New non-fiction for September

Imagine you could hold a baby hare and bottle-feed it. Imagine that it lived under your roof and lolloped around your bedroom at night, drumming on the duvet cover when it wanted your attention. Imagine that, over two years later, it still ran in from the fields when you called it and snoozed in your house for hours on end. This happened to me. When lockdown led busy professional Chloe to leave the city and return to the countryside of her childhood, she never expected to find herself custodian of a newly born hare. Yet when she finds the creature, endangered, alone and no bigger than her palm, she is compelled to give it a chance at survival. 'Raising Hare' chronicles their journey together and the challenges of caring for the leveret and preparing for its return to the wild.

Britain's landowners, we are told, are the rightful stewards of the countryside. They care for the land, they nurture it for future generations and for the good of all. But this is not true. In 'The Lie of the Land', Guy Shrubsole shows that a handful of large landowners are responsible for the destruction and degradation of many of our most important landscapes. This book paints a vivid picture of some of the most dramatic failures of land stewardship in Britain's recent history. But it also tells the story of the people trying to pick up the pieces - the small-scale farmers, community groups and members of the public who may not own land, but who nevertheless seek to be its custodians.

Do you remember the first time you fell in love with a book? The stories we read as children extend far beyond our childhoods; they are a window into our deepest hopes, joys and anxieties. They reveal our past - collective and individual, remembered and imagined - and invite us to dream up different futures. In a pioneering history of children's literature, from the ancient world to the present day, Sam Leith reveals the magic of our most cherished stories, and the ways in which they have shaped and consoled entire generations. Excavating the complex lives of beloved writers, Leith offers a humane portrait of a genre - one acutely sensitive to its authors' distinct contexts.

On April 30, 1980, six heavily armed gunmen burst into the Iranian embassy on Princes Gate, overlooking Hyde Park in London. There they took 26 hostages, including embassy staff, visitors, and three British citizens. A tense six-day siege ensued as millions gathered around screens across the country to witness the longest news flash in British television history, in which police negotiators and psychiatrists sought a bloodless end to the standoff, while the SAS - hitherto an organisation shrouded in secrecy - laid plans for a daring rescue mission: Operation Nimrod. Drawing on unpublished source material, interviews with the SAS, and testimony from witnesses including hostages, negotiators, intelligence officers and the on-site psychiatrist, historian Ben Macintyre takes readers on a journey from the years and weeks of build-up on both sides, to the minute-by-minute account of the siege and rescue.

In 'Nights Out At Home', Jay Rayner's first cookbook, the award-winning writer and broadcaster gives us delicious, achievable recipes inspired by the restaurant creations that have stolen his heart over the decades, for you to cook in your own kitchen. With sixty recipes that take their inspiration from restaurants dishes served across the UK and further afield, this title includes a cheat's version of the Ivy's famed crispy duck salad, the brown butter and sage flatbreads from Manchester's Erst, miso-glazed aubergine from Freak Scene and instructions for making the cult tandoori lamb chops from the legendary Tayyabs in London's Whitechapel; a recipe which has never before been written down.

Nigel Slater has kept notebooks of curiosities and wonderings, penned while at his kitchen table, soaked in a fisherman's hut in Reykjavik, sitting calmly in a moss garden in Japan or sheltering from a blizzard in a Vienna konditorei. Nigel records the small things, events and happenings that gave pleasure before they disappeared. In 'A Thousand Feasts' he details a soup for breakfast, packing a suitcase for a trip and watching a butterfly settle on a carpet, hiding in plain sight. He gives short stories of feasts such as a mango eaten in monsoon rain or a dish of restorative macaroni cheese. This funny and sharply observed collection of the good bits of life, often things that pass many of us by, is utter joy from beginning to end.

'Supper with Charlie Bigham' is a celebration of good-quality, fresh ingredients and how to use them to create delicious, fuss-free meals. The book contains more than 100 straightforward, easy-to-follow recipes, easy swaps to make the recipes work with what you have to hand, and ideas for scaling dishes up and down. Recipes range from standing-up starters to eat with a drink, to mains for two, four, six or many, to vegetable sides for sharing and simple puddings, giving plenty of options for flexitarian family food and entertaining. Along the way, Charlie shares his life-in-food experiences and tips.

Lynda La Plante has lived an illustrious life and has the stories to prove it. From her early days in Liverpool to her unexpected acceptance into RADA, joining peers Anthony Hopkins, John Hurt and Ian McShane; from beginning her scriptwriting career with Widows and Prime Suspect and becoming a BAFTA award-winning writer and producer, Lynda's tales of stage and screen will have you gasping in shock as well as laughing in the aisles. Lynda has an important story to tell, one of breaking down stereotypes and blazing a trail for others along the way. Starting her writing career in the eighties, an era of entrenched gender inequality both in front of and behind the camera, Lynda faced innumerable obstacles to her vision. 'Getting Away with Murder' shows how she overcame them to create generation-defining television and become a multi-million-copy Sunday Times bestselling author.

Carol Klein is one of Britain's best loved horticulturists, and for decades gardening has been at the heart of her extraordinary life. From her childhood adventures in Manchester to her first experiments in plantswomanship at Glebe Cottage, and from training as an artist and a teacher, and then finding an entirely unexpected career as one of Britain's most beloved television presenters, in this long-awaited memoir Carol tells the story of the people, places and plants that have shaped her life. Exploring why our relationship with the natural world is so important, and how it brings joy, creativity and good health to our lives, Carol also offers irresistible insights on her favourite flowers and plants, and how to help them flourish. A story of a life lived happily amongst the greenery, this book is the perfect companion for anyone who has sought solace in the natural world.

From the author of 'Abbey Road' comes the story of how enduring rock icons like Pink Floyd, Bruce Springsteen and many more have remained in the ever changing music game. When Paul McCartney closed Live Aid in July 1985 we thought he was rock's Grand Old Man. He was forty-three years old. As the forty years since have shown he - and many others of his generation - were just getting started. Hence this is a story without precedent, a story in which Elton John plays a royal funeral, Mick Jagger gets a knighthood, Bob Dylan picks up the Nobel Prize, the Beatles become, if anything, bigger than the Beatles and it's beginning to look as though all of the above will, thanks to the march of technology, be playing Las Vegas for ever.