Peter Ross' articles from around Scotland provide a piece-by-piece portrait of a nation as it changes. They show Scotland as she really is, a hopeful country not without problems and pain but a nation made great by the people who live, love, laugh and graft there. From anatomists who find dissection beautiful to chip-shop owners who sing arias while serving fish suppers, the Scots in these pages come over as eccentric, humorous, moving and extraordinary.

From Borrower to wizard, Tom Felton's adolescence was anything but ordinary. His early rise to fame saw him catapulted into the limelight aged just twelve when he landed the iconic role of Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter films. Speaking with candour and his own trademark humour, Tom shares his experience of growing up on screen and as part of the wizarding world for the very first time. He tells all about his big break, what filming was really like and the lasting friendships he made during ten years as part of the franchise.

Journalist and documentary filmmaker Robin Benger felt the overwhelming resolve to pack in a career based in Toronto and move into a caravan with his wife in North Yorkshire. Finding himself surrounded by the moors to the north, the wolds to the east, the dales to the west, and the Howardian Hills all around, Robin was immediately intoxicated by the beauty and the pathways with their kissing gates and winding ways. This audiobook is his journal about a genteel English summer stopping life to walk, dream and look around, umpire for a village team, and play golf.

The Story of the British Isles in 100 Places is Neil’s very personal account of what makes these islands so special, told through the places that have witnessed the unfolding of our history. Beginning with footprints made in the sand by humankind’s earliest ancestors, he takes us via Romans and Vikings and the flowering of religion through civil war, industrial revolution and two world wars. From windswept headlands to battlefields, ancient trees to magnificent cathedrals, each of his destinations is a place where, somehow, the spirit of the past seems to linger.  

Lights, Camera Jemuru - Adventures of a Film-Maker in Ethiopia is the remarkable true-life story of a high-flying adman who swapped his expense account lifestyle in London to go and teach in a back-street community film school, Gem TV, in Addis Ababa. Bob Maddams spent years living and working in Ethiopia and filming took him and the Gem TV filmmakers all over the country; from shanty towns and famine feeding stations to the rock hewn churches of Lalibela and the source of the Blue Nile.

The stories in this book are all true. Its author has been held up at gunpoint at night on a road in Guatemala and shot with a machine gun in the chest and shoulder in Vietnam. He's come close to dying of thirst in the Sahara and freezing to death in the Himalayas. He's contracted malaria and typhoid fever in Ethiopia and hepatitis in India. There have been accidents involving motorcycles and automobiles. He's had close calls involving lions (twice), elephants (three times) and a rhino (once).

David was excited to be the new Vicar of the picturesque Hemsley. However, not all of his parishioners were impressed by his newfangled ways. Nonetheless, a determined David set about winning over the colourful townsfolk. There was Lord Feversham, the Henry VIII look-alike; fiery Ted, who had fought with the Polish Free Army; Frank, the 80-year-old singing shepherd; and redoubtable countrywoman Eva. All had stories of hardship and sacrifice, friendship and love.

Twenty years ago Bill Bryson went on a trip around Britain to celebrate the green and kindly island that had become his adopted country. The hilarious book that resulted, Notes from a Small Island, was taken to the nation’s heart and became the best-selling travel book ever and was voted in a BBC poll the book that best represents Britain. Now, to mark the 20th anniversary of that modern classic, Bryson makes a brand-new journey around Britain to see what has changed.

Thirty-five years after the publication of Ronald Blythe's classic portrait of an English village, Akenfield, Craig Taylor returned to the Suffolk village on which the book was based. He sought out locals who appeared in the original book to learn how their lives had changed, met newcomers, and interviewed Ronald Blythe himself.

The idea of the unspoilt and unchanging village is one of the most potent in the English imagination. Yet the English village is plainly dying. The unaltered rhythms of village life have all but vanished. But not without a trace…they exist in the voices of men and women for whom the old ways were life-shaping realities. Richard Askwith describes a journey in search of the true country dwellers.

As one of Lord Sugar's closest advisers, Nick Hewer came late to wider public attention when he was recruited to work with him on The Apprentice, joining from the first series that aired in 2005 and staying with the show for 10 seasons. He quickly developed a reputation for his wry sense of humour while his astute insights into the foibles and failings of the apprentices won him a cult following. Now, in Hewer's first book, he takes us through his life from A for Apprentice (of course) to Z for Zed list. 

Here is a classic memoir of childhood that will strike a chord with anyone who's ever played and dreamed, with little thought of life "when I grow up". The much loved Scots actor Bill Paterson was brought up in those halcyon days of post-war Britain when a child could still play happily - and safely - in his own back green and the streets beyond.

The plan is simple. George and Ben have three weeks to cycle 1000 miles from the bottom of England to the top of Scotland. There's just one small problem - they have no bikes, no clothes, no food, and no money. Setting off in just a pair of Union Jack boxer shorts, they attempt to rely on the generosity of the British public for everything from food to accommodation, clothes to shoes, and bikes to beer.

Peopled with a wonderful collection of warm, wicked, and weird characters, Vic Reeves' memoir is an enchanting, surreal, and utterly hilarious comic gem.

It was a moment of mad impulse when John Humphrys decided to buy a semi-derelict cottage and a building site on a plot of land overlooking the Aegean. A few minutes gazing out over the most glorious bay he had ever seen was all it took to persuade him. After all, his son Christopher was already raising his family there so he would help build the beautiful villa that would soon take shape. What could possibly go wrong? Everything....