Phil Cohen – at one time "Dr John", the leading figure of London hippy squatters in 1969, and erstwhile Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of East London – was born in Bloomsbury and never really moved away. The famous squares and famous writers powered his imagination as a child, while, after his years in the counterculture, the British Museum’s Reading Room provided a second home. The memoir continues through Cohen’s life, discussing book collecting, the pleasures of browsing and the need for bookshops. Building a personal library is a long way from setting fire to books as part of a John Latham "event" but, as a child, a drop-out and a professor, Phil Cohen's life has always been one of books.

Phil Cohen is an Emeritus Professor at the University of East London. His books have been mostly in the field of urban, ethnic and cultural studies, including Knuckle Sandwich: growing up in the working class city (Penguin) and Rethinking the Youth Question (Palgrave) and, in January 2013, a study of East London and the Olympics, On the Wrong Side of the Tracks.

London Fictions is a book about London, real and imagined. Two dozen contemporary writers, from Cathi Unsworth to Courttia Newland, reflect on some of the novelists and the novels that have helped define the modern city, from George Gissing to Zadie Smith, Hangover Square to Brick Lane.

It is a book about East End boys and West End girls, bed-sit land and dockland, the homeless and the homesick, immigrants and emigrants. All human life is here – high-minded Hampstead and boozy Fitzrovia, the Jewish East End, intellectual Bloomsbury and Chinese Limehouse, Black London, Asian London, Irish London, Gay London...

Andrew Whitehead on The Nether World by George Gissing
Andrew Lane on The Sign of Four by Arthur Conan Doyle
Nadia Valman on Children of the Ghetto by Israel Zangwill
Angela V. John on Neighbours of Ours by Henry W. Nevinson
Sarah Wise on A Child of the Jago by Arthur Morrison
Anne Witchard on Limehouse Nights by Thomas Burke
Heather Reyes on Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Zoë Fairbairns on This Bed Thy Centre by Pamela Hansford Johnson
Rachel Lichtenstein on Jew Boy by Simon Blumenfeld
John King on May Day by John Sommerfield
John Lucas on Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton
Susan Alice Fischer on Farewell Leicester Squareby Betty Miller
Jane Miller on The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen
Andy Croft on Rising Tide by Jack Lindsay
Bill Schwarz on The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon
Jerry White on Absolute Beginners by Colin MacInnes
Cathi Unsworth on The L-Shaped Roomby Lynne Reid Banks
Ken Worpole on The Lowlife by Alexander Baron
Susie Thomas on The Buddha of Suburbiaby Hanif Kureishi
Gregory Woods on Ready to Catch Him Should He Fallby Neil Bartlett
Lisa Gee on White Teeth by Zadie Smith
Valentine Cunningham on The Hard Shoulderby Chris Petit
Courttia Newland on Dead Air by Iain Banks
Sanchita Islam on Brick Lane by Monica Ali
Jon Day on Capital by John Lanchester
Philippa Thomas on NW by Zadie Smith

Andrew Whitehead is the editor of BBC World Service News and an editor of History Workshop Journal. He is the author of A Mission in Kashmir and runs the website www.londonfictions.com

Jerry White teaches London History at Birkbeck, University of London. His books include London in the Twentieth Century: A City and Its People, which won the Wolfson History Prize in 2002.

"It's not the patients you should worry about. It's the staff you should watch out for. "

Ship of Fools comprises twenty short stories, one for each year the author worked in the mental health system. These stories are fiction, but they are based on the real world of psychiatry and maximum security institutions. Written from the point of view of a staff member, the author lifts the lid on psychiatry, that secret domain. There are vivid accounts of life and death, of betrayal and redemption.

"They had drawn low cards in the lottery of life to get mental illness in the first place and then they had us to deal with on top of that."

Rod Madocks is a full time writer who spent twenty years working as a mental health professional, including time in maximum security forensic institutions. He is the author of No Way To Say Goodbye, which was shortlisted for the CWA/ITV Crime Thriller Awards in 2009. He has a PhD on the work of Vladimir Nabokov and lives in Nottingham.

Things of Substance brings together poems written over the last six years with selected pieces from earlier publications. It is a substantial new collection of the work of a well-respected prize-winning poet. Cashdan’s work reflects her interest in the connections between words and visual images. The poems respond to place in city and countryside. They also look back in time, delving into family history and beyond, giving voices to people from the past. Liz Cashdan is “a poet who will appeal to lovers of art in all its forms... she enters the mind of the artist with tremendous empathy... we see repeatedly in these poems how she provides a glorious explosion of the senses – sight and touch in particular." Belinda Cooke (Stride magazine)

Liz Cashdan is a poet and a teacher. She has published four poetry collections (two shared). The most recent is The Same Country (2006, Five Leaves). Her particular interest is in place and identity, often looking at historical subjects, and giving a voice to characters from the past who would not otherwise have had a voice. She has a degree in History and an MA and PhD in literature. She teaches fiction, travel writing, autobiography; and poetry, which often includes all of these.

