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THE SONG HOUSE Azzopardi, Trezza When Maggie Nix’s ageing hippy mother dies, Maggie decides she needs a job, something that will return her to the world. But the particular world she has in mind is that of her own childhood. She applies for the job of amanuensis to Kenneth Earl, a retired man living alone in his rambling house who wants to engage in a form of recollection of his own. Music has been the most important element in his life, and he intends to write a kind of musical memoir, which will recapture the feelings and ideas that every single one of his four thousand long-playing records aroused in him. As Maggie and Kenneth embark on this great task, they strike up an odd and strangely affectionate relationship. But what Kenneth doesn’t know is that Maggie stayed briefly in his house once before, under very different circumstances. Trezza Azzopardi’s work has been described as ‘scalding’ and ‘thrilling’. In her fourth novel the Booker-shortlisted author gives us another heart-stopping story written in a virtuoso style she has made all her own. Publisher: UK: Picador Schedule: Publication: May 2010 |
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THE DEATH OF ELI GOLD Baddiel, David Eli Gold, ‘the greatest living American novelist’ lies in a coma in a New York hospital: this is the final chapter of his long and tumultuous life. His fifth wife and their eight-year-old daughter are with him; fellow-novelists and elder statesmen pass by, hoping to pay their last respects to the great man. In a London nursing home his first wife Violet, long abandoned, hears the news and thinks back sixty years to the handsome GI who swept her off her feet. And Harvey, Eli’s hapless middle-aged son, journeys from London to be with his father, seeking a meaningful goodbye which might provide some kind of resolution to his own inner turmoil. Their catharsis is threatened by long-standing and vengeful hostilities buried deep in Eli Gold’s past which threaten to erupt right in the middle of this busy deathbed scene.
Dazzlingly provocative and deeply profound, THE DEATH OF ELI GOLD is about how relationships can hold together or blow apart, and about how love survives in the unlikeliest places.
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ON CANAAN'S SIDE Barry, Sebastian Lilly Bere's grandson Bill has hung himself, yet another victim of America's adventures abroad. Lilly's son Ed fought in Vietnam and was terribly scarred by his experience; but his own son's scars, inflicted in Iraq, have proved to be even more terrible. From her cottage in the Hamptons on Long Island, Lilly now recalls her life, a life that began in Dublin under the name Lilly Dunne, and is closing now amid the comforts provided by her American patron. Lilly fled to America in the twenties with her lover Tadg Bere, who was a Black & Tan and on the run from the IRA. Her life in America, vividly recalled now, mirrored the life of her adopted country in the 'American Century'. It was a life of service, to her husband, to her employers, to her precious only son and grandson. And while it is drawing to a close in a kind of serenity, nevertheless it is tragedy that has sounded the dominant note in Lilly's life. In his previous novels and plays, Sebastian Barry has anatomised the Ireland of the twentieth century. In this superb new novel he brings to life an American experience which is just as haunting and affecting.
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ROCKS IN THE BELLY Bauer, Jon ROCKS IN THE BELLY follows an unnamed male character through two parallel stories. In the first, he is an eight year-old only child, whose parents are repeatedly fostering boys despite the jealous turmoil it arouses in their son. This jealousy reaches unmanageable proportions when they begin to foster Robert, an older and more amiable child who forms a unique bond with his foster mother. As the bond grows, so too does the son’s struggle, building towards the moment he lashes out irreparably. Although his action is simple and petulant, the ensuing accident leads to repercussions that last for all of their lifetimes. Interspersed with this childhood recollection is our protagonist’s current experience as a twenty-eight year-old, returning home after ten years. With his mother terminally ill and his father dead, he is forced to tend his mother in her illness, and consequently confront his past. He hasn’t moved beyond that one devastating moment in his childhood, except to blame his mother for what he did to Robert; he hates her for it, yet also feels a strong need for her love and approval. But his mother isn’t that same strong woman anymore: now she’s dependent on his kindness and he the dominant force – a power he can’t help but abuse. ROCKS IN THE BELLY explores a child’s capacity for evil as well as good, the anatomy of guilt, hatred and blame, and the effortless destruction we wreak on one another in the simple pursuit of our own happiness. A graphic, visceral but often beautiful and funny novel, ROCKS IN THE BELLY reminds us that, statistically, the most dangerous place for a child is within their family. "Jon Bauer excels in this exploration of the mind of a child who, however intelligent and funny he may be, is nonetheless deeply unsure of himself. A notable first novel." - J M Coetzee Publisher: (Not Yet Sold); ANZ: Scribe Schedule: Delivered |
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THE PEOPLE'S QUEEN Bennett, Vanora Set in late fourteenth century England, Vanora Bennett’s rich, dramatic new novel charts the relationship between the king’s witty rogue of a mistress, Essex girl Alice Perrers, and Geoffrey Chaucer, tragic-comic official and poet. The country is in turmoil: the Black Death has annihilated a third of the population, the King is in debt to the City, and the old order has broken down - a time of opportunity indeed, for those who can seize the moment. As the senile king lies on his sickbed, Alice becomes the virtual ruler of the country. Queen of the medieval plunderers, she throws herself into her new role and into collecting the riches that can be cleverly redirected into her own pocket. Her strong connections to the merchants of London make her a natural ally for the king's ambitious second son, John of Gaunt, as they seek to control the credit crisis engulfing England in the wake of a war the country can’t afford. Together they create a powerful position in the city for one of John’s henchmen, the biddable Geoffrey Chaucer.
But Chaucer, despite being Alice’s friend and ally, is uneasy about the conspirators around them. As he comes to realise that integrity is too high a price to pay for wealth, ambition and high social position, Chaucer learns that in order to avert disaster and save Alice from herself he will have to find his own courage and self-respect.
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SOUL MURDER Blake, Daniel Introducing Pittsburgh detective Francesco Patrese: three years on the homicide beat, he is only just beginning to learn how the job can haunt a man. But the Steel City is no place for soul-baring. A noted surgeon is found burnt alive in his apartment; days later, a local bishop meets with the same grisly fate. While the streets of Pittsburgh simmer with unease, Patrese and his partner, veteran detective Beradino, search for links between the two victims. The murders coincide with the controversial release from prison of Mara Slinger – a Hollywood star married to the city’s dashing young mayor, Mara was convicted of killing her three newborn children but the verdict was overturned on appeal. With the city torn between suspicion and sympathy for the tragic actress, the police provide Mara with protection – but as the apparently random killings mount up, can anyone be safe? Can anyone be trusted?
Drawn into a harrowing conflagration of vengeance and betrayal, Patrese must face the spectre of his own past before he can uncover the pattern behind this bizarre spree of increasingly violent attacks. But with racial and religious tensions flaring up across the city in the wake of his investigations, Patrese will have to act fast to track down the killer and contend with evil in all its forms.
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THE EMPRESS OF ICE CREAM Capella, Anthony France 1670. Trained by his Persian master in the mysterious ways of ice, Carlo Demirco’s skill in this new art of creating ice creams has brought him wealth, women, and a position at the court of Louis XIV. Then Carlo is sent to London, along with Louise de Keroualle, an impoverished lady-in-waiting. The most powerful ministers of two countries have decided that Louise is to be Charles II’s new mistress, and will stop at nothing to make sure she submits. But Carlo too is fascinated by the enigmatic Frenchwoman. With the king’s every pleasure the subject of plots and betrayals, and Carlo’s only weapons his exquisite concoctions, soon he must decide…where do his loyalties lie?
From political intrigue in shadowy palace corridors to the lusty pleasures of frost fairs on the river, THE EMPRESS OF ICE CREAM is an absorbing and gorgeously detailed novel with a colourful cast of extraordinary characters: the King’s favourite Nell Gwyn, vicious and vivacious in equal measure; the racy, gossiping Lord Rochester; and presiding over this court of trysts and tensions, the inscrutable figure of the “merrie monarch” himself.
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THE BETRAYAL Dunmore, Helen Summer 1952: the city of Leningrad has known peace for almost eight years – but underlying that peace is a deep and wary unease. Stalin’s Soviet Union is a land of whispers and watchfulness, where nobody can count themselves as safe, and so for Andrei and his wife Anna – survivors of the German siege – the best course of action has always been to blend in and not be noticed. But Andrei is also a doctor, and when a colleague asks him to advise on a young patient who happens to be the son of a high-ranking figure at the Ministry of State Security, Andrei finds himself caught in an impossible game of life and death. Whether he treats the child or not, everything he holds dear will be exposed and endangered by his actions. While her husband agonises over his decision under the impassive gaze of the authorities, Anna will need all her strength and courage to ensure a future for herself and her whole family.
An exquisite and gripping tale of life and love in Stalinist Russia, THE BETRAYAL is also the sequel to Helen Dunmore’s critically acclaimed novel THE SIEGE, which was shortlisted for both the 2001 Whitbread Novel Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction.
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THE BRAVE Evans, Nicholas 1959: There’s little love in eight-year-old Tom Bedford’s life – and even less when he is sent away to a brutal English boarding school, bristling with bullies and sadistic staff. The only comfort he gets is from his fantasy world of Cowboys & Indians. When his sister Diane, a rising star of stage and screen, falls in love with one of his idols, the suave TV cowboy Ray Montane, Tom’s life is transformed. They move to Hollywood and all his dreams seem to have come true. Soon, however, the sinister side of Tinseltown will cast its shadow and a shocking act of violence will change their lives forever. 2007: What happened all those years ago remains a secret that corrodes Tom’s life and wrecks his marriage. Only when his estranged son is charged with murder do the events resurface, forcing him to confront his demons. As he struggles to save his son’s life, he will learn the true meaning of bravery.
Powerfully written and intensely moving, THE BRAVE explores our quest for love and identity, the fallibility of heroes and of parents and the devastating effects of family secrets.
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LUCKY BREAK Freud, Esther It is their first day at Drama Arts, and the circle of huddled, nervous students are told in no uncertain terms that here, unlike at any other drama school, they will be taught to Act. To Be. To exist in their own world on the stage. But just around the corner is the real world – an alluring, pitiless place where only 8% of actors are working at any given time (and often the same 8%). It is a world in which each of them, in their most fervent dreams, hopes to flourish and excel. Nell, insecure and dumpy, wonders if she will ever be cast as anything other than the maid. She’ll never compete, she knows this, with the multitude of confident, long legged beauties thronging the profession – most notably Charlie, whose effortless ascendance is nothing less than she expects. Whilst Dan, ambitious and serious, has his sights fixed on Hamlet, as well as on fiery rebellious Jemma.
Over the following decade these young actors will grapple with haphazard tours, illogical auditions, unobtainable agents, deluxe caravans, rocky relationships and red carpet premieres. This dazzling new novel from Esther Freud uncovers a world of ruthless ambition, uncertain alliances and the many sided holy grail of Success.
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MY LAST DUCHESS Goodwin, Daisy The evening of Cora Cash's masquerade ball, nothing has been left to chance. Gorgeous, spirited and extravagantly rich, her wardrobe stuffed with Parisian couture, Cora is the closest thing New York society has to a princess. Her mother has devised for her a debut that promises to be the most opulent of the season, indeed of the gilded 1890s. The show-stopper of a ball is but the prelude to a campaign that will see her mother whisk Cora - aboard the family's private yacht - to the culture and sophistication of Europe. Mrs Cash has her heart set on the ultimate prize: a title for her daughter. Rumour has it that in England, impoverished blue-bloods are queuing up for introductions to American heiresses - and seem content to overlook the sometimes lowly origins of their fortunes. Plunged into the heart of the English aristocracy - a fascinating world bristling with arcane rules and pitfalls - Cora finds that she must summon every ounce of wit and courage she possesses. For there are those who feel threatened by her beauty and wealth, who would like nothing better than for Cora to pack her monogrammed luggage and run. But perhaps they have underestimated this particular heiress. A story of the fin de siècle romance between England and America, Daisy Goodwin's debut novel is lavish, hugely charming, deliciously dark and completely unputdownable. Publisher: UK: Headline; US: St Martin's Press; German: Rowohlt Schedule: Publication: August 2010 |
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LIFE TIMES: STORIES 1952 - 2007 Gordimer, Nadine Throughout her career, the internationally renowned South African writer Nadine Gordimer has built a literary reputation with her incisive short stories and her acclaimed novels. Together with her essays, now collected in TELLING TIMES, this highly imaginative and committed body of work won her the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991. In the opinion of the Nobel Academy, 'Through her magnificent epic writing she has - in the words of Alfred Nobel - been of very great benefit to humanity.' Gordimer has said that, rather than the coherence suggested by the novel, the experiece of human life is more like ' the flash of fireflies, in and out, now here, now there, in darkness. Short-story writers see by the light of the flash; theirs is the art of the only thing one can be sure of - the present moment.'
