How Not to be a Perfect Family

PURVES, Libby

Health, Fitness & Dieting

HarperCollins Publishers, Ltd

In the summer of 1988, Libby Purves set sail with her family on a voyage round the entire coastline of Britain, from the soft, sandy South-East, to the wilder shores of Orkney. They travelled in the wake of their literary-nautical forebears aboard their modern-built gaffer, Grace O'Malley, with their children, Nicholas (five) and Rose (three). As conscious of curious anecdote and tragic folklore as she is of contemporary injustice and familial tension, Libby Purves evokes a fresh, rich and fascinating portrait of people and places.

One Summer's Grace: A Family Voyage Around Britain

Travel

Europe

HarperCollins, Publishers

A long walk in wintertime

Everything seems to be going well for Alice McDonald, who has a successful career, clever children, and an ideal husband. Two months later, it has all fallen apart, and Alice is left wondering if her happiness had been an illlusion.

A Long Walk in Wintertime

Literature & Fiction

Genre Fiction

Hodder&Stoughton

Catherine, Caroline, Toby and Mark are a diplomat's children whose childhood homes were wherever their father was posted. Now they are successful adults with their own lives, but when Toby goes missing, his brothers and sisters are jolted into making angry, anxious journeys to try and find him.

Home Leave

More Lives Than One

Kit Milcourt has been a climber, diver in exotic waters, and affluent young city banker. Now, because of his beloved Anna, he is a teacher. Glumly mediocre Sandmarsh High School is hard put to contain his maverick ideas, and only the soothing presence of Anna keeps the peace. But Anna can’t guard her erratic husband on the school tripinstead a far darker staff member follows him and discovers what Kit has secretly planned for the children amid the dim alleys of winter Venice. Between farce and tragedy the resulting events swiftly change Kit’s and Anna’s live in unthinkable ways, strain a great love to the limit, and open a dark chasm into the past.

Regatta

Sheila Harrison always looks forward to the descent of the summer visitors to her house in Blythney, East Anglia. But she is not prepared for the upheaval caused by one young girl, Anansi, who arrives from a background Sheila can only guess at.

On the high ground above the great city, Roy and Helen live in brittle affluence inside a weary marriage. Of their four children, three have long vanished into the sprawling, sluttish metropolis beneath: Marcus the dotcom entrepreneur, Shona the shocking Britart princess, and Danny - the one nobody will talk about. But the last child Zack itches to know more about his lost brother; and gets his chance when the smooth surfaces of family life are abruptly blown apart. Roy is sacked on his fiftieth birthday, stages an unconventional protest in the office doorway and rapidly finds himself a homeless exile in the city's darkest streets. It is Zack's chance to escape down the hill in turn, while his mother Helen makes a bizarre decision of her own.

Passing Go

Literary

Flame

Sarah and Maggie are sisters who are very different. Sarah has married and settled contentedly into small-town life. Maggie has spent fifteen years drifting around the world with a backpack. Now Maggie has come home to a dank, dull British winter, supposedly for just a few months. The Penn children are delighted to have their exciting aunt stay with them, but fate has an unexpected adventure in store. It rocks the whole family, bringing up dark shadows from their common past, and confronts Maggie with the hardest decision of her life.

A Free Woman

Sarah and Maggie are sisters who are very different. Sarah has married and settled contentedly into small-town life. Maggie has spent fifteen years drifting around the world with a backpack. Now Maggie has come home to a dank, dull British winter, supposedly for just a few months. The Penn children are delighted to have their exciting aunt stay with them, but fate has an unexpected adventure in store. It rocks the whole family, bringing up dark shadows from their common past, and confronts Maggie with the hardest decision of her life.

Libby Purves has had an ongoing love affair with the radio since her childhood, when she saved her pocket money to buy a d-i-y transistor set. This was the 1950s, pre-television, when the family would gather round the 'wireless' to listen to classic shows such as 'The Glums' and 'Listen with Mother'. Her enthusiasm lasted through the teenage years of Radio Luxemburg and pirate station Caroline and while at university, Libby answered an ad for student volunteers for Radio Oxford. From then on she was hooked and entered the BBC as a trainee Programme Operations Assistant. The past thirty years have seen Libby as one of the most successful and popular BBC Radio 4 broadcasters, with a string of credits to her name including the Today programme, Midweek and The Learning Curve. She takes us behind the scenes of these programmes with amusing and entertaining anecdotes about the personalities involved, near-disasters and triumphs, and also makes an impassioned plea for continued funding and support for radio.

Radio : A True Love Story

Humor & Entertainment

Hodder Paperback

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by PURVES, Libby. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by PURVES, Libby

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by PURVES, Libby. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

How Not to be a Perfect Family

One Summer's Grace: A Family Voyage Around Britain

A Long Walk in Wintertime

Home Leave

More Lives Than One

Regatta

Passing Go

A Free Woman

A Free Woman

Radio : A True Love Story