Yorkshire has a vibrant and diverse range of poets and poetry, following in the footsteps of such luminaries as Andrew Marvell, Philip Larkin and Ted Hughes. Ian Parks has created a collection that showcases the best of today’s Yorkshire poets. Versions of the North features established writers such as Maurice Rutherford, who was born in Hull in 1922 and has lived and worked in the Humber shipyards for most of his life, and up-and-coming writers like Helen Mort, born in Sheffield in 1985, who has won the Foyle Young Poets Award five times.

Ian Parks was born in Yorkshire and has lived there for much
of his life. He has published six collections of poetry (Gargoyles
in Winter, A Climb Through Altered Landscapes, Shell Island,
Love Poems 1979-2009, The Landing Stage and The Exile’s
House). He has also edited an anthology of Chartist poetry, to
be published in 2013.

Jimmy Wilson is an East End boy whose father tends a barrow on Brick Lane. As an eleven year old, and twelve years later after the war, he is infatuated with Pinkie, a mixed-race girl whose mother lives among "the Indians" then starting to move into the East End. This is London's East End in the 1940s – polyglot, violent, poor. The novel takes place in run-down houses, down the local, during the Blitz and at an all day wedding feast. What will happen to Jimmy? What will happen to Pinkie in these changing times?

Robert Poole was born in Stepney. He was in the Navy in WWII and later the Merchant Navy. He jumped ship in New Zealand, changed his name and became a radio broadcaster. Eventually the police caught up with him and he was deported back to Britain where he ran a bingo stall. London E1 was his only published book. He died in 1963, two years after the book's publication.

Rachel Lichtenstein's books on the East End include On Brick Lane and, with Iain Sinclair, Rodinsky's Room.

From journeymen musicians to stars with many albums to their name, Mixed Messages includes interviews with 21 American jazz musicians – on music, mostly, but the world intrudes, as it does with the best of jazz music. The musicians range from the trombonist Louis Nelson, who was born in 1902, through the New Orleans pianist Ellis Marsalis, who is still playing and on to Byron Stripling, who plays trumpet with his Columbus Jazz Orchestra. Peter Vacher has been interviewing American jazz players since the 1950s and this is his second collection of interviews.

Mixed Messages is lavishly illustrated with rare and original photographs and will be of interest to any serious follower of jazz.

Peter Vacher knows everybody in the jazz world. His interviews
and articles have appeared throughout the English speaking
world, including in the Melody Maker, Jazz UK and CODA.
His previous book of interviews is Soloists and Sidemen
(Northway Press). He also writes obituaries of jazz musicians
for The Guardian.

Colin Ward was the historian of unofficial uses of the
landscape. The ten essays in Talking Green cover
environmental pollution, urban life, allotments, the uses of
nature, land settlement, regionalism, squatting, smallholding,
the green personality and the shires of Southern
England. Together they provide discussion points for anyone
interested in taking green politics further than climate
change and recycling (important as these are). Colin Ward
connects green politics and lifestyle to everyday living and
working, always providing positive proposals for future
living.

Colin Ward was the historian of unofficial uses of the
landscape. The ten essays in Talking Green cover
environmental pollution, urban life, allotments, the uses of
nature, land settlement, regionalism, squatting, smallholding,
the green personality and the shires of Southern
England. Together they provide discussion points for anyone
interested in taking green politics further than climate
change and recycling (important as these are). Colin Ward
connects green politics and lifestyle to everyday living and
working, always providing positive proposals for future
living.

Red Groove is a different kind of jazz book, filled with spirited and well-informed essays by a man who has listened to and loved the music passionately and critically for more than 50 years. Searle emphasises the musicians’ links with the real social and political world of which they are a vital cultural part, as well as demonstrating how jazz has become a world musical phenomenon with his writing on jazzmen and jazzwomen and their musicianship, from as far apart as Japan and Argentina, Chicago and Sheffield, Bengal and Benin and Iraq, Norway, Cuba and Cape Town.

"A delightfully detailed and imaginative evocation of innumerable moments of recorded and live magic. There’s rigorous scholarship here, yes, but essentially Red Groove is a dazzling celebration, motivated by a sense of respect, gratitude and love." - Robert Wyatt

Chris Searle is mostly known as an educator. He came to national fame when sacked for publishing his students' poetry – and was eventually reinstated by Margaret Thatcher, then Minister of Education! He has worked as a teacher in Canada, Tobago, Mozambique, Grenada and England.

His books include Lightning of your Eyes, Classrooms of Resistance, Words Unchained, This New Season, We're Building the New School, The World in a Classroom, Grenada Morning and The Forsaken Lover (for which he was awarded the Martin Luther King Prize) He is the jazz correspondent for the Morning Star and his other jazz book is Forward Groove (Northway).

