Celebrating 100 years of the BBC Shipping Forecast, Jane Russell takes us on a series of coastal cruises through the forecast sea areas, exploring some of the special places on offer in each of them

We leafed through the well-thumbed pages of our atlas until North Wales stopped us in our tracks. Anglesey felt like a place apart. A few weeks later, we found ourselves waist-high in prickly gorse, s

Catherine Clarke A History of England in 25 Poems400pp. Allen Lane. £25. Mark Forsyth Rhyme and ReasonA short history of poetry and people (forpeople who don’t usually read poetry)368pp. Allen & Unwin

After leaving the coast for the city, Caro Giles reflects on anchoring herself and her children to a new kind of water

I’m awake. Very awake. It’s early on a wind-whipped Sunday morning and I’m neck-deep in the sea off the Isle of Man’s north-east coast. The rain is steady, the swell is heavy and the water is gaspindu

It’s now been 78 years since the Steam Trawler Sheraton washed up on Hunstanton Beach, and it’s been a Norfolk landmark ever since. At low tide, its metal ribs and corroding body are still clearly vis