Many of our favourite brands now openly espouse 'ethical' credentials, so how is it that they can import billions of pounds' worth of goods from the developing world every year while leaving the people who produce them barely scraping a living? Are they being cynically opportunistic? The author travels the world to establish the truth.

Chief Inspector Reg Wexford has retired from the crime force. He and his wife, Dora, now divide their time between Kingsmarkham and a coach house in Hampstead, belonging to their actress daughter, Sheila. Wexford takes great pleasure in his books, but, for all the benefits of a more relaxed lifestyle, he misses being the hand of the law.

Venetia Lanyon has never been further than Harrogate. Then, in one extraordinary encounter, she meets a neighbour she only knows by reputation, the infamous Lord Damerel, and before long is egging on a libertine in his scandalous behaviour.

In a panoramic survey of the Victorian Age, this work describes the men and women who brought the modern age into being. The capitalist world was challenged by the ideas of such men as Karl Marx, William Morris and George Bernard Shaw - here they are. Here are also the lofty and famous and here too are the poor and the obscure.

The lifeless moonscape of Canada's oil sand strip mines. A vast vortex of plastic floating endlessly around the Pacific. An eerie abandoned town square in a radioactive Ukrainian wilderness. These are the places the tourist boards would rather you didn't see. The places that don't show up in any guide books.

Longlisted for the 2014 Man Booker Prize, this critically acclaimed novel was the first crowdfunded novel to appear on the longlist. The Wake is also shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize and the Gordon Burn Prize.

The only way to truly discover a city, they say, is on foot. Taking this to extremes, the author sets out to walk the entire length of the London Underground - overground - passing every station on the way. This title celebrates the sights, sounds and soul of the greatest city on earth.