The third annual themed compendium of essays from Five Leaves. Previous volumes include Maps and Utopia. The essays are quirky, intelligent and thought-provoking. Subjects in this collection range from true crime stories, personal experiences, historic essays and material on crime fiction.

“a curious rattle-bag of writing” - The Guardian

Jon McGregor – Coroners' Courts. Jon McGregor won the IMPAC
prize for his novel about drug users, Even the Dogs.
John Harvey – Z-Cars Remembered. One of Britain's best-selling
crime writers, John Harvey’s latest novel is Good Bait.
Peter Mortimer – Junior Crime Reporter. Peter Mortimer directs a
theatre company and is the editor at Iron Press. He was formerly a
junior crime reporter for the Whitley Bay Advertiser.
John Stuart Clark – Being a Scrappie. John Stuart Clark is a
cartoonist. His graphic novel Depresso was shortlisted for the MIND
Book of the Year
Alan Dent – One Day in Whitehaven. Founder and editor of Penniless
Press, Alan Dent is the translator of many French poets.
Russel D McLean – Chandler Revisited. Russel McLean has
published three crime novels with Five Leaves. He works as a bookselller in Dundee.
Danuta Reah – Forensic Linguistics. Danuta Reah's crime novels are
published by HarperCollins. She was chair of the Crime Writers
Association and volunteers with a refugee support group in Sheffield.
David Belbin – Turning Fact into Crime Fiction. David Belbin's
Nottingham-based crime novels are published by Tindal Street.
Rod Madocks – Dyadic Deaths. Rod Madocks worked in mental
health, including in secure units. His novel No Way to Say Goodbye was shortlisted for the ITV Crime/Thriller Awards
Melanie McGrath – Riders on the Storm – Hell's Angels. A crime
writer and journalist, Melanie McGrath’s latest book is A Boy in the Snow.
Michael Eaton – Charlie Peace, in Life and Death. Michael Eaton is
a film-maker. His TV documentary subjects included Harold Shipman.
His play about Charlie Peace opens at Nottingham Playhouse in October.
Deirdre O'Byrne – The Kerry Babies. Deirdre O'Byrne teaches Irish
and English history at Loughborough University and Irish history and the Irish language in Birmingham and Nottingham.
John Lucas – The First Murderer. John Lucas has written many
books, including academic studies of Dickens' major novels. He is
currently finishing a history of whistling (yes, really).
Ann Featherstone – Victorian Crime. Ann Featherstone works at the
University of Manchester, her interests are mainly Victorian, including
"freak shows" and circuses. Her latest novel is The Newgate Jig.
Damien Seaman – The Police in Weimar Germany. Damien
Seaman lived in Berlin for several years. His first novel is The Killing of
Emma Gross, based on a true story and set in Weimar Germany.
Paul Barker – The Isle of Sheppey. Paul Barker was editor of New
Society. His latest book is a memoir of Hebden Bridge.
Hilary Spiers – Waking the Silent Suspect. Hilary Spiers is a
playwright and short story writer living in Lincolnshire. Her first
collection of short stories is The Hour Glass.

DI Ray McBain is back at work and on filing duty. Desperate for something to do, a pair of old files intrigue him. In the first a woman pushes her way into a vulnerable family. The children adore her. At first. Then she has some "fun", which soon becomes torture and mental cruelty. Then she disappears. Meanwhile, in Ayrshire, another young family is relieved when a stranger comes into their lives to help them out. McBain makes the link, but nobody is interested in what he has to say. Is it even the same woman?

This is the second novel to feature DI Ray McBain. Blood Tears was published in 2012.

Michael J Malone is well known in Scotland for his poetry (once being a poet in residence in a sex shop). His first crime fiction, Blood Tears, was reprinted within weeks of publication. His book of interviews with leading Scottish public figures is published October 2012. Michael J Malone reps for Faber in Scotland and the north.

Dusseldorf prostitute Emma Gross has been murdered and the police have charged Peter Kurten – the "Vampire of Dusseldorf", the first man ever to be called a serial killer. Murderer, yes, but did he commit this particular crime? The arresting officer, Thomas Klein, thinks not, even though Kurten has confessed. These are the dying days of Weimar Germany, the police force is increasingly divided between right and left. It is a dangerous time. Klein thinks that the real killer is somewhat closer to home. Yet the only people who can help him include a Communist journalist, Gross's friends, and others in the underworld who hate the police. This is a novel of obsession set in the wild days of Weimar, doomed to end with the Nazi takeover. One of the highlights of my holiday reading – Stuart MacBride There is a name that should be on every crime fan's reading list and it's Damien Seaman – Tony Black, author of Murder Mile

Damien Seaman lived in Germany for several years. He has a degree
in Modern History from Oxford and has worked as a Parliamentary
Assistant, security guard and financial analyst. His short crime fiction,
interviews and reviews have appeared on many crime ezines and
websites, and he has been published in the New York Times. Brought
up in Lincolnshire, he now lives in Birmingham.