Nigel Slater
Eating For England

The British have a relationship with their food that is unlike that of any other country. Once something that was never discussed in polite company, it is now something with which the nation is obsessed. But are we at last developing a food culture or are we just going through the motions? Eating for England is a celebration of the glories, humour, eccentricities and embarrassments that make up the extraordinary thing that is the British at table.

Alexander McCall Smith
The Miracle at Speedy Motors

When Precious Ramotswe, the best-known lady detective in Botswana, receives a threatening anonymous letter, she has to reconsider her belief in a kind world and good neighbours. And while she ponders the identity of the letter-writer, Mma Ramotswe has a further set of problems to solve: there is an adopted child's poignant search for her true family, and Mr J. L. B. Matekoni's pursuit of an expensive miracle for their own foster daughter, Motholeli.

As a child Jessica Fontaine is only content playing the piano, or wandering alone in the empty spaces of Audlands Hall, the dilapidated country house owned by her parents. Twenty-five years later, divorced, and with a son still living at home, Jessica remains preoccupied by her need for physical and emotional space. Then her volatile ex­husband reappears, the first in a series of surprises that transform Jessica's present and her perspective on the past. This absorbing story gives a fresh, illuminating insight into what it means to be 'normal'.