'A joyous collection of essays celebrating the sanctuary of the women's pond on Hampstead Heath.' - New Statesman

Tucked away along a shady path towards the north-east edge of Hampstead Heath is a sign: Women Only. This is the Kenwood Ladies' Bathing Pond.

Floating in the Pond's silky waters, hidden by a canopy of trees, it's easy to forget that you are in the middle of London. On a hot day, thousands of swimmers from eight to eighty-plus can be found waiting to take a dip before sunbathing in the adjoining meadow. As summer turns to autumn and then winter, the Pond is still visited by a large number of hardy regulars in high-vis hats, many of whom have been swimming here for decades.

In these essays we see the Pond from the perspectives of writers who have swum there. Esther Freud describes the life-affirming sensation of swimming through the seasons; Lou Stoppard pays tribute to the winter swimmers who break the ice; Margaret Drabble reflects on the golden Hampstead days of her youth; Sharlene Teo visits for the first time; and Nell Frizzell shares the view from her yellow lifeguard's canoe.

Combining personal reminiscence with reflections on the history of the place over the years and through the changing seasons, At the Pond captures fourteen contemporary writers' impressions of this unique place.

"Nothing can go missing. No wool, no kits. Especially no needles" Lady Anne Tree - one of the most aristocratic women in England - spent her life in prisons. As a visitor, she saw first-hand the aggression, low self-esteem, and high reoffending rates among the most hardened criminals. Lady Anne thought she had the answer. She would teach them needlecraft. Based on a true story, this is an inspiring and heart-warming debut play by best-selling novelist Esther Freud, directed by BAFTA-winning filmmaker Gaby Dellal. Praise for Esther Freud. "A superbly gifted writer" NEW YORK TIMES "Fresh, witty, involving and touching" INDEPENDENT Esther Freud's first novel Hideous Kinky was made into a film starring Kate Winslet. Granta named her one of the Best Young Novelists under 40. She has since written seven novels, including The Sea House, Love Falls, Lucky Break and most recently Mr Mac & Me.

An unforgettable novel of mothers and daughters, wives and muses, secrets and outright lies 'Freud is a modern literary rarity: a born storyteller' THE TIMES 'Such a powerful book' RICHARD CURTIS 'Delivers an emotional punch that left me in tears' RACHEL JOYCE 'Utterly compelling' HANNAH ROTHSCHILD 'I couldn't love it more' POLLY SAMSON 'I loved this book' AMANDA CRAIG 'Completely, inspiringly wonderful' BARBARA TRAPIDO 'Breathtakingly beautiful' JULIET NICOLSON AN EVENING STANDARD BOOK OF 2021 Rosaleen is still a teenager, in the early Sixties, when she meets the famous sculptor Felix Lichtman. Felix is dangerous, bohemian, everything she dreamed of in the cold nights at her Catholic boarding school. And at first their life together is glitteringly romantic - drinking in Soho, journeying to Marseilles. But it's not long before Rosaleen finds herself fearfully, unexpectedly alone. Desperate, she seeks help from the only source she knows, the local priest, and is directed across the sea to Ireland on a journey that will seal her fate. Kate lives in Nineties London, stumbling through her unhappy marriage. But something has begun to stir in her. Close to breaking point, she sets off on a journey of her own, not knowing what she hopes to find. Aoife sits at her husband's bedside as he lies dying, and tells him the story of their marriage. But there is a crucial part of the story missing and time is running out. Aoife needs to know: what became of Rosaleen? Spanning three generations of women, I Couldn't Love You More is an unforgettable novel about love, motherhood, secrets and betrayal - and how only the truth can set us free.

'A compelling tale beautifully told, Mr Mac & Me is as close to a perfect novel as anything I've read in a long time. I loved every page of it' Ann Patchett Set on the Suffolk coastline in 1914, a compelling story of an unlikely friendship from the Granta Best of Young British author of Hideous Kinky and The Sea House Thomas Maggs, the son of the local publican, lives with his parents and sister in a village on the Suffolk coast in 1914. He is the youngest child, and the only son surviving. Life is quiet - shaped by the seasons, fishing and farming and the summer visitors. Then one day a mysterious Scotsman arrives. To Thomas he looks for all the world like a detective, in his black cape and hat of felted wool, and the way he puffs on his pipe as if he's Sherlock Holmes. Mac is what the locals call him when they whisper about him in the inn. And whisper they do, for he sets off on his walks at unlikely hours, and stops to examine the humblest flowers. He is seen on the beach, staring out across the waves as if he's searching for clues. But Mac isn't a detective. He's the architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and together with his red-haired artist wife, they soon become a source of fascination and wonder to Thomas. Yet just as Thomas and Mac's friendship begins to blossom, war with Germany is declared. The summer guests flee and are replaced by regiments of soldiers on their way to Belgium, and as the brutality of war weighs increasingly heavily on this coastal community, they become more suspicious of Mac and his curious behaviour... In this tender and compelling story of an unlikely friendship, Esther Freud paints a vivid portrait of a home front community during the First World War, and of a man who was one of the most brilliant and misunderstood artists of his generation.

