Mr B’s

Join a witchy story time with illustrator Steven Lenton and learn all about The Green-fingered Witch in a funny rhyming story. When Cress starts Witch School, she soon finds out she’s not like the other pupils. Her clothes are wrong, and she can’t fly a broom or make potions. In fact, the only witchy thing about Cress is her green fingers. But, when there are no pumpkins for the school Halloween party, it’s Cress’s turn to show off her own…

Author Maddie Ballard discusses her non-fiction debut Bound: A Memoir of Making and Remaking, an illustrated diary exploring all the practical comfort and pleasure of sewing in a time of uncertainty celebrating the value of craft in a digital age. In a new home, relationships shift, and ties fray in this collection of essays about sewing and knowing who you are. Each chapter charts the crafting of a different garment. From a lining embroidered with the Cantonese names of her…

This deeply passionate journey is told through André‘s poignant memories of his family, who when expelled from Egypt, found themselves refugees seeking a home of their own in the vast soot-lined streets of Rome. The book will transport you to the city he soon fell in love with set in Rome in 1964. As 13 year old André stands at the foot of the gangway to the ship, his mother fusses over their luggage – 32 suitcases, trunks and tea chests that…

Historian, Annie Gray, discusses her new book looking at the surprising history and future of the high street. A historian, cook, broadcaster and writer specialising in the history of food and dining in Britain, Annie takes us down the street and through the ages, from medieval marketplaces to the purpose-built concrete precincts of the twentieth century. Peeping through the windows of tailors, tearooms and grocers, we explore everything from the toyshops of yesteryear – where curiosities were sold for adults,…

A historical novel steeped in folklore and ancient ritual as two sisters test a prophecy on the winter solstice. As the winter solstice blankets the Pembrokeshire landscape in an otherworldly glow, sisters Kit and Libby are drawn to a mysterious white tower to test a prophecy they have heard talked about. But when the magic of the tower causes Libby to vanish, they find themselves caught in a mystery that takes them in to the deep past. Libby has been…

A place of myths, rumours and secrets, The Hotel looms over the dark Fens, tall and grey in its Gothic splendour. Built on cursed land, a history of violent death suffuses its very foundations –yet it has a magnetism that is impossible to ignore. On entering The Hotel, different people react in different ways. To some it is familiar, to others a stranger. Many come out refreshed, longing to return. But a few are changed forever, haunted by their time…

Jeff VanderMeer presents and discusses the fourth volume in the Southern Reach Trilogy. The trilogy was first published a decade ago and became a cult classic. Despite its huge success, there was never full closure to the story of Area X. There were a few mysteries that had gone unsolved, some key points of view never aired. There were stories left to tell. There remained questions about who had been complicit in creating the conditions for Area X to take…