Now, for the first time, we can see the full range of Gordimer's outstanding achievement as she explores the borderland between private emotions and the forces of the external world, from the 'wonderful talent' (Observer) and 'absolute assurance' (TLS) of her early work to the ironic, passionate and humorous stories that have characterised her later collections. Spanning six decades, the thirty-five stories published here represent the exceptionally entertaining and challenging best of one of the great writers of our time.
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WE HAD IT SO GOOD Grant, Linda Stephen Newman was born in Los Angeles in the years after the Second World War. His father Si, a refugee from Poland, ran a fur storage depot which catered to the stars of Hollywood. When he was eight years' old Stephen tried on Marilyn Monroe's stole, an experience he would never forget. Gaining a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford, he arrives in time to experience the late sixties in Britain and to avoid the draft to Vietnam. He meets his future wife, Andrea, and soon comes to understand that he will never return to America. They buy a run-down house in Islington, then a very unfashionable part of London, and Stephen devotes himself to his career at the BBC and to his children, Marianne and Max. Andrea's friend Grace, a free spirit who was willing to try anything when they were young, flits in and out of their lives, her freedom now a burden to both her and her friends. When Marianne grows up she becomes a war photographer, courting danger in places like Sarajevo. The torch has passed, and Stephen finds himself becoming older and less valued in his work. But he is nevertheless a member of a lucky generation, perhaps the luckiest in history. His marriage is secure, the run-down house is now worth a fortune, his friends are wealthy and complacent. It takes a decision by his father Si, soon after Stephen's mother dies, that he is going to revisit the places of his childhood in Poland, to shake Stephen out of his own complacency. A big, capacious novel, full of deftly-drawn characters and bursting with ideas, WE HAD IT SO GOOD is a novel of our times.
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THE RADLEYS Haig, Matt On a leafy street in the quiet village of Bishopthorpe there lives a very ordinary family. Peter Radley is the village doctor, and his wife Helen is part of the local book club. Their children Clara and Rowan may be experiencing all the hormonal anguish of being teenagers…but that’s only a normal part of growing up, and the Radleys are nothing if not normal. Yet when Clara finds herself driven one night to committing a bloodthirsty act of violence, her parents react with resignation rather than horror. After years of keeping the family’s true nature a secret, Peter and Helen must now explain everything to their children: why it is that their skin is so sensitive to sunlight, why they all find garlic so repulsive, and why Clara’s recent decision to go vegan has been so detrimental to her health…Not everything is as it seemed with the Radleys. Unless they seemed like abstaining vampires to you. Reeling from their parents’ revelation, and with the police closing in, Clara and Rowan are stunned by the further discovery that they also have an uncle, a smooth-talking and decidedly active vampire who has been kept away from them all their lives. Now the mysterious Uncle Will may be all that stands between Clara and public exposure. But when he swoops into the village to save the day, he unleashes a host of shadowy secrets that will bring the whole Radley family to the point of self-destruction.
A dark and witty spin on vampire culture, THE RADLEYS is also a sensitive portrait of an unravelling marriage and of a family learning the hard way that blood runs thicker than water...
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ONE FOR SORROW Hartley, Sarah It is 1953, and the small seaside town of Lymerstone is in mourning after a school bus accident claims the lives of an entire class at St. Jude's School. That is, apart from one lucky child, Pete Roberts, the son of the local doctor. Hundreds of miles away a young nun, Sister Rosemary Jones, opens an envelope sent by her older brother Rudy, containing only a newspaper cutting reporting the tragedy. Why does she suddenly feel compelled to leave the Abbey, to be among those who are grieving and to offer comfort to the parents and children left behind? The people of Lymerstone pay equal attention to superstition and to God; they do not hide their jealousy of Dr and Mrs Roberts, the wealthy couple whose rather ordinary son was spared. And when Sister Rosemary arrives, some are wary of the enigmatic stranger while others consider her arrival a blessing, in a place exhausted by the hardship of war. Through the diaries she has kept since childhood, we learn how Sister Rosemary is welcomed to Downyside Farm, home to Will and Jess Trelevyn. Rosemary slips easily into their lives and is drawn to the families coming to terms with their loss. But as the years roll on, the secrets of Sister Rosemary's hidden past begin to overshadow the secure life she has worked so hard to establish. She fights the fears that threaten to overwhelm her, but even so, those who have come to love and trust her will be shattered by unimaginable events she cannot control. Lymerstone makes front page news yet again. This is a dark tale of a childhood interrupted, of hope and of loss. It depicts the inevitable damage of grief and love left unspoken, and - above all - the enduring resilience of human nature. Publisher: Not Yet Sold Schedule: Delivery Feb 2010 |
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KING OF THE BADGERS Hensher, Philip KING OF THE BADGERS is set in a provincial town in England during a single summer and autumn. In the late spring of 2007, a small girl living on the outskirts of Hanmouth, an estuary town in Devon, goes missing. Has she been abducted? The small and comfortable community is the focus of national attention and wild speculation about the case. Quickly a suspicion arises that Shavorn may not have been taken by a stranger. Did the girl's mother, stepfather and wider family orchestrate her abduction to swindle the sympathetic public? There are those in the town who want to use the case to further their own interests and obsessions. Street surveillance is stepped up; the Neighbourhood Watch, under the cryptic direction of a newcomer, John Calvin, wants to watch and control the town's behaviour 'in the name of Shavorn'.
KING OF THE BADGERS consolidates Philip Hensher's position as a masterly chronicler of the times; in the tradition of CRANFORD or MIDDLEMARCH, it is about small-town life but touches on big social issues. It is also a lyrical novel of place, of the sun setting over an English estuary; the high moorlands of Dartmoor; of rivers, creeks and deep gorges; the birds of the county and the passage of the seasons.
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THE WOODCUTTER Hill, Reginald THE WOODCUTTER is a fast-moving psychological thriller from the award-winning author of the Dalziel and Pascoe series. Wolf Hadda's life has been a fairytale. From humble origins as a Cumbrian woodcutter's son he has risen to become a hugely successful entrepreneur, happily married to the girl of his dreams. But a knock on the door one morning brings all this to an end. Now universally reviled, thrown into prison while protesting his innocence, abandoned by friends and family, Wolf retreats into silence. Seven years later prison psychiatrist Alva Ozigbo makes the breakthrough. Wolf begins to talk, and under her guidance he gets parole, returning to his rundown family home in rural Cumbria. But there is a mysterious period in Wolf's youth when he disappeared from home and was known to his employers as the Woodcutter. And now the Woodcutter is back, looking for the truth -- and with the truth, revenge. Can Alva intervene before his pursuit of vengeance takes him to a place from which he can never come back? Publisher: UK: HarperCollins; Sweden: Forum Schedule: Publication: July 2010 |
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ECHOES OF SMALL FIRES Hudson, Kerry Janie Ryan, having narrowly avoided the abortion clinic, is born into a matriarchal Aberdonian clan of fishwives famous for the ‘Ryan Temper'. It’s the 1980s, and the air is thick with Human League, greed, and the scent of Findus Crispy Pancakes; but the yuppie boom couldn’t be further away from Janie’s existence on the edges of society. Moving from women’s shelters to grotty B&Bs and crumbling council estates, Janie must protect both herself and her little sister Tiny from the disreputable men her mother brings home. Forced to witness unspeakable acts, she frequently escapes to her interior world to make sense of the brutality of their itinerant life. But as she grows up and hits adolescence with a vengeance, is she able to rescue herself from making the same mistakes as her mother? Funny, affecting and redemptive, ECHOES OF SMALL FIRES is an intimate and authentic story about mothers, daughters, and what it means to grow up with only yourself to rely upon. Publisher: Not Yet Sold Schedule: Delivery: June 2010 |
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THE WIDOW'S TALE Jackson, Mick A newly-widowed woman has done a runner. She just jumped in her car, abandoned her (very nice) house in north London and kept on driving until she reached the Norfolk coast. Now she’s rented a tiny cottage and holed herself away there, if only to escape the ceaseless sympathy and insincere concern. She’s not quite sure, but thinks she may be having a bit of a breakdown. Or perhaps this sense of dislocation is perfectly normal in the circumstances. All she knows is that she can’t sleep and may be drinking a little more than she ought to. But as her story unfolds we discover that her marriage was far from perfect. That it was, in fact, full of frustration and disappointment, as well as one or two significant secrets, and that by running away to this particular village she might actually be making her own personal pilgrimage. By turns elegiac and highly comical, THE WIDOW'S TALE conjures up this most defiantly unapologetic of narrators as she begins to pick over the wreckage of her life and decide what has real value and what she should leave behind. Publisher: World English Language: Faber; Dutch: Ambo Anthos; French: Christian Bourgois Schedule: Publication: April 2010 |
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GIRL NINETY-NINE Jones, Andy For reasons good, bad and misguided, William Fisher embarks on a mission to bring the total number of his sexual conquests up to one hundred. Over the course of six months, Fisher sleeps with - amongst others - a colleague, a colleague of a friend, a friend of a friend, a friend of a friend’s wife, and the estate agent selling his flat. He is up to girl ninety-eight and his life is nothing if not eventful. Complicated might be a better word. And then, whilst assembling crew for a shoot, Fisher meets a make-up artist called Ivy. Fisher doesn’t believe in ‘the One’ (it’s romantic crap and statistical nonsense, he’ll tell you), but if he did, if he believed we each had a perfect soul mate out there somewhere, then he’d probably imagine his was someone very much like Ivy.
Just as Fisher realises the errors of his ways and decides to put those ways behind him, Fisher’s ways decide this would be a perfect moment to whip the rug from beneath his feet.
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FIELD GREY Kerr, Philip ‘A man doesn’t work for his enemies unless he has little choice in the matter.’ So says Bernie Gunther. It is 1954 and Bernie is in Cuba. Tiring of his increasingly dangerous work spying on Meyer Lansky, Bernie acquires a boat and a beautiful companion and quits the island. But the US Navy has other ideas, and soon he finds himself in a place with which he is all too familiar – a prison cell. After exhaustive questioning, he is flown back to Berlin and yet another prison cell with a proposition: work for French intelligence or hang for murder. The job is simple: he is to meet and greet POWs returning to Germany and to look out for one in particular, a French war criminal and member of the French SS who has been posing as a German Wehrmacht officer. The French are anxious to catch up with this man and deal with him in their own ruthless way. But Bernie's past as a German POW in Russia is about to catch up with him – in a way he could never have foreseen.
Bernie Gunther’s seventh outing delivers more of the fast-paced and quick-witted action that we have come to expect from Philip Kerr. Set in Cuba, a Soviet POW camp, Paris and Berlin, and ranging over a period of twenty years from the Thirties to the Fifties, FIELD GREY is an outstanding thriller by a writer at the top of his game.
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COMFORT AND JOY Knight, India It’s Christmas morning. Happily married Alice is stuffing a turkey and having improper thoughts about a colleague. Soon children, relatives, in-laws, exes and strays will gather at her house for Christmas Day, to eat too much, drink too much and exchange insufficiently impressive gifts. They’ll also exchange slights, hurts, animosities, crushes and secrets - big, big secrets - and by Boxing Day nothing will be the same. Will love save the day? Is blood thicker than water? Or are families just the world’s biggest nightmare? A blackly funny, tender dissection of the meaning of love – family love, sibling love, children love – COMFORT AND JOY will make you laugh and cry. Publisher: UK: Fig Tree Schedule: Publication: November 2010 |
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SCREAM IF YOU WANT TO GO FASTER Litten, Russ Hull, England. October 2007. A city still drowning in summer floodwater prepares to wave farewell to Europe’s biggest travelling Fun Fair. For six year-old Billie, Walton Street is a magical playground of wide-eyed adventure. For David and Denise the fading lights of the fair signal the birth of a brand new kind of freedom. And for Michelle and Darren it’s the beginning of a haunted love affair that can only end in carnage. As the big wheel turns above them, and the sky is set alight with noise and colour, ten cross-pollinating tales of everyday horror and heroics play themselves out to a heartbreaking conclusion in the rain soaked city below.
With a sprawling cast of Polish plumbers, ex-jailbirds, sociopath taxi drivers, cyber-space spiritualists and short-fused security guards, SCREAM IF YOU WANT TO GO FASTER is a brilliantly funny, white-knuckled ride of a debut from one of the most remarkable voices to emerge in contemporary British fiction.
