A group of teenage boys take turns assessing each other's changing bodies before a Friday night disco... A grieving woman strikes up an unlikely friendship with a fellow traveller on a night train to Kiev... An unusually well-informed naturalist is eyed with suspicion by his comrades on a forest exhibition with a higher purpose... The stories shortlisted for the 2021 BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University take place in liminal spaces - their characters find themselves in transit, travelling along flight paths, train lines and roads, or in moments where new opportunities or directions suddenly seem possible. From the reflections of a new mother flying home after a funeral, to an ailing son's reluctance to return to the village of his childhood, these stories celebrate small kindnesses in times of turbulence, and demonstrate a connection between one another that we might sometimes take for granted. The BBC NSSA is one of the most prestigious prizes for a single short story, with the winning author receiving GBP15,000, and four further shortlisted authors GBP600 each. James Runcie is joined on the judging panel by a group of acclaimed writers and critics including: Booker Prize shortlisted novelist Fiona Mozley; award winning writer, poet and winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize, Derek Owusu; multi-award winning Irish novelist and short story writer, Donal Ryan; and returning judge, Di Speirs, Books Editor at BBC Radio.

This book is a treasure trove of English oddities, crammed with the most curious stories, remarkable facts and unexpected goings-on from the country's long and convoluted history. From frogs' legs at Stonehenge to knicker elastic in the Blitz, this is England - the unauthorised biography.

It's 1920s England, and the coastal town of Gravely is finally enjoying a fragile peace after the Great War. John Lowell, a naturalist who writes articles on the flora and fauna of the shoreline, and his wife Harriet lead a simple life, basking in their love for each other and enjoying the company of John's visiting old school friend, David. But when an American whaler arrives in town with his beautiful red-haired daughters, boasting of his plans to build a pier and pleasure-grounds a mile out to sea, unexpected tensions and temptations arise. As secrets multiply, Harriet, John and David must each ask themselves, what price is to be paid for pleasure?

When an American whaler arrives to a British coastal town, the peace of its inhabitants is disrupted. It's 1920s England, and the coastal town of Gravely is finally enjoying a fragile peace after World War I. John Lowell, a naturalist who writes articles on the flora and fauna of the shoreline, and his wife Harriet, lead a simple life, basking in their love for each other and enjoying the company of John's visiting old school friend, David. But when an American whaler arrives in town with his beautiful red-haired daughters, boasting of his plans to build a pier and pleasure-grounds a mile out to sea, unexpected tensions and temptations arise. As secrets multiply, Harriet, John, and David must each ask themselves: what price is to be paid for pleasure?

'Generous, moving and alive. A gift' - Tim Dee, author of Greenery 'Intelligent, thought-provoking and always, always interesting' - Cal Flyn, author of Islands of Abandonment 'Smyth writes with warmth and engaging perception about our relationship and understanding of the natural world on our doorsteps' - Jon Dunn, author of The Glitter in the Green 'Fresh and tender and playful' - Patrick Galbraith, author of In Search of One Last Song Weren't they richer, rock pools, wasn't the seashore busier, when I was a kid? Richard Smyth had always been drawn to the natural world, but when he became a father he found a new joy and a new urgency in showing his kids the everyday wild things around them. As he and his children explore rockpools in Whitley Bay, or the woods and moors near his Yorkshire home, he imagines the world they might inhabit as they grow up. Through different objects discovered on their wanderings - a beech leaf, a jay feather, a limpetshell - Smyth examines his own past as well as that of the early natural historians, weaving together history, memoir, and environmentalism to form a new kind of nature writing: one that asks both what we have lost, and what we have yet to find.

'Beep, beep, beep!' call the tired machines after a busy day on the building site. Follow their journey through to bedtime in this charming book from bestselling author Claire Freedman. Perfect for settling machine-mad children at bedtime.

A beautifully illustrated picture book introducing young children to the concepts of light and dark.

This beautiful picture book is the perfect introduction to light and dark. Fox is hungry. She waits until it’s dark and then she hunts for food, using the moon and the streetlights to find her way. The first book in the new Science Storybook series from Walker Books, illustrated by up-and-coming talent Richard Smythe and written by Martin Jenkins, the award-winning author of Can We Save the Tiger? and Ape.

Grumble grumble went Dozy's tummy. He was hungry! 'I'll go and find some FOOD,' Dozy decided, and off he trotted into the woods. And that's how his adventure began! The curious little Dozy Bear learns the secret of food in this innovative, thoughtful picture book which encourages youngsters to try something new . . . Dozy is hungry, but he doesn't like the food that Mama and Papa bear like. He only wants fish! But can a food adventure with the other animals in the forest change his mind? This charming story gently introduces the idea that trying new foods can be fun - perfect for any parent who has ever struggled at dinnertime.

'Your smile, your lovely smile / Stirs my senses, as if / Waking to the first rays of an alpine sun / On the ridge of my tent, / I enjoy a spreading warmth........ Richard Smythe's imagery goes straight to the heart of what it is like to be human, simply joyful or sad, expectant or fearful, but above all to feel the natural world, in all its wonder, to be a part of oneself in life and, at the end, in one's frailty and death. His poems span a lifetime's experience of music, mountains, teaching and acting from the dark years of the 1940's listening in bed to his mother playing Chopin to the present time when he wonders himself how he himself should be recalled: 'Carve no stone to remember me by / Lest it bruise you...........I would rather you / See me, feel me, like a child spreading his hands / On a couch of summer grass. Inside this slim volume the reader will find an immense variety of subjects and moods, from quiet, philosophical reflection in the Shropshire countryside to a light hearted playing with words, as in the melodramatic portrayal of the cyclical existence of the common earthworm, written to be performed from within a sleeping bag Truly this is a book to be slipped into the pocket to provide pleasure at odd moments during a busy day.

The 18th century was a wealth of knowledge, exploration and rapidly growing technology and expanding record-keeping made possible by advances in the printing press. In its determination to preserve the century of revolution, Gale initiated a revolution of its own: digitization of epic proportions to preserve these invaluable works in the largest archive of its kind. Now for the first time these high-quality digital copies of original 18th century manuscripts are available in print, making them highly accessible to libraries, undergraduate students, and independent scholars.The Age of Enlightenment profoundly enriched religious and philosophical understanding and continues to influence present-day thinking. Works collected here include masterpieces by David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, as well as religious sermons and moral debates on the issues of the day, such as the slave trade. The Age of Reason saw conflict between Protestantism and Catholicism transformed into one between faith and logic -- a debate that continues in the twenty-first century.++++The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to insure edition identification: ++++British LibraryT106974With a half-title.London: printed for J. Robinson, 1752. 30p.; 8

A beautifully illustrated picture book introducing young children to the concepts of light and dark.This beautiful picture book is the perfect introduction to light and dark. Fox is hungry. She waits until it's dark and then she hunts for food, using the moon and the streetlights to find her way. The first book in the new Science Storybook series from Walker Books, illustrated by up-and-coming talent Richard Smythe and written by Martin Jenkins, the award-winning author of Can We Save the Tiger? and Ape.

A Guardian `Readers' Choice' Best Book of 2017; Birdsong is the soundtrack to our world. We have tried to capture its fleeting, ephemeral beauty, and the feelings it inspires, for millennia.; In this captivating and lively account, Richard Smyth explores science, music, literature, landscape and the thousand different ways in which birdsong has moved us. A bright song on a lonely street can lift our mood, bringing comfort, wonder or joy. But can we learn to listen, really listen, to what the birds are saying? Or do they just tell us back our own tales?