The new paperback edition of this great book which Lucy talked about at last year’s Kenilworth Festival…

Why did the flushing toilet take two centuries to catch on? Why did Samuel Pepys never give his mistresses an orgasm? Why did medieval people sleep sitting up? When were the two ‘dirty centuries’? Why did gas lighting cause Victorian ladies to faint? Why, for centuries, did people fear fruit? All these questions will be answered in this juicy, smelly and truly intimate history of home life. Lucy Worsley takes us through the bedroom, bathroom, living room and kitchen, covering the architectural history of each room, but concentrating on what people actually did in bed, in the bath, at the table, and at the stove. From sauce-stirring to breast-feeding, teeth-cleaning to masturbation, getting dressed to getting married, this book will make you see your home with new eyes.

It is an early spring evening in 1943 when the air-raid sirens wail out over the East End of London. From every corner of Bethnal Green, people emerge from pubs, cinemas and houses and set off for the shelter of the tube station. But at the entrance steps, something goes badly wrong, the crowd panics, and 173 people are crushed to death.

When an enquiry is called for, it falls to the local magistrate, Laurence Dunne, to find out what happened during those few, fatally confused minutes. But as Dunne gathers testimony from the guilt-stricken warden of the shelter, the priest struggling to bring comfort to his congregation, and the grieving mother who has lost her youngest daughter, the picture grows ever murkier. The more questions Dunne asks, the more difficult it becomes to disentangle truth from rumour – and to decide just how much truth the damaged community can actually bear.

It is only decades later, when the case is reopened by one of the children who survived, that the facts can finally be brought to light …

Ivan, a world traveller, and Italian heiress Francesca are the owners of an out-of-the-ordinary bookshop in a corner of Paris in which passion for literature overrides bestsellers and titles are chosen by a top-secret committee of like minded connoisseurs. It is a huge success, but then they are hit by a tirade of venomous, anonymous threats on the internet and members of the secret committee are attacked. One by one, the pieces of the puzzle fall ominously into place, as it becomes increasingly evident that Francesca and Ivan’s dreams will be met with envy and violence.

The What on Earth? Wallbook of Natural History tells the complete story of natural history from the formation of the Earth to the latest breakthroughs in evolutionary science. A3 in size and comprising a remarkable 2.3 m long, fully illustrated timeline, it can either be read like a book or unfolded and stuck on a wall. On one side the 4.5 billion year timeline presents a unique illustrated guide to the past, cleverly linking subjects together from asteroids to algae.

Streams of colour represent key themes, including the land, sea and sky, and provide a backdrop to all the major events of natural history. On the reverse side a second timeline identifies the people behind the science and highlights key moments in the understanding of natural science from Aristotle to the present day. Perfect for younger readers but also relevant to all ages, this comprehensive, accessible and versatile wallbook is the first ever attempt to illustrate the entire history of nature and natural science on a single piece of paper.

A Review By Tamsin

Down at the front, on a freezing Winter’s night in 1914, in the middle of the worst war that the world has known, two men stood and faced each other as in hope, not in war. In The Christmas Truce Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy gives us a lovely poem, inspired by this moment of humanity and hope at Christmas.

With much of the world still at war, this lovely little Christmas book offers a reminder of the moment when two trenches came together, shook hands, sang songs, swapped gifts, played football and found peace in no-man’s-land.

 A delightfully illustrated book, sized for little hands to pull from Christmas stockings….