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SEPARATION FOR BEGINNERS Manson-Smith, Alex Having a predictable life at least means you know what’s going to happen. That’s what 48 year-old Carole Hughes always thought. Then her husband runs off with their daughter Ali’s schoolteacher and Carole finds herself without a career, money or future. Ali takes revenge and is promptly expelled, leading Carole to sell the family home in Birmingham and move them to London. Here Ali follows her half-baked dreams of stardom, while Carole finds herself negotiating jobs, dates and objectionable rental flats.
But she’s a middle-aged single mother, not a 25 year-old girl about town – is this really how she should be living her life? Meanwhile David questions his decision to move in with the free-spirited Fenella. Has he made the biggest mistake of all?
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ORCHID BLUE McNamee, Eoin It's January 1961, and the beaten, stabbed and strangled body of nineteen year-old Pearl Gambol is discovered after a dance at Newry Orange Hall. Returning from London to investigate the case, Detective Eddie McCrink soon suspects that there may be people wielding influence over affairs, and that the accused, the enigmatic Robert McGladdery, may struggle to get a fair hearing. Presiding over the case is Lord Justice Curran, a man who nine years previously had found his own family in the news, following the murder of his own nineteen year-old daughter, Patricia. In a spectacular return to the territory of his Booker-longlisted THE BLUE TANGO, Eoin McNamee explores and dissects this notorious murder case, one which led to the last hanging on Northern Irish soil. Publisher: UK: Faber Schedule: Delivered; Publication: November 2010 |
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DUST AND STEEL Mercer, Patrick Thrilling military history set during the Indian Mutiny, perfect for fans of Andy McNab and Bernard Cornwell. As the ship docked in Bombay, the shocking news of the rising by the Indian mutineers and their massacre of women, children and civilians reached Anthony Morgan and his company. Even so, they were hardly prepared for what they now faced in this country, so unknown to them, where they found it hard to understand who was friend or foe among the native troops. Morgan himself has another quest. On discovering that the son he had fathered, his child's mother and her husband, Morgan's old sergeant, are captives up in the hills where the enterprising Rhani of Jansi is building up her forces, he is determined to find a way to rescue them and lead them to safety.
A gripping tale of one of the great challenges to the Victorian Empire, and the difficult dilemmas of a soldier torn between orders and honor.
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ACCORDING TO ARNOLD: A NOVEL OF LOVE AND MUSHROOMS Milton, Giles Meet Arnold Trevellyan - charismatic, exuberant and somewhat strange. His love of mushrooms is matched only by a passion for Flora, his wife of twelve years. One day, while searching for mushrooms, Arnold makes a wondrous discovery that will turn his world upside down. He abandons Flora and heads to the South Pacific, where he finds himself marrying the queen of a remote tropical island. But all is not as it seems in Arnold's idyllic realm. In a series of cassettes sent to his oldest friend, he reveals that he is trapped in an international conspiracy in which mushrooms hold the key to life or death. Funny, tragic and intensely moving, ACCORDING TO ARNOLD is essential reading for all women who think they know their partner - and all men who think the grass is greener elsewhere. Publisher: UK: Macmillan; Finnish: Karisto; French: Buchet Chastel/Noir sur Blanc; Spanish: Le Factoria de Ideas Schedule: Publication: May 2010 |
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SKIPPY DIES Murray, Paul Longlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize. Ruprecht Van Doren and his roommate Daniel ‘Skippy’ Juster are probably the two biggest losers in Seabrook College for Boys. Ruprecht is an overweight genius whose hobbies include very difficult maths and the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. Skippy is on the swimming team, but mostly likes to play Nintendo – that is, until he falls for Lori, the Frisbee-playing Siren from the girls’ school next door. Nobody thinks he has a chance, especially since his rival happens to be Carl, the sinister school drug-dealer. But some losers don’t know when to quit, and while Ruprecht attempts to open a portal into a parallel universe, Skippy, in the name of love, is rapidly heading towards a showdown in the form of a doughnut-eating race that only one person will survive… Hilarious and heartbreaking as a tragic SOUTH PARK, with an educational programme of its own that ranges from mermaids to M-theory to the real meaning of the poems of Robert Frost, SKIPPY DIES captures in painful detail the humiliations and joys of being thirteen in a world that craves youth but can’t stand the young.
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THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF MAF THE DOG, AND HIS FRIEND MARILYN MONROE O’Hagan, Andrew In 1960 Frank Sinatra gave his friend Marilyn Monroe a dog. She called it Mafia Honey. The dog was born in Scotland. He was with Marilyn for the last two years of her life. She took him everywhere and he saw everything. He loved liver, shoes, and the mysteries of art. But mostly he loved his owner. Set in the twilight world of the early 1960s, this joyful literary comedy recounts the last phase in the life of a woman who would come to define the twentieth century. Here we see Marilyn with Frank, Marilyn with Jack, Marilyn recovering from her divorce with Arthur Miller; we see the actress on the set of her last film, and we see her alone and vulnerable, with only her faithful dog for company. Maf is witness, narrator, and philosophical chorus in a novel that embraces high art and popular culture, bedroom comedy, cats who mimic the poetry of William Carlos Williams, talking ladybirds, and famous immigrants. A picaresque adventure quite unlike anything since the great novels of the 18th century, Maf stands squarely (on four legs) alongside the heroic narrators of Swift, Sterne and Fielding. Publisher: UK: Faber; US: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; Canadian: McClelland & Stewart; Czech: Kniha Zlin; Dutch: De Geus; Finnish: Tammi; French: Bourgois; German: S Fischer; Greek: Polis; Hungarian: Europa; Italian: Fazi; Polish: Bertelsmann; Portuguese: Bertrand; Russian: AST Schedule: Publication: May 2010 |
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BITTER LEAF Okereke, Chioma Bitterleaf is a richly textured and intricate novel set in Mannobe, a world that is African in nature but never geographically placed. At the heart of the novel is the village itself and its colourful cast of inhabitants: Babylon, a gifted musician who falls under the spell of the beautiful Jericho who has recently returned from the city; Mabel and M'elle Codon, twin sisters whose lives have taken very different paths, Magdalena, daughter of Mabel, who nurses an unrequited love for Babylon and Allegory, the wise old man who adheres to tradition. As lives and relationships change and Mannobe is challenged by encroaching development, the fragile web of dependency holding village life together is gradually revealed. An evocatively imagined debut novel from a promising new writer about love and loss, parental and filial bonds, and everything in between that makes life bittersweet. Publisher: UK: Virago Schedule: Published June 2010 |
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IN THE FLESH O'Riordan, Adam 'Vanishing Points’, a seductive series of snapshots from a family album, opens Adam O’Riordan’s first collection of poems. Negotiating the hidden paths from past to present, from the lost to the living, the poet seeks familiarity in a world of ‘false trails and disappearing acts’, moving through history to enter a modern era where men sit ‘pale as geishas, / by the glow of obsolete / computers’ performing late-night searches for lost lovers. Relatives, friends and other absences are gently coaxed into life, and urgently pressed on the reader as they surface, in the flesh.
Journeys begin with an indelible detail and open into new and astonishing landscapes of the head and the heart. Crossing space as well as time, O’Riordan’s poems move from the domestic interior to the remotest reaches of the cosmos, from ‘the damp walled room’ of a Northern poet to the ‘perforated dark’ of Ursa Major. Striding away from the raucous imaginings of Victorian Manchester, that ‘Queen of the cotton cities’, the collection culminates in a serene sonnet sequence, ‘Home’, a slant look at the lives of William and Dorothy Wordsworth through their personal possessions, intersected by poems treating recent, sometimes unsettling incidents.
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THE GOOD MAN JESUS AND THE SCOUNDREL CHRIST Pullman, Philip Philip Pullman on his extraordinary retelling of the gospel stories to be published as part of Canongate’s Myth Series:
“By the time the gospels were being written, Paul had already begun to transform the story of Jesus into something altogether new and extraordinary, and some of his version influenced what the gospel writers put in theirs. Paul was a literary and imaginative genius of the first order who has probably had more influence on the history of the world than any other human being, Jesus certainly included.... The story I tell comes out of the tension within the dual nature of Jesus Christ, but what I do with it is my responsibility alone. Parts of it read like a novel, parts like a history, and parts like a fairy tale; I wanted it to be like that because it is, among other things, a story about how stories become stories.”
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I, KATY SULLIVAN Roberts, Maria Life couldn't be better for Katy Sullivan. OK, The Manchester newspaper she has been working on is closing down (unhappy days), but luckily for 31 year-old Katy she has landed an exciting job on a glossy magazine called IN London (happy days). She is dating Dan, a sex-on-legs, sex-on-the-bed, sex-anywhere news reporter for the BBC, and they're going to relocate to London together and cohabit. Life is looking brilliant. Katy's eleven year-old son Joe is a clever little angel, exhibiting not a hint of those adolescent moods she has heard about. Phew. Mark, Joe's father, who went travelling to Asia four years ago, has kept on travelling and isn't likely to come home. Phew too - that keeps romance simple for Katy, because at least she hasn't got her first love in the picture to complicate things. That is until she discovers Dan's secret. He has been having an affair with a regional weather girl and is about to become a father himself, Any-Day-Now. How could he? Oh what a *ƒqƒ®* !
And so Katy rapidly moves to London with Joe, where they forge friendships with an unusual group of flatmates and their family swells to ten. Then, just as Katy is ready to fall in love again, she bumps into Mark...
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AND THE LAND LAY STILL Robertson, James Michael Pendreich is curating an exhibition of photographs by his late, celebrated father Angus for the National Gallery of Photography in Edinburgh. The show will cover fifty years of Scottish life but, as he arranges the images and writes his catalogue essay, what story is Michael really trying to tell: his father’s, his own or that of Scotland itself? And what of the stories of the individuals captured – or missed - by Angus Pendreich’s lens over all those decades? The homeless wanderer collecting pebbles; the Second World War veteran and the Asian shopkeeper, fighting to make better lives for their families; the journalist determined not to be destroyed by an act of appalling violence against her; the Conservative MP with a secret passion, and his drop-out sister, vengeful against class privilege; the alcoholic intelligence officer betrayed on all sides, not least by his own inadequacy; the activists fighting for Scottish Home Rule… All have their own tales to tell.
Tracing the intertwined lives of an unforgettable cast of characters, James Robertson's new novel is a searching journey into the heart of a country of high hopes and unfulfilled dreams, private compromises and hidden agendas. Brilliantly blending the personal and the political, AND THE LAND LAY STILL sweeps away the dust and grime of the postwar years to reveal a rich mosaic of 20th-century Scottish life.
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THE RIVER OF STRANGE PEOPLE Rowe, Jonathan A modern American pirate steals a sacred icon from a Mayan temple. A British cancer researcher seeks an elusive enzyme to save his son and make us all immortal. An American paralegal and single mother sues the cousin who raised her to gain possession of a priceless ancient Maya codex. And they all race up a steaming jungle river in Belize on a quest for the legendary fountain of youth, hidden for centuries by Maya separatists deep in the Yucatan rain forest. THE RIVER OF STRANGE PEOPLE is a page-turner that crisscrosses the centuries to examine, through the sceptical eyes of three modern narrators, the histories and legends of several men and women who have sought the fountain of youth over the centuries: a renegade 16th century missionary, a boozy old 17th century buccaneer, a romantic 18th century painter, a free-spirited 19th century adventurer, and a reclusive 20th century Maya scholar.
As the modern characters use force, science, and legal process to peel back the layers of the past, they begin to believe there really is a fountain of youth, hidden in the Central American jungle. But since their investigation also exposes the astonishing and deadly consequences of seeking eternal youth, they must face the pressing question of just how far they’re willing to go in their quest for immortality.
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THE BARCELONA ASSIGNMENT Skeet, Mark THE BARCELONA ASSIGNMENT is a thriller set in the imagined aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. A war lost by Franco and won by the Communists.
The story is set in Barcelona during the two weeks of the 1940 Olympic Games. Civil War veteran Richard Clare returns to Spain to cover the event for a London newspaper. Broke, restless, and adrift since the end of the war, Clare is intent on finding his former girlfriend, Montse Rafols, from whom he was acrimoniously parted two years previously. But soon Clare finds himself at the heart of a more sensational story: a plot by Pablo Picasso to defect to the west.
