SHE is Britain’s biggest-selling female adult fiction author, her novels always reaching the top of the bestseller list – and Jodi Picoult never shies away from uncomfortable, controversial subjects.

AT THE turn of this century, Nick Nairn opened his purpose-built Cook School in the grounds of his family estate at Port of Menteith, near Stirling.

REMEMBER when you spent your weekends going to dinner parties where mouthwatering home-made food was served on beautifully dressed tables?

WHEN I first met Salman Rushdie two years ago, I half expected him to be one of those boring, puffed-up, pseudo-intellectual types who bombard you with complex literary analysis and left you feeling, well, slightly inferior.

IT IS so refreshing to read a crime novel which is believable.

THOUSANDS of years of human settlement beneath the much-loved hulk of Bennachie are laid bare in this fascinating and beautifully illustrated volume.

THERE are some celebrities who bounce back whatever life throws at them. Les Dennis is one of them.

NICOLA Barry’s childhood didn’t fit the usual picture of neglect. Her wealthy parents lived in a big house crammed with antiques in one of Edinburgh’s posher suburbs and her mother never struggled to pay for the alcohol that wrecked her life.

IN CHECHNYA, the “extreme has become everyday”. The bestselling author of The Bookseller of Kabul has returned to the war-torn land of her first assignment as a rookie reporter in 1994 for this story of a broken and devastated society.