Winter may be receding but there are still hours in the day when you may care to relax with a Good Book. Let us suggest a few for you to consider:

Charles Darwin only spent five weeks on the Galapagos Islands and never left England after that expedition. Nevertheless he laid the foundations of modern biology and, 200 years after his birth, we recommend a book by him and one about him.

Charles Darwin: On the Origin of Species, first published in 1895. This title has been republished in a beautifully illustrated Penguin Classic hardback and also in paperback as an Oxford World's Classic. 

Darwin's Island by Steve Jones is a beautifully written, witty and illuminating book, bringing Darwin's life and work to a whole new audience.

The Thrift Book by India Knight is selling well at present. Live Well and Spend Less is her motto. Including chapters on Food, Beauty,Having Fun and Money and many others, this could give us all some new ideas.

For those who like biographies, we recommend Frances Osborne's The Bolter which is now in paperback. An extraordinary tale, tragic and deeply moving, if it were fiction you might think it far-fetched. But it's fact. Wonderfully written, this book captures not only one woman's life but an entire lost society - that of white colonial life in Kenya in the 1920s.

Continuing the African link, we recommend Alexander McCall Smith's newest novel about the No I Ladies' Detective Agency.  Tea Time for the Traditionally Built is due out on 3rd March. It is most unfortunate when Mma Ramotswe's newest client is the big-shot owner of the ailing Kalahari Swoopers, that one thing lady detectives know very little about is football....

Scroll down the page for ordering details of these books. Hundreds of other titles are on our shelves too so please call in or email your order.

Best wishes,
Steve