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APHRODITE'S HAT Vickers, Salley The stories in this long-awaited collection by Salley Vickers all deal with psychological aspects of love: love given and withheld, love craved and lost, love met and disappointed; the differing shades of loves between friends, between parents and children, between children and other adults; love even, in one case, for a pet. Psychologically acute, sharply written in lucid and often witty prose, these stories, set in Venice, Greece and Rome as well as London and the English countryside, take us into the complex geography of the human heart. Sometimes joyous and humorous, sometimes melancholy and poignant, this collection confirms Salley Vickers' reputation as one of our most subtle and engaging writers.
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MY DEAR I WANTED TO TELL YOU Young, Louisa While Riley Purefoy and Peter Locke fight for their country and their survival in the trenches of Belgium, Nadine Waveney and Julia Locke make the best of things at home. Julia and Peter are married, and every day Julia prepares for her husband's return. For Nadine and Riley, however, things are not so certain. They become engaged, and then they too wait for their future, Nadine becoming a nurse to men just like her fiance. But the future has something terrible in store for Riley. MY DEAR I WANT TO TELL YOU is a First World War novel with a difference, describing the experiences of women left at home as much as that of men in the trenches. The title comes from a standard letter which was provided to soldiers who were wounded and admitted to hospital. Louisa Young has powerfully expressed the heightened emotional intensity that war brings for all who experience it and all who are drawn into it. MY DEAR I WANTED TO TELL YOU is a fascinating and moving story from a gifted writer whose past successes include the BABY LOVE trilogy and the LIONBOY books for children. Publisher: UK: HarperCollins; US: HarperCollins; Canadian: HarperCollins; Dutch: Karakter; German: List; Hebrew: Yedioth; Italian: Garzanti; Norwegian: Silke Forlag; Polish: Proszynski; Portuguese (Portugal): Civilizacao; Portuguese (Brazil): Globo Schedule: Delivered; Publication: February 2011 |
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A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH Armstrong, Sue Too often caricatured by the media as 'doctors of death', pathologists are medicine's key diagnosticians, on whom life itself often depends. Post mortems are in fact a very small element of what pathologists do. Primarily their job is to identify from specimens sent to the lab from clinics and operating theatres exactly what a patient is suffering from and what treatment he or she is likely to respond to. Pathologists are disease specialists - some are experts in diseases of the tissues, the brain or blood, others in diseases caused by bacteria and viruses; only a small proportion are experts in forensic science. In A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH Sue Armstrong encounters fourteen of the most eminent pathologists in the world, who work in fields as diverse as cancer research, the identification of bones in mass graves, and brain damage in deliberately shaken babies. The resulting book offers a fascinating snapshot of the practical, ethical and philosophical challenges facing contemporary medicine and powerfully conveys the excitement and drama of working at the interface of research science and practical medicine.
A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH was originally published by Dundee University Press in October 2008 and will be reissued with new material by Canongate in Spring 2010.
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THE RELUCTANT TOMMY: RONALD SKIRTH'S EXTRAORDINARY MEMOIR OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR Barrett, Duncan In the First World War, Ronald Skirth was an ordinary tommy. His experiences were like those of many others: fighting in the trenches under constant bombardment, seeing all his friends die around him, suffering under a cowardly commanding officer, enduring shell shock and finally, somehow, surviving. But Skirth’s story is more extraordinary than that. For on the Flanders battlefield he had a moment of epiphany when he came across the dead body of a teenaged German soldier. The boy was just like him. His corpse was bizarrely untouched, and in his hand was a photo of his girlfriend, who looked just like Skirth’s own sweetheart, Ella. Afterwards Skirth resolved that he would never again help to take a human life. He altered the trajectory of guns so that they fired harmlessly, and embarked on other small acts of sabotage at huge risk to his own life. Under immense pressure from the authorities he suffered breakdowns and attacks of amnesia, but somehow Skirth maintained his campaign of active pacifism, lived out the war, and returned to marry Ella.
Making use of Ronald Skirth’s letters and postcards to Ella, his contemporary journals and the memoir he wrote in his retirement fifty years later, THE RELUCTANT TOMMY is the fascinating story of a man who stuck by his principles in impossible circumstances, and who had the courage to risk being shot as a ‘coward’; an ordinary soldier with a truly remarkable story.
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WHY WOULD ANYONE BUY FROM YOU? Basini, Justin If your customers don’t trust you, you can spend as much as you want on marketing campaigns, branding and advertising and it will barely move the needle. WHY WOULD ANYONE BUY FROM YOU? is based on in-depth research of how trust and relationships are formed and the impact this has on what people buy and who they buy it from. The book uses these insights to reveal the 10 marketing secrets that will create trust in your brand and your business and win you long-term customers. Publisher: Pearson/FT Books (World) Schedule: Publication 2011 |
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THE OMNIPOTENT MAGICIAN: LANCELOT 'CAPABILITY' BROWN 1716 - 1783 Brown, Jane The first fully-rounded biography of Capability Brown, the genius who created the English landscape garden. 'Born to grace nature, and her works complete, With all that’s beautiful, sublime and great; For him each Muse enwreathes the Laurel Crown, And consecrates to Fame immortal Brown.' (Anon.) Capability Brown changed the face of eighteenth-century England, designing country estates and mansions, moving hills and making flowing lakes and serpentine rivers, a magical world of green. This English landscape style spread across Europe and the world. At home, it was so politically pleasing and socially apt that his influence spread beyond walls and hedgerows into the lowland landscape at large, and into landscape painting. He stands behind our vision, and fantasy, of rural England. In this vivid, lively biography, based on detailed research, Jane Brown paints an unforgettable picture of the man, his work, his happy domestic life, and his crowded world. She follows the life of the jovial yet elusive Mr Brown, from his childhood and apprenticeship in rural Northumberland, through his formative years
at Stowe, the most famous garden of the day. His private practice and innovatory ideas – and his affable and generous nature, and approachability (in a society of notoriously ‘grumpy’ professionals) - led to a meteoric rise to a Royal Appointment in 1764. This allowed the family to live in Wilderness House at Hampton Court, and Brown’s clients and friends ranged from statesmen like the elder Pitt to artists and actors like David Garrick. Riding constantly across England, he never ceased working until he collapsed and died in January 1783 after visiting one of his oldest clients. He was a practical man but also a visionary, always willing to try something new. As this delightful, and beautifully illustrated biography shows, Brown filled England with enchantment – eye-catchers, follies, cascades, lakes, pretty bridges, ornaments, monuments, meadows, woods and lanes - creating views that still enchant us today.
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THE PLOT: A BIOGRAPHY OF AN ENGLISH ACRE Bunting, Madeleine Madeleine Bunting's father was a sculptor and a deeply conservative man with a passionately romantic attachment to North Yorkshire, and in particular a small plot of the moors. After his death, Bunting wanted to understand this combative parent and his love of his English acre; she also wanted to explore what belonging means in a highly mobile world. She set off on an extraordinary odyssey into the story of this acre of uninhabited, remote moor. Bunting discovered that it had been touched by surprisingly dramatic events over thousands of years. In prehistory the area was home to huge and mysterious Neolithic forts and earthworks; it was the site of one of England’s biggest defeats by the Scots in the Middle Ages; and the austere Cistercian monks who built the extraordinary Byland Abbey nearby owned the acre for 400 years. She traces how the plot was used as a drovers’ road, the path for the thundering hooves of hundreds of cattle who walked over it for centuries; situated on one of England’s most dramatic escarpments, Wordsworth came and admired the view. Today millions of tourists come in his footsteps to contemplate the vast swath of land and sky. This is a landscape shaped by the needs of the sheep who patiently crop the moorland and the grouse slaughtered there every autumn. The farmers struggle to make a living from the land; Bunting’s father left his own mark on the landscape he fell in love with: as a penniless young artist he built a war memorial chapel there in 1957. By learning about the plot, Bunting comes to terms with her father and reaches an understanding of his ideals. THE PLOT is an original, heartfelt and brave book which performs a deft and delicate balancing act between the deeply emotional and the political. By telling the story of one acre, Bunting charts how land has been and is used to produce food, meaning, myth and home. It shows what a contested, layered place England is, and what belonging to a part of it might mean to any one of us. 'A wonderful excavation of what a 'sense of place' might mean' - Robert Macfarlane, author of THE WILD PLACES
'She paints a vivid, poignant picture of a corner of England, precious to her' - Simon Jenkins
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THE NATIONAL THEATRE: THE BIOGRAPHY OF A MASTERPIECE Calder, Barnabas Barnabas Calder's book recounts the epic struggle to build a National Theatre, and the bittersweet aftermath of its success. It is a tale of stormy relations between Britain’s greatest postwar theatre directors, notably Sir Laurence Olivier, Peter Hall, Peter Brook and critic Kenneth Tynan. Denys Lasdun, their architect, fought and suffered for fifteen years to produce a great building, yet on completion the magnificently-equipped theatre (the largest dedicated drama theatre complex in the world) was slated because its heavy concrete style had become unfashionable, its construction process having been slowed by prolonged funding battles and by ’70s strikes and shortages. Publisher: MS on submission Schedule: |
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THE WEEKENDERS Chappell, Kate THE WEEKENDERS is a fun, unique guide to gorgeous and unusual weekends away in the UK. In these times of recession, more and more people are eschewing short breaks abroad to explore Britain instead, and Kate’s guide to the best and quirkiest places to stay will capture their imaginations. The book is categorised not by area, but by theme: foodie, romantic, seaside, city, etc., giving the reader a wealth of choice about somewhere new to go that suits not only their interests, but also their budget. As well as listing unusual and characterful hotels that don’t cost the earth, it contains extensive and enthusiastic advice on where to eat, what to do, and how to get there. These breaks offer comfort, style, and the excitement of discovery, right on our own doorsteps. Publisher: (Not yet sold) Schedule: Delivery: Spring 2010 |
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FUN INC. Chatfield, Tom People make many assumptions about video games; only teenage boys play them, they increase anti-social behaviour and they tend to be violent. FUN INC. dispels these misconceptions, revealing that 40 per cent of all video game players are women, that most of the bestselling console games of all time involve no real-world violence at all, and how World of Warcraft's online community of over 12 million players is changing our understanding of what it means to be sociable in the modern world. But understanding games means a lot more than simply challenging stereotypes. Find out why the South Korean government will invest $200 billion into its video games industry over the next four years and how games are used to train the US Military, to model global pandemics and to campaign against human rights abuses in Africa.
Game worlds are creating a new science of mass engagement that is starting to transform our understanding of economics, business and communications. Whether you like video games or loathe them, FUN INC. will show you that you cannot ignore them.
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FIGHT OR FLIGHT: THE BIOLOGY OF FINANCIAL RISK-TAKING Coates, John We all assume that, when it comes to dealing with money, we are at our smartest and most level-headed. We trust that those whose job it is to trade on the world’s financial markets make their decisions with a Spock-like rationality. Classical economic theory is based on this assumption. But when John Coates ran a derivatives trading desk on Wall Street during the frenzy of the dot.com bubble (and subsequent crash) of the 1990s, it was apparent from the traders’ increasingly erratic behaviour that they were not acting in any way predicted by economists. They seemed to be under the influence of some chemical, possibly a hormone, but what was this bull-market molecule? In this groundbreaking book, John Coates, now a neuroscientist at Cambridge University, draws on research in physiology and medicine to show how the body and brain work together in producing our behaviour and how powerful signals from the body can produce irrational exuberance and pessimism. Publisher: UK: 4th Estate; US: Penguin Press; Canada: Knopf; Chinese (complex): Wealth Press; Chinese (simplified): Citic Press; Japanese: Hayakawa Schedule: |
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AFTER THE AFFAIR Cole, Julia Finding out that your partner has had an affair feels like the end of the world. It is the ultimate betrayal and the most difficult thing to do is to trust again. This book takes a frank yet sensitive look at this topic, and examines why people have affairs and the effect they may have upon the person who has been betrayed. It attempts to help couples understand their feelings, overcome feelings of betrayal and help them decide the next step. In this new edition, Julia Cole will also be investigating the part that new technologies play in and after the affair. Publisher: UK: Vermilion Schedule: Publication: August 2010 |
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COAST: OUR ISLAND STORY Crane, Nicholas Nicholas Crane has been presenting the hugely popular programmes of Coast for several series now. In this definitive guide he takes a personal journey along Britain's coastline, summarizing the many remarkable stories and discoveries he has made along the way. Publisher: World Rights: BBC Books Schedule: Publication: November 2010 |
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SHAKESPEARE ON STAGE Curry, Julian In this fascinating collection of interviews, Julian Curry talks to the most famous and respected actors of our age about one iconic performance they have given in a Shakespearean role. Patrick Stewart talks about playing Prospero, Kevin Spacey tells Julian about the Old Vic’s 2005 production of Richard II, and Derek Jacobi talks about his Olivier-winning Malvolio in Twelfth Night. Each interview is a wonderfully personal account of the creative process, and conjures up extraordinary productions that would otherwise be lost to us. Perhaps the greatest joy of the book is the glimpses we get of each actor’s personality – including some quite unladylike language from Dame Judi Dench in response to her critics, Ian McKellen musing on Shakespeare as the inventor of rap, and Brian Cox’s blood-thirsty relishing of possibly the most realistic hand amputations in the history of theatre.