It is July, three months after Lara's seventeenth birthday, and a week before Charles and Diana's Royal Wedding. When Lara's father, a man she barely knows, invites her to accompany him on holiday, she finds herself far away from the fumes of London's Holloway Road in the sun-scorched hillsides of Tuscany. There she meets the Willoughby family, rife with illicit alliances and vendettas. The more embroiled Lara becomes with them, and with the carelessly beautiful Kip, the more consumed she is with doubt, curiosity and dread. And so begins her intoxicating, troubled journey into self discovery and across the very fine line between childhood and what lies beyond.

The architect Klaus Lehmann loves his wife, Elsa, with a passion that continues throughout their married life, despite long periods of separation. Almost half a century after Lehmann's death in the village of Steerborough, a young woman, Lily, arrives to research his life and work. Poring over Klaus's letters to Elsa, Lily pieces together the story of their lives. And alone in her rented cottage by the sea, she begins to sense an absence in her own life that may not be filled by simply going home.

From the author of "Hideous Kinky" comes a charming, surprising, and utterly irresistible tale of adolescent love and self-discovery.

When seventeen-year-old Lara accepts her father's invitation to accom-pany him to a Tuscan villa for the summer, she's both thrilled and nervous for the exotic holiday. To her delight, she soon discovers that the villa's closest neighbors are the glamorous Willoughbys, the teenaged brood of a British millionaire. Caught up in their torrential thirst for amusement--and snared by Kip Willoughby's dark, flirtatious eyes--Lara sets off on a summer adven-ture full of danger, first love, and untold consequen-ces that will irrevocably change her life.

It is 1914, and Thomas Maggs lives with his parents on the Suffolk coast. Life is quiet - shaped by the seasons. Then one day a mysterious Scotsman arrives, looking for all the world like Sherlock Holmes. Mac is what the locals call him as they whisper. But Mac isn't a detective, he's the architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and together with his red haired artist wife, they soon become a source of fascination and wonder to Thomas.

Two little girls are taken by their mother to Morocco on a ’60s pilgrimage of self-discovery. For Mum it is not just an escape from the grinding conventions of English life but a quest for personal fulfillment; her children, however, seek something more solid and stable amidst the shifting desert sands.

Sixteen-year-old Lisa has high hopes for her first year in London. But squeezed into a temporary council flat with her bohemian mother and a little brother obsessed with foxes, she is not off to the best start. Ambitious to be more like her elusive, glamorous sister, Ruby, who lives life to the full, Lisa trails through the city, dabbling with drugs and romance, and refusing to lose faith in her belief that something fantastic will happen to mark the rest of her life.

The debut novel from the author of "Summer at Gaglow, " called "a near-seamless meshing of family feeling, history and imagination" by the "New York Times" Book Review. Escaping gray London in 1972, a beautiful, determined mother takes her daughters, aged 5 and 7, to Morocco in search of adventure, a better life, and maybe love. "Hideous Kinky" follows two little English girls -- the five-year-old narrator and Bea, her seven-year-old sister -- as they struggle to establish some semblance of normal life on a trip to Morocco with their hippie mother, Julia. Once in Marrakech, Julia immerses herself in Sufism and her quest for personal fulfillment, while her daughters rebel -- the older by trying to recreate her English life, the younger by turning her hopes for a father on a most unlikely candidate.

Shocking and wonderful, "Hideous Kinky" is at once melancholy and hopeful. A remarkable debut novel from one of England's finest young writers, "Hideous Kinky" was inspired by the author's own experiences as a child. Esther Freud, daughter of the artist Lucian Freud and great-granddaughter of Sigmund Freud, lived in Marrakech for one and a half years with her older sister Bella and her mother. "Hideous Kinky" is now a major motion picture starring Kate Winslet ("Titanic," "Sense and Sensibility").