With the excitement generated by the success of the Dangerous Book for Boys now in full flow, it's worth reminding people of one small boy whose exploits were a childhood staple for me. They evoke a world where children were free of the horrors of school and health and safety and the output of the BBC.

John Grant's Littlenose books are the story of a Neanderthal boy who lives in a cave with his parents and a pet mammoth called Two-Eyes. Littlenose is not a naughty boy like so many heroes of children's books - he's just a boy: he forgets things, he doesn't think things through. Things don't work out quite how he intended them. He sets a forest on fire by mistake, but is hailed as a hero for saving everyone. He gets lost in a bog and is saved by an elk. He keeps getting chased by Bignoses (Homo Sapiens to you or me). He goes off by himself to find the sea and nearly drowns.

I'm not much given to sentimentality, but it would be nice if my children could have that kind of freedom, those kinds of adventures.

They really are wonderful stories, and are pitched at just the right length for a bedtime story for 5-9 year olds.  

While the dust jacket says that he's one of Britain's best known naturalists, Rackham's is hardly a name that is often cited around most British breakfast tables. This is a pity, because he has written some masterful books, including the seminal History of the Countryside. His books are full of wonderful, arcane knowledge about the British landscape and the way land use has changed over the years. Woodland and trees turn out to be wonderfully counterintuitive. For example the presence of an ancient tree in a wood is a strong indicator that the wood is not ancient. This is because in woods, trees are felled on a regular basis. So if you see an ancient tree in a wood, it probably means that a wood has grown up around an a single ancient tree. I find that rather wonderful.

A survey of eighteenth century satirical prints is not, at first glance, a recipe for a page turner. Any doubts the reader might have though are quickly set aside as Vic Gatrell gets quickly into his stride with the racy story of Lady Worsley's bottom. And having started out racy, he then accelerates. The eighteenth century was a time of bawdiness and drunkenness, scandal and smut and we are taken on a freakshow ride through all the most depraved corners of London society in this marvellously entertaining book. There are not many non-fiction volumes which can sustain the reader's interest right to the end. City of Laughter, at 720 pages, could have been a trial for the reader, but with subject matter so entertaining, it's like reading fiction or a scandal sheet.