Little Toller Books

14/07/2025

23rd July, Foyles Charing Cross Road! Jeff Young, Catherine Coldstream and Clair Wills, for the TLS Ackerley Prize.

17/06/2025

Some brilliant news! Wild Twin by Jeff Young has been shortlisted for the TLS Ackerley Award, awarded every year for a work of autobiography. It's a fantastic achievement and richly deserved. The other two shortlisted books are Cloistered by Catherine Coldstream (Chatto and Windus) and Missing Persons by Clair Willis (Allen Lane).

The judges said of Wild Twin 'A highly original book about the pursuit of romantic ideals, and the workings - and failings - of memory. It's written in extraordinarily vivid, at times almost stream-of-consciousness prose, that brilliantly reflects the unusual life it describes.'

The winner will be announced at a special event at Foyles Charing Cross Road on 23rd July. Tickets available now: https://www.foyles.co.uk/events/tls-ackerley-prize-2025

16/06/2025

Next Monday, 23rd June! Peter Hahn reading from and talking about his memoir of life on an organic vineyard in the Loire Valley, Angels in the Cellar, at Dulwich Books. Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/angels-in-the-cellar-peter-hahn-tickets-1360271491649?aff=oddtdtcreator

02/06/2025

Happy publication day to the amazing Horatio Clare!

We Came By Sea, Stories of a greater Britain is an untold story of the small boats crisis, a story which shows the best of us. It is the story of the volunteers who help thousands of refugees in Calais, of the lifeboat crews mounting one of the great search and rescue operations of all time, of an unrecognised, uncelebrated, all but unknown Britain which is giving its all to help the vulnerable and desperate. It is a journey through an unexamined nation, a nation which is as truly great and good as the people in the dinghies believe Britain to be. It is not the story we have been told, and it is a true story.

Look out for reviews and events!

Available from bookshops and our website https://www.littletoller.co.uk/shop/books/little-toller/we-came-by-sea-by-horatio-clare/

Author photo: Billie Charity and Hay Festival.

22/05/2025

This coming Tuesday! Will be excellent!

‘…this book is more than a description of wine making, it is a celebration of nature and a love of the land, the seasons and the soil, and how these things can nurture the soul.’ Caught by the River

If there’s one thing we know about , it’s that they publish darn good books. So when they approached us about hosting an event with one of their authors, one whose hardback is now already being reprinted just weeks after publication, there was only one possible answer.

Twenty years ago Peter Hahn had a breakdown while in the back of a London cab. Emotionally exhausted, he no longer recognised himself inside the corporate world that demanded so much of him. It became urgently clear the only way to stop the downward spiral was to find a path out. Since then, Peter has found his way to , a small, ancient farm in the Loire Valley, where he grows and makes small batch organic wines.

Angels in the Cellar invites us to spend a year in Peter’s company among the vines, where he reflects on the land, his life, regenerative farming, and the lives of the small group of people he works with. We join Peter through the seasons, pruning the vines and harvesting the grapes by hand, before we follow him to the cellar, where the alchemy begins – and the angels take charge.

An evocative, poetic account of a year spent working with nature, Angels in the Cellar is also a powerful repudiation of the global economy, its obsession with hyper-consumption and its impacts on the land and its ecosystems.

You may have read Peter’s story in the press in recent weeks. Even better to come and hear it first-hand at . Tickets on sale now via our website (link in bio) or from FOLDE HQ.

08/04/2025

In 2021 we published Charles Foster's extraordinary book, The Screaming Sky. Later shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing, Foster follows swifts on their amazing journey across the world in perpetual summer. The book's gorgeous cover art and illustrations within are by Jonathan Pomroy.

Every year since we have reprinted The Screaming Sky, timing it to arrive in bookshops just as the swifts return to our shores, and 2025 is no exception. Order from your local bookshop or our website: https://www.littletoller.co.uk/shop/books/little-toller/essays-monograph/the-screaming-sky-by-charles-foster-paperback/

01/04/2025

The excellent people at Caught by the River have made Ken Worpole's Brightening from the East their book of the month. For an extract from this brilliant collection of essays on landscape, memory and the ideas that filtered through the Essex plotlands, see their website.

