‘Craftland’ James Fox

Hardback, Bodley Head, £25

Britain was once a craft land. For generations what we made with our hands shaped our identities, built our communities and defined our regions.

Craftland chronicles the vanishing skills and traditions that used to govern every aspect of life on these shores.

Travelling from the Isles of Scilly to the Scottish Highlands, we are reminded of wonderful skills honed by Bogeymen (transporters of ingots) and Gadgers (sewers of cloth hats), Mellors (stone breakers) through to Yowlers (thatcher's assistants).

Illustrated and meticulously researched and referenced, this is a beautiful journey through Britain’s lost arts and vanishing trades.

Limited signed copies available whilst stock lasts.

‘Fires Which Burned Brightly’ by Sebastian Faulks

Hardback, Cornerstone, £20

Sebastian Faulks, a reluctant memoirist, offers a series of detailed snapshots from a life in progress.

They include a post-war rural childhood – ‘cold mutton and wet washing on a rack over the range’ – the booze-sodden heyday of Fleet Street and a career as an acclaimed novelists.

There are two daring escapes from boarding school; the delirium of a jetlagged American book tour; the writing of Birdsong in his brother’s house in 1992; and memorable trips across the channel to France.

Politics, psychiatry and frustrated ventures into the world of entertainment are analysed with patience and rueful humour.

Limited signed copies available whilst stock lasts.