Pretending not to Sleep The waiting rooms are full of ‘characters’ Pretending not to sleep. Your eyes are open But you’re far away At home, am Rhein, with mother and the cats. Your hair grazes my wrist. My cold hand surprises you. The porters yawn against the slot-machines And watch contentedly; they know I’ve lost.

This book came recommended to me by another lover of reading. It is so good to be offered something you might not pick up yourself.

Trust Me What can be discussed in words I beg to state in brief. A man has only one death: it may be as light as goose down or as heavy as a fatted hog. Gingerly the flowers open and are crushed in the vat. What's in your new perfume?

Alison Marshall’s capturing of a circuitous historical journey between Russia, South Africa and the UK embodies, almost by definition, a testament of first-hand witness: following in the footsteps of her grandparents, by means of a long correspondence conducted over several pre-war months, Marshall painstakingly pieces together an unbreakable relationship whose strength brokers the pain…

The Pheasant breaking cover - its fluster of browns and greys like the unpainted sides of piano keys you only see when it's played. Ali Lewis' poems often reside on the margin of suggestion. That, in 'The Pheasant', he appears to have achingly little to say need not obscure the vista of meaning that his threadbare, but steadily observed, lines open on to.

Nature and conservation writing's biggest UK prize has revealed its 2026 shortlists, with 43 books across six categories vying for honours at a September ceremony at Kent's Elmley Nature Reserve.

Marky Is minic do bhris béal duine a shrón. - Irish proverb Watching this cormorant on the Wharfe hold open its wings to the admiring sun, I recall Marky Malone on his stag night removing his silk suit jacket very slowly to show off his Bullworker pecs to us and the man he'd picked out to fight - who smartly coshed him across his beak and swanned out of the silent public bar…

Yorkshire crime author Roshan Pitteea will travel to Scotland later this month to meet readers and fellow writers at one of the UK's fastest-growing independent author events.

Heredity I am the family face; Flesh perishes, I live on. Projecting trait and trace Through time to times anon, And leaping from place to place Over oblivion.

A change is as good as a rest they say and this novella is certainly a change. If you need waking up, this is the book for you, with its short chapters and fast pace. Despite the narrator’s protestations, it is not an advice manual, not a manual of good advice, at least.

Sleeping Through He wakes, reaches for my hand and says ‘it’s very morning’, which is true.

Abra-Cadabra My mother had more magic in her thumb than the length and breadth of any magician Weaving incredible stories around the dark-green senna brew just to make us slake the ritual Sunday purgative Knowing how to place a cochineal poultice on a fevered forehead Knowing how to measure a belly's symmetry kneading the narah pains away Once my baby sister stuffed a split-pea up her no…

I’ve always thought that George Mallory’s raison d’etre for taking on the onerous burden of Everest’s North Face lacked gravitas; intended to convey an existential compulsion, his now-seminal phrase - ‘because it’s there’ - is inexpressive, listless, inadequate to the task of embodying a matter, quite literally, of life and death.

They’re back, The Thursday Murder Club! The residents of Cooper’s Chase Retirement Village. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron and Ibrahim are on the trail of the baddies once more and, as ever, are aided by Chris and Donna and of course, Bogdan, among others. The familiarity is comforting, like a cup of cocoa on a winter’s day. It’s a new puzzle but you know you’re surrounded by helpful friends.

Happiness ...but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain THOMAS HARDY Cloudless skies, old roses coming into flower, a breeze flicking through The Mayor of Casterbridge. Toasted granary bread with damson jam, a pair of goldfinches on the bird-feeder. The whiff of fennel and rosemary, the farmer’s quad bike leaving the field.

2026 marks the centenary of a landmark in Scottish literature, though so far little appears to be happening to mark the occasion. Hugh MacDiarmid, whose A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle reshaped Scottish poetry through inventive language and modernist ambition, might not have been surprised by the lack of fanfare.

Harrogate International Festivals today announced the 18 titles longlisted for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award 2026, the UK and Ireland’s most prestigious crime fiction award, now in its twenty second year.

Did she fall or did she jump? Accident or suicide? This novel begins in the court room as the Coroner tries to determine the answer. Lisa Wright was a talented violist who fell – or jumped – from a cliff top while out on a training run.

A multi-billion pound arms deal between two governments, art forgery, vendetta and vengeance, corruption and murder, wrongful imprisonment: this novel has them all, set as it is in stately homes, an art gallery, the corridors of government and other, more seedy, locations.

Thirlmere After we lit the last candle the gales couldn't hold us any more. Along the lanes the walls had begun to slump, water sluicing through them green as grass, but we drove through anyway and out into the valley. The fields were polished flat. Trees were hung with drooping ropes of fleece that caught the breeze like kudzu.

Liam Hughes’ wonderful new take on the medical profession as viewed from the assured, if not patrician, perspective of an informed backward glance corroborates at least one long-held suspicion: that its staff, because permanently beleaguered, are amongst the most sardonic of humourists.

The Women’s Prize Trust – the registered charity building a better future by championing women’s writing – has revealed the longlist for the 2026 Women’s Prize for Fiction. The Prize is the greatest celebration of female creativity in the world, and is sponsored by Audible and Baileys.

A Yorkshire author, who is passionate about railway history, has just published a book celebrating the ground-breaking launch of the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1825. Mixing historical fact and fiction, Neil McGoohan's The Iron Horse is a riveting account of how the very first railway in the world was funded and built.

This novel is based on the Salem Witch Trials, a tragic period of American history. It is made all the more personal because the author, Kathleen Kent, is a direct descendant of Martha Carrier who was accused of being a witch, tried and ultimately put to death.