Julian Curry is an actor who has worked with many of his interviewees, sometimes in the play they are talking about. He is uniquely placed to create a rapport with his famous subjects.
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GYPSY GIRL Freeman, Roxy Born in 1979, Roxy Freeman grew up travelling around Ireland and England in a traditional horse-drawn wagon with her mother and father, six siblings and three half-siblings. Life was tough, but it was a childhood of freedom spent in harmony with nature. Roxy didn't know her times-tables but she could milk a goat, ride a horse and cook dinner for the whole family on an open fire before she was ten. Early life was idyllic but when her father brought the family to England, they faced prejudice and hostility, and Roxy found herself receiving the very unwelcome attentions of a family friend. Despite all of the difficulties she faced, she developed a passion for flamenco and began a career as a dancer, which took her around the world. Her beautifully written story is a frank portrait of what life is really like for women and girls of traveller communities. Publisher: UK: Simon & Schuster Schedule: Delivery Autumn 2010; Publication Spring 2011 |
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TELLING TIMES: WRITING AND LIVING, COLLECTED ESSAYS 1954 - 2009 Gordimer, Nadine Nadine Gordimer’s life reflects the true spirit of the writer as literary icon who takes on individual human responsibility for justice. TELLING TIMES collects together for the first time all her non-fiction, spanning more than half a century, through the long fight to overthrow South Africa’s apartheid regime, to her role over the last thirty years in confronting the dangers of threats to freedom of expression, ethnic violence and AIDS. The range of this book is staggering, opening with Gordimer’s first piece in the New Yorker in 1954, in which she traces her emergence as a young writer in a racist country, continuing with her pioneering role in recognising the greatest African and European writers of her generation, to her courageous stance in support of Nelson Mandela and other members of the ANC during their years of imprisonment. TELLING TIMES is both an important document of twentieth-century social and political history, told through the voice of one of its most compelling and clear-sighted writers, and the closest we will ever get to the autobiography of one of our most celebrated literary figures. Publisher: UK: Bloomsbury; US: Norton; Canadian: Penguin; French: Grasset; German: Berlin Schedule: Published |
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WILFUL BLINDNESS Heffernan, Margaret In the 2006 case of the US Government vs Enron, the presiding judge instructed the jurors to take account the concept of wilful blindness as they reached their verdict about whether the chief executives of the disgraced energy corporation were guilty. It was not enough for the defendants to say that they did not know what was going on; that they had not seen anything. If they failed to observe the corruption which was unfolding before their very eyes, not knowing was no defence. The guilty verdict sent shivers down the spine of the corporate world. In this book, distinguished business woman and writer Margaret Heffernan examines the phenomenon of wilful blindness. Drawing on a wide array of sources from psychological studies and social statistics to interviews with the relevant protagonists she examines what it is about human nature which makes us so prone to willful blindness. Taught from infancy to obey authority, and absorbing the importance of selective vision as a key social skill, people exacerbate their tendency to become institutionalised by joining organisations which are run by like-minded people. She looks at how hard-work and the information overload of the modern workplace add to the problem. And she examines why whistleblowers and Cassandras are so very rare. Ranging freely through history and from business to science, government to the family, this engaging and anecdotal book will explain why willful blindness is so dangerous in the globalised, interconnected world in which we live, before suggesting ways in which institutions and individuals can start to combat it. In the tradition of Malcolm Gladwell and Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Margaret Heffernan’s thought-provoking book will force open our eyes. Publisher: UK: Simon & Schuster; US: Bloomsbury; Canadian: Doubleday Schedule: Delivery: Spring 2010 |
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RAVENSBRUCK Helm, Sarah On a marshy bit of land which once formed part of Heinrich Himmler’s country estate 50 miles north of Berlin are the remains of Ravensbruck concentration camp. Ravensbruck was a unique institution during the Nazi period - a concentration camp created for and staffed by women. Built to house 6,000 German political female prisoners at the beginning of the Nazi period, 160,000 women of all nationalities eventually passed through its gates. Resistance fighters, intelligence agents, communists and Jews were incarcerated and perished here. Among the anonymous thousands were many notable women – Gemma La Guardia, the sister of New York’s wartime mayor, de Gaulle’s niece, Kafka’s mistress and Odette Churchill. And a range of gory gynaecological experiments were carried out here on women and their foetus’.
The book will be much more than a catalogue of atrocity and depravity, however. At the heart of RAVENSBRUCK will be stories of heroism and survival. The narrative will centre on the experiences of women – from the farmer’s wife to the aristocratic intellectual - who had the resilience and mental and physical strength to withstand the systematic brutalisation and emerge from the camp against all the odds, alive. The book will interweave two narrative strands – that of inmates looking out and outsiders trying to comprehend what was going within – until the liberation of the camp by the Red Army, when the two stories naturally collide.
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A BOOK OF SECRETS Holroyd, Michael On a hill above the Italian village of Ravello stands the Villa Cimbrone – a place of fantasy and make-believe. The characters that move through Michael Holroyd’s new book are destined never to meet – they lived through different eras and in different countries. Yet the Villa Cimbrone unites them all. A BOOK OF SECRETS is a treasure-trove of hidden lives, uncelebrated achievements and family mysteries. Michael Holroyd peers into dusty corners to bring a company of unknown women into the light. Their lives are fluid and vulnerable – they play the roles of mistress, fiancée, or muse – and always somehow illegitimate. From Alice Keppel, the mistress of both the second Lord Grimthorpe (owner of the Villa Cimbrone) and the Prince of Wales, to Eve Fairfax, Lord Grimthorpe’s abandoned fiancée and sometime muse of Auguste Rodin, and finally the novelist Violet Trefusis, the lover of Vita Sackville-West in one of the most scandalous love affairs of the early twentieth-century, these women are always on the periphery of the respectable world.
Also on the periphery is the elusive biographer, Michael Holroyd, who turns the spotlight upon himself as part of his investigations into the art of biography. Taking the reader on a journey of discovery from Ravello to Paris, from Kirkstall Grange in Yorkshire to Vita Sackville-West’s home at Knole, A BOOK OF SECRETS lucidly gives voice to fragile human connections.
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TWO WHEELS ON MY WAGON Howard, Paul For a man who has ridden the entire Tour de France route during the race itself – setting off at 4 a.m. each day to avoid being caught by the pros – riding a small mountain bike race far removed from cycling’s European heartland should hold no fear. But, although there may only be a dozen or so participants, this isn’t just any mountain bike race. This is the Tour Divide. Running from Banff in Canada to the Mexican border, the Tour Divide is, at more than 2,700 miles, the longest mountain bike race in the world. Not only is it 500 miles further than the Tour de France, its route along the continental divide goes through the heart of the Rocky Mountains and involves more than 200,000 ft of ascent – the equivalent of climbing Mount Everest seven times.
The other problem is that Howard has never owned a mountain bike. In fact, he has had a near-pathological aversion to knobbly tyres since spending a large part of his youth on a Raleigh Grifter, often trailing far behind friends with ‘real bikes’. Even when he does, finally, get hold of one, how will training on the South Downs prepare him for sleeping rough in the Rockies? What’s more, the ruthlessly efficient back-up team that helped Howard in the Tour – his dad – will be absent. In fact, the race rules stipulate that riders must be entirely self-reliant – no mean feat in the wilderness of the Wild West.
Undaunted, however, Howard swaps the smooth tarmac roads of France for the mud, snow and ice of the Tour Divide. Instead of fending off attacks from Lance Armstrong, he has to deal with grizzly bears, mountain lions and moose. Millions of buzzing roadside fans are replaced by millions of buzzing mosquitoes. Worse still is the unshakeable fear of meeting the original rednecks from the film Deliverance hiding behind the next tree . . .
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SERVING BIPPS Hubbard, Kate 'Bipps' was the name by which James Reid, chief physician to Queen Victoria, referred to his royal mistress in letters to Susan Baring, a maid-of-honour and his wife-to-be. SERVING BIPPS offers portraits of six members of the Queen's Household - a governess, a lady-in-waiting, a maid-of-honour, a private secretary, a chaplain and a doctor - whose years of royal service spanned the entirety of Victoria's long reign (1837-1901). Drawing on private papers, letters and diaries (some published for the first time), Kate Hubbard focuses on the years each of her subjects spent at court and on their individual relationships with the Queen. The latter, while a highly demanding and frequently exasperating mistress, invariably inspired devotion. The six courtiers here, while never less than devoted and keenly aware of the obligations of duty, are notable for remaining capable of clear-eyed assessment of their sovereign, of seeing, as it were, the Bipps within the Victoria.
More broadly the book illuminates the closed world of the Victorian court, in all its stiffness, pettiness and occasional comedy, while casting a beam of light on the Queen herself, sitting squarely at its centre as her household orbits around her.
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BRIEF LIVES Johnson, Paul In the course of a long and successful career as a journalist and author, Paul Johnson has known popes, presidents, prime ministers, painters, poets and playwrights. And then there was the foul-mouthed publican Muriel Belcher, who ran the legendary Colony Club. Harking back to the scandalously anecdotal 17th-century book by John Aubrey on the celebrities of his times, BRIEF LIVES is the distilled essence of Johnson's experience of a variety of people who have contributed to our political, spiritual and cultural life. He advised Margaret Thatcher, counselled Princess Diana, had a drawing of him done by Ernest Hemingway, and enjoyed the company of John Osborne, Arnold Wesker and Harold Pinter at Buckingham Palace. He has been both an insider and a universal commentator on the individuals who have changed history, formed public taste, or simply lightened our lives by their presence. Publisher: UK: Hutchinson; Czech: Leda Schedule: Publication: June 2010 |
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PAKISTAN Khan, Jemima Jemima Goldsmith was just 21 when she married Imram Khan, converted to Islam, began to learn Urdu and moved into his extended family house in Lahore. During the next decade she came to know and love Pakistan, “the land of the Pure”, in all its bewildering complexity and contradictions. In this book she revisits the country she got to know in the 1990s, undertaking a journey which begins in Lahore, moves north to Peshawar and Islamabad, and then heads down to Karachi. Along the way she encounters a dazzling array of people – the ordinary and the extraordinary - who illustrate the paradoxes of this remarkable country. Pakistan encompasses 165 million people, several hundred tribes and more than a dozen languages, and is a very different place from the land of bearded zealots and military dictators of Western stereotype. PAKISTAN will be accessible and anecdotal, a witty and revealing portrait of a country at the febrile epicentre of world affairs.
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PROBLEM CHILD King, Caradoc Caradoc King is a well-known London literary agent, but he was born under another name. Adopted at eighteen months, he was brought up in a large and growing family. His adoptive mother, a complex woman, was unable to bond with her newly adopted son and treated him with a harshness bordering on cruelty. At the age of six he was sent to a boarding school run by two brilliantly eccentric brothers. But this happy time ended abruptly when his adoptive mother became a passionate Catholic and removed him from the school. From the age of eleven Caradoc was shuttled from one school to the next, later failing to fulfil his mother's wish that he should join a seminary. When he was fifteen he was informed that he had been adopted, and a year later his parents stopped paying his school fees and ejected him from the family. Caradoc began studying by post, and two years later he scraped into Oxford. On his first day there he met Philip Pullman, who was later to become his first client when he set up as a literary agent. Thirty years later Caradoc went in search of his natural family and his adopted sisters, and began to make sense of the mystery of his two absent mothers. PROBLEM CHILD is a remarkable memoir, remarkable for its candour, its lack of self-pity, its vivid recall of a distant and difficult childhood. While it is at times sad, it is also an inspiring account of a child's instinct for survival in a hostile world, and of the kindness he often encountered. Helen Dunmore says of it that it is 'a fascinating memoir which balances devastating honesty, warmth and irony. It is a very strong and courageous piece of writing and it tells an extraordinary story'.
