This fascinating selection of photographs traces some of the many ways in which Battersea has changed and developed over the last century.

'Candid, thought-provoking, sassy and very, very funny' Daily Telegraph 'Searching and honest' Independent on Sunday 'Remarkably revealing' Mail on Sunday 'Brazenly probing' Scotsman You know those people who always radiate cheerful optimism? Nauseating aren't they? I want to become one of those. I want to find out how to live life completely, abundantly, joyfully, stupidly. This is my quest. Enlightenment. So proclaims Isabel Losada, coffee addict, exercise allergic, and self confessed sceptic as she sets out on the road to enlightenment. Beginning with an Insight seminar where a hundred people with name badges learn to 'share', Isabel journey's through a gruelling course of 'Rolfing' nude Goddess workshops, a weekend of Tantric Sex (Yes! Yes! Yes!) and a Reincarnation session. Not to mention a spot of colonic irrigation. Irreverent yet open minded, funny and always honest, The Battersea Park Road to Enlightenment is also moving and ultimately illuminating. For anyone who has ever been tempted to dip a toe in the waters of self-discovery, Isabel Losada plunges you straight in.

In this hilarious classic adventure, an innocent boy and his friends must stop a plot to topple the King of England. Simon, the foundling from The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, arrives in London to meet an old friend and pursue the study of painting. Instead he finds himself unwittingly in the middle of a wicked crew’s fiendish caper to overthrow the good King James and the Duke and Duchess of Battersea. With the help of his friend Sophie and the resourceful waif Dido, Simon narrowly escapes a series of madcap close calls and dangerous run-ins. In a time and place where villains do nothing halfway, Simon is faced with wild wolves, poisoned pies, kidnapping, and a wrecked ship. This is a cleverly contrived tale of intrigue and misadventure. Perfect for fans of Lemony Snicket and Roald Dahl “It’s a marvel!” —The New Yorker “A wild yarn, not to be put down once it is started.” —Washington Post “A riot of wildly improbable adventures happening to absurd and loveable characters with Dickensian names in a time that never was . . . Heartrending, hair-raising, rib-tickling, and delightful.” —New York Times

A couple of years ago, Martin Knight began a quest to delve into his family history. He had a head start on many amateur genealogists, as 30 years earlier he had produced a school project on the very subject. The project was based on the papers and oral history of his then elderly grandmother, Ellen Tregent. Martin dusted this off and began to assemble the chain of events that shaped his grandmother's life. He even made contact with several living relatives who had known Ellen or some of the people and events she described. Ellen Tregent was born in 1888 and died in 1988 - her lifetime encompassing an unprecedented century of social change and world upheaval. She was born into a poor working-class family in Battersea, London. Her grandfather had arrived from Ireland 40 years earlier to escape almost certain death as potato famine ravaged his country. In Battersea Girl, Martin Knight charts Ellen's long and eventful life and the lives of her siblings. They encounter abject poverty, disease, suicide, murder, war and inevitably death, but, equally, the spirit of stoical people who were determined to make the most of their lives shines through in this enchanting book.

The twelfth novel in Mercedes Lackey's magical Elemental Masters series reimagines Sherlock Holmes in a richly-detailed alternate 20th-century England Christmas is a very special time of year. It is special for Psychic Nan Killian and Medium Sarah Lyon-White and their ward Suki, who are determined to celebrate it properly. It is special for their friends, Doctor John Watson, and his wife Mary, both Elemental Masters, who have found great delight in the season seeing it through young Suki’s eyes. It is also special to others...for very different reasons. For Christmas Eve is also hallowed to dark forces, powers older than mankind, powers that come awake on this long, cold night. Powers best left alone. Powers that could shake the foundations of London and beyond. It begins slowly. Women disappearing in the dark of night, women only missed by those of their own kind. The whispers only begin when they start to reappear—because when they do, they are no longer sane. And when Nan and Sarah and the Watsons are called on to examine these victims, they discover that it was no ordinary horror of the streets that drove them mad. But then, the shadows reach for other victims—girls of good, even exalted families, who vanish from concerts, lectures, and evening balls. And it will take the combined forces of Magic, Psychic Powers, and the world's greatest detective to stop the darkness before it can conquer all.

This text is the story of rootlessnes, of a London-Irish boy who has two identities and feels at home with neither. John Walsh found the Irishness of his parents' Battersea home stiflingly warm and puzzlingly foreign. Spellbound equally by Mick Jagger and by images of Irish martyrdom, he discovered at the age of 16 an extended family he had never known existed. In the hidden life of Galway was revelation that begged a crucial question: how do we know where our true nature Lies?

She's the coffee-addicted, exercise-allergic and self-confessed sceptical author of The Battersea Park Road to Enlightenment - now join Isabel Losada for further travels in the realms of the soul, the senses and the sheer absurdity of life, from a feng shui reading gone hilariously wrong to an ayahuasca ceremony that goes all too right.