Mother Country

This title presents a hugely moving and affecting literary memoir of adoption, secrets and the need to belong. "Mother Country" evokes a magical childhood spent in transit between Notting Hill Gate and a decrepit houseboat on the banks of the Thames.

It is a detective quest, as Harding searches through the public record for a clue about his natural mother, and a rich social history of a lost London from the 1950s. "Mother Country" is a powerful true story, full of thrilling revelations, comic confusion and tender memories, about a man looking for the mother he'd never known and finding out how little he'd understood about the one he'd grown up with.