Books

Simon Barnes celebrates British nature (Image: ) I should have been walking with lions. I should have been sleeping in a hut surrounded by elephants. I should have been waking up to the sound of the alarm clock of the bush, the calls of ground hornbill. Instead, I heard the …

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is still in cinemas and is absolutely fantastic. Considering the roleplaying game (RPG) source material has such expansive worlds and ideas, it only seems natural for the movie to have a couple of spin-off novels. The Druid’s Call acts as a direct prequel to …

Monsignor O’Flaherty was warned of the dangers by the Germans and the Vatican (Image: Getty) Every evening, as the sun was setting over the skyline of Rome, Hugh O’Flaherty would stand on the steps of St Peter’s Basilica, in Vatican City, in full view of armed Nazi soldiers stationed across …

Ellie Robinson, photographed this week at Queen Mary University of London (Image: Steve Reigate) It was just after winning her Paralympic gold medal at Rio 2016 that swimmer Ellie Robinson developed a debilitating fear of failure. She was a torpedo talent aged 15 and just four years into taking up …

Rub of the green: Star Steve Davis in 1985 (Image: Getty) It is a game of subtlety and mystery – a slow-paced affair, in an increasingly fast-paced world. The critic Clive James dubbed it “chess with balls”. And he was quite right: snooker blends depth with the dynamism of the …

Red Rum claims victory in the 1973 Grand National (Image: PA) It’s Saturday March 31, 1973, and we’re about to witness one of the greatest horse races of all time. Yet even though the winner would go on to become the nation’s favourite racehorse, at the time he was considered …

Marrell McCollough tends the mortally-wounded Martin Luther King as onlookers point towards assassin (Image: Joseph Louw/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty/AP Photo/Charles Kelly) The gunshot ripped apart the evening calm outside the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, 55 years ago this Tuesday. Its echoes would reverberate across the world. Dr Martin Luther …

White-haired stranger Snorri emerges from a frozen wilderness and offers to recount a saga to Viking warlord Sven Ravenfeeder and his men in exchange for food and water. But the brutal warrior drops a noose around Snorri’s neck and tells him: “If we like your story, you will live…” Snorri …

The Fourth Haunting is a full-length paranormal thriller, F.G. Cottam’s latest foray into the world of the unknown, the uncertain and the sometimes very disconcerting. Its central character is Tom Carter, introduced at the outset as Britain’s most celebrated ghosthunter, as he pitches the idea for his latest TV series …

Dick King-Smith (R), grandson Tom Fisher, daughter Liz Rose and great-granddaughter Josie Rogers (Image: Handout) The sternest critic Dick King-Smith ever faced was his wife Myrle. Every evening, after hours spent at his typewriter, the multi-million-selling children’s author would emerge from his study with new pages from his latest animal-themed …