Bill Bryson
At Home

Most of history really consists of people quietly going about their daily business – eating, sleeping, having sex, endeavouring to be amused. So Bill Bryson considers how the ordinary things in life came to be. At Home is an inwards look at all human life through a domestic telescope. Because our homes aren’t refuges from history. They are where history begins and ends. Published simultaneously with the hardback edition.

Anthony Burke & John Rendall
A Lion Called Christian

A Lion Called Christian relates how Anthony ‘Ace’ Bourke and John Rendall visited London from Australia in 1969 and bought a boisterous lion cub in Harrods. For a while, the three of them lived together as flatmates on the King’s Road, Chelsea, where Christian became a local celebrity. But he was growing up, fast, and even the church garden in which he exercised was becoming too small for him. How could Ace and John avoid incarcerating him in a zoo for the rest of his life? Originally published in 1971, A Lion Called Christian has been fully updated.

Jonathan Coe
The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim

Maxwell Sim seems to have hit rock bottom. Estranged from his father, newly divorced, unable to communicate with his only daughter, he realises that while he may have 74 friends on Facebook, there is nobody in the world with whom he can actually share his problems. Then a business proposition comes his way that will require him to drive to the Shetland Isles. Setting out with an open mind and a friendly voice on his SatNav for company, Maxwell finds that this journey soon takes a more serious turn. Published simultaneously with the hardback edition.