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SEBASTIAN FAULKS' FIVE LIVES Sebastian Faulks' new novel A Possible Life is an exploration of human relations in five unique parts Told in five separate parts, Sebastian Faulks' new novel tackles head-on the issue of what makes humans, well, human. “It is very much a novel about connections and the importance of connections, and loneliness and hope," says Faulks. “I think that is something that people deal with day after day – the idea that you are a solitary person, complete only unto yourself, but that your happiness and place in the world is dependent on your connection with other people in the world: your parents, children, wife, husband. It is a continual balancing act that every human lives with. I suppose in this book most of the characters just have that question slightly more dramatised.” MORE >

	FEATURES

OLIVER JEFFERS' TRUE STORIES The children's illustrator charmed the audience at Bath Children's Festival Talking through some of his inspirations, Jeffers described how The Hueys – his recent book about conformity and peer-group behaviour – was inspired by his grandfather, who has 24 grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren, and calls them all “Huey” rather than try to remember their names. And Lost and Found, his much-treasured story of a penguin and a little boy who make friends, was written after he read a story about a boy who stole a baby penguin from Belfast zoo and had to look after it at home overnight before the zoo could come and pick it up. MORE >

MICHAEL MORPURGO ON POETRY Michael Morpurgo on the countryside, poetry for children – and Michael Gove   What made you want to collaborate with your wife Clare on Where My Wellies Take Me? This story, in a sense, has been the story of our life together. When she was a little girl Clare often came down to stay for her holidays in the Devon countryside. She would spend her days walking the lanes and woodlands round about, getting to know everyone who lived in the farms and cottages. As she often said, she went 'where her wellies took me', wandered freely around the farms, the streams, the village churchyard, loving every minute of it. MORE >