"Back in the 1950s and 60s what the man in the white coat said, stood …" Pebble on the Beach is the true story of one boy’s ability to survive. Growing up in Brighton, England, Tony was subjected to a childhood of physical and mental abuse - including electric shock treatment at the age of ten - abandoned by his family at fifteen, and sent to Australia to fend for himself. Unable to settle, wandering from place to place, he plotted his return to England, but an ill-fated attempt to stow away led to imprisonment in New Zealand and his eventual deportation. Having visited four continents, survived four brushes with death and a journey of 30,000 miles, he arrived back in England profoundly changed – but were things at home any different? To find our more about Tony and this book visit his website.

A companion work to Alt-History, this book is the result of a competition held to encourage people of all ages to think creatively about the city’s future. The entries were judged and edited before publication, and include a vision of text-messaging in 2045, a description of how 'Zero Tolerance' might operate on the city’s streets in the not-too-distant future, through to a sci-fi 'DownsLand Experience'…

This evocative collection of photographs shows Brighton during the WWII. Kindly reproduced here under licence from The Argus and The Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton & Hove, most of these images haven’t been seen by the public for many years. From soldiers marching past the Savoy cinema in East Street to a St Paul’s Street party celebrating VE day, these photographs offer a fascinating glimpse of the city’s not too distant past.

This book is a sequel to One Camp Chair in the Living Room, written by Margaret Ward and published by QueenSpark in 1988. Margaret was born and brought up in Rottingdean and lived there all her life. Unfortunately in 1989 she suffered a major stroke and at the suggestion of her rehabilitation nurses, started (as therapy) to write again. As she began to describe the stroke itself and her hard, painful struggle towards recovery she discovered fresh memories of her childhood, teenage years and early married life - they came crowding in and these more recent recollections are incorporated in this narrative.

These diverse images of childhood recapture a world that was much bigger and full of the unknown than today; a place where so many territories still lay undiscovered. In brief autobiographies, eight writers share reminiscences of their childhood years of happiness and indulgence. The authors take us on a journey back to times and places where imagination was allowed to run wild and unfettered. Readers can gain insight into those bygone times of fun, fantasy and frolics, but it wasn’t only halcyon days that are remembered. There were times when childhood memories invoke fear and bewilderment, and a wide spectrum of emotions is explored in the stories contained in this collection. It provides a legacy of childhood that can be enjoyed by children as well as adults, who will no doubt find echoes of their own childhood days.

This is a collection of life stories of people who are members of the gay and lesbian community in the Brighton area. The book is based on taped interviews with forty lesbian and gay men who spoke openly about their lives in and around Brighton. In the fifties and sixties the town enjoyed a national reputation as a haven for gay people and it was viewed as a relatively tolerant place for people to visit and live. Lesbians and gay men came from all over Britain for holidays and to settle down. Brighton was considered a type of ‘Eldorado’, a promised land, and this tradition remains today, where its thriving gay community is one of the largest in the country, outside London.

Although not strictly speaking a QueenSpark book, this wild ride across the diverse cultural terrain of live entertainment in Brighton & Hove was produced in collaboration with QueenSpark. It tells the story of one of the UK’s most cutting edge, creative producers. Over the last two and a half decades Zap Art has gone from establishing the iconic Zap nightclub, which transformed night life on the Brighton seafront to taking over the streets in most major cities and towns across the UK with large scale outdoor events. The book is a limited edition and not for sale although it can be downloaded from www.zaparchive.org. If you would like to be able to buy the coffee table version, register your vote.