Books

Maya Angelou’s seven volumes of autobiography are a testament to the talents and resilience of this extraordinary writer. Loving the world, she also knows its cruelty. As a Black woman she has known discrimination and extreme poverty, but also hope, joy, achievement and celebration.

In this first volume of her six books of autobiography, Maya Angelou beautifully evokes her childhood with her grandmother in the American south of the 1930s. She learns the power of the white folks at the other end of town and suffers the terrible trauma of rape by her mother’s lover. ‘I write about being a Black American woman, however, I am always talking about what it’s like to be a human being.

This is how we are, what makes us laugh, and this is how we fall and how we somehow, amazingly, stand up again’ Maya Angelou

This is a beautifully illustrated collection of traditional Irish legends for children. It includes the stories of The Children of LirDeirdre of the SorrowsSetantaThe Salmon of KnowledgeFionn and the DragonOisin in Tir na n-Og Sensitively written, to be read to or by children of every age, this will prove to be popular with adults, re-kindling magical stories from their own childhood.

The stunning new novel of World War One from Michael Morpurgo, the nation’s favourite storyteller and multi-million copy bestseller.May, 1915.Alfie and his fisherman father find a girl on an uninhabited island in the Scillies – injured, thirsty, lost… and with absolutely no memory of who she is, or how she came to be there. She can say only one word: Lucy.Where has she come from? Is she a mermaid, the victim of a German U-boat, or even – as some islanders suggest – a German spy…?Only one thing is for sure: she loves music and moonlight, and it is when she listens to the gramophone that the glimmers of the girl she once was begin to appear.WW1 is raging, suspicion and fear are growing, and Alfie and Lucy are ever more under threat.

But as we begin to see the story of Merry, a girl boarding a great ship for a perilous journey across the ocean, another melody enters the great symphony – and the music begins to resolve…A beautiful tour de force of family, love, war and forgiveness, this is a major new novel from the author of PRIVATE PEACEFUL – in which what was once lost may sometimes be found, washed up again on the shore…

The Little Book of Mindfulness is a collection of 150 practical tips, exercises and essential techniques to enable you to practise the hugely popular discipline of ‘mindfulness’.

A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. And a strange collection of very curious photographs.

It all waits to be discovered in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, an unforgettable novel that mixes fiction and photography in a thrilling reading experience. As our story opens, a horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children who once lived here – one of whom was his own grandfather – were more than just peculiar.

They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a desolate island for good reason. And somehow – impossible though it seems – they may still be alive.

A spine-tingling fantasy illustrated with haunting vintage photography, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children will delight adults, teens, and anyone who relishes an adventure in the shadows.