Love him or loath him, the journalist Piers Morgan shouts loud a rallying cry for a united future to consider what really matters in life. It's time to get back some common sense, time to cancel the cancel culture. If you think NHS heroes and Captain Sir Tom Moore are the real stars of our society, not the self-obsessed, tone-deaf celebrities and royal renegades, then this is the book for you. Piers Morgan is sickened by the cancel-culture bullies, destroying people's careers and lives and from feminism to masculinity, racism to gender, body image to veganism, mental health to competitiveness at school, the right to free speech and expressing an honestly held opinion he believes are being crushed at the altar of 'woke' political correctness. COVID-19 shed shocking light on the problems that plague our country. Stockpilers and lockdown cheats revealed our grotesque levels of self-interest. Millennials flocked to parks for picnics, proving the rank hypocrisy of the supposedly 'socially conscious'. The virtue-signalling woke brigade continued their furious assault on free speech, shutting down debate on important issues like gender, racism and feminism. The global pandemic has exposed in the UK deep divisions within society and laid bare a toxic culture war and here Morgan also holds the government to often ferocious account over its handling of the crisis. Yet he also on balance sees that Coronavirus has showcased our strengths, selfless bravery in the heroic efforts of our healthcare staff, a greater appreciation of migrant workers, the return of local community spirit and inspiring, noble acts from members of the public. From Wuhan to PPE, Harry and Meghan and Black Lives Matter and attacks on statues, Boris and Donald, here is a book of January to July. Morgan has strong opinions and is utterly truthful in where he points his aim.

The current 2020 collection features seven subsidiary characters from Giles's portfolio who sometimes appear in his cartoons but are not part of the main storyline being illustrated. They are there to amuse the cartoonist and include the Parrot, a present from the children to Grandma in 1980 and who had a very disruptive impact on the family's life pulling out electrical leads and on one occasion even answering the telephone. Stinker was the son of a neighbour and gets into all sorts of mischief. Rupert Bear with his checked trousers and matching yellow scarf was often hanging by his neck from a light fitting or doorknob! Bewildered baby George suffers from being the only child of an over-anxious mother, Vera, who is usually shown suffering from some ailment or other. Butch the dog is often involved in various catastrophes, observing with dismay and surprise and sometimes amusement. From the mid 60s, frogs suddenly arrive on the scene, sometimes as toys, and look out for the mice from December 1965, possibly included after their arrival at Giles's own farm or one of its outbuildings. Big full page cartoons with clear captions and date of appearance in the Sunday or Daily Express from the 1960s to the 1980s. 150 cartoons to extend your Giles collection. Paperback.

Curiouser and curiouser... Kristen, a researcher for the Lewis Carroll Brotherhood, discovers extraordinary pages from Carroll's diary revealing a hidden chapter of his life: the truth surrounding the writer's real relationship with Alice Liddell which could rock Oxford to its core. However, after an accident, Kristen joins forces with mathematics student G to decipher what shadows lurk behind the salacious pictures sent to the Brotherhood and to survive the murderer circling closer to anyone who delves too far into Carroll's life. No one is safe in this thriller novel by the author of The Oxford Murders, inspired by the strange stories surrounding Carroll's life. Dive into G's mind as you read his observations that take in everything from an illustration of a raven on a noticeboard to the slightest change of mood in his interviewees' expressions. Sit with him in his study as he reads a book on Carroll to try and solve the puzzle: 'To make the DEAD LIVE' which was buried among the Wonderland creator's history of participating in spiritualist gatherings, claiming he had been able to photograph ghosts. Explore G's watering holes across Oxford, from a meeting with an inspector at The Eagle and Child or greeting a professor at the Little Clarendon pub who is holding court with an eager student over a pint of beer. This cerebral and exciting novel from Guillermo Martínez, winner of the Planeta prize, will draw readers into the mystery and have them scouring every page for a clue that will stop the murderer in time. 284pp.

A fiery debutante, an ill-tempered bachelor, a romance for the ages. Arabella is the daughter of an impoverished country parson who dreams of a new life in London, but her beauty and charm will only get her so far. When she embarks on her first London season armed with nothing but a benevolent godmother and her own notoriously short temper, she quickly runs afoul of Robert Beaumaris. He is the most eligible bachelor of the day, with a personality as strong and combative as hers, and Arabella cannot abide him thinking of her as just another pretty girl after his wealth, so she allows herself to be provoked into a game of deception - one that could have unexpected consequences. Another from the legendary creator of the beloved Regency romance genre. 280pp, paperback.

His heart began to thud, his throat to close and he tried to pull his body from the pool. 'I'll help you', said his killer said. He felt no pain. A young teacher sips a hot chocolate, blissfully unaware that his first taste condemns him to an agonising death. The community around him is devastated, and suspiciously protective of their own. No one is better equipped to see through the lies than homicide detective Eve Dallas, but she is distracted by the arrival of her husband Roarke's ex-lover, an impossibly glamorous vixen, determined to steal Roarke back. But Eve's personal life must wait when a second murder victim is found and everyone's eyes turn to the perfect school at the heart of it all. The secret will soon be out. 469pp, paperback.

