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.

When in any doubt or perhaps when facing too much choice, it’s a safe bet to reach for an old faithful, so I did just that when I picked this Grisham from the TBR pile by the bed. For the uninitiated, TBR means To Be Read or should that be BTBR – Begging To Be Read.

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.

The Old Pantry Sun angles for a perch of glass, Cups alight on their scroll hooks. Life transfers to bone china Her sparkling buds and lustres. Oilcloth glistens to cut scraps of light, A dimmed or glittering stillness, But from the dark, the recessed silence, White food floats dim surfaces.

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.

When I Land in Northern Ireland When I land in Northern Ireland I long for cigarettes, for the blue plume of smoke hitting the lung with a thud and, God, the quickening blood as the stream administers the nicotine. Stratus shadows darkening the crops when coming in to land, coming in to land.

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.

Simon Armitage’s ‘The Moon and the Zoo’ explores the enduring connection between wildlife and people in honour of conservation charity’s anniversary British Poet Laureate Simon Armitage has written a major new poem celebrating wildlife - and the responsibility we all have to protect it - to mark the 200th anniversary of international conservation charity ZSL.

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.

She has worked alongside British intelligence, been befriended — and duped — by a real spy, and watched her government blow up buildings in the Welsh countryside. Now, with her latest thriller, The Hiding Season, Ava Glass is bringing the shadowy world of espionage to Yorkshire.

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.

A Winter Night It was a chilly winter's night; And frost was glittering on the ground, And evening stars were twinkling bright; And from the gloomy plain around Came no sound, But where, within the wood-girt tow'r, The churchbell slowly struck the hour; As if that all of human birth Had risen to the final day, And soaring from the worn-out earth Were called in hurry and dismay, Far away…

The Only English Kid When the debate got going on ‘Englishness’, I’d pity the only English kid – poor Johnny in his spotless Reeboks and blue Fred Perry.

This sequel to The Unpicking, which I have previously reviewed, begins quite differently.

Ground Gives Bauman’s Tetley lecture on his Liquid Modernity, how free-floating anxiety is our condition now, brought Heaney’s ‘Anything Can Happen’ to mind, its phrase ‘Ground gives’. Anybody who stepped on an icy pool, believing it strong enough to hold their weight, discovers liquid modernity’s meaning in a gut-churning rush as knowledge swamps faith.