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 bestselling travel book ever, and was also voted in a BBC poll the book that best represents Britain.Now...

Caroline Lawrence is famed for her historical children's series The Roman Mysteries. The first title in the series, The Thieves of Ostia is available on MP3 CD, number 09843CD.

Eleanor Updale is the author of the Montmorency series among other children's titles. The series can be found in the library, read by our Patron, Stephen Fry.

Jacqueline Wilson's novels often deal with many challenging themes and remain some of the most popular titles chosen in our library. The Story of Tracy Beaker is available to download or on MP3 CD, number 08662CD. Image c Jacqueline Wilson

Sarah Waters is the bestselling and award winning author of titles such as Tipping the Velvet and Fingersmith.

Across six decades, Sir Tom Jones has maintained a vital career in a risky, unstable business notorious for the short lives of its artists. With a drive that comes from nothing but the love for what he does, he breaks through and then wrestles with the vagaries of the music industry, the nature of success and its inevitable consequences. Having rec...

The King James Version has continued to this day to be one of the most beloved and widely sought after translations of the bible into the English language. Now over 400 years old, the King James Version has been shaping Christians for centuries with it\u2019s majesty and solemnity.Narrator David Cochran Heath brings his voice of clarity and warmth,...

On July 19, 2001, Jeffrey Archer - international best-selling author - is sentenced to four years in prison for perjury. He becomes Prisoner FF8282 and spends the first twenty-two days of his sentence in a high-security prison that house some of Britain's most violent criminals. During those twenty-two days, Archer contemplates suicide; he is allow...

Poland suffered terribly under the Nazis. By the end of the war six million had been killed. On 1 August 1944 Andrew Borowiec, a 15-year-old volunteer in the Resistance, lobbed a grenade from a Warsaw apartment block onto some German soldiers below - he felt he had come of age. Over that summer Andrew faced danger at every moment. Wounded the day a...

In It's Only a Movie, the incomparable Mark Kermode showed us the weird world of a film critic's life lived in widescreen. Now, in The Good, The Bad and The Multiplex, he takes us into the belly of the beast to ask: 'What's wrong with modern movies?' If blockbusters make money no matter how bad they are, then why not make a good one for a change? H...

Sportsman, womanizer, naval commander, world traveler, and spy, the creator of the Cold War's archetypal secret agent was infinitely more complex and interesting than his iconic fictional character, Agent 007. Fleming's wide ranging and exciting life inevitably provided the plausible backdrop for his Bond novels. Highly regarded in British naval in...

As a diarist I have chronicled the time through which I have lived in meticulous detail: but all that is history. What matters now is the future for those who will live through it. The past is the past but there may be lessons to be learned which could help the next generation to avoid mistakes their parents and grandparents made. Certainly at my a...

Lynda Bellingham is much-loved as the warm, open and quick-witted panellist on Loose Women as well as for her appearances in Strictly Come Dancing and Calendar Girls. Her rich acting career spans 40 years, with highlights including her roles as Helen Herriot in All Things Great and Small and Faith Grayshott in Second Thoughts and Faith in the Futur...

Pam Ayres was the sixth child in a hard-up family who lived in a council house, her parents' generation were harrowed by the war. Yet they lived by the green in the village of Stanford in the Vale, where everything you needed was within walking distance and the sound of motorcars was rarely heard. Then reaching her teens, Pam realised how few oppor...

Richard Branson is an iconic businessman. In Screw It, Let's Do It, he shares the secrets of his success and the invaluable lessons he has learned over the course of his remarkable career. As the world struggles with the twin problems of global recession and climate change, Richard explains why it is up to big companies like Virgin to lead the way...

In this riveting landmark autobiography that reads like a novel, Academy Award and Emmy winner Louis Gossett, Jr., masterfully transports us to 1840s New York, Louisiana, and Washington, DC, to experience the kidnapping and twelve-year bondage of Solomon Northup, a free man of color. Twelve Years a Slave, published in 1853, was an immediate bombshe...

On 7 November 1974, a nanny named Sandra Rivett was bludgeoned to death in a Belgravia basement. A second woman, Veronica, Countess of Lucan, was also attacked. The man named in court as perpetrator of these crimes, Richard John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan, disappeared in the early hours of the following morning. The case, solved in the eyes of the...

Here is the tumultuous, heartrending, true story of the Romanovs-at once an intimate portrait of Russia's last royal family and a gripping account of its undoing. Award-winning author Candace Fleming (Amelia Lost; The Lincolns) deftly maneuvers between the imperial family's extravagant lives and the plight of Russia's poor masses, making this an ut...

Brief biographies of sixteen great Englishwomen who lived before the 20th century. In a time when women were rarely noted, these women made such an impact that their names are still known today.

On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany, thanks largely to the efforts of the Hitler Youth, whose organized propaganda marches throughout Germany helped the Nazi Party grow in strength. By 1939, it is estimated that more than seven million boys and girls belonged to the Hitler Youth. Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler'...

Discusses ancient Egyptian customs and beliefs regarding death and the afterlife, the process of mummification, and the legend of a mummy's curse in relation to the discovery of King Tut's tomb in 1922.