BOOK OFFERS

GILES COLLECTION 2018 £8.99 PUBLISHED BY HAMLYN OCTOPUS PBK

Giles is back for 2018 and the theme this year is holidays, so get ready for an acerbic look at festivities through the eyes of the 20th century’s greatest cartoonist. A perfect gift guaranteed to make dads and grandads chuckle on Christmas morning, this official Giles book, with a foreword by Bill Turnbull, is a great addition to the classic Giles collection.

GILES WAR BY TIMOTHY S BENSON £12.99 PUBLISHED BY CORNERSTONE PBK

Few contemporaries captured Britain’s indomitable wartime spirit as well or as wittily as the cartoonist Carl Giles. Now, for the first time, the very best of the cartoons he produced between 1939 and 1945 are brought together, including many that have not seen the light of day in over 75 years. Giles’s work provided a crucial morale boost – and much-needed laughs – to a population suffering daily privations and danger.

THE SECRET LIFE OF THE OWL BY JOHN LEWIS-STEMPEL £7.99 PUBLISHED BY DOUBLEDAY HARDBACK

There is something about owls. They feature in every major culture from the Stone Age onwards. They are creatures of the night, and thus of magic. They are the birds of ill-tidings, the avian messengers from the Other Side.But owls - with the sapient flatness of their faces, their big, round eyes, their paternal expressions - are also reassuringly familiar. We see them as wise, like Athena’s owl, and loyal, like Harry Potter’s Hedwig. Human-like, in other words. In The Secret Life of the Owl, John Lewis-Stempel explores the legends and history of the owl. And in vivid, lyrical prose, he celebrates all the realities of this magnificent creature, whose natural powers are as fantastic as any myth.