Working his way clockwise round Cornwall's stupendous coastline, the author crosses the Tamar Bridge from Devon and visits Saltash, a place where Neolithic flint arrowheads are two-a-penny and where William the Conqueror built a strategic fortification which later became the site of a key battle in the English Civil War. Nearby Launceston and Liskeard were Royalist towns, as was Fowey, where famous later residents of the area include Daphne du Maurier, author of Rebecca, the illustrator Mabel Lucie Attwell, and Kenneth Grahame who wrote The Wind in the Willows. West of St Austell is Falmouth, the most south-westerly harbour in Britain, and often the first place Royal Navy ships docked when returning from overseas. Truro, the county capital, was a stannary town, involved in the tin mining industry. Granted city status by Queen Victoria in 1877, its cathedral was built over the next 20 years. The rugged coastline of the Lizard peninsula was a notorious graveyard for ships, and continuing west, St Michael's Mount has a long history of strategic importance culminating in Hitler promising it to Ribbentrop should Germany win the war. Sennen is the first village in England travelling back from Land's End, followed by the bleak prehistoric settlement of St Just. St Ives, now Cornwall's most popular tourist destination, was a simple fishing village until the coming of the railway in 1877. The town of Bodmin is the only large Cornish settlement noted in the Domesday Book, though nearby Padstow also appears, now a renowned centre of gastronomy. 152pp, softback, numerous black and white photos.

Sussex-born tour guide, teacher, history consultant and journalist Kevin Newman regularly escapes up on the South Downs on walks much shorter than Belloc managed. Many writers have written about the delights of the former kingdom of the South Saxons, its Downs, villages, countryside, people and their ways, but this is the first book to take readers on a tour of discovery of each of the county's historic eras in turn. It looks at Ancient, Roman, Saxon, Viking, Norman, Medieval, Tudor and Second Iron Age, Stuart, Civil War and Restoration, Georgian, Napoleonic and Regency, Industrial, Victorian, Resort and Railway Era, Edwardian and First World War, Interwar, Art Deco/Modernist and Second World War, Post and Cold War Sussex. Points of interest like Church Norton, Chichester Cathedral, Arundel Castle, Goodwood, all houses and points of interest and where to lunch are marked in bold text in a book celebrating the writers, painters, royalty, artists and millions who have enjoyed Sussex's changing coastline and verdant villages. Hundreds of black and white photos, line art and maps. A super and quirky slice of history in one heavyweight softback handbook, 198pp, 15.5cm x 23cm.

The jolly good British guide to stress-free living is the theme of this celebration of life. Being Shabby is about spending less time fussing and clearing up and getting stressed about stuff that doesn't really matter anyway. It's more than an attitude, it's a quintessentially British way of life, tied and tested for generations and founded on messiness, dilapidation, clutter and bodged repairs. A great Christmas gift idea, we love the humorous photographs of that cluttered desk, piled high with papers and books and important Post-it notes stuck on the screen of the computer, the keyboard of which is grubby and full of crumbs. Underneath the desk is a large pile of shoes. Welcome to the Shabby living room, kitchen, bathroom, loft, landing and outdoors the garden, shed, on the move, sports, parenting, fashion, eating, entertainment and hobbies, pets and Christmas where you don't 'give a flying damn about a judgemental aunty' and simply crack open the homemade sloe gin instead. Letting pets run freely, eating a Fridge Lunch, the BBQ with at least one wheel missing, the plughole spider in the bathroom, the dodgy plumbing bandaged with Jay-cloths, unidentifiable and tasteless spices on the rack, packets and jam jars dating back decades in the cupboard, Shabbification is a natural process through which a home truly becomes a comfortable place to kick back, relax and snuggle up, where games are played and family discussions take place, often among the perpetually flaking and rattling window frames. 64pp, colour.

The novel is a high-intensity roller-coaster ride exploding with action and authenticity that cements Jack Carr as the new leader in political thrillers. Following his brutal quest for revenge, former Navy SEAL James Reece has fled the US, emerging deep in the wilds of Mozambique. But he can't stay hidden for long. When a string of horrific terrorist attacks plagues the Western world, the CIA tracks him down and recruits him. Now a reluctant tool of the United States government, he must travel the globe, targeting terrorist leaders and unravelling a geopolitical conspiracy that will have worldwide repercussions. Gritty, raw. An exploration of the psyche of a man who has killed for his country and broken society's most sacred bond in a quest for vengeance. Can this man, who transformed into the very insurgent he had been fighting, find peace and purpose and learn to live again? These are not unlike the questions facing veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as they prepare to leave military service with guilt born of dead friends and team mates, life-altering physical wounds, traumatic brain injury and PTSD, returning to spouses, children and leaky roofs. 486pp, paperback.

John Locke (1632-1704) was a key figure in 17th century philosophy, politics and society. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding was his greatest achievement, and encompasses a broad spectrum of his thought. In the Essay, Locke makes clear the critical and sceptical routes by which philosophy was to develop as a study distinct from the natural sciences, and he argues on views on society, religion, language, education and progress that have subsequently become widely influential in the mainstream of European thought. His political writings embody the spirit of the Revolution of 1688. Locke's natural modesty combines felicitously with his passionate concern for freedom, integrity and human happiness. His supremely intelligent and commonsense approach is as stimulating now as it was in the 17th century. 426pp. Paperback.