William Wordsworth,  Dorothy Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge,  Robert Southey and  Charles Lamb – the English ‘lake poets’ – were famously inspired by the landscape of the English Lake District in the first half of the nineteenth century.

This beautifully produced anthology of their work includes favourites such as ‘I Wander’d Lonely as a Cloud’ and ‘Kubla Khan,’ as well as extracts from letters and journals. Introduced by James Rebanks, who grew up in the region, it is the perfect companion for visitors to the Lakes and a delightful gift for poetry lovers.  

‘We always believe that changing our mind is an improvement, bringing a greater truthfulness to our dealings with the world and other people. It puts an end to vacillation, uncertainty, weak-mindedness. It seems to make us stronger and more mature. Well, we would think that, wouldn’t we?’

In this engaging and erudite essay, critically acclaimed writer Julian Barnes explores what is involved when we change our minds: about words, about politics, about books; about memories, age and time.

‘The dilemma my friends suppose me to be in,’ writes the author of  Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, ‘has, for its two horns, the endurance of a sleepless night, and the adoption of some recipe for inducing sleep.’ In this delightful book – the perfect gift for all insomniacs -  are collected a splendid variety of entertainments devised to help pass ‘the wakeful hours’. Ranging from  puzzles, rhymes and limericks to simple number problems and calming calculations; from composing rhymes to planning dreams, here is a feast of intriguing activities  guaranteed to keep you entertained as you search for the elusive rabbit-hole of a good night’s sleep.

A. A. Milne was a successful writer long before the classic Winnie-the-Pooh stories made him famous. Milne had a talent for regularly turning out a thousand whimsical words on lost hats and umbrellas, golf, married life, cheap cigars, and any amount of life’s little difficulties. This anthology, spanning four decades of Milne’s life, includes his fiercely argued writings on pacifism.  Happy Half-Hours  features the very best of A. A. Milne in one delightful volume.

“Milne’s gift to write amusingly about the  most trivial things is a kind of blessing.  The kind that can put you back together again  when all else fails.” -Frank Cottrell-Boyce, from his introduction