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As soon as we arrive at Pauline Prescott's crenellated Victorian house in Hull, she takes us on a tour which, I quickly realise, is a fitting introduction to her life's work. She is that old-fashioned woman - a homemaker - who has created a haven of plumped sofas and buttermilk walls, a thicket of family photographs on each polished surface. 'I always used to say to John, "One of these days I'll have this place like Homes & Gardens." But it's still a place to live in: I like it tidy when people arrive, but then everyone can turn it upside down,' explains Lady P, as she is known in Hull (as in 'Hi, Lady P!' when she pops to her local Asda). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The more people tell me I'm mad, the more I want to do it.' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Earlier this year, Taylor Swift used some of the estimated $50 million she earned by the age of 20 to buy herself a three-bedroom condominium in Nashville, and over the months she has put her stamp on it. 'There is this fish pond like a moat around the central fireplace,' she says. 'The chimney rises to the ceiling like a tower and on one side of it is a spiral staircase going to a landing/conservatory in the shape of a birdcage. I sit in there all the time - it's so fun.' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The view from Sheryl Crow's mansion-farm in Tennessee is of a neat swimming pool framed by pergolas and beyond it undulating fields and woods. High above, three huge birds are riding the thermals. 'Vultures,' Sheryl tells me after she winds up a telephone call and joins me on the verandah. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Brooke Shields has a healthy respect for the humdrum. Every day, she walks her two daughters, Rowan, six, and Grier, four, from their New York apartment to school. 'We don't take cabs. It's a long walk but those are some of the best conversations I have.' She reads them Harry Potter at bedtime. She participates in parent-teacher social events, such as last night's Western hoedown. 'I'm allowed to be just one of the mums. Everyone connected with the school has welcomed me in such an equal way.' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Sheryl Gascoigne sits up straight and looks me in the eye. This is an improvement in itself. For years, her gaze was directed at the floor. Everyone concluded she was a sulky minx. 'My friend - she met me very early on in my relationship with Paul. I don't remember this meeting. She says to me, "Sheryl, no wonder you don't remember! You never looked up. You were miserable. I thought you were rude." Well, I'm not rude to anybody but it was easier not to speak because then I wasn't talking to the wrong person, I wasn't laughing in the wrong place.' She is précising here the irrational rants of Gazza. 'I wasn't trying to get into the husband's pants by talking to the wife,' she finishes, impassively regurgitating his crudeness. People used to tell her that her eyes were dead. 'Yeah, I used to get that a lot. When I look back at photographs I can see it.' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Cartoonist Annie Tempest lives in a beautiful converted barn in Norfolk, which is very warm. There is an Aga in the kitchen, a wood-burner in the snug and, where we are talking - a glassed-in room built against a venerable red-brick wall - there is underfloor heating. Inside, a white bougainvillea flowers; outside, freezing hail is crackling around the courtyard like musket shot. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A week after he disappeared on a family skiing holiday in Switzerland last December, 23-year-old Myles Robinson was found dead beneath a treacherous cliff. Here his sister Cara talks to Louette Harding about the chilling experience, and how his memory is being kept alive [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

It was June, four years ago, when Leslie Kenton first contemplated writing about her childhood. 'My friend Gail Rebuck - who was my first editor and is now the chairman of Random House - she told me, "You need to write a memoir." I said, "Gail, I can't. No one would believe it, and the tabloids would go wild." And Gail said, "Who cares? This book will be the bridge between what you have done before and the work you will do afterwards."' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Sally Bee should not be here. She should not be answering the door of her Stratford-upon-Avon home, or stirring the chicken casserole she has concocted for her children's tea, or settling on the sofa in her sunny kitchen to talk about her new cookbook, visibly enjoying the excitement of its launch. Sally, now 41 and looking every inch the yummy mummy, should have died five years ago after suffering three massive heart attacks in one week. That she did not is testimony to the ingenious ability of the human body to heal when aided by the right diet and modest exercise. