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Mole is lonely in his hole, but some very affronted rocks are blocking his way out. What could our short-sighted protagonist possibly have done to offend them so? Young readers will be delighted when his above-ground antics are revealed. Age 3+

Glumps live in caves where they sit still and think; peebles dance and twirl in the moonlight. This story is about a peeble who wanted to sit still and think and a glump who wanted to dance. Age 3+

A whole host of animals move into the little wooden house in the woods. They live very happily together, until bear comes along and things start to go badly wrong... Age 2+

Young naturalists travel through the Painted Lady's various habitats, learning all about the butterfly's anatomy, diet and travel patterns as they go. Each double spread features press-out cardboard components with which to construct a 3-D model of the colourful insect. Age 5+

Slightly off-mint.

Desperate to dine on stacks of stinkier-than-old-socks fromage, Daddypops and his rat offspring are planning an audacious underground raid on the Cheese Shop. When their tunnelling goes awry, they end up surrounded by frilly piles of Fancy Pants and Underwear. Age 4+

Poor Toad sits out the annual winter talent contest at the Moonlit Pond, convinced he has nothing to offer. Then a twist of fate leads him to discover a new skill, demonstrating that you never know what you can do until you try. Age 3+

Balthazar is the world's greatest (and only) violin-playing polar bear. Finally released from the circus, he sets off on an epic journey home across mountains, oceans and desert. Lost and lonely, he is just about to turn back when he spies a familiar face. Age 3+

Slightly off-mint.

Holly Farrell presents an illustrated guide to preserving a wide selection of homegrown fruits, vegetables, herbs and edible flowers. The introduction covers the basics of growing, looking at topics from soil preparation to raising from seed and container gardening. Organized by season, the cookery section features traditional recipes – Windfall Marmalade, and Pickled Rhubarb – as well as more modern ideas such as Pepper Ketchup. A comprehensive ‘Kitchen Notes’ chapter offers advice on subjects including testing for a set and storage.

The 80 iconic objects featured here include the Polaroid Land camera, the Swiss Army Knife and the Coca-Cola bottle, while the designers range from the well known (Le Corbusier, René Lalique or Philippe Starck) to Walter Hunt, the mechanic who designed the safety pin. Each item is depicted in a double-page spread detailing its history and examining its effectiveness and style.

Illustrated with exotic flowers and birds from the world-famous Royal Horticultural Society's Lindley Library, this set comprises one lined, one blank and one graph paper notebook in three different colourways.

With vintage maps reproduced on the covers, this British Library set comprises three A5 notebooks, two with lined paper (pale yellow and grey covers) and one with squared paper (pink cover).

‘I like to write about my walks and by doing so live them over again,’ wrote Alfred Wainwright: inspired by the great fell-walker and reproducing his drawings from books such as the Pictorial Guides to the Lakeland Fells and the Pennine Way Companion, this notebook is a great encouragement to record your own expeditions. The book includes brief, up-to-date information for walkers and lists long distance walks in the UK, Europe and North America. Off-mint.

Spanning half the globe, from Britain and Europe, eastward to the coast of California, the map reproduced in shades of cream and grey on these textured cards dates from the era when Australia was ‘New Holland’ and India was ‘Hindoostan’. The map also lines the envelopes and covers the rigid, lidded box. Twelve cards with ungummed envelopes.

Wolfgang Oehme (1930–2011) spearheaded the ‘New American’ garden style that is defined by vast sweeps of herbaceous perennials and grasses. This volume, with photographs of his creations, documents his life in landscape architecture and includes a detailed glossary of the plants that featured in his projects in Germany and the United States.

The most widely read British poet of the 20th century, Philip Larkin was also a gifted amateur photographer. This handsome book reproduces the best of his images in short, thematic chapters arranged in chronological order to form a visual biography, capturing the places and people - including his lover Monica Jones and his friend Kingsley Amis - that meant the most to him. These haunting pictures are infused with the poignancy of everyday life that also informs his verse.

Wainwright’s Pictorial Guides made him a household name among fellwalkers. Here, he looks back in old age to his Blackburn boyhood, his work in local government and his discovery of the Lake District. Illustrated with his own drawings and photographs.

From formal topiary at Levens Hall, Cumbria, to the seemingly natural flower meadows of Piet Oudolf’s Millennium Garden at Pensthorpe Waterfowl Park in Norfolk, Ursula Buchan presents a thematic survey of English domestic gardens, illustrated with over 300 photographs by Andrew Lawson.

Slightly off-mint.

Wainwright's classic guide to Britain's first long-distance path for walkers was originally published in 1968. This thoroughly updated, pocket-sized edition contains everything the modern rambler needs to follow the route from Derbyshire to Northumbria, through some of Britain's wildest and most beautiful landscapes: detailed maps, a running commentary, 300 drawings, a skeleton log, suggestions for those who prefer to tackle shorter sections ... and a little mild leg-pulling.

