This memoir spans the first seventy years of a long life. In this vivid account Peggy Larken describes her childhood as a doctor's daughter in Bushey, Herts before the First World War, growing up in wartime, her first job in London and an exciting period in Jamaica in the 1920s. Her marriage to Tom, an officer in the Royal Navy, provides the thread that links many adventures and experiences in this country and overseas. For almost 20 years their home was the Five Sisters, a Thames barge in which they sailed as far as Paris and Holland before finally anchoring in Yarmouth, Isle of Wight. Through all her experiences, some tragic and many entertaining, Peggy's unique combination of courage, determination, unfailing humour and humanity shines through.

Malcolm Hulatt's poetry is an interesting and refreshing range of styles; sonnets, simple rhyme, free verse and even a villanelle. They range from the severely sombre to the humorous but they always make you either think or smile. The forms of expression mark it out as being very much his own. It carries a certain hallmark which clearly identifies it as being original. This poetry is accessible and highly rewarding.

The thoughts, ambitions, and experiences of a man raised in wartime middle-class England, pursuing his destiny in the tense but exciting post-war years and following his dreams to the heart of the Dark Continent. In telling the story of Frank Franklyn, Derek Annable paints a picture of the world as it used to be, not only in post-war society but in wider regions that were ten still barely touched by so-called progress but which maintained the spirit and outlook of warmer, less complicated cultures. N words and images, he evokes an atmosphere of the age and the joys and sorrows that it created; takes us through the tensions and intrigue of contemporary international politics and commerce, and then on an eventful journey into the natural world of Africa, where great surprises await Frank Franklyn.

My grandmother, Effie Roberts was born in Sheffield, in 1896. She lost her fianc� in the first World War before marrying his best friend and having two boys. She began this journal in November 1941. She wrote about everything. The occasional poems on world affairs show how much she had been influenced by propaganda She also wrote about her husband and children, describing the evenings that she spent playing the piano and singing. She wrote about the dreariness of war and about the things she loved before. The world described in her poems is quite alien to the one we live in now. She recreates very vividly the difficulty of groping for her own front door during a blackout, and of having to manage without paper bags when shopping, because shops weren't allowed to give them out when paper was rationed. She wrote about waiting for the coal man to come; about the mouse that got in the oven; and about trying to prepare for Christmas without the foods she would have liked. When she was nearing the end of her life my grandmother told me that she was leaving the journal to me as 'the other writer in the family.' I was only a teenager but I told her that I would try and have the poems published for her one day. She laughed disparagingly, but with a little gleam of hope, as I think she knew, deep down, that they were worth it. I know that many people will find great pleasure in this book and I am glad that, at last, I have been able to fulfil my promise. - Philippa Roberts

On his marathon walk round the coast of Spain, David Jones passes through the country's most diverse regions. He takes an informed and often irreverent look at the lives and traditions of Spain's different peoples experiencing wild fiestas, strange pagan rituals and nationalist fervour. Along the shore he sees the unrivalled beauty of the sierras which collide with the sea, the tiny fishing villages and isolated beaches and, inevitably, the concrete-filled costa resorts. The book is a funny and fascinating journey around Spain.