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Ben Fogle's departure for the South Pole last December came during a testing time for the TV adventurer and his wife Marina. He had only just recovered from leishmaniasis, a life-threatening parasite he had picked up in [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As the wife of provocative photographer Bob Carlos Clarke, Lindsey had to live with his control freakery, his obsessions and his infidelities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Coleen Rooney became famous only six years ago, yet today, at just 23, she is a national institution. Then, she was a hesitant schoolgirl in uniform and lumpy coat; now, she is the author of Coleen's Real Style and arrives at our photo shoot in a coquettish fusion of designer and high street: True Religion jeans, Lanvin top, Prada boots and Topshop shaggy fake fur. Then, she was the newish girlfriend of Everton's Wayne Rooney, precocious recruit to the England football team's doomed quest for silverware; now, she sports on her third finger a bantam-egg-sized diamond - an interlocking engagement and wedding ring - which Manchester United superstar Wayne gave her for their summer 2008 marriage. Then, she was famous as Wayne's Wag; these days, she is a living brand - 'Coleen x' - her signature and girlie kiss on books, perfume, jewelry and loaned to charity ventures. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Lily Ebert was never meant to make 82 years. In the summer of 1944, aged 14, she was taken to Auschwitz, fodder for the Nazis' grisly 'Final Solution'. Today, telling her story at her flat in Golders Green, London, she is frail but straight-backed. Behind her shoulder, a cabinet of dolls in national costume - a miniature crowd of different races and creeds - live in smiling harmony. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Earlier this year, the nuns of the Abbaye Notre Dame de l'Annonciation, near Avignon, took a call. It was, improbably, Decca Records asking to visit. The company was launching a global search to find the world's finest female exponents of Gregorian chant - a talent contest for nuns. It had advertised in Catholic newspapers, hired a specialist nun-hunter, followed the leads. Two A&R men turned up at the abbey. The purity of the sisters' singing was obvious at once, yet the search continued: 70 auditions, from America to Africa. And then, in July, although warned that it would not find a more traditional order than the Abbaye sisters, Decca chose this group of 28 women, whose mystique and dignity are enhanced by their refusal to engage with the hype surrounding a record launch. They are wary of the world but say, 'We did this for others, for their spiritual wellbeing; it will bring peace to the people who listen to our music.' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Penelope Trunk cannot help running into trouble. The first time I spoke to her she became distracted by her younger son and put the receiver down, only to lose it. I could hear her wailing, 'Where's the phone?' and then conclude hopefully, 'Maybe she'll ring back…' But the klutziness goes beyond the endearing to the foot-in-the-mouth blunder. A few months ago, the 44-year-old American businesswoman caused a maelstrom of publicity on both sides of the Atlantic when she tweeted while in a board meeting that she was suffering a miscarriage. The fierce backlash extended from US TV to the British broadsheets. Even as she defended herself (she was relieved that a problematic pregnancy had ended naturally), her brusque tone won her few friends. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As a former midwife and qualified nurse, Criona Wilson says that if there's one thing she knows about, it's illness. 'There's a rhythm to sickness, to getting better,' she says. When her youngest daughter mysteriously became unwell, she had a feel for the diagnosis. 'Although I'd never nursed anyone with the condition before, looking at Sophia I said, "I think you have ME."' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Venetia Williams is a slender and elegant beauty, all civility and poise. She is talented, successful and knows how to enjoy herself. But, my goodness, does she work hard! The life of a National Hunt trainer - starting early as she runs her hands down a couple of hundred equine legs - seems a bizarre grind to those of us whose knowledge of the sport goes no deeper than the annual office sweepstake for the Grand National. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

People are always asking Tania Harcourt-Cooze if she gets sick of chocolate. The answer is no. 'I wish I would,' she sighs, 'but I am a chocoholic.' Enviably slim and attractive, if she sounds a little jaded as she says this, it is perfectly understandable. Tania's husband, Willie, is a real-life Willy Wonka, and his project - to produce the finest chocolate in the world - has driven the couple to the brink of bankruptcy and Tania to desperation. 'It's been really difficult, really heavy. As time goes on and your situation doesn't improve, you despair,' she says. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Because the November day was mild, if windy, it wasn't until lunchtime that I lit the wood-burning stove in our thatched cottage and returned to the sofa where I was tapping an article on to my laptop, the new puppy at my feet. About half an hour later a figure flew up my path. I watched her through the glass door: why the rush? Why pound so furiously on the door? Then she pointed to the roof and it clicked: fire. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Earlier this year, the Benedictine nuns of the Abbaye Notre Dame de l'Annonciation, near Avignon in France, took a call. It was, rather improbably, Decca Records asking to visit. The company was launching a global search to find the world's finest female exponents of Gregorian chant: a talent contest for nuns. Two A&R men then turned up at the abbey. The purity of the sisters' singing was obvious at once, yet the search continued: 70 auditions, from America to Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]