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Dining alone in an elegant Parisian brasserie, accountant Daniel Mercier can hardly believe his eyes when President François Mitterrand sits down to eat at the table next to him. After the presidential party has gone, Daniel discovers that Mitterrand’s black felt hat has been left behind. After a few moments’ soul-searching, Daniel decides to keep the hat as a souvenir of an extraordinary evening. It’s a perfect fit, and as he leaves the restaurant Daniel begins to feel somehow...different.

A Christmas anthology from legendary historian and Christmas Cracker compiler John Julius Norwich. This year go carol singing in the Cotswolds with Laurie Lee or attend church with a grumpy Samuel Pepys. Make plum puddings for bemused French villagers with Elizabeth David; go present shopping with Virginia Woolf, or eat far too much with Agatha Christie. Celebrate Christmas at Chatsworth, in the workhouse or marooned in the ice with Shackleton....

Queenie Bligh's neighbours do not approve when she agrees to take in Jamaican lodgers, but Queenie doesn't know when, or if, her husband, posted to India during the war, will return....Gilbert Joseph was one of the several thousand Jamaican men who joined the RAF to fight against Hitler. Returning to England as a civilian, he finds himself treated very differently. Through the stories of these characters, Small Island explores a point in England's past when the country began to change.

This epic novel is set against the backdrop of the Sino-Japanese war, from the time Japan annexed Manchuria in the early 1930s until the end of the Second World War. During these years, a militaristic Japan pursued an aggressive dream to colonize not only China but also the whole of Southeast Asia and beyond. The brutal sacking of Chiang Kai-shek's new capital, Nanking, which refused to surrender to the Imperial Army, was a graphic example of Japanese retribution in a war of punishment.

Anthony Peardew is the keeper of lost things. Forty years ago he carelessly lost a keepsake from his beloved fiancée, Therese. That very same day, she died unexpectedly. Brokenhearted, Anthony sought consolation in rescuing lost objects - the things others have dropped, misplaced, or accidently left behind - and writing stories about them. Now, in the twilight of his life, Anthony worries that he has not fully discharged his duty to reconcile all the lost things with their owners.

Introducing Interviewing by William Seymour - the winning short story of the Bookseller Futurebook audio original competition 2019. When a young job applicant is overwhelmed with anxiety attacks about an impending interview, his world seems about to implode. Worse still, the calm voice of reason in his head is no help at all...Chosen for its unique writing approach and fascinating prose, Interviewing is a piece of writing that is enhanced by a fresh, forward approach to the audio format.

From swimming on Hampstead Heath to illicit trysts in hayfields, or counting stock in corner shops and stifling parenting classes to pedicures in Florence, this collection of short stories includes some previously unpublished in audio, and covers the gamut of human nature—our foibles, our loves, our desires, hopes, ambitions and failures. Rich in observation and speckled with a delicious dark humour, Fool for Love confirms Deborah Moggach's place as one of our finest observers of human life.

HRH The Duke of Kent has been at the heart of the British Royal Family throughout his life. As a working member of the Royal Family, he has supported his cousin, The Queen, representing her at home and abroad. His royal duties began when, in 1952, at the age of 16, he walked in the procession behind King George VI's coffin, later paying homage to The Queen at her coronation in 1953. Since then, he has witnessed and participated in key royal occasions. A Royal Life is a unique account based on a series of conversations between the duke and acclaimed royal historian Hugo Vickers.

Meet Dr Shah, who has never been to India, and Mrs Kaminski, on her way to Poland via A&E. Meet Holly and Polly, who have come to their own Anglo-Irish understanding. Charlie and Don, who have seen the docks turn into Docklands. Daisy Baker, terrified of Yorkshire and Johnny Dewhurst, stranded on Exmoor. Binding these stories together is Graham Swift's affectionate but unflinching instinct for the story of us all.

