Some people's lives are entirely their own creations. James Rebanks' isn't. The first son of a shepherd, who was the first son of a shepherd himself, he and his family have lived and worked in and around the Lake District for generations. Their way of life is ordered by the seasons and the work they demand, and has been for hundreds of years.

A collection of stories. Set in Italy in the summer of 1940, it explores the relationships between the different generations caught up in the war as well as the author's own experiences as a teenager. It features such stories as: "Into the War", "The Avanguardisti in Menton" and "UNPA Nights".

Steinbeck's first posthumously published work, The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights is a reinterpretation of tales from Malory's Morte d'Arthur. In this highly successful attempt to render Malory into Modern English, Steinbeck recreated the rhythm and tone of the original Middle English.

Explores the immediate and urgent concerns: the future of democracy in the Arab world, the implications of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the 'class war' fought by US business interests against working people and the poor, the breakdown of mainstream political institutions and the rise of the far right.