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The 2013 Winners are In!



Daunt Books Children's Short Story Competition 2013

Northern Europe

• Scandinavia
• Great Britain
• Ireland

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  Journey through a Small Planet by Emanuel Litvinoff

  Price: £9.99    Add to Basket

  A fantastically evocative memoir of Emanuel Litvinoff's childhood in the Yiddish quarter of London's East End during the 1920s. Highly recommended.

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  The Churchills: A Family at the Heart of History by Mary S. Lovell

  Price: £10.99    Add to Basket

  A vivid and expansive account of the Churchill dynasty, from the Duke of Marlborough's empire-building in the 17th century, to Winston's death in 1965. By no means the first work to trace the Churchill family history, Lovell's biography is nevertheless refreshing in its effortless combination of domestic matters and public history.

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  The Unofficial Countryside by Ricard Mabey

  Price: £10.00    Add to Basket

  Little Toller Books has now published six books in this series about nature and rural life. Richard Mabey, the author of Beechcombings, explores the hidden life in Britain's sprawling urban landscape. He describes wildflowers found in dock yards, kestrels hovering above city parks and fox cubs tumbling by railway tracks. These are tales of nature's survival against the odds.

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  The Wild Places by Robert Macfarlane

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  An exquisitely written ode to the last remaining wilderness of Great Britain. Robert Macfarlane describes a series of journeys around the British Isles, part history, part evocative description and part nature lover's guide.

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  Operation Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre

  Price: £7.99    Add to Basket

  The historian and author of the thrilling and much admired biography of Eddie Chapman, Agent ZigZag, has returned to the Second World War with this brilliant story of Britain's success in convincing the Nazis of fake military plans planted on the body of a dead soldier.

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  Letters From Iceland by W.H. Auden & Louis MacNeice

  Price: £13.99    Add to Basket

  This wonderful and unusual book resulted from the two young poets' journey to Iceland in 1936. Their letters home, in verse and prose, are full of private jokes and irreverent commentary on people, politics, literature and ideas. A real treat.

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  Pies & Prejudice by Stuart Maconie

  Price: £7.99    Add to Basket

  Stuart Maconie, a Northerner by heart, travels across his old stomping ground from Newcastle to the Lake District exploring and celebrating the true Northern Soul. A travel writer of the Bill Bryson ilk; amusing, conversational and remarkably honest.

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  The Vikings by Magnus Magnusson

  Price: £9.99    Add to Basket

  Magnusson's study is indispensable and beautifully written, revealing the Vikings to be both ruthless warriors and skilled traders, both rampant pillagers and deft poets.

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  A History of Modern Britain by Andrew Marr

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  An academic yet engaging history of Great Britain from the Second World War to the present day ranging from political upheavals to British comedy.

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  The Levelling Sea by Philip Marsden

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  An imaginative portrait of the spectacular transformation of the Fal Estuary - a sparsely-populated stretch of coastline - into one of the busiest harbours in the world. As Marsden charts the maritime revolution that took place in England in the 1560s, he tells tales of piracy and smuggling, imperialism and unprecedented alliances. Particularly fascinating is the story of Joseph Emidy, a freed African slave who made his home in Falmouth and became a highly respected composer.

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  Stuart: A Life Backwards by Alexander Masters

  Price: £7.99    Add to Basket

  A game-changing biography about a homeless man named Stuart. Alexander Masters attempts to explain why Stuart has found himself on the streets: why he has fallen through the cracks when his sister, for example, has not. Stuart’s story brings to light the harrowing world of the homeless, how they live, who they are and why they end up on the streets in the first place. Absolutely brilliant and a must for anyone living in Britain today, also a fascinating exploration of how to write a biography, especially when your subject is not famous, bossy, stubborn and occasionally deeply antisocial.

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  Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt

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  An engaging, lyrical and surprisingly funny memoir from Frank McCourt, who describes an Irish, Catholic childhood growing up in 1930s Limerick beset by poverty, illness and chronic alcoholism.

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  Malachy McCourt's History of Ireland by Malachy McCourt

  Price: £9.99    Add to Basket

  Malachy McCourt describes the lives of famous Irish men and women to define 16 epochs of Irish history from the Celtic settlements to the present day. A colloquial, entertaining introduction to the subject with sections on food, literature, art and music.

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  Bear in Mind These Dead by Susan McKay

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  An important and moving book compiled of interviews with the survivors and the relations of some of the 4,000 people killed in Ireland during The Troubles. Susan McKay uses the voices of these grieving people to explore the history of what went on and the after-effects.

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  The Real Heroes of Telemark by Ray Mears

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  Wilderness expert and adventurer Mears recounts the gruelling story of four men parachuted into Norway on a mission to prevent the Nazis from building an atomic bomb. An exhilirating story of heroism and survival.

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  Wales by Jan Morris

  Price: £12.99    Add to Basket

  A rich, passionate and anecdotal cultural and natural history of Wales up to the creation of the Welsh Assembly. Accompanied by dramatic black and white photographs, it is more of a travel book through time than an academic history.

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  Oxford by Jan Morris

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  An enthusiastic and exhaustively researched political, social, cultural and architectural history of Jan Morris' much loved Oxford.

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  The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer

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  A glorious rampage around a living, breathing Medieval England.

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  The Guga Hunters by Donald Murray

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  Every year ten men from Ness on the Isle of Lewis depart on a dramatic voyage to collect over 2,000 guga, or gannet chicks, a local delicacy in the region. Allowed intimate access, poet Donald Murray describes the hunt, a tradition which has continued for hundreds of years, while exploring the culture and traditions of these fiercely independent people.

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  Sea Room by Adam Nicolson

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  Over 20 years ago Adam Nicolson inherited three islands off the coast of Scotland uninhabited apart from half a million puffins. Part travelogue, part memoir and part ode to these beautiful, barren islands at the edge of the world.

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  Sissinghurst by Adam Nicolson

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  Adam Nicolson, grandson of Vita Sackville-West, mixes a glorious history of his castle home with a riveting, self-deprecating description of his attempts to make it entirely sustainable and his consequent battles with the staff and the National Trust.

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  An Utterly Impartial History of Britain by John O'Farrell

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  A hilarious roller-coaster ride through 2,000 years of British history from 55 BC until 1945. Laddy, flippant and left-wing.

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  A Pity Youth Does Not Last by Micheal O'Guiheen

  Price: £5.99    Add to Basket

  Off the Southwest coast of Ireland there is a small group of islands called the Basket Group. Micheal O'Guiheen, the last in a long line of Blasket Island poets, describes their traditional way of life and their struggle for survival in the face of modernistation until, in 1953, he too was forced to evacuate along with all the remaining inhabitants.

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  Twenty Years A-Growing by Maurice O'Sullivan

  Price: £7.50    Add to Basket

  Similar to Micheal O'Guiheen's description of life on the Blasket Islands but with a lighter touch, fellow inhabitant Maurice O'Sullivan recounts entertaining stories from his childhood and local Blasket folk tales.

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  The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell

  Price: £8.99    Add to Basket

  Angry, frustrated and brimming with passion would describe the voice of George Orwell in his account of working-class life and the extreme social injustice to be found in the northern industrial towns of Lancashire and Yorkshire in the 1930s. Still as refreshing and informative today as it was seventy years ago.