Doctor, Doctor: Incredible True Tales From a GP's Surgery

The Referee is the ultimate book on the joy and pain, the highs and lows of refereeing football matches at the highest level. Mark Halsey has been officiating games for more than a dozen years and in that time has witnessed just about everything there is to witness on a professional football pitch. This intriguing new book details the pressures exerted on a modern official from the moment he leaves his home or hotel in the morning, through the confrontations with managers and players on the field of play and in tunnels and dressing rooms, to the journey home to watch his mistakes beamed into the living rooms of millions of fans. It also chronicles Halsey's courageous personal battle against cancer and his heart-warming return to the professional ranks. The Referee is full of unique insights into the daily existence of 'the man in the middle', tales of rows and controversies with players and managers, and the story of one of football's unlikeliest friendships with a certain Jose Mourinho, who described Halsey as the only referee he likes.

From 1947 to 1963 some 2.3 million men were conscripted to do national service. For some it was to prove the most exciting and terrifying time of their lives, as many were sent to the Korean War or to countries such as Palestine and Kenya where the terrorist threat was ever-present. They faced death and learned about sex. For others, it was a frustrating interference in their lives, made all the more ridiculous by endless hours of square-bashing or painting coal white.Tom Hickman shows just how varied were the experiences of the recruits. By talking to over 80 veterans, he recalls the hilarious and moving stories from those times, and seeks to explain why the subject still causes debate more than 40 years on. Above all, The Call-Up is a portrait of a vanished era that many still feel has something to teach us today.

In the cold nights of the Blitz, her music warmed their hearts... September 1940, Islington. The Blitz is taking its toll on Beth Shanks and her family. An aerial torpedo has recently devastated a complete block of flats and shops in Seven Sisters Road, and traumatised the whole neighbourhood. Beth works as a munitions worker at a factory in North Finchley and dodges falling shrapnel on her way to work. Her younger brother Phil is a teenage cyclist messenger in the Auxiliary Fire Service and he's been twice dug out of rubble as he carried important messages. Beth's father is away fighting and her mother Connie teaches piano lessons to children who've escaped evacuation. Connie despairs that Beth won't learn how to play the piano properly and will only play popular songs by ear, but when she hears Beth playing the piano to lift the spirits of local people trapped in an air raid, she realises there is much more to music than she ever realised.

Growing up in a mining family, Cath's husband Doug promised his father he wouldn't follow in his dangerous footsteps. But after struggling with terrible poverty in 1970s Scotland, Doug decided a pit job would provide his wife and young family much needed security, despite extraordinary risks to life and limb.Every day, Cath kissed her husband goodbye, not knowing if she'd see him again as he went to work at the coalface. And while her husband toiled deep below, the mother-of-five put her cooking and cleaning skills to use in the colliery canteen.  In good times and bad, the miner's wives pulled together as much as their men underground. Then Thatcher swept to power and suddenly loyalties were tested and a fight for survival of a different kind ensued. One for their very existence. 

Set on the first day of illegal hunting in England, Candida Clark's novel is a gripping story of jealousy, revenge, class and marriage. An idyllic-seeming gathering of family and friends is blown apart by a husband's jealous rage; false scents lead to bloodshed; love, ultimately - even the memory of love - triumphs, healing the broken-hearted. Featuring the secretly-pregnant Lady Celia, her suspicious husband, a Labour anti-hunting MP, a feckless sister, a gay groom, a former Iraq soldier living in the gatehouse and a dangerous hunt-worker with a romantic grudge, this is stylish English fiction of the most satisfying kind.

Young Tess Trent works at Emerson's department store in London's West End, its affluence a far remove from her own ordinary, respectable home in Briar Park in Hammersmith. But unlike her parents, Tess does not believe the fine and beautiful things she sells each day will be beyond her reach for ever. The son of a Sheffield miner, Max Bentley wants to earn his living as a musician in a dance band in London. His parents are horrified. Meeting at a dance one Saturday night, Tess and Max are instantly attracted, and soon discover they share the same dreams. But Max's ambitions drive them apart. Feeling betrayed and desperate, Tess does her best to find fulfillment in marriage and her dream of opening a shop. Years later, Tess's nineteen-year-old daughter Judy falls in love with a musician. His name is Max Bentley...

Just what does it mean to be a girl? Why is it not like being a boy? And why is that a good thing? Guardian columnist Lucy Mangan lifts the lid on the truth about being female. From your place within the family ('It's a girl! What a pity!') through the intricacies of what not to wear and who not to talk to, everything you need to know about losing your virginity, how to get along with your mother and get ahead in the workplace, this is a full and frank account of how it really is different for girls. Full of bittersweet memories and the sharpest observations, HOPSCOTCH & HANDBAGS may not be better than sex or shoes, but it is less messy and goes with everything.

Cityboy is back! The bestselling author of CITYBOY, which sold over 200,000 copies, returns with an explosive, edge-of-the-seat, no-holds-barred thriller of City corruption, scams and monstrously bad behaviour.Steve Jones, our Cityboy hero, wants out. He's looking to cash-in before the soul-stripping toil of coining it in London's financial heartland turns into a life sentence. All it will take is a handsome seven figure wedge in the bank and it's the good life for him and goodbye to the horrors of the Square Mile. Like the expert chancer he is, he sees an opportunity. Hacking into his boss's computer, he finds something that chills him to the bone. This is big time; there are bad men involved; there are millions at stake. So no change there then. But when he stumbles upon a murder and becomes the prime suspect, he has to go on the run. Together with his partner Gemma, he improvises ingenious ways of outwitting the authorities, a vicious drug cartel and even M15 in a chase that will send him half way round the world if he's going to stay alive...