In an age unhealthily obsessed with substance, this is a book on the importance of pure style, from the best-selling author of The Etymologicon and The Horologicon. From classic poetry to pop lyrics and from the King James Bible to advertising slogans, Mark Forsyth explains the secrets that make a phrase - such as 'Tiger, Tiger, burning bright', or 'To be or not to be' - memorable. In his inimitably entertaining and witty style he takes apart famous lines and shows how you, too, can write like Shakespeare or Oscar Wilde.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of A Short History of Drunkenness by Mark Forsyth, read by Richard Hughes. Almost every culture on earth has drink, and where there's drink there's drunkenness. But in every age and in every place drunkenness is a little bit different. It can be religious, it can be sexual, it can be the duty of kings or the relief of peasants. It can be an offering to the ancestors or a way of marking the end of a day's work. It can send you to sleep or send you into battle.

Edward Venn-Thomas lives in the 20th century but has been mysteriously transported to the future, and the apparently idyllic society of New Create, where there is no hunger, no war, and no dissatisfaction. However Venn-Thomas is starting to find life among the New Cretans rather dull. He comes to realise that their perfect existence, inspired by the poets and magicians of their strange occult religion, lacks one fundamental thing: evil. So Venn-Thomas sees it as nothing less than his duty to introduce them to the darker side of life.

A quirky, entertaining and thought-provoking tour of the unexpected connections between words, read by Simon Shepherd. What is the actual connection between disgruntled and gruntled? What links church organs to organised crime, California to the Caliphate, or brackets to codpieces? The Etymologicon springs from Mark Forsyth's Inky Fool blog on the strange connections between words.

In this ground-breaking audiobook, Ian Mortimer portrays Henry in the pivotal year of his reign. Recording the dramatic events of 1415, he offers the fullest, most precise and least romanticised view we have of Henry and what he did. At the centre of the narrative is the campaign which culminated in the battle of Agincourt: a slaughter ground intended not to advance England’s interests directly but to demonstrate God’s approval of Henry’s royal authority on both sides of the Channel. 

From a childish fear of the dark in "The End of the Party" to the chilling conclusion of the "Destructors" and the all-consuming selfishness of "May We Borrow Your Husband", this collection opens with three of Greene's most disturbing stories. Things take a surreal turn in "Under the Garden" before finally blossoming for a moment in "Two Gentle People", then there's a detective story and a brush with Greene's sardonic wit to finish.

No one has a better perspective on life on both sides of the channel than Julian Barnes. In these exquisitely crafted stories spanning several centuries, he takes as his universal theme the British in France: from the last days of a reclusive English composer, the beef consuming 'navvies' labouring on the Paris-Rouen railway to a lonely woman mourning the death of her brother on the battlefields of the Somme.

The night manager is Jonathan, a veteran of clandestine operations. In flight from a failed marriage and his own past, he has taken refuge in the luxury hotel trade. Yet he finds no escape from his demons. Driven by a desire for atonement and by an inherited patriotism, Jonathan allows himself to be recruited as a British secret agent with a mission to expose the murderer of the woman he himself betrayed. His odyssey takes him across Britain and Canada to the Caribbean and the jungles of Panama.

For over 20 years, psychologist Professor Richard Wiseman has examined the quirky science of everyday life. In Quirkology, he navigates the backwaters of human behavior, discovering the telltale signs that give away a liar, the secret science behind speed dating and personal ads, and what a person's sense of humour reveals about the innermost workings of their mind - all along paying tribute to others who have carried out similarly weird and wonderful work.

Using his famed on-the-nose commentary, Twitter legend James Felton has dissected 99 of the most outlandish stories The Sun (for a long time the biggest-selling British newspaper) has run since it became a tabloid in 1969, hoping to answer once and for all whether the press has reflected - or manipulated - the British people over the last 50 years.

This memoir is soaked in the sunshine of Corfu, where Gerald Durrell lived as a boy, surrounded by his eccentric family - as well as puppies, toads, scorpions, geckoes, ladybugs, glowworms, octopuses, bats, and butterflies.

The aptly titled sequel to Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow which is also recorded by Assembled Stories and proved immensely popular.In this succeeding outburst of whimsy Jerome reflects on a variety of subjects such as 'the art of making up one's mind', 'the care and management of women' and 'the minding of other peoples business'.

The funny and poignant autobiography of Jerome K Jerome, who is best known for his comic novel Three Men in a Boat. Jerome struggled against poverty and obscurity, not to mention his improbable name, for many years before Three Men in a Boat made him a celebrity and the friend of other celebrities. A man of deep human sympathies and principles, he lived through and engaged with, a time - like our own - of unprecedented changes and inventions.

In this darkly comical look at the sinister side of our relationship with the natural world, Stewart has tracked down over one hundred of our worst entomological foes---creatures that infest, infect, and generally wreak havoc on human affairs. From the world's most painful hornet, to the flies that transmit deadly diseases, to millipedes that stop traffic, to the Japanese beetles munching on your roses, Wicked Bugs delves into the extraordinary powers of many-legged creatures

Things like this don't happen often in a lifetime... John Hilliard, a young subaltern returning to the Western Front after a brief period of sick leave back in England blind to the horrors of the trenches, finds his battalion tragically altered. His commanding officer finds escape in alcohol, there is a new adjutant and even Hilliard's batman has been killed. But there is David Barton. As yet untouched and unsullied by war, radiating charm and common sense, forever writing long letters to his family.