A new title has slipped into our Autumn schedule called Over a Hot Stove – the memoir of Flo Wadlow who was a kitchen maid in some of England great houses such as Blickling Hall and Hatfield House. There seems to be a trend for all things nostalgic with the BBC’s Downton Abbey and Aprons & Silver Spoons.

But on the opposite side of the spectrum, there’s always been a fascination with the future – often portrayed in the Sci-Fi genre from the iconic Do Android’s Dream of Electric Sheep? to Oblivion. We are spellbound by the past and the future, all things nostalgic and the mystery of what’s to come. But what about now?

The present is something often taken for granted and a book I’m reading at the moment makes me appreciate where I am and what’s happening now. Londoners by Craig Taylor is a collection of short stories told by the residents of London, from the woman who does the announcements on the tube to the man who plants the trees along Oxford Street; from a nocturnal fruit and veg wholesaler to a Guardsman at Buckingham Palace – together, these voices and many more, paint a vivid, vibrant and wholly fresh portrait of 21st century London and stand as a reminder that perhaps the present is pretty great too.

Sophie Robinson, Publishing Assistant