Three and half weeks. Three hundred miles. I saw roaring arterial highway and silent lanes, candlelit cathedrals and angry men in bad pubs. The Britain of 1936 was a land of beef paste sandwiches and drill halls. Now we are nation of vaping and nail salons, pulled pork and salted caramel. In the autumn of 1936, some 200 men from the Tyneside town of Jarrow marched 300 miles to London in protest against the destruction of their towns and industries. Precisely 80 years on, Stuart Maconie, walks from north to south retracing the route of the emblematic Jarrow Crusade. Travelling down the country’s spine, Maconie moves through a land that is, in some ways, very much the same as the England of the 30s with its political turbulence, austerity, north/south divide, food banks and of course, football mania. Yet in other ways, it is completely unrecognisable. Maconie visits the great cities as well as the sleepy hamlets, quiet lanes and roaring motorways. He meets those with stories to tell and whose voices build a funny, complex and entertaining tale of Britain, then and now.

What kind of country is England today? What does it mean to be English? Are we hungry for change or seeking old certainties? Join Stuart Maconie on an enlightening, entertaining journey through England, from Bristol's Banksy to Durham's beaches, from Cotswolds corduroy to Stoke's oatcakes. As his guide, Maconie walks in the footsteps of J.B. Priestley's classic travelogue, English Journey, to explore our national identity and how it has evolved over the last century. On his way, Stuart takes inspiration from the people he meets at bus stops and train stations, cafes and corner shops. Travelling the length of the land, Maconie explores the differences between city and town, north and south, and examines our past and present with affection and insight. Whether he’s passing the boutique hotels of Manchester, the moors of Ilkley or the grand houses of Tynemouth, looking out over misty fens or urban skylines, he shines a light on the people who make these places and asks what the future holds for them. Along the way, he uncovers local heroes and secret histories over early breakfasts and last orders. Through his journey, he lets us see our homes and habits, hopes and eccentricities with fresh eyes. The Full English challenges us to embrace the messy, shifting and diverse nature of England, and to ask ourselves what kind of country we want to be.

Have you ever wondered what your street was like thousands of years ago? This illustrated history book for children takes you on a 12,000-year journey to find out the story of a single street. Think of the street you live on. Now think of how it may have looked in the Stone Age in 10,000 BCE, or in Victorian times during the Industrial Revolution, or how it may look 50 years from now. A Street Through Time takes you on a time-travelling journey that you won't forget. Highly detailed illustrations bring 15 key periods in time to life. You will see magnificent buildings go up and come down, new churches built on the site of ancient temples, wooden bridges destroyed and then remade in stone, and statues demolished then unearthed many years later. You'll find out how people lived long ago - the tools they used, what they wore and what they did all day. Revised and updated for a new generation, A Street Through Time now includes a look at the street 50 years in the future.

Have you ever wondered what your street was like thousands of years ago? This illustrated history book for children takes you on a 12,000-year journey to find out the story of a single street. Think of the street you live on. Now think of how it may have looked in the Stone Age in 10,000 BCE, or in Victorian times during the Industrial Revolution, or how it may look 50 years from now. A Street Through Time takes you on a time-travelling journey that you won't forget. Highly detailed illustrations bring 15 key periods in time to life. You will see magnificent buildings go up and come down, new churches built on the site of ancient temples, wooden bridges destroyed and then remade in stone, and statues demolished then unearthed many years later. You'll find out how people lived long ago - the tools they used, what they wore and what they did all day. Revised and updated for a new generation, A Street Through Time now includes a look at the street 50 years in the future.

Have you ever wondered what your street was like thousands of years ago? This illustrated history book for children takes you on a 12,000-year journey to find out the story of a single street. Think of the street you live on. Now think of how it may have looked in the Stone Age in 10,000 BCE, or in Victorian times during the Industrial Revolution, or how it may look 50 years from now. A Street Through Time takes you on a time-travelling journey that you won't forget. Highly detailed illustrations bring 15 key periods in time to life. You will see magnificent buildings go up and come down, new churches built on the site of ancient temples, wooden bridges destroyed and then remade in stone, and statues demolished then unearthed many years later. You'll find out how people lived long ago - the tools they used, what they wore and what they did all day. Revised and updated for a new generation, A Street Through Time now includes a look at the street 50 years in the future.

