The historical novelist recalls her childhood and struggle with rheumatoid arthritis that made her unable to walk as a child and describes the family and friends who encouraged her to become a writer

A simple tale of the activities of seven West-Country seven-year-olds on a summer afternoon during the Second World War set in a wood, a field and a barn.

In this series a contemporary poet selects and introduces another poet of a different generation whom they have particularly admired. This selection of A.E. Housman poems are selected by Alan Hollinghurst.

“Parker’s beautiful Housman Country tells you everything you want to know about the life and influence of England’s most satirised but inimitable poets.” —Evening Standard A New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Nominated for the 2017 PEN/Bograd Weld Prize for Biography A. E. Housman’s A Shropshire Lad made little impression when it was first published in 1896 but has since become one of the best-loved volumes of poetry in the English language. Its evocation of the English countryside, thwarted love, and a yearning for things lost is as potent today as it was more than a century ago, and the book has never been out of print. In Housman Country, Peter Parker explores the lives of A. E. Housman and his most famous book, and in doing so shows how A Shropshire Lad has permeated English life and culture since its publication. The poems were taken to war by soldiers who wanted to carry England in their pockets, were adapted by composers trying to create a new kind of English music, and have influenced poetry, fiction, music, and drama right up to the present day. Everyone has a personal “land of lost content” with “blue remembered hills,” and Housman has been a tangible and far-reaching presence in a startling range of work, from the war poets and Ralph Vaughan Williams to Inspector Morse and Morrissey. Housman Country is a vivid exploration of England and Englishness, in which Parker maps out terrain that is as historical and emotional as it is topographical. “[A] rich blend of literary criticism and cultural history.” —The Spectator

BLUE REMEMBERED EARTH is the first volume in a monumental trilogy tracing the Akinya family across more than ten thousand years of future history ... out beyond the solar system, into interstellar space and the dawn of galactic society. One hundred and fifty years from now, in a world where Africa is the dominant technological and economic power, and where crime, war, disease and poverty have been banished to history, Geoffrey Akinya wants only one thing: to be left in peace, so that he can continue his studies into the elephants of the Amboseli basin. But Geoffrey's family, the vast Akinya business empire, has other plans. After the death of Eunice, Geoffrey's grandmother, erstwhile space explorer and entrepreneur, something awkward has come to light on the Moon, and Geoffrey is tasked - well, blackmailed, really - to go up there and make sure the family's name stays suitably unblemished. But little does Geoffrey realise - or anyone else in the family, for that matter - what he's about to unravel. Eunice's ashes have already have been scattered in sight of Kilimanjaro. But the secrets she died with are about to come back out into the open, and they could change everything. Or shatter this near-utopia into shards ...

The first monograph on the work of renowned twentieth-century British decorator and antiques dealer Geoffrey Bennison. Geoffrey Bennison (1921–1984) ranks among England’s most influential designers, defying conventional notions of style to conjure up magnificent settings for discerning clients who loved his theatrical and romantic sensibility. The master of the layered look, he used antique textiles with his own fabrics to achieve a complex mix of scale, pattern, and color in inventive shades such as his evocative Red Riding Hood Red and Prussian Blue. His talent for combining eclectic objects, his unerring eye, and his deep knowledge of antiques earned him a reputation for sophisticated originality equaled by very few. Even today, leading designers turn to Bennison for inspiration. This lavish volume opens with an illuminating text about Bennison’s fascinating history—from his early days at the Slade School of Art and his work as an antiques dealer in London during the swinging sixties to his later career as an interior designer. All of Bennison’s interiors are showcased, from magnificent country estates and retreats to elegantly appointed apartments and townhouses filled with priceless French and English furniture and curiosities, making this book a must-have for design lovers.