Grumpy Old Rock Star: and Other Wondrous Stories
by Rick Wakeman

Around about August 1948, Mr and Mrs Cyril Wakeman had an early night and some time later, at Perivale in Middlesex, Mrs Wakeman produced a bonny baby son. They named him Richard, but he quickly became known as Rick.

Rick was a likeable little fellow who had a talent for the piano and for making trouble. Music became Rick's life - he joined a popular music group called Yes and became a legend. Much later he became a Grumpy Old Man who appears on Countdown, hosts a hugely popular radio show on Planet Rock and performs a one-man show telling stories about his rather extraordinary life.

Which is where this book you are holding comes in. Mr Wakeman is simply one of the great storytellers of our age - let's face it, he has some fabulous material. It seemed a shame that some of the funniest yarns should not be more widely known. So he accepted some cash and here we are.

Curl up by the fire with a Grumpy Old Rock Star and your nearest and dearest. We defy you not to want to read it aloud and laugh.

Grumpy Old Rock Star: and Other Wondrous Stories
by Rick Wakeman

Around about August 1948, Mr and Mrs Cyril Wakeman had an early night and some time later, at Perivale in Middlesex, Mrs Wakeman produced a bonny baby son. They named him Richard, but he quickly became known as Rick.

Rick was a likable little fellow who had a talent for the piano and for making trouble, and music became Rick's life. Later he joined a popular music group called Yes and became a legend. Much later he became a Grumpy Old Man who appears on Countdown, hosts a hugely popular radio show on Planet Rock and performs a one-man show telling stories about his rather extraordinary life.

Which is where this book you are holding comes in. Mr Wakeman is simply one of the great storytellers of our age - let's face it, he has some fabulous material. It seemed a shame that some of the funniest yarns should not be more widely known. So he accepted some cash and here we are.

Curl up by the fire with a Grumpy Old Rock Star and your nearest and dearest. We defy you not to want to read it aloud and laugh.

Halcyon River Diaries
by Philippa Forrester and Charlie Hamilton James

A mayfly dances above honey-gold water in the evening sunshine; a kingfisher plunges into the sparkling depths to emerge with a struggling minnow in its orange beak; an otter slips silently through reeds; a family of moorhens paddles to its night-time lodgings. Here is the perfect, idyllic scene of a British river in summertime captured with love and astonishing skill by two of the leading wildlife filmmakers of our age.

Halcyon River Diaries was commissioned following the phenomenally successful and award-winning My Halcyon River an intimate portrait of a secret world along a river in Britain, where otters hunt on the midnight current, mink lie in wait to ambush unwary victims and gleaming kingfishers pierce the water to spear their prey. Deemed as one of the most beautiful films at the Wildscreen festival, 2004, My Halcyon River was the winner of the Kodak Cinematography Award.

Halcyon River Diaries is an evocative look at the wildlife of a typical English river, through the eyes of Philippa and Charlie's family, including their three young sons Fred, Gus and Arthur, who live beside it. Over the period of a year we experience life on the river following the same group of animal characters as they navigate the seasons, as well as seeing how Philippa and Charlie's passion for the river extends into every part of their family life.

Hawksmoor at Home: Meat - Seafood - Sides - Breakfasts - Puddings - Cocktails
by Huw Gott, Will Beckett, Richard Turner, Photos by Dan Lepard

Hawsmoor at Home should be covered in fingerprints and splashes of food, as it's a great hands-on book to use every day.' HESTON BLUMENTHAL

'When we started out we had a simple plan - to open the best steak restaurant in London. We travelled the world searching for the perfect steak, but discovered that beef from traditional breeds, reared the old-fashioned way right here in Britain, and cooked simply over real charcoal, packed more flavour than anything we tried on our travels.'

The critics have hailed Hawksmoor as one of the great restaurant openings of recent years. Their credo is simple: the best ingredients - dictionary-thick steaks from Longhorn cattle traditionally reared in North Yorkshire by multi-award-winners The Ginger Pig, dry-aged for at least thirty-five days, simply cooked on a real charcoal grill. Their cocktails, wines and desserts too have been applauded to the echo.

Hawksmoor at Home is a practical cookbook which shows you how to buy and cook great steak and seafood and indeed much else (including how to cook the both the 'best burger in Britain' and the 'best roast beef in Britain'); how to mix terrific cocktails and choose wine to accompany your meal. Above all Hawksmoor at Home entertains and informs in the inimitable 'Hawksmoor' way.

Hellraisers: The Life and Inebriated Times of Burton, Harris, O'Toole and Reed
by Robert Sellers

'God put me on this earth to raise sheer hell.' Richard Burton
'I was a sinner. I slugged some people. I hurt many people. And it's true, I never looked back to see the casualties.' Richard Harris
'Booze is the most outrageous of all drugs, which is why I chose it.' Peter O'Toole
'I don't have a drink problem. But if that was the case and doctors told me I had to stop I'd like to think I would be brave enough to drink myself into the grave.' Oliver Reed

This is the story of four of the greatest thespian boozers who ever walked - or staggered - off a film set into a pub. It's a story of drunken binges of near biblical proportions, parties and orgies, broken marriages, drugs, riots and wanton sexual conquests. They got away with it because of their extraordinary acting talent and because the public loved them. They were truly the last of a breed, the last of the movie hellraisers.