Join Stuart Maconie as he clock off in the north of England Factory, mine and mill. Industry, toil and grime. Its manufacturing roots mean we still see the North of England as a hardworking place. But, more than possibly anywhere else, the North has always known how to get dressed up, take itself out on the town and have a good time. After all, working and playing hard is its specialty, and Stuart Maconie is in search of what, exactly, this entails what it tells us about the North today. Following tip offs and rumour, Stuart takes trip to forgotten corners and locals' haunts. From the tapas bars of Halifax to the caravan parks of Berwick Upon Tweed, from a Westhoughton bowling green to Manchester's curry mile, via dog tracks and art galleries, dance floors and high fells, Stuart compares the new and old North, with some surprising results. The Pie at Night could be seen as a companion to the bestselling Pies and Prejudice, but it is not a sequel. After all, this is a new decade and the North is changing faster than ever. This is a revealing and digressive journey and a State of the North address, delivered from barstool, terrace, dress circle and hillside.

A Northerner in exile, Stuart Maconie goes on a journey in search of the North, attempting to discover where the cliches end and the truth begins. He travels from Wigan Pier to Blackpool Tower and Newcastle's Bigg Market to the Lake District to find his own Northern Soul, encountering along the way an exotic cast of chippy Scousers, pie-eating woollybacks, topless Geordies, mad-for-it Mancs, Yorkshire nationalists and brothers in southern exile. The bestselling Pies and Prejudice is a hugely enjoyable journey around the north of England.

Heartbroken after a long, painful love affair, a man drives a haulage lorry from England to France. Travelling with him is a secret passenger - his daughter. Twenty-something, unkempt, off the rails. With a week on the road together, father and daughter must restore themselves and each other, and repair a relationship that is at once fiercely loving and deeply scarred. As they journey south, down the motorways, through the service stations, a devastating picture reveals itself: a story of grief, of shame, and of love in all its complex, dark and glorious manifestations.

From their first meeting at the student union over a decade ago, Jim and Alison successfully navigated their way through first dates, meeting parents, moving in together and more... Then they split up and divided their worldly goods (including a sofa, a cat and their flat) into his 'n' hers. Now, three years on and with new lives and new loves, they couldn't be happier. Until a chance encounter throws them back together, and causes them to embark on a journey through their past to ask themselves the big question: where did it all go wrong, and is it too late to put it all right

Go behind the scenes of Tim Burton's, "Alice in Wonderland". Meet Alice, from "Alice in Wonderland"; now aged 17 she attends a party at a Victorian estate only to find she is about to be proposed to in front of hundreds of snooty society types. She runs off, following a white rabbit into a hole and ends up in Wonderland, a place she visited 10 years before yet doesn't remember. Step into Wonderland and come face-to-face with the characters from Tim Burton's, "Alice in Wonderland", and satisfy your curiosity through tons of cool facts. You'll meet The Mad Hatter, The White Queen, Cheshire Cat, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum and more. Then journey through fantastic stills and CG character photography from the movie and discover all about Alice's magical adventures.

An original book to accompany Stuart Maconie's landmark Radio 2 series: a history of post-war Britain through pop music These are the songs that we have listened to, laughed to, loved to and laboured to, as well as downed tools and danced to. Covering the last seven decades, Stuart Maconie looks at the songs that have sound tracked our changing times, and - just sometimes - changed the way we feel. Beginning with Vera Lynn's 'We'll Meet Again', a song that reassured a nation parted from their loved ones by the turmoil of war, and culminating with the manic energy of 'Bonkers', Dizzee Rascal's anthem for the push and rush of the 21st century inner city, The People's Songs takes a tour of our island's pop music, and asks what it means to us. This is not a rock critique about the 50 greatest tracks ever recorded. Rather, it is a celebration of songs that tell us something about a changing Britain during the dramatic and kaleidoscopic period from the Second World War to the present day. Here are songs about work, war, class, leisure, race, family, drugs, sex, patriotism and more, recorded in times of prosperity or poverty. This is the music that inspired haircuts and dance crazes, but also protest and social change. The companion to Stuart Maconie's landmark Radio 2 series, The People's Songs shows us the power of 'cheap' pop music,­ one of Britain's greatest exports. These are the songs we worked to and partied to, and grown up and grown old to - from 'A Whiter Shade of Pale' to 'Rehab', 'She Loves You' to 'Star Man', 'Dedicated Follower of Fashion' to 'Radio Ga Ga'.

