A beautiful collection of 100 pieces of writing - poems, prose, letters, speeches, song lyrics, quotations, and more - from Shakespeare to Dr Seuss and from Oliver Jeffers to Rosa Parks, which are in turn powerful, funny, moving, wise, and thought-provoking - a perfect way to inspire a life-long love of reads, expertly curated and with accessible, thoughtful commentary by Nicolette Jones, children's book critic for The Sunday Times.

Raymond Briggs has changed the face of children's picture books, with his innovations of both form and subject. Stylistically versatile, he has illustrated some sixty books, twenty of them with his own text, and first became a household name in the late 1970s and early 1980s with a handful of books - Father Christmas, Fungus the Bogeyman, The Snowman, When the Wind Blows - that were entertaining and subversive and appealed to both children and adults. The refrains of his work are class, family, love and loss. Nevertheless, his default mode of expression is humour. Briggs is always funny, and the balance between this and melancholy is his defining characteristic, though his style ranges from the romantic to the grotesque, from the fanciful to the direct. Encompassing sixty years of Raymond Briggs's work, from political picturebooks to children's classics, this study explores his themes of class, family and loss, and how he demonstrates both emotional power and great technical skill.

London today is embattled as rarely before. In a city of enormous wealth, poverty is rampant. The burnt-out hulk of Grenfell Tower stands as an appalling reminder that inequality can be so acute as to be murderous. Here, Claire Armitstead has drawn together fiction, reportage and poetry to capture the schisms defining the contemporary city. With nearly 40% of the capital's population born outside the country, Tales of Two Londons eschews what Armitstead labels a "tyranny of tone," emphasising voices rarely heard. Featuring writers such as Ali Smith, Jon Snow, Arifa Akbar and Ruth Padel alongside stories from previously unpublished immigrants and refugees, this is a compelling collection which captures the fabric of the city: its housing, its food, its pubs, its buses, even its graveyards.

In 1965, British artist and university lecturer John Jones left the UK with his wife and daughters to live in the US for a year and interview some 100 artists. There the family lived in Greenwich Village, and spent three months on a road trip west to visit artists beyond the immediate reach of New York. Some of the artists (Yoko Ono and Claes Oldenberg for instance) became John Jones's personal friends. Jones's daughter Nicolette was young, but her memories of New York and their trans-American adventure are vivid. Published here for the first time, this book presents a fascinating selection of Jones's edited conversations with American artists practising in 1965-6. A foreword by Nicolette Jones contextualises the setting in which these interviews took place, and a further introduction amalgamated from Jones's lecutres in which he drew on these conversations, illustrates and explores the range of contrasting ideas behind what became known as Pop Art. Thanks to his personal interaction with the artists, and his knowledge of their work, Jones became the foremost expert in the art of this period in the UK. Amidst a unique family story, this is art presented not through the filter of art critics, but from the mouths of the practitioners. Jones's interviews explore a specific place and time: the USA in the 1960s, and are crucial reading for those wishing to understand the decade, the influence of American art and the British tradition on each other, and also anyone interested in the famous figures of the time, and the thinking that gave rise to this extraordinarily fertile creative moment.

This enthusiastically reviewed, scrupulously researched and prize-winning book, which was a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week, chronicles a resonant episode of Victorian history. It is the tale of the agitation led by Samuel Plimsoll MP, 'The Sailor's Friend', and by his wife Eliza, who worked together to defend sailors against nefarious practices including overloading and the use of unseaworthy 'coffin-ships'. The backlash of libel cases and vilification almost ruined Plimsoll, but his drive and passion made him feverishly popular with the public; he was the subject of plays, novels, street ballads and music hall songs. With the demonstrative support of the nation, he faced down his enemies, came close to ousting Disraeli's government and achieved lasting safety measures for merchant sailors, including the load line that bears his name. Nicolette Jones throws light on a cross-section of Victorian society and tells the story of an epic legal, social, and political battle for justice, which is still an inspiring example of how the altruism and courage of determined individuals can make the world a better place.

Whilst out playing in the countryside, five children come across a Psammead called 'It' - a cantankerous little sand fairy who agrees to grant them one wish every day, though its effects will only last until sunset. The possibilities seem endless to the adventurous siblings but whatever their wishes, whether it's having piles of money, growing wings, or disposing of their annoying infant brother, their days never seem to go as planned. Indeed, the consequences of all their wishes lead the children into many thrilling and often hilarious escapades. Edith Nesbit was inspired by her own five children to write this enchanting novel, and its warm and funny portrayal of a magical childhood has ensured its presence in print ever since. This beautifully illustrated Macmillan Collector's Library edition of Five Children and It features the drawings of H. R. Millar, and an afterword by writer, critic and broadcaster Nicolette Jones. Designed to appeal to the book lover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautiful gift editions of much loved classic titles. Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure.