he faces his greatest challenge, keeping a straight face as teachers and children alike conspire to have him laughing out loud.

Head Over Heels in the Dales

'Miss, who's that funny man at the back of the classroom? 
 
So begins school-inspector Gervase Phinn's second year among the frankly spoken pupils and teachers of North Yorkshire - the sight of Gervase with his notebook and pen provokes unexpected reactions from the children and adults alike. 
 
But Gervase if far from daunted - he is ready to brave the steely glare of the officious Mrs Savage, and even feels up to helping Dr Gore organize a gathering of the Feofees - just as soon as someone tells him what they are! He is still in pursuit of the lovely headteacher Christine Bentley, but will she feel the same? 
 
This is a delectable second helping of hilarious tales from the man who has been dubbed 'the James Herriot of schools'. It will have you laughing out loud.

Over Hill and Dale

A teacher was reprimanding a child who had drawn a very wobbly line freehand across his exercise book. 
'Don't you know what the word "straight" means?' the teacher asked crossly.' 
'Yes, miss,' came the reply, ' "without water".' 
 
Awkward teachers, pompous school governors and fearsome lollipop ladies occasionally make Gervase Phinn's hectic job as a school more than difficult. But, for Gervase, the main challenge remains the frankly spoken children. 
 
The new school year doesn't get off to a good start after a teacher suggests that Gervase has let him and his school down. Called up in front of his new boss, the formidable Miss de la Mare, Gervase fears he is going to be in hot water. To add to his woes, he is given another 'little job' by the Chief Education Officer, which inevitably means liaising with the infuriating and interfering Mrs Savage! 
 
Meanwhile, away from the pressures of school, Gervase's life with his wife Christine and their baby son is blissful - until noises in the attic start to disturb their nights. . .

The Heart of the Dales

As the newly appointed County Inspector of Schools in North Yorkshire, Gervase Phinn reveals in this warm and wonderfully humorous account, the experiences of his first year in the job - and what an education it was! 
 
He quickly learns that he must slow his pace and appreciate the beautiful countryside - 'Are tha'comin' in then, mester, or are tha' stoppin' out theer all day admirin' t'view?' He encounters some larger-than-life characters, from farmers and lords of the manor to teaching nuns and eccentric caretakers. And, best of all, he discovers the delightful and enchanting qualities of the Dales children, including the small boy, who, when told he's not very talkative, answers: 'If I've got owt to say I says it, and if I've got owt to ask I asks it.' 
 
With his keen ear for the absurd and sharp eye for the ludicrous, his stories will not fail to make you weep with laughter.

The Other Side of the Dale

What's your name? I asked the child. 
'Tequila,' she replied. I'm named after a drink.' 
'Tequila Sunrise,' I murmured. 
'No,' pouted the child. 'Tequila Braithwaite.' 
 
Now in his fourth year as an Inspector for English in the Yorkshire Dales, Gervase Phinn still relishes visiting the schools - whether an inner-city comprehensive fraught with difficulties or a small Dales Primary school where the main danger is one of closure. With endless good humour, he copes with the little surprises that occur round every corner. 
 
Some things never change: Mrs Savage roars, Connie rants, and Gervase's colleague in the office play verbal ping-pong. But all this can be put behind him each day when he returns home to his lovely wife, Christine, who is expecting their first baby. 
 
This charming montage of experiences will keep you amused and will win a place in your heart.

Up and Down in the Dales

Suzi Brent

Suzi: "Ambulance service, what's the problem?" 
 Caller: "Help! My baby's not breathing!" 
 
 
 When you dial 999 for an ambulance, Suzi's could be the voice you hear on the other end of the phone. Working in one of the country's busiest control rooms, it is her job to stay on the phone until the ambulance arrives, and to give instructions that could save your life. 
 
 From taking the first calls after the terrorist attacks on 7th July 2005, to delivering a baby over the phone, whether helping the child whose mum has attempted suicide, or dealing with the many regular callers - serial hoaxer The Banana Man, Sally the young alcoholic and Mad Brenda, each with their own surprising stories to tell - Suzi has heard it all. 
 
 Nee Naw will take you on a whirlwind tour of life in the emergency lane, introducing you to some unforgettable characters. Suzi Brent will make you laugh, she'll make you cry, but never again will you dial 999 for a broken finger... 
 
 
 Suzi: "Ambulance service, what's the problem?" 
 Caller: "I've eaten too much, and now I feel really sick. Can you die from eating too much?"

Nee Naw

Real Life Dispatches From Ambulance Control

Greg Mortenson

In this dramatic first-person narrative, Greg Mortenson picks up where Three Cups of Tea left off in 2003, recounting his relentless, ongoing efforts to establish schools for girls in Afghanistan; his extensive work in Azad Kashmir and Pakistan after a massive earthquake hit the region in 2005; and the unique ways he has built relationships with Islamic clerics, militia commanders, and tribal leaders even as he was dodging shootouts with feuding Afghan warlords and surviving an eight-day armed abduction by the Taliban. He shares for the first time his broader vision to promote peace through education and literacy, as well as touching on military matters, Islam, and women - all woven together with the many rich personal stories of the people who have been involved in this remarkable two-decade humanitarian effort.

Stones into Schools

Historical Romance

Hitchhiker's Guide (radio plays)

Hitler Biographies

Hogarth Shakespeare

Holcombe Hall

Holmes, Margaret & Poe

Holomonsters

Hope Harbor

Hot Wheels

House of Devils

House of Niccolo

House of Robots

How To

How To Be An Antiracist

How To Invent a Country

How to Garden

How to Grow

How to Grow Magic

How to be a Writer

Hurrah for Gin

I Am Number Four: The Lost Files

I Funny

I Like Birds

I Wanna Be Your Girl

I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue

ICONIC

ITCH

Ian Mortimer’s Time Traveller’s Guides

Following a horrific car accident in which she was the only survivor, seventeen year old Mia is faced with a choice. Does she stay, living with her grandparents and her loving boyfriend, or does she leave? She makes a difficult decision, leaving  it all behind her, breaking Adam's heart. Three years later, and the pair find themselves thrown together in New York, reminding Mia of her past and everything that she left behind her. If I stay and Where She Went are simultaneously tragic and hopeful, exploring grief, romance and memory.

Filters

Category

Publication Date

Format

Series

Imprint

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter