Hitchhiker

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Philip Tew, Fiona Tolan and Leigh Wilson

A collection of interviews with contemprary British novelists offering a fascinating insight into bestselling authors' views on fiction today.

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Michael Coveney

"No one does glamour, severity, girlish charm or tight-lipped witticism better than Dame Maggie Smith. Michael Coveney's biography shines a light on the life and career of a truly remarkable performer, one whose stage and screen career spans six decades. From her days as a West End star of comedy and revue, Dame Maggie's path would cross with those of the greatest actors, playwrights and directors of the era. Whether stealing scenes from Richard Burton, answering back to Laurence Olivier, or playing opposite Judi Dench in Breath of Life, her career can be seen as a 'Who's Who' of British theatre. Her film and television career are just as starry. From the title character in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and the meddling chaperone in A Room With a View to the Harry Potter films in which she played Minerva McGonagall (as she put it 'Miss Jean Brodie in a wizard's hat') and the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel films in which she played the wise Muriel Donnelly, Smith has thrilled, engaged and made audiences laugh. As Violet Crawley, the formidable Dowager Countess of Downton Abbey she conquered millions more. Paradoxically she remains an enigmatic figure, rarely appearing in public. Michael Coveney's absorbing biography, written with the actress's blessing and drawing on personal archives, as well as interviews with immediate family and close friends, is a portrait of one of the greatest actors of our time"--

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Brenda Ashford

Brenda Ashford is the quintessential British nanny. Prim and proper, gentle and kind, she seems to have stepped straight out of Mary Poppins. For more than six decades, Nanny Brenda swaddled, diapered, dressed, played with, sang to, cooked for, and looked after more than one hundred children. From the pampered sons and daughters of lords ensconced in their grand estates, to tough East End evacuees during the war, Brenda taught countless little ones to be happy, healthy, and thoroughly well-bred. Knowing a career caring for children was her only calling in life, Brenda attended London's prestigious Norland Institute, famous for producing top-class nannies. It was a sign of privilege and taste for the children of the well-to-do to be seen being pushed in their Silver Cross prams by a Norland nanny -- recognizable by their crisp, starched black uniforms with white bib collars, and their flowing black capes lined with red silk. Sprinkled throughout with pearls of wisdom (children can never have too much love, and learn how to sew a button, for goodness' sake) this delightful memoir from Britain's oldest living nanny is practically perfect in every way.

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Shirley Williams

Shirley Williams was born to politics. As well as being influenced by her mother, Vera Brittain, her father George Caitlin, a leading political scientist, encouraged his daughter to have high ambitions for herself - including daring to climb the bookshelves in his library. Elected as MP for Hitchin in 1964, she was a member of the Wilson and Callaghan governments and was also the Secretary of State for Education. As one of the 'Gang of Four' Shirley Williams famously broke away from the Labour Party to found the SDP in 1981 and later supported its merger with the Liberal Party to form the Liberal Democrats -- globalbooksinprint.com.