Non-Fiction Picks - Christmas/Winter 2025
Here are our non-fiction picks for Christmas/winter 2025! Have a browse through to help focus your gift buying for this season, and beyond!
Hamza has always loved the outdoors.
Hamza Yassin loves being outdoors in nature. As a child who struggled with dyslexia at school, he always longed to be in the world outside the classroom. Thankfully, due to a forward-thinking teacher who encouraged him to run outside before a lesson, Hamza embraced his love of nature from an early age. There he discovered that his dyslexia allowed him to see the world in a special way.
Homeward Bound tells the story of Hamza's fascination with the outdoors. From learning to ring birds in Wales to chasing orca in Scotland - Hamza explores wildlife across the British Isles and delights in the hidden life that is found there. Throughout his journey, he shows us the wonder of wildlife and how mother nature is a home for us all. Packed with charming personal stories, including life in the Scottish Highlands, and his adventures as a wildlife cameraman - Hamza shares the joy of nature and shows us how it has made him who he is today.
An illustrated compendium of common and rare breed chickens by the Sunday Times bestselling gardenerIt is my hope that this book will help you discover, or reconfirm, which chicken breeds are your favourites and encourage you to keep them yourself, or at least to remember them.
Spotlighting more than fifty breeds of chicken, from the classy Ancona to the lavishly laced Wyandotte, Arthur Parkinson shares everything you need to know about each breed’s attributes, behaviour, quirks and qualities alongside gorgeous illustrations of his ‘ladies’. Later in the book he offers detailed advice that will equip you with the practical skills to look after hens in your own garden, whether the most common breeds or the most perilously rare – for as Arthur notes, if we don’t celebrate all hens great and small, the lesser-known varieties may well disappear.
Joyful and inspiring, Hen Party is a riotous, clucking poultry show of a book for anyone dreaming of the good life.
Is A River Alive? (Robert Macfarlane)
From celebrated writer Robert Macfarlane comes this brilliant, perspective-shifting new book – which answers a resounding yes to the question of its title.
At its heart is a single, transformative idea: that rivers are not mere matter for human use, but living beings – who should be recognized as such in both imagination and law. Is a River Alive? takes the reader on an exhilarating exploration of the past, present and futures of this ancient, urgent concept.
The book flows first to northern Ecuador, where a miraculous cloud-forest and its rivers are threatened by goldmining.
Then, to the wounded rivers, creeks and lagoons of southern India, where a desperate battle to save the lives of these waterbodies is under way.
And finally, to north-eastern Quebec, where a spectacular wild river – the Mutehekau or Magpie – is being defended from death by damming in a river-rights campaign.
At once Macfarlane’s most personal and most political book to date, Is a River Alive? will open hearts, spark debates and lead us to the revelation that our fate flows with that of rivers – and always has.
A Mind of My Own (Kathy Burke)
Kathy Burke is one of Britain's most distinctive voices. Even as a fearless kid in Islington, she did things her own way; roaming the estate that raised her to find her own path. A place at the Anna Scher Theatre in her teens changed the course of her life, and she found unimaginable success as an actress and writer – and national fame. But the rare gift that has always set her apart, beyond the stage or screen, is her ability to see the truth and tell it like it is.
This spellbinding memoir is not just Kathy's story, but the story of her class, her gender and her time.
A Mind of My Own is funny, profound and deeply entertaining.
Husband. Father. Grandfather. Icon.
1948 - 2025
At the age of sixty-nine, Ozzy Osbourne was on a triumphant farewell tour, playing to sold-out arenas and rave reviews all around the world.
Then: disaster.
In a matter of just a few weeks, he went from being hospitalised with a finger infection to having to abandon his tour - and all public life - as he faced near-total paralysis from the neck down.
Last Rites is the shocking, bitterly hilarious, never-before-told story of Ozzy's descent into hell. Along the way are reflections on an extraordinary life and career, including his marriage to wife Sharon, and what it took for him to return to the stage for the triumphant Back to the Beginning concert, streamed around the world, where Ozzy reunited with his Black Sabbath bandmates for the final time.
Unflinching, brutally honest, but surprisingly life-affirming, Last Rites demonstrates once again why Ozzy transcended his status as 'The Godfather of Metal' and 'The Prince of Darkness' to become a modern-day folk hero and national treasure.
This is the story of the fall of an Empire – and the rise of another.
Who spread Christianity, how, and why? In her quest to find the answer, Professor Alice Roberts takes us on a gripping investigative journey. From a secluded valley in south Wales to the shores of Brittany; from the heart of the Roman Empire in a time of political turmoil to the ancient city of Corinth in the footsteps of the apostle Paul; from Alexandria in the fourth century to Constantinople.
As the Roman Empire crumbled in Western Europe, a shadow of power remained, almost perfectly mapping onto its disappearing territories. And then, it continued to spread. Unearthing the archaeological clues and challenging long-established histories, Professor Roberts tells a remarkable story about the relationship between the Roman Empire and Christianity.
Lifting the veil on secrets that have been hidden in plain sight, this story is nothing short of astonishing.
Domination is a page-turning exploration of power and its survival.