Wicksy and the king's shilling

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Stephen Fry

"Stephen Fry has already given readers a taste of his tumultuous adolescence in his autobiographical first novel, The Liar, and now he reveals the equally tumultuous life that inspired it. Sent to boarding school at the age of seven, he survived beatings, misery, love affairs, carnal violation, expulsion, attempted suicide, criminal conviction and imprisonment to emerge, at the age of eighteen, ready to start over in a world in which he had always felt a stranger. One of very few Cambridge University graduates to have been imprisoned prior to his freshman year, Fry is a character who continues to attract controversy, empathy and real devotion.

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Adrian Bristow

"It was while we lived in Herbert Road that I acquired my toy box ... It was quite large enough for me to climb into and it became by turns a boat, a cave or a house, according to which story or character was exercising my imagination at the time."Suburban Boy is the charming story of a bygone era, of a boy who grew up in south-east London in the 1930s. Adrian Bristow came from that great unsung mass - the lower middle-class. He grew up in the years before the war, a time of rising standards of living, burgeoning home ownership and social mobility. It was a time when there was respect for authority and a strong consciousness of nation and empire.

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Jeanette Winterson

Memories of the author about her difficult childhood as the adopted daughter of an English mother with strong religious convictions, and her subsequent search for her biological mother.

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James W. Taylor

"In this book, based on recently released files from the British Public Record Office, James Taylor covers the history of the 1st Royal Irish Rifles from 1914 to 1919. The battalion (comprised of men from all backgrounds, both north and south) arrived at the front in November 1914, and was involved in the famous Christmas truce of that year. For the next four years it fought almost continuously at places such as Neuve Chapelle, Fromelles, Somme, Pilkem Ridge, Langemarck and Passchendaele, suffering horrific casualties." "In addition to its narrative, the book gives biographical details on nearly 300 officers, including medical officers and chaplains (this information, unfortunately, generally is not available for the enlisted men). A series of appendices complete the picture. Apart from the awards and casualty lists, there are details of the 301 men who were court-martialled, including a transcript of the trial of the only member to be executed."--Jacket.