Little Toller Books

Jennifer Potter's new bookresurrects the pivotal artist Kurt Schwitters and places him firmly in The LakeDistrict, where he lived as a penniless refugee in the years after the SecondWorld War. Derided as a 'degenerate artist' by the Nazis he fled Germany forNorway and then Britain, where he was interned as an 'enemy alien.' At the endof the war he travelled to the Lakes with his young English girlfriend. Renownedfor incorporating found objects and rubbish into his art, Schwitters let thespirit of the Lakes creep into his work, dashing off a stream of collages,sculptures, landscapes, portraits, flowers, abstracts and assemblages, which hesold or bartered for essentials. Just months before his pauper's death inKendal, he embarked upon his last masterpiece, never finished, a walk-insculpture magicked from a disused barn in the Langdale Valley. Potter adopts a thread ofmemory and personal connections to tell a wider story about the process ofmaking, and seeing, art. She turned Schwitters into one of the foundationalmyths of her life as a writer. But how true are her memories? Why did this longdead emigre artist take control of her imagination? And what can he tellher about the place she looks on as home? Looking for Mr Schwitters isnot a biography, nor an art book, nor a memoir, but occupies a beguiling spacebetween these genres, a book in its own class. Rigorously researched butwritten for the general reader this new book shines a light on the artist'sfinal years and reclaims his rightful place in the history of modern art. Looking for Mr Schwitters includes black and white images, a full colour section of Kurt Schwitters' art and a photo essay by Rob Petit.

In Osprey, the latestbook in Little Toller’s acclaimed monograph series, the writer and naturalistJohn Lister-Kaye tells a story of practical conservation with a keen eye and apoet’s ear, with an important bird at its heart – the osprey. For thousands of years theosprey nested widely across Britain, returning each spring from West Africa tobreed. But in the nineteenth century they were driven to extinction by eggcollecting and the systematic persecution of birds of prey on shooting estates. But since the 1950s ospreys have slowly returned. In 2019 John Lister-Kaye anda team of young naturalist-rangers at the Aigas Field Centre west of Invernessset up a single old telegraph pole and wove a nest of sticks at its top, andwaited. In Osprey, ListerKaye records the nature around the loch as he waits for the ospreys in quietand always rapt anticipation, sometimes with frustration, but always with hope,as finally the birds come to nest. In his eightieth year Lister-Kaye brings alifetime of nature and stories to Osprey, a captivating, entertainingaccount of the slow healing of landscapes and a life lived in the hope that thewild will return.

First published in 1910, MadShepherds, subtitled and other human stories, is an extraordinarybook. The author, Lawrence Pearsall Jacks, was a philosopher, educator, writerand Unitarian minister, who came to live in the Vale of Evesham in the northernCotswolds at the end of the nineteenth century. Mad Shepherds is alightly fictionalised account of life in the village, which Jacks callsDeadborough, and is also a highly idiosyncratic and authentic exploration ofrural life and culture. The protagonist is Snarley Bob, a shepherd, whose gruffand often rude outpourings conceal a dark wit and intelligence. As Jacks writes,'Mystic, star-gazer, dabbler in the black or blackish arts, he seemed in hislowly occupation of shepherd to represent some strange miscarriage of Nature'sdesigns.' Full of memorable portraits of the villagers, Mad Shepherds isa compulsively readable, sometimes strange book about an England now entirelylost and largely forgotten. This new edition has an introduction by the actorand director Mackenzie Crook.

In The Icknield Way, originallypublished in 1913, Edward Thomas walks one of the great ancient footpaths ofEngland, The Icknield Way, which runs from Ivinghoe Beacon in Buckinghamshireto Suffolk, and connects to the Great Ridgeway, and has a claim to be one ofBritain's oldest roads. In startling and evocative prose, Thomas recounts thehistory of the path through the ages, tells us how it was established, thepeople who have used it and takes us on a journey through time and place. Oneof Thomas' great prose works, republished alongside Little Toller's editions ofThe South Country and In Pursuit of Spring.

First published in 1927, TheCharm of Birds was an immediate bestseller, and combined an amateurornithologist’s keen eye with enthusiasm and a remarkably modern sensibilityand style. In particular Grey, much better known as the statesman who guidedBritish Foreign Policy in the early decades of the 20th century, brokewith the traditions of an earlier age which saw shooting as indivisible from alove of nature. Grey’s delight in the birds he found around both his home inNorthumberland and his Hampshire cottage shines from every page. Nearly 100years after the first publication of The Charm of Birds a whole newgeneration of readers is rediscovering Grey’s unique perspective, andappreciating again the freshness of the prose. This new edition has anintroduction by the best-selling nature writer Stephen Moss and a foreword bythe author Conor Jameson. Illustrated with engravings by Eric Fitch Daglish.

Shortlisted for the Nero Book Awards 2025We Came bySea is an untold story of thesmall boats crisis, a story which shows the best of us. It is the story of thevolunteers who help thousands of refugees in Calais, of the lifeboat crewsmounting one of the great search and rescue operations of all time, of anunrecognised, uncelebrated, all but unknown Britain which is giving its all tohelp the vulnerable and desperate. It is a journey through an unexaminednation, a nation which is as truly great and good as the people inthe dinghies believe Britain to be. It is not the story we have been told, andit is a true story.

It’s not by choice that Caro Giles is educating her daughters at home. Like so many families with children who don’t fit into mainstream schools, her family has become marginalised by an education system that is chronically underfunded and unable to support special educational needs. While still a school teacher, Caro had no alternative but to leave her job and take on a different role at home, as full-time educator and advocate for her wonderful girls. It was the obvious thing to do, because it was the only choice they had, and Caro made the decision unaware of just how much it would overwhelm her identity as a woman and challenge to the very core what it means to be a mother. Unschooled is a searing memoir about the love and true grit of a family forging its own path. With lyrical prose and unflinching honesty, Caro chronicles the relentless bureaucracy and isolation of being a single mother navigating a system that refuses to see her children. Through her own story, Caro interrogates a society that nurtures conformity rather than difference, and a culture that continues to place the burden of childcare on mothers. Being unschooled has become an ongoing act of resistance and a political statement, one that demands a more inclusive, compassionate education system that recognises and supports every child’s unique needs.

Of all the cities that the travel writerJan Morris knew, it was Venice which held a special place in her heart, a placeshe knew intimately and about which she wrote with great passion and knowledge. In A Venetian Bestiary she explores the animals, real, imaginary andartistic which haunt the city of floating dreams. This new edition is a beautifulsmall hardback, illustrated throughout with paintings and photographs which perfectlyaccompany Morris' words. With a new introduction by Sophy Roberts.

Twenty years ago Peter Hahn had a breakdown while in the back of a London taxi. Emotionally exhausted by his corporate life, he no longer recognised himself, but knew he had to find a path out. Since then Peter has found his way to Le Clos de la Meslerie, 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 each season, pruning the wines and harvesting the grapes by hand, before we follow him to the wine 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.