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In the reception class at Smethwick’s Victoria Park Academy, Aria, four, loves books that make her giggle.

Her favourite is The Smartest Giant in Town by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, because of the fox sleeping in a sock and the giraffe’s…

A plan for 99 homes on land near Bicester can go ahead after a planning inspector overturned a council’s rejection of it.

Richborough Estates took the project for the site west of Fringford Road in Caversfield to an appeal after Cherwell District…

Bill Peascod was also an active climbing figure in the late 1930s and 1940s.

“Born in Maryport, Bill Peascod came from a mining background in West Cumbria,” David Monteith, from Mountain Heritage Trust, said.

He made a first ascent of Eagle Front…

My thyroid cancer arrived by accident, in the way life-changing things sometimes do. In May of this year, I went for an upright MRI for a minor injury on my arm, and the scan happened to catch the mass in my neck. By the following month, I had…

The beginning of the books calendar is usually dominated by debuts, but January 2026 sees releases from some of the year’s biggest authors. Known for his surreally bittersweet short stories, George Saunders has written only one novel so far…