Rapture, Carol Ann Duffy's seventh collection, is a book-length love-poem, and a moving act of personal testimony; but what sets these poems apart from other treatments of the subject is that Duff
The passing of the age of the dinosaurs allowed mammals to become ascendant. But mammals have a much deeper history. They – or, more precisely, we – originated around the same time as the dinosaurs, over 200 million years ago; mammal roots lie even further back, some 325 million years.Over these immense stretches of geological time, mammals developed their trademark features: hair, keen senses of smell and hearing, big brains and sharp intelligence, fast growth and warm-blooded metabolism, a distinctive line-up of teeth (canines, incisors, premolars, molars), mammary glands that mothers use to nourish their babies with milk, qualities that have underlain their success story.Out of this long and rich evolutionary history came the mammals of today, including our own species and our closest cousins. But today’s 6,000 mammal species - the egg-laying monotremes including the platypus, marsupials such as kangaroos and koalas that raise their tiny babies in pouches, and placentals like us, wh
Packed full of fun, What the Ladybird Heard at Christmas is a fantastically lively rhyming adventure from the bestselling picture book partnership of Julia Donaldson and Lydia Monks. In a big old house, the ladybird is visiting her friend the spider for the festive season. But those two bad men, Hefty Hugh and Lanky Len, are up to no good again.They have a devious plan - to steal the children's Christmas presents from their stockings! It's a good thing that the clever little ladybird has overheard their awful plotting, and she has a cunning plan to make sure they don't get away with it. The fifth title in the Number One bestselling series from the award-winning team of Julia Donaldson and Lydia Monks, which has been enjoyed by over four million children worldwide. Enjoy more adventures with the clever little ladybird in What the Ladybird Heard, What the Ladybird Heard Next, What the Ladybird Heard on Holiday and What the Ladybird Heard at the Seaside.
2022 NomineeDesmond Elliott PrizeThe Goldsmiths PrizeLonglisted for the Booker PrizeWinner of the Desmond Elliott PrizeShortlisted for the Goldsmiths PrizeLonglisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize‘Original, memorable, shimmering’ - Sarah MossLia has only one child, Iris; her magical, awkward, endlessly creative daughter who has just entered the battleground of her teenage years. Lia and Iris have always been close, but there is a war playing out inside Lia’s body, too, and everything is about to change. As she confronts what might be the end, memories of her own childhood and a passionate love affair come rushing into her present, unearthing buried secrets and her family’s deepest fears. But Lia hopes: for more time, for more love, for more Iris.Dancing between voices within Lia’s body and without, flitting back and forth in time, this sweeping, dazzling story of a life and what it is to let go marks the arrival of an extraordinary novelist.'Restlessly inventive . . . delicate and persuasi
On the night Brian Bishop murdered his wife he was 60 miles away, asleep. At least that's the way it looks to Detective Superintendent Roy Grace, who is called in to investigate the kinky slaying