Ex-headteacher David Harmer knows how to write poems that appeal to young readers. Basing this collection around themes of school and home life, he puts an imaginative spin on plausible situations – such as dropping Mum’s mobile down the loo – that’s sure to make readers smile. Age 7+

Social changes in the early 20th century increasingly encouraged young people to develop tastes that were different from those of their parents, and to spend money on indulging their interests. Usually aligning themselves with new movements in popular music, style tribes emerged with idiosyncratic attitudes and modes of dress. This survey of youth culture identifies over 30 styles from the flappers of the 1920s and the swing kids of the 1930s, to beatniks, hippies, goths and hipsters.

Despite tacks and broken glass spread on the road, fans attempting to impede competitors, and cyclists drafting behind cars, the inaugural Tour de France was won in 1903 by Maurice Garin, with his and the race's success helping to establish the popularity of the sport. This illustrated history of road cycling tells the story through key personalities, from the early two-wheel pioneers to legends such as Merckx and Hinault and the stars of today.

With black-line illustrations by the author, this light-hearted poetry collection explores all kinds of subjects of interest to young readers, from the creature Noah’s ark left behind, to dyslexia and to how to deal with a bully. Age 8+

From an article published in 1900 on Gregor Mendel’s work on peas by William Bateson, the man who coined the term ‘genetics’, to Toby Musgrave on growing heritage fruit and vegetables in 2012, this anthology brings together the best and most important writing from The Garden, the journal of the Royal Horticultural Society. The selections are in chapters ranging from seasons and the weather to the RHS itself, and are interspersed with vibrant illustrations by Jenny Bowers.

Norah Lindsay was a major influence on English garden design between the wars. Having developed her skills in her own Oxfordshire garden, she turned professional in 1924 when the collapse of her marriage left her penniless. This magnificent book, lavishly illustrated with historic and modern photographs, celebrates her life and work creating gardens for Nancy Astor, the Prince of Wales and royalty across Europe. It includes a directory of all her clients and the work she undertook for them.

These eight fairy tales are about traditional fairy tale things – castles, ogres, princesses and frogs – but they are all brand new, written by some of Ireland’s best storytellers.

Once the hunting reserve of princes, today the Forest of Bowland is both a recreational haven for the public and a biodiverse region of international importance. As well as the landscape of sweeping fells, Stansfield records the region's rarity - the green hairstreak butterfly - and its wonderful bird life, including the Whitendale eagle owls.

Osbert Lancaster found fame inventing the pocket cartoon for the Daily Express in 1939, and his gallery of eccentrics kept the nation chuckling for 40 years. After the war, he became a leading stage designer and illustrator, working with John Piper and Nancy Mitford. Published in conjunction with an exhibition at the Wallace Collection, this beautifully illustrated account of his life and work will be a joy to fans and a revelation to those new to his art and humour.

Although famed for its parks, it is the wide range of private gardens that makes London one of the most verdant cities in the world. This well-illustrated volume introduces 30 of its most interesting examples, from the grand and traditional grounds of Clarence House to the allotment tended by Chelsea Flower Show winner Cleve West. They include garden squares, rooftop retreats and even floating gardens created on barges moored in Bermondsey.

Drawing on his own archive, collected over a 60-year career in fashion design and teaching, Julian Robinson presents a survey of 400 years of fashion illustration as an art form, from Renaissance woodcuts to the Art Deco masterpieces of George Barbier. Reproducing over 300 artworks that ‘wordlessly carry within them so much information, both historical and cultural’, the book is an evocative history of fashion and the art of the fashion illustrator.

In his hugely successful Unseen London, photographer Peter Dazeley opened closed doors to reveal a hidden London; in this book his photographs and Mark Daly's text offer a fresh perspective on 60 of the capital's most intriguing places - all of them open to the public. The buildings range from the romantic extravagance of the restored St Pancras Renaissance Hotel to the Windmill on Wimbledon Common, and include historical homes, lesser-known institutions, places of worship, shops and unusual museums.

This lively social history tells the story of the British home from primitive hut to modern suburb. It charts the evolution of the cottage, country house, terrace, flat, villa, semi and bungalow, explaining how each shaped the lives of its inhabitants. Illustrated with posters, prints and photographs – many in colour – it draws not only on architectural treatises and domestic manuals but also on novels, journals and letters to create a rich picture of the ways we have lived.

After a lifetime of writing and selling railway books as founder of leading transport publisher David and Charles, David St John Thomas was in a unique position to reflect on Britain's railway history. This nostalgic celebration, published a year before his death in 2014, includes selections of the best steam railway photography, paintings by celebrated artists from the author's own collection, and excerpts, anecdotes and reminiscences from 65 years of writing about trains.

Behind the high walls of the Vatican, beautifully kept gardens offer the Pope a tranquil refuge, fragrant with sweet herbs and cooled by shade trees and fountains. Linda Kooluris Dobbs's photographs give us access to these normally hidden lawns and avenues, grottoes and parterres, with their fine statuary and fountains, and their imposing backdrop – the buildings of the Vatican and the dome of St Peter's. Kildare Dobbs's introductory essay accompanies this collection of over 140 photographs.