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THE OTHER FELLA Lazenby, George George Lazenby's memoir - a brilliantly frank tale of how he bluffed his way into the role of James Bond, and what he did afterwards. Publisher: Century/Random House (World Rights) Schedule: Publication 2012 |
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DOWN AND OUT IN LONDON Lezard, Nicholas Having described his not entirely successful efforts at being the perfect father in his Guardian column 'Slack Dad', Nick Lezard is currently describing the aftermath in a column in the New Statesman. Kicked out of the family home by his wife, he now dosses on a friend's couch and cadges booze and cigarettes where he can. But Nick Lezard also remains one of our most incisive writers, his weekly paperback review in the Guardian being a model of its kind. In DOWN AND OUT IN LONDON he will combine his literary talents with his lack of life talents in a hilarious and touching way. Publisher: UK: Faber Schedule: Delivery: Spring 2011 |
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HOW PAKISTAN WORKS Lieven, Anatol In the past decade Pakistan has emerged as a country of immense importance. Large, heavily populated, strategically placed between Iran, Afghanistan and India, Pakistan has since its creation just over sixty years ago been pulled in several different, irreconcilable directions. In the wake of its development of nuclear weapons, Osama Bin Laden's presence in its unpoliceable border areas and now the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, there is a clear need to understand this remarkable place. The large British Pakistani community, its links to Pakistan, and the attraction of some of its members to Pakistan-based extremist groups, also make Pakistan of vital importance to the United Kingdom. Anatol Lieven worked in Pakistan as a journalist and has visited the country frequently over the years. His new book will be a key work - the necessary background to gaining a serious sense of Pakistan and its place in the world. Far from seeing Pakistan as the chaotic disaster area often portrayed in the media, Lieven instead sees it as a country that does work, albeit with difficulty and under threat. Within limits, and by the standards of its region rather than the West, it is a viable and coherent state.
Combining history and analysis with anecdotes from Anatol Lieven's own extensive travels across the immensely varied landscapes of Pakistan, HOW PAKISTAN WORKS is both highly informative and enjoyable - a book that allows the reader to understand why Pakistan should be so important to us all.
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THE BATTERSEA PARK ROAD TO PARADISE Losada, Isabel THE BATTERSEA PARK ROAD TO PARADISE is an up-close-and-personal account of a spiritual journey, and a follow-up to Isabel Losada’s 2001 bestseller THE BATTERSEA PARK ROAD TO ENLIGHTENMENT, which was published in fourteen countries and sold over a hundred thousand copies worldwide. Like EAT, PRAY, LOVE (Isabel is often and favourably compared to Elizabeth Gilbert) the book tells of a woman's attempt to find her place in the world and answer a few of life’s big questions along the way. It’s book about failure, success, joy, loss and optimism. Through her various attempts at self-understanding and self-improvement she leads the reader slowly towards a reflective approach to life. The book begins with a meditation on the normal frustrations of daily living - plans that don't work out, broken hearts or feeling ‘stuck’ - moves deeper into considering the mind itself, and ends up in the middle of Paradise in the Amazonian jungle - parting company with the mind completely. Publisher: UK: Watkins Publishing Schedule: Delivery: June 2010; Publication: March 2011 |
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FULL CIRCLE: MY LIFE AND JOURNEY MacArthur, Ellen In October 2009 Ellen MacArthur, one of the greatest sportswomen in the world, announced her retirement from competitive sailing. Many were in disbelief. How could the woman who had fought so hard to set so many records give up racing? But Ellen had found an even tougher challenge than sailing solo round the globe . . . Now Ellen is ready to write about her incredible last ten years, including the trip which changed her life. She speaks honestly about the trials of fame after coming second in the Vendee Globe in 2001; about her frustrations in missing the record for the West-East transatlantic crossing by just 75 minutes in 2004; the dramatic capsize and dismasting she experienced prior to her record attempt, and then the ultimate triumph of her spectacular non-stop solo circumnavigation of the globe in 2004–5, sharing every painful and exciting moment of her 71 days alone at sea. And of course she tells of the fateful trip to South Georgia in 2005 which caused her to leave competitive sailing behind for ever and focus all her ambition and energy towards a new and much bigger race... Ellen’s searingly honest story is a story of triumph over incredible adversity and will inspire others to follow in this remarkable woman’s wake.
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READING THE ROCKS Maddox, Brenda Why are kangaroos found only in Australia? What created the Niagara Falls? Why did horses have to be introduced to the Americas? How were volcanoes created? Why are the rock formations of the Alps so twisted? Did the Biblical Flood really happen? These were the kinds of far-reaching questions that a 19th century club of gentlemen scientists set themselves the task of answering – and their ground-breaking discoveries shaped the way we understand the world today. Based in a gaslit debating chamber by the River Thames, members of the Geological Society would roam the world to gather fossils, bones and rocks as evidence for their theories. With technological advances opening up the possibilities of science to the masses, geology quickly became the most popular and dynamic of the new sciences, and the Society’s findings were delivered to an eager public. But the Geological Society found itself at the centre of an intense debate that rocked society to its core. If a geologist could prove that the world was formed billions of years before human life emerged, then a man could deny the hand of God in creating the world. For some members of the Society, these geological revelations would enable them to develop yet more radical theories – Charles Darwin based his theory of evolution on the geological work done by his mentor Charles Lyell. But for others, including Lyell, the full implications of their work were a profoundly frightening prospect. Although he gave Darwin his public support and recognised his own role as the ‘missing link’ in the younger man’s research, Lyell was nonetheless a reluctant evolutionist who would struggle for the rest of his life to reconcile himself to the damage done to his religious beliefs.
READING THE ROCKS tells the compelling story of Lyell, Darwin, and the other key geologists of the era: men who first learned how to read the layers of rock and mud to tell a new history of the world, and who in doing so precipitated a severe crisis of faith and had as wide an impact as the ideas of Copernicus and Freud.
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WOLFRAM: THE BOY WHO WENT TO WAR Milton, Giles Wolfram Aïchele was nine when Hitler came to power and 21 when the war ended. In the course of his adolescence he was to experience the rise and fall of the Third Reich from the earliest brownshirt street-marches to the final defeat of the Nazi regime. WOLFRAM: THE BOY WHO WENT TO WAR tells the story of Hitler's Germany through German eyes: through the eyes of a sensitive young artist whose world was turned upside down by the megalomaniac ambitions of the Fuhrer. Wolfram's idiosyncratic parents quickly fell foul of the Nazi regime and the notorious Gestapo. His artist father, Erwin, was a freemason with many Jewish acquaintances. His mother followed the banned teachings of Rudolf Steiner. In 1942 Wolfram was conscripted into the army and sent to the Eastern Front where most of his comrades were killed. He was one of the few survivors of a ferocious Allied onslaught on his regiment, and spent two years as a prisoner of war in Britain and America. In his absence, Wolfram's home city (and that of his family and friends) was consumed by a devastating firestorm sparked by one of Bomber Harris's most spectacular raids.
As Wolfram’s son-in-law, the author draws his story from family letters, diaries and interviews with the man and his contemporaries. WOLFRAM is an intimate portrait of a middle-class family forced to make desperate compromises as it sought to survive one of the most brutal regimes in history.
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WHAT MATTERS IN JANE AUSTEN Mullan, John John Mullan is steeped in Jane Austen. In this book he will ask what makes her the greatest of all novelists, invoking Virginia Woolf's remark that of all great writers she is the most difficult to catch in the act of greatness. By looking closely at the intriguing minutiae of her fiction, the quirks and intricacies of her stories, he will bring her alive. Publisher: UK: Bloomsbury Schedule: Delivery: Autumn 2012 |
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THE RED SWEET WINE OF YOUTH Murray, Nicholas The poetry that emerged from the trenches of the First World War is a remarkable body of work, at once political manifesto and literary beacon for the twentieth century. In this passionate recreation of the lives of the greatest poets to come out of the conflict, Nicholas Murray reveals the men themselves as well as the struggle of the artist to live fully and to bear witness in the annihilating squalor of battle. From the romantic longing of Rupert Brooke to the East End pragmatism of Isaac Rosenberg, from the charismatic shaman-poet Robert Graves to the headstrong Siegfried ‘Mad Jack’ Sassoon, Murray brings their humanity into sharp focus. Using journals, letters and literary archives, he brings to life the men’s indissoluble comradeship, their complex sexual mores and their extraordinary courage. And in the portrait Murray builds up of the beloved landscape of home he also delineates the terrible processes by which England becomes less real to these men by far than the shattering human experience of the trenches. Poignant, vivid and unfailingly intelligent, Nicholas Murray offers new and finely tuned insight into the – often devastatingly brief – lives of a remarkable generation of men. Publisher: World English: Little, Brown Schedule: Delivered; Publication February 2011 |
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THE LAST LINGUA FRANCA Ostler, Nicholas For most of the last three centuries the world's dominant power has used the English language and the resulting spread of the language has been all-pervasive. In 400 years native English-speakers have spread from a small island on the periphery of Europe to become one of the world's three largest language groups in number, and the one most widely distributed across the world as a whole. More important, the English language has become the preferred international medium for business, science and to a very large extent, entertainment. Scholars such as David Graddol now claim that English is less a lingua franca and more a basic part of global education for business, like maths or computing.
So is the future of English set fair? This is unlikely, Nicholas Ostler suggests in this provocative and fascinating book. Drawing on his encyclopaedic knowledge of the origins of world languages, he argues that a clear lesson of history is that no language - however populous its speakers, confident its culture and advanced its technology - can remain indefinitely the world's lingua franca. Drawing on a great range of languages he analyses the political, commercial and social reasons why languages fall away as inexorably as they rise: English in the long term is even more exposed to creeping neglect and destructive reaction than many of the great linguistic reputations of the past, such as Akkadian and Aramaic, Sogdian and Latin, French and Portuguese. Can English look to its laurels?
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THE CURIOUS GARDENER Pavord, Anna In THE CURIOUS GARDENER Anna Pavord brings together in 12 chapters - one from each month of the year - 72 pieces on all aspects of gardening. From what to do in each month and how to get the best from flowers, plants, herbs, fruit and vegetables, through reflections on the weather, soil, the English landscape and favourite old gardening clothes, to office greenery, spring in New York, waterfalls and garden design, Anna Pavord always has something interesting to say and says it with great style and candour. This is the perfect book to guide you through the gardening year. And, on days when the weather keeps the most courageous gardener indoors, this is the perfect book to curl up with beside the fire. Publisher: UK: Bloomsbury Schedule: Publication: November 2010 |
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THE STANDOFF Penny, Laurie THE STANDOFF represents the next generation of gender journalism, identifying systemic problems that blight the lives and stunt the happiness of men and women across the world and framing potential solutions in sassy, angry, fiercely intellectual rhetoric. This book will set out to articulate the state of modern gender relations from both sides of the debate, laying down the opportunities for radical alliance between men and women from a solid core of feminism and passionate politics. Expanding on a central thesis that the war between the sexes, like the war on drugs, is 'the health of the state', the book aims to show that in reality, neither men nor women are net beneficiaries in the gender war – and that gender liberation is in everyone’s interest. The driving principle of THE STANDOFF is that the hurt that all children and adults suffer in the intimate war between the sexes can only be solved if society is able to engage with a powerful, unified and inclusive feminist movement. The subtitle, 'How Feminism Can End the Gender War', is central to this concept: the notion that the standoff between the sexes can only be ended if both genders embrace feminism and vice versa. Drawing on the experiences of fathers rights’ groups, teenage mothers, sex workers, anorexics of both genders, trans people, a ‘reformed rapist’, and gender activists of all stripes, the book will also incorporate Laurie’s colourful history of gender activism, eating disorders, sex work and political campaigning before coming to its ultimately uplifting and challenging conclusion. THE STANDOFF is a feminist book and a feminist argument for our times, told by a fresh, passionate and accessible voice. Publisher: Not yet sold Schedule: Proposal |
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THE NEW MACHIAVELLI: HOW TO WIELD POWER IN MODERN BRITAIN Powell, Jonathan Niccolò Machiavelli is misunderstood, argues Jonathan Powell in his twenty-first-century reworking of the Italian philosopher’s influential masterpiece, THE PRINCE. Taking the lessons Machiavelli derived from his experience as an official in fifteenth-century Florence, Powell shows how these lessons can still apply today, illustrating each of Machiavelli’s maxims with a description of events that occurred during Tony Blair’s time as Prime Minister.