The powerful, urgent memoir and manifesto on never giving up from Booker prize-winning trailblazer, Bernardine Evaristo In 2019, Bernardine Evaristo became the first black woman to win the Booker Prize since its inception fifty years earlier - a revolutionary landmark for Britain. Her journey was a long one, but she made it, and she made history. Manifesto is her intimate and fearless account of how she did it. From a childhood steeped in racism from neighbours, priests and even some white members of her own family, to discovering the arts through her local youth theatre; from stuffing her belongings into bin bags, always on the move between temporary homes, to exploring many romantic partners both toxic and loving, male and female, and eventually finding her soulmate; from setting up Britain's first theatre company for Black women in the eighties to growing into the trailblazing writer, theatre-maker, teacher, mentor and activist we see today - Bernardine charts her rebellion against the mainstream and her life-long commitment to community and creativity. And, through the prism of her extraordinary experiences, she offers vital insights into the nature of race, class, feminism, sexuality and ageing in modern Britain. Bernardine Evaristo's life story is a manifesto for courage, integrity, optimism, resourcefulness and tenacity. It's a manifesto for anyone who has ever stood on the margins, and anyone who wants to make their mark on history. It's a manifesto for being unstoppable.

‘A wonderful and important book, that from its first pages draws the reader along on a fascinating, gripping, often funny journey.’ Robert Macfarlane, bestselling author of Underland. An idiosyncratic history of our island story told through five iconic fish On these rain-swept islands in the North Atlantic man and fish go back a long way. Fish are woven through the fabric of the country’s history: we depend on them – for food, for livelihood and for fun – and now their fate depends on us in a relationship which has become more complex, passionate and precarious in the sophisticated 21st Century. In Silver Shoals Charles Rangeley-Wilson travels north, south, east and west through the British Isles tracing the histories, living and past, of our most iconic fish – cod, carp, eels, salmon and herring – and of the fishermen who catch them and care for them. In the company of trawlermen, longshoremen, conservationists and anglers Charles goes to sea in a trawler, whiles away hot afternoons setting eel nets, tries to bag his first elusive carp and drifts for herring on Guy Fawkes night as fireworks starburst the sky. Underscoring this journey is a fascinating historical exploration of these creatures that have shaped our island story. We learn how abundant and valued these fish were centuries before our current crisis of over-fishing: we learn how eels built our monasteries, how cod sank the Spanish Armada, how fish and chips helped us through two World Wars. Of course there is a deeper environmental dimension to the story, but Charles' optimistic perspective is this: no one is more invested in fish than the fishermen whose lives depend on them. If we can find a way to harness that passion then the future of fish and fishermen in Britain could be as extraordinary as its past.

Calico Road runs through a tiny Lancashire hamlet up on the edge of the moors, miles from anywhere. Its folk are an independent breed - and in 1827 they are a thorn in the side of the vicious mill owner in the valley below. Toby Fletcher's father ignored his bastard son while alive. Now Toby is the new owner of the rambling old inn, an unwitting keeper of its secrets. Then Meg Staley comes to Calico, a woman who was strong enough to survive one tragedy, but found it harder to withstand a second blow. Toby finds her wandering the moors, cold and starving, and brings her back to the inn. Working there, Meg starts to rebuild her life and find a fragile happiness. But then the secrets of Calico Road come crashing down on her and those she has grown to love...

The Great Railway Bazaar is Paul Theroux's classic and much-loved homage to train travel. The Orient Express; The Khyber Pass Local; the Delhi Mail from Jaipur; the Golden Arrow of Kuala; the Trans-Siberian Express; these are just some of the trains steaming through Paul Theroux's epic rail journey from London across Europe through India and Asia. This was a trip of discovery made in the mid-seventies, a time before the West had embraced the places, peoples, food, faiths and cultures of the East. For us now, as much as for Theroux then, to visit the lands of The Great Railway Bazaar is an encounter with all that is truly foreign and exotic - and with what we have since lost.

Beginning in a tiny hermitage on the remote north Scottish coast, and ending up backstage at the National Theatre, Raw Concrete embarks on a wide-ranging journey through Britain over the past sixty years, stopping to examine how eight extraordinary buildings were made - from commission to construction - why they have been so vilified, and why they are beginning to be loved.