Watch Quentin Blake's Clown, a major new TV animation narrated by Helena Bonham-Carter, this Christmas on Channel 4.

You thought you could leave the past behind. Think again. Donnie Miller counts himself lucky.

leading us into a whole new way of looking at the world' Michael Palin'Touched by genius' John Lewis-Stempel 'Absolutely mesmerizing, utterly beautiful and engrossing' Joanne HarrisAfter moving from London to a new home in Yorkshire, and about to become a father for the first time, Rob Cowen finds himself in unfamiliar territory.

Beginning with the Norman Conquest of England, these tumultuous centuries and their invasions shaped the languages and political geography of present-day Britain and Ireland. Tracing the political, religious and material cultures of the period, the author seeks to define the ways in which lives changed during these turbulent times.

The family and their home life may be chaotic, but visitors fall into an enchantment, and the claims of respectable life or upbringing fall away. When Sanger dies, his Circus must break up and each find a more conventional way of life.

A sensational short story collection from Britain's master of the genre. Charting tantrums, funerals, pregnancy and love affairs, these stories unroll with piercing wit and compassion.

Features such characters as: High-class call girls billed to Mastercard; a psychic 13-year-old dropout with a passion for Talking Heads; a hunky matinee idol doomed to play dentists and teachers; and, a one-armed beach-combing poet, an uptight hotel clerk and one very bemused narrator caught in the web of advanced capitalist mayhem.

'This night will be bad, and tomorrow will be beyond imagining'It's Christmas-time in the Stanton family house: presents, carol singing, good cheer. Discover timeless favourites from The Jungle Book and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland to modern classics such as The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.