Beryl Bainbridge

An old snapshot shows a group of friends lounging in the sunshine, on a weekend in the country at the invitation of bearded, satyric Claude and his wife Julia.

Edward is throwing a dinner party with Binny, his mistress. Aware that she has long been denied those small intimacies that his wife takes for granted, he wants to give her a chance to feel more involved in his life, to socialise with some of his friends (the discreet ones).

It is 1950 and the Liverpool repertory theatre company is rehearsing its Christmas production of Peter Pan , a story of childhood innocence and loss. Stella has been taken on as assistant stage manager and quickly becomes obsessed with Meredith, the dissolute stage director.

Genteel, passive Ann works for the BBC in London and is engaged to a successful academic, fulfilling her snobbish mother's ambitions – more or less – while the Swinging Sixties happen elsewhere, to other people. Then she meets William: snub-nosed and generous, cunning and protean.

A brilliantly realised evocation of the thoughts and voices of Captain Scott and the four men with him, who suffered extraordinary hardships before finally dying during their 1912 attempt to be the first to reach the South Pole.

The Bottle Factory Outing follows Freda and Brenda, who work together in an Italian-run wine-bottling factory. A work outing becomes a pivotal moment that promises different experiences for each woman: excitement for Freda and apprehension for Brenda.