Tony Blair’s Chief of Staff from 1994 to 2007, Jonathan Powell recounts the inside story of that period, drawing on his own unpublished diaries. He tackles the critics of Blair’s ‘sofa government’ and gives a frank account of the intimate details of internal political rows. Among the topics he deals with are the failure to join the Euro or hold a referendum on the European constitution, the struggle with the hauliers' strike and the foot-and-mouth outbreak that postponed the 2001 election, the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo, the peace negotiations in Northern Ireland, relations with Clinton, Bush and Chirac, the banning of fox-hunting, and the triumphs and failures of spin and the scandals and inquiries – ranging from Bernie Ecclestone to the police investigation into ‘cash for peerages’.
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BENJAMIN BRITTEN: A CENTENARY LIFE Powell, Neil Benjamin Britten was born into a family of dentists in Suffolk in November 1913. His musical mother knew that her youngest child was destined for greatness - he was going to be “the fourth B” after Bach, Beethoven and Brahms. Ben did not let her down, precociously composing "Quatre Chansons Francaises" while still at prep school, and heading for London and a scholarship at the Royal College of Music after only two years at secondary school. In the 1930s Britten quickly established himself as the leading British composer, befriending and collaborating with a strikingly gifted circle of literary and musical friends including W H Auden, Christopher Isherwood, Lennox Berkeley and Frank Bridge. Later he met the singer who was to form the centre of his emotional and musical life, Peter Pears. Conscientious objectors, Britten and Pears headed for America before the war began, until intense homesickness, provoked in part by Britten’s reading of George Crabbe’s poem "Peter Grimes", drove him home to East Anglia in 1942 and gave him the inspiration for his finest opera. Together the men established the Aldeburgh Festival and Snape Maltings, which they ran with such flair. This centenary biography of Benjamin Britten will place the composer firmly in the East Anglian landscape which he loved so much. It will also tell the story of an openly gay “marriage”, at a time when homosexuality was still illegal, one which survived every pressure, including Britten’s series of attachments to young boys. Publisher: UK: Hutchinson Schedule: Delivery: Spring 2012 |
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THE PUPPY WHO CAME FOR CHRISTMAS AND STAYED FOREVER Rix, Megan Megan wants a baby and she wants it now. She’s in her forties and love came into her life late and unexpectedly. In every respect it was a fairytale romance, complete with a wedding on a beach in Hawaii, a lovely home in the suburbs, and enough happiness to go round. But despite her doctor’s assurances and good physical health, a child of her own was never to be. Stumbling one night across a TV programme about dogs who help the disabled, Megan and her husband decide to investigate. Within days they are signed up members of Helper Dogs, taking in young puppies and raising and training them for the first year of their lives. The thing is, these adorable little dogs are hard to say goodbye to. But when one frisky puppy shows at Christmas they just know he’s going to change their lives forever.
Funny, sad and heartwarming by turns, THE PUPPY WHO CAME FOR CHRISTMAS AND STAYED FOREVER is a memoir of unbridled delight and a must read for anyone who has ever melted over a furry little creature, and who understands just how much it’s possible to love one.
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THE MAGNIFICENT SPILSBURY AND THE BRIDES IN THE BATH Robins, Jane Bessie Mundy, Alice Burnham and Margaret Lofty have one thing in common. They are spinsters and are desperate to marry. Each woman meets a smooth-talking stranger who promises her a better life. She falls under his spell, and becomes his wife. But marriage soon turns into a terrifying experience. In the dark opening months of the First World War, Britain became engrossed by ‘The Brides in the Bath’ trial. The horror of the killing fields of the Western Front was the backdrop to a murder story whose elements were of a different sort. This was evil of an everyday, insidious kind, played out in lodging houses in seaside towns, in the confines of married life, and brought to a horrendous climax in that most intimate of settings – the bathroom.
The nation turned to a young forensic pathologist, Bernard Spilsbury, to explain how it was that young women were suddenly expiring in their baths. This was the age of science. In fiction, Sherlock Holmes applied a scientific mind to solving crimes. In real-life, would Spilsbury be as infallible as the ‘great detective’?
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THE PSYCHOPATH TEST Ronson, Jon Many of the world’s leading neurologists have recently begun receiving mysterious packages in the mail, each containing a strange, cryptic puzzle book. One of them invites the journalist Jon Ronson in to solve the mystery. Who is sending the packages, and why? Ronson’s intriguing investigation takes him, unexpectedly, into the heart of the madness industry. He meets a patient inside an asylum for the criminally insane who is determined to prove that he faked his way in there and nobody will believe he’s sane. He meets an influential psychologist who is convinced that many important CEOs and politicians are in fact psychopaths. The psychologist teaches Ronson how to spot these high-flying psychopaths by looking out for little tell-tale verbal and non verbal clues. And so Ronson, armed with his new psychopath-spotting abilities, journeys into the corridors of power. He spends time with a death squad leader institutionalized for mortgage fraud in Coxsackie, New York, and a legendary CEO whose psychopathy has been speculated about in the press. He not only solves the mystery of the strange packages, he also discovers, disturbingly, that sometimes the personalities at the helm of the madness industry are, with their drives and obsessions, as mad in their own way as those they study, that being a qualified psychopath-spotter can turn one somewhat power crazed. And also that relatively ordinary people are, more and more, defined by their maddest edges. THE PSYCHOPATH TEST is a fascinating journey through the minds of madness. Publisher: UK: Picador; US: Riverhead Schedule: Delivered; Publication May 2011 |
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CHURCHILL'S EMPIRE Toye, Richard ‘I have not become the King’s First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire.’ These notorious words, spoken by Churchill in 1942, encapsulate his image as an imperial die-hard, implacably opposed to colonial freedom - a reputation that, with his campaign against Indian self-government in the 1930s, he had willingly embraced. Earlier, however, he had been known for his pursuit of conciliation after the Boer War, for his denunciation of the ‘frightfulness’ of the Amritsar massacre, and for his role in Irish peacemaking. As a youthful minister at the Colonial Office before World War I, his political opponents had seen him as a Little Englander and a danger to the Empire. In order to understand the shifts in Churchill’s standing, it is necessary to place him in the context of his times. He sprang to fame as a self-made imperial hero, on the back of colourful adventures in India, the Sudan and South Africa, but soon exchanged the army and journalism for the different demands of politics. His attitudes were rife with paradoxes. He was simultaneously an advocate of humane treatment for subject peoples and an unrepentant believer in Anglo-Saxon superiority. Viewing him alongside famous contemporaries such as M.K. Gandhi, J.C. Smuts, and Leo Amery (his schoolfellow and later Cabinet colleague) gives us an insight both into what was conventional about Churchill’s opinions and what about them was unique. This is the first book to provide a comprehensive account of Churchill’s lifelong involvement with the Empire, from his childhood schooldays to his final premiership in the 1950s. Drawing upon a wealth of published and unpublished evidence, from private diaries to African war poetry and the Eagle comic, Churchill’s Empire provides a vivid and dynamic account of a remarkable man and an extraordinary era. Publisher: UK: Macmillan; US: Henry Holt Schedule: Delivered; Publication: February 2010 |
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A LIVING GODDESS Tree, Isabella In this groundbreaking account, Isabella Tree journeys into the mysterious world of virgin worship in the Kathmandu Valley and discovers a tradition that has evolved from a deep-seated belief in the power and supremacy of the Goddess. Originating with the medieval Malla kings, the practice of worshipping a Hindu goddess inside a Buddhist child is integrally bound up with the politics of power and continues to permeate the political struggles of Nepal.
As she weaves together the country’s mythical history with her own journey, Tree encounters living goddesses past and present and explores the intriguing and much-misunderstood world of Buddhist and Hindu tantra. Ever mindful of the haunting repercussions of the past and the uncertainty of the future, a colourful cast of royal astrologers, tantric priests and human rights activists guides her through the turmoil of present-day Nepal, from the royal family massacre in 2001 and the spectacular democratic uprising against the king in 2006, to the dissolution of the monarchy and the Maoist election victory in 2008; while in the heart of Kathmandu the little child goddess continues to preside on her throne, a powerful and influential presence at the epicentre of events.
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ADVENTURES IN THE ORGASMATRON Turner, Christopher This book is as much a history of the sexual revolution as a biography of one of the prime architects of the orgasmatron, the brilliant but deluded Austrian-Jewish inventor Wilhelm Reich. Reich began his career in Austria as a pupil of Freud’s and believed that sexual blockage was the root of physical and psychological illness, all of which could be cured by harnessing the body’s sexual energy inside a box. He pioneered a radical form of psychotherapy - vegetotherapy - which involved physical attacks on naked patients as they lay on the analyst’s couch.
Initially a committed communist, Reich’s political ideas were similarly unorthodox and subject to misinterpretation by the authorities. He believed that the family perpetuated bourgeois values and that its destruction, through the pursuit of free love, was the essential prerequisite to the creation of a communist society. Many dismissed his work as the delusions of a madman and eventually his activities drew the attention of the FBI. He was imprisoned for fraudulent trade in 1957 where he soon after died of a heart attack just before his ideas began to have widespread currency, as the sexual revolution, whose name he had coined, took hold. His school of therapy continues to be practiced to this day and it is still possible to build or buy orgone accumulators – the orgasmatrons of the title.
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THE BEST OF VICE VICE A selection of the best material from the last fifteen years of VICE magazine. Publisher: Canongate (World ex North America) Schedule: Publication November 2010 |
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THE BEST OF VICE DOS AND DONTS VICE A selection of the best of VICE Magazine's irreverant, hilarious street fashion critiques. Publisher: Canongate (World ex North America) Schedule: Publication February 2011 |
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RED HEAT: CONSPIRACY, MURDER AND THE COLD WAR IN THE CARIBBEAN von Tunzelmann, Alex RED HEAT is the story of the how the USA and USSR played out Cold War tensions in the puppet theatre of the Caribbean. What neither had bargained on was that the puppets would come to life. Kennedy and Khrushchev might be the most familiar names in the story, but they were being manipulated by the Caribbean leaders. The narrative focuses on four outlaws who sought to establish their own visions of tropical paradise. From the Dominican Republic there is the paranoid dictator Rafael Trujillo, from Cuba the charismatic nationalist Fidel Castro, and, via Argentina, Che Guevara, who has the most famous face in history but whose deeds are hardly known at all. And from Haiti there is the deranged François 'Papa Doc' Duvalier, a doctor who became a dictator and a voodoo high priest.
Kennedy became obsessed with stamping out communism and promoting democracy; Khrushchev panicked, and resorted to clumsy displays of swagger and belligerence. The result was decades of tyranny, conspiracy, murder and magic: the spiralling of the trade in illegal drugs, a new era of buccaneering on and off the high seas, and a narrowly evaded war that might have ended human life on earth. The story will also shed light directly on issues such as slavery, the war on drugs, and the situation in Guantanamo Bay.
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SLIGHTLY DANGEROUS: THE TRUE STORY OF A SCREEN GODDESS IN SCANDALAND Wood, Gaby On Good Friday 1958 the well-known gangster Johnny Stompanato was found dead in the apartment of his lover, the movie star Lana Turner. By the time the police arrived the apartment was full of people, including Turner's lawyer, agent and publicist. The killing was eventually described as a 'justifiable homicide' by Turner's teenage daughter Cheryl Crane. Turner was more than simply a movie star by then: she was an icon, and one whose own life mirrored those of the dangerous women she played in her movies. Gaby Wood's book will be a 'cultural biography', a placing of the Lana Turner story within the context of what we have come to call 'Hollywood Noir'. Publisher: UK: Faber; US: Knopf Schedule: Delivery: Spring 2011 |
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CROW CITY Allan, Alice When "half-caste" Tomoko meets a ghost in Aoyama cemetery, her mission to help him takes her back in time to Tokyo's massive 1923 earthquake. Will she be brave enough to uncover the terrible story of his death? The next big quake is overdue; does history have to repeat itself? Publisher: Schedule: |
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A CIRCUS ADVENTURE: A TUMTUM AND NUTMEG ADVENTURE Bearn, Emily It’s General Marchmouse’s birthday! In the kitchen of Nutmouse Hall Nutmeg is working hard to put on a special birthday banquet . . . but where is the General? Unbeknown to the Nutmouses, The General has come across Arthur’s toy circus and is having a riotous time – especially when he discovers the circus bus! General Marchmouse hatches a plan to set up a circus of his own, but when he encounters a rival mouse circus in the meadow, his plans go horribly wrong and he soon finds himself on the wrong side of the law.
