Fans of Jonathan Coe will love this extraordinary panoramic novel, which turns upon the whirligig of life that is Costford, a North Western town, in 1970.

Costford, a brash north of England town. It's 1970 and young Trevor Morgan has a magical smile and large ambitions. But his marriage is in crisis, and he seeks help from an unexpected quarter: feisty middle-aged May Rollins. May is feeling the stress of living with the demented mother she has always hated. Strange things start happening: she spots a lollipop lady at eight o'clock on an August evening; her TV converts to colour of...

The most evocative and richly contextualised account of the Salem Witch trials in print.

The Salem witch trials of 1692 have assumed mythical status. Immortalised by Arthur Miller's 'The Crucible', the witch-hunt is now part of our vocabulary. Yet the actual events have ben overshadowed by the myth. Biographer and novelist Richard Francis brings the reality back into focus with the story of Samuel Sewall, New England Puritan, Salem trial judge, publisher, entrepreneur and writer.

Sewall's life encompassed the tensions that faced the second generation colonists, caught between...