Newly published by Little Toller Books, Book of the Month is Ken Worpole's 'Brightening From the East: Essays on Landscape and Memory’, which tells stories of arcadian dreams among the shabby plotlands of eastern England. Read an extract on the site today, on The Peculiar People of Essex: https://www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/04/ken-worpole-brightening-from-the-east-extract-book-of-the-month/

01/04/2025

In June, we publish Horatio Clare's We Came by Sea.

We Came By Sea, Stories of a greater Britain, is the untold story of the small boats crisis, a story which shows the best of us. It is the story of the volunteers who help thousands of refugees in Calais, of the lifeboat crews mounting one of the great search and rescue operations of all time, of an unrecognised, uncelebrated, all but unknown Britain which is giving its all to help the vulnerable and desperate. It is a journey through an unexamined nation, a nation which is as truly great and good as the people in the dinghies believe Britain to be. It is not the story we have been told, and it is a true story.

We're thrilled and proud to be publishing this book with Horatio.

Horatio Clare

Pre-order from your local bookshop, or our website: https://www.littletoller.co.uk/shop/books/little-toller/we-came-by-sea-by-horatio-clare/

28/03/2025

On Monday our Instagram account was hacked, and when we refused to pay a ransom demand, was deleted. We therefore lost thousands of followers: readers, writers, friends, naturalists, lovers of landscape, ecologists, ancient stone enthusiasts, archaeologists, flaneurs and wanderers.

In spite of some helpful suggestions on social media (and a few peddling dodgy paid for solutions) and owing to Instagram's truly woeful 'support', the rather lovely account and our followers vanished.

Now we're back with a brand new account on instagram - littletollerbooks. Could you help us rebuild by following us there and sharing?

Thank you.

25/03/2025

'My mother thinks she has heard something, but then again she could be mistaken. The memory of the sound itself is already leaving her, its sonorous shape dissolving like a sugar cube on her tongue. My mother is 81 years old and alone in her flat in Exeter. She senses a shift in the ground which nudges her thoughts, pulls at the hairs on the back of her neck. Something is pulling her sideways through the cracks in the door, the corridor, the locked gate, the entrance hall. The passageway near the bins. She should go and see. Go outside. Yet, she remains seated in her armchair. Her eyes follow the movement of a seagull whose cawing noise reminds her she is near some body of water, even if she cannot always remember which one.'

In, Watermark, a brilliant new essay on The Clearing, Davina Quinlivan writes about her mother's last years, migration and belonging.

Read the essay here: https://www.littletoller.co.uk/the-clearing/watermark-by-davina-quinlivan/

24/03/2025

In less than ideal news, someone has hacked the Little Toller Books instagram account, and then deleted it. This is a nightmare for a small publisher like us, as it's a key way in which we get the word out about books, especially since X went all Dystopian. We are trying to recover it now, but if you hang out there, that's why LittleTollerDorset isn't around at the moment. We have found the Meta help pages less than helpful, so if you a. work for Meta b. know what to do (we have tried all the usual links), get in touch. And another way would be to buy some books on our as yet unhacked website at https://www.littletoller.co.uk/

Here's the font at Toller Fratrum, from which we take our logo.

25/02/2025

We have some exciting news!

We're thrilled to be publishing Caro Giles' memoir Unschooled this August - yesterday both The Bookseller and Bookbrunch ran the announcement.

Here's the full story:

Caro Giles' memoir is about her fight against an education system that is letting down a generation of children who don't fit in at school. In her second memoir, following the highly praised Twelve Moons (HarperNorth 2023), Giles reveals how she has fought for her children's access to appropriate education, and challenged the status quo. Unschooled explores the impact of not listening to families who need to do things differently.

Gracie Cooper, publisher at Little Toller Books, who acquired Unschooled from the author directly, said ‘I was bowled over by Caro’s story, her bravery resilience and determination, but also by the way in which she tells her tale of fighting for her children’s right to be educated in a way that’s right for them.’

Caro Giles said 'I'm so excited to be working with the team at Little Toller to bring Unschooled out into the world. Little Toller has a reputation for producing beautiful books with important messages about humanity and the world around us. I hope that Unschooled will contribute to the growing conversation about providing an education system that ensures all families can thrive.'

Unschooled will be published in hardback in August 2025. Available for pre-orders very soon!