'Orphan of Angel Street' features the story of little Mercy Hanley, as she fights poverty and oppression on the tough streets of Birmingham during the turn of the century. 'The narrowboat girl' tells the tale of Maryann Nelson, who finds love and heartache in equal measure.

Pamela Gillilan was born in London in 1918, married in 1948 and moved to Cornwall in 1951. When she sat down to write her poem Come Away after the death of her husband David, she had written no poems for a quarter of a century. Then came a sequence of incredibly moving elegies. Other poems followed, and two years after starting to write again, she won the Cheltenham Festival poetry competition. Her first collection That Winter (Bloodaxe, 1986) was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Poetry Prize.

A twelfth-century poem by the creator of the Arthurian romance describes the courageous exploits and triumphs of a brave lord who tries to win back his deserted wife's love

Following his two classics, Ask the Fellows Who Cut the Hay and The Horse in the Furrow, renowned oral historian George Ewart Evans continues his study of the vanishing customs, working habits and rich language of the farming communities of East Anglia with The Pattern Under the Plough (Faber, 1966). Although based on East Anglia, this book was and remains of wider interest, for - as the author pointed out at the time - similar changes were occurring in North America, and also happening with remarkable speed in Africa. In chronicling the old culture George Ewart Evans has taken its two chief aspects, the home and the farm. He describes the house with its fascinating constructional details, the magic invoked for its protection, the mystique of the hearth, the link of the bees with the people of the house, and some of their fears and pre-occupations. Among the chapters on the farm is one of Evans's most original pieces of research: the description of the secret horse societies. Beautifully illustrated by David Gentleman, this book is important not only for the material it reveals about the past but for the implications for present-day society. 'As real (and as valuable) as the evidence unearthed by the spadework of archaeology.' Observer

Explains the science behind such topics as: sugar and artificial sweeteners; cholesterol, animal fats and fibre; painkillers; plastics and PVC; and dioxins and nitrates in the environment. This book won the general section of the Rhone-Poulenc Prize for Science in 1995.