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A SEASIDE ADVENTURE: A TUMTUM & NUTMEG ADVENTURE Bearn, Emily Tumtum and Nutmeg are leaving the confines of Nutmouse Hall and voyaging on their most challenging adventure yet, at the seaside! Arthur and Lucy are going to stay with their Uncle, and Nutmeg is determined to keep an eye on the children while they are away. But of course they won't be alone as General Marchmouse decides to join the fun. And soon the General gets his wish as the mice find that their new friend Lord Seamouse needs their help. Together they must set out on an adventure to regain his lost treasure and stop his enemy, Purple Claw, from getting to it first. Publisher: UK: Egmont; UK Audio: BBC Audiobooks; US: Little, Brown Schedule: |
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NEW TOWN SOUL Bolger, Dermot Shane is Joey’s new best friend, with a personality for every occasion and a strange sense of recklessness. Joey longs to get close to Geraldine, but she won’t have anything to do with him while Shane is around. Is Geraldine right to suspect that Shane is weaving a net of evil around them? And who is the strange old man who seems to know more about Shane than anyone? What secret will Joey unearth in a derelict house in Blackrock? NEW TOWN SOUL is a taut supernatural thriller for young adults set in a very real world – it is about the freedom of being young and the enslavement of being immortal. One of Ireland’s best known writers, Dermot Bolger is a novelist, playwright and poet. This is his first book for a young adult audience. Publisher: World English Language: Island Books Schedule: Published |
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MOLLY MOON AND THE MORPHING MYSTERY Byng, Georgia Molly Moon’s parents think their daughter should try living a normal life. They hire a tutor and ban Molly from using her magical powers, but Molly is a time-travelling, mind-reading, time-stopping master hypnotist – even if she doesn’t go looking for adventure, adventure has a way of always finding her. A book written by Molly’s great-great grandfather has fallen into the hands of a swanky casino owner who can only have the wickedest of intentions in mind – for the book divulges the ancient secret of morphing, and whoever can master the ability to morph into the animal or human of their choice will be able to control the entire world in no time at all! Molly, her newfound brother Micky, and her trusty pug Petula find themselves on a hair-raising race against time to track down the book before it’s too late. But once the secret of morphing is out, who – or what – can they trust?
From the jungles of South America to afternoon tea at Buckingham Palace, MORPHING MADNESS is the fifth book in the Molly Moon series, and is crammed full with adventures and surprises!
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SMALL CHANGE FOR STUART Evans, Lissa Stuart Horten is short, his parents are dull and he’s just moved to a boring town called Beeton where he knows absolutely nobody. His parents are so dull, in fact, that it’s never even occurred to them to tell him about the most interesting member of the family: Uncle Tony, who’d lived in Beeton, who’d been a famous magician, who’d disappeared under mysterious circumstances, and who’d left Stuart’s father a legacy of nine threepenny-bits, hidden in the base of a money box. At first, it seems a useless sort of legacy – nine obsolete coins – but then Stuart discovers that each one, if used at the right time and in the right place, will yield a clue. And each clue leads him nearer to Uncle Tony’s real legacy: a missing stage trick called ‘The Well of Wishes’. But time (like Stuart) is short, and the task is perilous. Bulldozers are moving in on Uncle Tony’s old house, and Stuart’s new neighbours, the appalling Kingley triplets (April, May and June), are spying on his every move. And if he finds the trick, he also has to choose a wish – and wishes can be dangerous…
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HOW TO BE A CAT Haig, Matt You wake up. You are the same normal person you were yesterday. With human eyes and human hands and a human heart. Nothing changes. Nothing ever changes. Except, sometimes it does. Sometimes, everything changes. And that’s what happened to me, Barney Willow, one morning last spring. The morning of my birthday in fact, but that wasn’t really important. What was important is that I woke up and, over night, I had turned into something else. Something so different that no-one could recognise me. Something too impossible to believe, for most people at least.
But if I have come to understand one thing in the last year it is this: the impossible is everywhere, if you know where to look.
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ICE ANGEL Haptie, Charlotte Zack and Clovis’ dad disappeared when they were very young. He used to drive his van, the Ice Angel, down from the family’s mountainside home into Rockscar City, to sell flavoured ices to the better off and dispense free, clean drinking water to its poorer inhabitants. The city's Water Company has a stranglehold on the water supply, so anyone else dispensing water is taking a big risk. But now Clovis gets the Ice Angel back up and running, and Zack uses the family’s secret spring and his dad’s old recipe book to create the most fantastic ices imaginable - crushed vanilla with ginger crystals, coffee and bitter chocolate with frozen crystallized orange spoons, and cherry and cream vanilla bombes. Zack and Clovis begin to make their own illicit night-time deliveries, and in a jazz club and at the radio station they meet people who knew their father and mother in the old days. But then they get first-hand experience of the Water Company's ruthless power, as its head Anselm instructs the police to destroy the Ice Angel. Will they be able to outrun the police, and continue their father's work? And is there a link between Anselm’s interest in trolls and their father’s disappearance?
Charlotte Haptie’s Otto books have been sold into seventeen languages. Her gripping new novel wonderfully displays her unique blend of magic, fantasy and adventure.
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CHILDREN OF THE LAMP, BOOK 6: THE FIVE FAKIRS OF FAIZABAD Kerr, P B John and Philippa Gaunt should have known that lunch with their Uncle Nimrod would end in something other than dessert: when you’re a djinn, even simple things like lunch never turn out quite as you might expect. Informed by their uncle that they must perform the traditional djinn rite of taranushi by finding someone who deserves to be granted three wishes, John and Philippa begin scouring the globe for suitable candidates. But Nimrod has also been alerted to a worrying shift in the world’s balance between good and bad luck, with mishap and misfortune steadily on the rise. Could someone (or something) be deliberately affecting the balance of luck, and if so, what could anyone possibly hope to gain from a chronically unlucky world? With the help of an invisible white ape who has an excellent grasp of English, Nimrod and the twins investigate the particularly strange goings-on in Bumby, the unluckiest town in the world, where they learn about the five fakirs of Faizabad: wise and holy men who years ago were entrusted with the five secrets of the universe and were buried alive until the world would need their enlightenment. A mysterious Emir wants their secret knowledge now, and will stop at absolutely nothing to get them. Only John, Philippa and their uncle can track him down and thwart his evil plan.
THE FIVE FAKIRS OF FAIZABAD whizzes the reader from sacred mountaintops to grim prison-ships via a magical rug emporium found deep in the winding streets of Fez. Featuring a magical cast of jinxes, riddling butlers and undead Nazi explorers, this is a rip-roaring tale from the wild imagination of P B Kerr.
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MADAME PAMPLEMOUSSE AND THE ENCHANTED SWEET-SHOP Kingfisher, Rupert It's winter in Paris and Madeleine is having problems at school. A new girl, Mirabelle, is bullying her. Madeleine is too ashamed to ask for help from her friends, Madame Pamplemousse and Camembert, but she's befriended by a woman called Madame Bonbon, who runs an alluring-looking sweet shop. The sweets Madame Bonbon gives Madeleine have the most bewitching effect, at first making her feel much stronger and able to confront Mirabelle. But soon they start drawing her into a strange, enchanted world from which she finds she cannot escape. For Madame Bonbon is really someone else in disguise - an old enemy from Madame Pamplemousse's past, who has come to Paris seeking her revenge. Publisher: World: Bloomsbury Schedule: Publication: September 2010 |
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BLOOD NINJA Lake, Nick Ninjas: silent, deadly and impossibly skilled in the art of combat. Peerless assassins and spies, they pose a terrifying threat to the Japanese nobility. Yet no-one has ever seen them by day… For all ninjas are vampires. The source of their strength is also their greatest weakness - ghastly blood-sucking spirits, all but invincible in battle, they are vulnerable to one thing: sunlight. THE DARK MIST OF NIGHT is the first of the Blood Ninja series. It will reveal the long-hidden secrets of ninja society and tell for the first time the astonishing tale of their first great leader – the man who was ninja, samurai and Shogun. It is the story of Taro, a boy from a simple fishing village who is rescued by a ninja when his father is murdered, and who finds himself dragged deep into a bitter conflict between the rival Lords ruling Japan.
What is the connection between Taro and Lord Tokugawa? What could an ancient curse put on the Emperor’s house by an angry spirit possibly have to do with a fisherman’s son? Where will Taro’s love for Lord Oda’s daughter Hana lead them both? What is the Buddha Ball, and why are men and gods alike willing to kill for it? And can a ninja and a peasant ever rule Japan?
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BLOOD NINJA II Lake, Nick Now that Lord Oda is dead, Taro and his friends are safe. Or so they think. When news arrives of Taro’s mother’s whereabouts, he sets out to find her. Before long, though, Taro finds himself surrounded by enemies, both old and new. When he reaches his mother, in a lonely mountainside monastery, he discovers that all is not what it seems and, despite his vampire abilities, he cannot help her.
There is only one thing left to do: Taro embarks on a quest to help find the Buddha ball, the object that Lord Oda was so desperate for, and which can overcome death itself. But Taro is in for the fight of his life, and he will need to use everything he’s learned as a vampire – and a ninja – if he is to win this battle.
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JASPER AND THE GREEN MARVEL Madden, Deirdre Jasper has just been released from Woodford Jail, where he served a long sentence for some very naughty goings on involving a famous painting. And now he's looking for trouble once again. Ideally he would like a job such as a sofa tester or a food taster. But all he can see in the local paper is advertisements for jobs which seem to require actual work. He is about to discard the ad for a gardener at Haverford-Snuffly Hall when he learns that there is a story attached to this great house, a story concerning a priceless treasure. And so, despite knowing nothing at all about gardening, he gets the job. He has some help from his pet rats Toe-rag and Scum-bag, but even they can't tell him how to mow a lawn. Well, Jasper isn't interested in grass and flowers, he's interested in the Green Marvel, and he's determined to find it! Publisher: World English Language: Faber Schedule: Delivered; Publication: May 2011 |
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THE RING OF FIVE McNamee, Eoin The first book in a projected trilogy, THE RING OF FIVE is a spy story for young adults. Danny Caulfield is abducted from his family's home and taken to a mysterious place called Wilson's, an academy for young spies. Wilson's trains spies for the struggle against the Minkies, who want to break down the barrier between their world and ours. Through an accident of birth, Danny fits the profile of the lost member of the legendary Ring of Five, a cabal of the greatest spies in history who are now working for the Minkies. Danny is to be trained at Wilson's and then infiltrated into their world. As Danny's schooling in the black arts of spying progresses, he comes to understand what a strange place Wilson's is, rife with secrets and apparent betrayals. Are his teachers and his fellows all that they appear to be? And why do so many accidents seem to happen so perilously close to him? Is someone out to get him? Time is running out, as the Minkies menace the school, and somehow Danny must find answers to the many questions racking his mind. He must also prepare for the greatest adventure of his young life.
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THE UNKNOWN SPY McNamee, Eoin Danny is Wilson’s Academy’s most brilliant trainee spy. He has just saved his parents in a frightening car chase, when he receives a message over his radio speakers. It is Devoy, master spy and head of Wilson’s Spy Academy. Danny has twenty minutes before he is to be taken to Wilson’s on a mission: Danny must find the treaty stone that protects the Upper World before the Ring of Five, leaders of the Lower World and the Cherbs, destroy it and wage war. But nothing is as it seems. An enemy Cherb, also after the treaty stone, claims to be Danny’s sister. Who is attacking his friends at Wilson’s? And are his ‘normal’ parents back home really who they say they are? A high-stakes spy adventure, complete with double crossings, brilliant spy inventions, and a hero who has everything to learn about who he really is. Publisher: UK: Quercus; US: Wendy Lamb Books Schedule: Delivered; Published Spring 2011 |
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BESWITCHED Saunders, Kate Flora Fox is very unhappy about being sent off to boarding school while her parents are in Italy caring for her ailing grandmother. On the train to Prentice Hall, a weird nightmare makes things much worse. She wakes up to find herself in 1935; trendy, liberated Prentice Hall has turned into St Winifred’s, an extremely old-fashioned girls' school run by the formidable Miss Harbottle, and founded by the magically gifted Miss Beak. Flora’s sudden journey back through time has a secret purpose, somehow linked to her ancient grandmother and ‘the gift’ which Miss Harbottle says she must pursue if she is ever to reclaim her past and future life.
BESWITCHED is a glorious period school story, spiced with time-travel adventure, rich comedy and the supernatural.
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