Forced to leave their family home in London after it is bombed, Maddie and her two daughters take refuge at Knyghton, the beautiful country house in Norfolk where Maddie’s husband, Philip, spent the summers of his childhood. But Philip is gone, believed to have been killed in action in northern France. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Maddie refuses to give up hope that she and Philip will some day be reunited. Arriving at Knyghton, Maddie feels closer to her missing husband, but she soon realises that there’s a reason Philip has never spoken to her about his past.

1957, France. Florence and Lilli meet at finishing school in Lyon. Despite some differences, they forge a firm friendship that promises to last a lifetime. But a terrible betrayal prematurely tears them apart. Years later in England, Florence has become the woman her friend knew she could be - creative, bold and independent. The exact opposite of Alice, a young woman troubled by a recent trauma, whom Florence is determined to help bring out of her shell. Just as Lilli once did for her.

The never-before-published diaries of Alathea Fitzalan Howard - who spent her teenaged years living out World War II in Windsor Great Park with her close friends Princess Margaret and Princess Elizabeth, the future queen of the United Kingdom - provide an extraordinary and intimate look at the British royal family.

Becky Brown has selected extracts from the Mass Observation Archives to anthologise the voices of everyday people as they deal individually and collectively with the crisis of the Second World War. The diarists themselves have been selected from every level of society - from warehousemen to widows, soldiers to farmhands, WRENs to architects. The extracts have been chosen to both uplift and to ground, to remind listeners that nothing is new, that everything can be weathered and perhaps even made better. After all, World War II saw the birth of the NHS.

Professor Angela Gallop has been at the forefront of forensics for more than 45 years. During her remarkable career, she has established and run forensic science laboratories and has worked on thousands of cases in the UK and across the world. In How to Solve a Crime, she describes some of her own and her colleagues most intriguing cases and the wide range of skills and techniques used to solve them.

In 1969, John Julius Norwich, the legendary popular historian, gathered together the favourite things he'd come across in the last 365 days into one short charming pamphlet. Initially just a treat for his friends, it rapidly turned into a huge word-of-mouth success. And soon the arrival of John Julius Norwich's latest 'Christmas Cracker' became as essential a part of the English Christmas experience as holly and mistletoe. Norwich had a brilliant eye for a story and telling detail, and his Crackers are full of jokes, warmth and wit.

In the summer of 1915, the sudden death of a young girl brings grief and notoriety to Charleston Farmhouse on the Sussex Downs. Years later, Josephine Tey returns to the same house - now much changed - and remembers the two women with whom she once lodged as a young teacher during the Great War. As past and present collide, with murders decades apart, Josephine is forced to face the possibility that the scandal which threatened to destroy those women's lives hid a much darker secret.

On a June night, Paula, a successful art dealer, lies awake. Mike, her husband of 25 years, is asleep beside her. In nearby rooms, their twin teenage children, Nick and Kate, sleep, too. The next day, Paula knows, will define all their lives. As dawn approaches, Paula recalls the years before and after her children were born. Her story is both a celebration of love possessed and a moving acknowledgement of the fear of loss, of the fragility on which even our most inward sense of who we are can rest.

For 40 years, Willy Chapman has struck a strange but steadfast bargain between the two poles of his life: his beautiful but emotionally damaged wife and the sweet shop he runs on a South London high street. Devoted to each, he has maintained a delicate, precarious balance. Now, on a hot summer’s day, he attempts to settle his final accounts and reach an understanding with a third, disruptive element in his reckoning: his angry, unforgiving daughter.

Minnie is supposed to find a nice man, get married and have children. The problem is it doesn’t appeal to her at all. She is working as a secretary but longs to make a difference. Then, one day, she gets her chance. She is recruited by the British government as a spy. Under strict instructions not to tell anyone, not even her family, she moves to London and begins her mission - to infiltrate the Communist movement.

Run away, one drowsy summer's afternoon, with Holly Sykes: wayward teenager, broken-hearted rebel and unwitting pawn in a titanic, hidden conflict. Over six decades, the consequences of a moment's impulse unfold, drawing an ordinary woman into a world far beyond her imagining. And as life in the near future turns perilous, the pledge she made to a stranger may become the key to her family's survival....