- Dishonesty Is The Second-Best Policy and Other Rules to Live By” by David Mitchell
- “Michael Palin In Venezuela” by Michael Palin
- “Happiness: Lessons From A New Science” by Richard Layard
- “The People on Platform 5” by Clare Pooley
- “Encyclopaedia of Narrow Gauge Railways of Great Britain and Ireland” by Thomas Middlemiss
- “Moscow Coup: The Death of the Soviet System” by Martin Sixsmith
- “The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged Thirteen and Three-Quarters” by Sue Townsend
- “The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole” by Sue Townsend
- “Adrian Mole: The Collected Poems” by Sue Townsend
- “How To Live Like A Stoic” by Tom Hodgkinson
- “The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass aged 37 3/4” by Adrian Plass
- “This Present Darkness” by Frank Peretti
- “Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes” by Daniel Everett
- “Brutal Scotland” by Simon Phipps
- “Idler XXX: Thirty Years of The Idler, A Visual History” by Tom Hodgkinson
- “We” by Yevgeny Zamyatin
- “British Railways Mark 1 Coaches” by Keith Parkin
- “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius
- “The Story of Railways” by Richard Bowood, illustrated by Robert Ayton (Ladybird)
Date Started: 23rd July 2026
Date finished: 24th July 2026
4/5 stars
Sent to me by a friend, this was greatly appreciated! I love trains, and I love Ladybird books too, having learned to read in the seventies with Peter and Jane.
Full of the beautiful painted illustrations for which these books are famous, it’s a simple but informative read that covers all the essentials in the development of the rail network. Originally published in the early sixties, my copy is updated to about the mid-seventies, and has an illustration of the prototype gas turbine APT on the cover.
It’s a lovely thing to own – they don’t make ’em like this anymore!