National Network for Equitable Library Service

In the wild there is no safety. The otter cub Tarka grows up with his mother and sisters, learning to swim, catch fish - and to fear the cry of the hunter and the flash of the metal trap. Soon he must fend for himself, travelling through rivers, woods, moors, ponds and out to sea, sometimes with the female otters White-tip and Greymuzzle, always on the run. Eventually, chased by a pack of hounds, he meets his nemesis, the fearsome dog Deadlock, and must fight for his life.

From the brilliantly unconventional Nicola Barker, the short stories in 'Love Your Enemies' present a loving depiction of the beautiful, the grotesque and the utterly bizarre in the lives of overlooked suburban Britons. Layla Carter, 16, from North London, is utterly overwhelmed by her plus-size nose.

'A comic masterpiece' —Patrick Gale, Guardian. Pillar of society and stern upholder of Victorian values, god-fearing Norfolk merchant John Barnard presides over a large and largely unhappy family. This is their story—his brandy-swilling wife, their hapless offspring, and their changing fortunes—over the decades. Sylvia Townsend Warner's last novel, The Flint Anchor, gloriously overturns our ideas of history, family, and storytelling itself.

The Children of Dynmouth - a classic prize-winning novel by William Trevor. Penguin Decades bring you the novels that helped shape modern Britain. The 1970s was a decade of anger and discontent. Britain endured power cuts and strikes. America pulled out of Vietnam and saw its President resign from office. Feminism and face lifts vied for women's hearts (and minds). And for many, prog rock, punk and disco weren't just music but ways of life.

Henry Green considered *Concluding* the finest of all his books. *Concluding*—set in a single summer day—has at its heart old Mr. Rock, a famous retired scientist who lives in a cottage on the grounds of a girls' boarding school. Living with him is Elizabeth, his somewhat unstrung granddaughter; his white cat; his white goose; and Daisy, his white pig. Miss Edge and Miss Baker—the two inseparable spinster harpies who run the school—scheme to dislodge him from the cottage.

In the course of her brilliant career Sylvia Townsend Warner wrote superbly in many and diverse forms but never penned a memoir, properly speaking. However, from the 1930s to the 1970s she did contribute a series of short reminiscences to the New Yorker. Scenes of Childhood collects and orders those reminiscences, thus forming a volume that reads as a joyous, wry and moving testament to the experience of being alive.

Other People's Worlds by William Trevor - a classic early novel by one of the world's greatest writers. What chance has a nice middle-class woman got against a determined conman? 47-year-old widow, Julia, is about to remarry, much to the delight and relief of her daughters. But her mother has suspicions about Francis which she keeps to herself. Perhaps wrongly: if she'd shared her feelings with her daughter the disaster might have been avoided.

The acclaimed, bestselling rock-and-roll biographer delivers the first complete, unexpurgated history of the world’s greatest band. The saga of the Rolling Stones is the central epic in rock mythology. From their debut as the intermission band at London’s Marquee Club in 1962 through their latest record-setting *Bridges to Babylon* world tour, the Rolling Stones have defined a musical genre and experienced godlike adulation, quarrels, addiction, legal traumas, and descents into madness and death—while steadfastly refusing to fade away.

Next to Nature, Art is the fourth novel by Booker Prize winning author Penelope Lively. Run by Toby and Paula, the centre offers ordinary people a chance to learn from professional artists skilled in poetry, sculpture, ceramics, and the like. Artists like Greg, the New England poet, whose works are strangely absent; or Bob the lascivious potter who sells his Toby jugs to department stores. As the latest group of students arrives, tensions begin to run high and artistic temperaments are much on display.

Judgement Day is the third novel by Booker Prize winning author Penelope Lively. Settled into the drowsy village life of Laddenham, where she is playing camp follower to her highly successful husband - clever, agnostic and interested - Clare Paling discovers that small communities offer interesting sideshows of adultery, gossip and carefully adhered to pecking orders. It takes the pageant celebrating the church's fourth centenary and an unpardonable death to remind Clare, who had almost forgotten, that the world is a very uncertain place.