Book Blog

No Picnic on Mount Kenya: Felice Benuzzi's Daughter Reflects on her Father's Adventure

In 1943, three Italian prisoners of war escaped from their prison camp and climbed Mount Kenya with homemade climbing equipment and no maps or proper rations. The story has since passed into climbing legend and is preserved in the mountaineering classic, our Non-fiction Book of the Month for October No Picnic on Mount Kenya written by the escapees’ ringleader, Felice Benuzzi. Here, his daughter, Silvia Benuzzi, shares the story of her father’s remarkable adventure on Mount Kenya, and discusses the guiding philosophy that motivated him both during his years of captivity and his life after the war.

Lucy Strange: From Stage to Page

Our Children's Book of the Month for October is The Secret of Nightingale Wood, Lucy Strange's eerily luminous debut that evokes memories of classics such as I Capture The Castle or The Children of Green Knowe. Set in England just after World War One, it tells the story of Henrietta, a solitary girl trying to recover from the devastating loss of her brother. Drawing deep on her love for storybook tales and her belief in her brother's spirit, Henry is taken deep into the woods beyond her home to meet with the only figure who just may be able to save her entire family. Here, the author explores how her training as an actor enriched the writing of the book.

How to Get the Most Out of a Reading Group

Catherine Belsey is the author of Criticism, an introductory guide to the art of critical analysis and of expressing an opinion. Here, she shares insights into how best to approach the running of reading groups, in such a way that all members get a deeper understanding of a text and each is inspired to participate in robust debate.

Naomi Alderman: A Fantasy and Sci Fi Revival?

Today sees the release of the Penguin Worlds Series, five unmissable science fiction, fantasy and horror classics, reissued with spectacularly vivid covers designed by Notting Hill-based design studio La Boca with a firm eye on the publisher's SF heritage of the 1970s. To introduce the series for us, and to explore the ways in which Science Fiction and Fantasy may be seeing a renaissance, we are thrilled to present the following article by Naomi Alderman, voted in 2013 by Granta as one of their prestigious Best Young British Novelists and author of the highly anticipated novel, The Power.

Introducing Miss Peregrine and her Exceedingly Peculiar Children

As Tim Burton’s hotly anticipated adaptation of Ransom Riggs’ bestselling novel Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children hits the screens,Waterstones invites you to step inside a world like no other, brought to life in this visually breathtaking new film.

Open the door to Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, a quarantine, an orphanage, a home for the bizarre and the potentially dangerous.

Q & A: Deborah Levy

Deborah Levy is a British novelist, poet and playwright, whose explorations of complex female relationships have drawn comparisons with the work of Elena Ferrante. Levy is currently shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for her novel Hot Milk, the tale of a noxious mother-daughter relationship that teems with menace and wry humour, which we looked at earlier this year.

Waterstones Online's Sally Campbell caught up with Levy to discuss her approach to writing and the origins of this bold and vital novel.

Eyes On The Pies: At the Coalface of the Amateur Game

Nige Tassell is a music and sport journalist whose work has featured in The Guardian, FourFourTwo and The New Statesman. Here he introduces his new book, The Bottom Corner: A Season With The Dreamers Of Non-League Football, which explores the dedication, love and, of course pies, needed to keep the amateur game alive.

In the Present Moment

Jenny Downham is the award-winning author of Before I Die and You Against Me, two hugely powerful and moving young adult titles. Her latest YA novel, Unbecoming, explores the themes of memory, identity, and the revelation of secrets through three generations of women in one family. The novel draws on her own family’s first-hand experience of a loved-one’s Alzheimer’s. Here, to mark National Alzheimer’s Day, we are honoured to publish such an open and heart-felt article.

The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-fiction 2016 Longlist

Here are the ten titles selected as the very best non-fiction has to offer in 2016, introduced by Waterstones Online's Christopher Davies.

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