I daresay many of you, like us here at Compass
Towers, are on tenterhooks as we await the results of the Labour leadership
election tomorrow – but in the meantime the country is run by a man who many
feel still remains an enigma to those outside his tight-knit inner circle.
However, a new unauthorised biography is set to change all that. Call Me Dave is on of the most hotly anticipated
political books of the year, and promises to reveal the real David
Cameron – Britain ’s youngest Prime Minister for
nearly 200 years. Co-authored by Lord
Ashcroft, former deputy chairman of the Tory Party, and Isabel Oakeshott, award-winning political
journalist; Call Me Dave will be
published on the eve of the Conservative Party Conference and will be serialised
in a major newspaper – which guarantees plenty of publicity! Based on hundreds of interviews; with
everyone from Westminster insiders to intimate friends; this book takes us from
Eton to Oxford, through his gap-year adventures in Russia to Dave’s early days
as a party apparatchik and his stint as a PR man. It scrutinises Cameron’s
journey to the premiership and his record so far as the most powerful man in the
land. Call Me Dave by Michael Ashcroft and Isabel Oakeshott (hb, 978
1849549141) contains 8 pages of colour pics, and is published by Biteback
in October. You can find out more and order it here
And if you really want to find out who’s running the
country - have a look here at the brilliant
Cassetteboy’s take on the latest news!
Talking of power-crazed dictators… take yourself
back to October 2011 when in the dying days of the Libyan civil war, Muammar Gaddafi was hiding out in his home town of
Sirte along with his closest advisors. As we know (but of course he did not);
that October night was to be Gaddafi’s final one. The Dictator’s Last Night is a gripping imagining
by Yasmina Khadra of what these last
hours of President Gaddafi might have been like – providing us with a
fascinating insight into the mind of one of the most complex and controversial
figures of recent history – one who thinks
“People say I am a megalomaniac. It is not true. I am an exceptional
being, providence incarnate, envied by the gods, able to make a faith of his
cause.” In this short paperback, Gaddafi reflects on an extraordinary life,
whilst still raging against the West, his fellow Arab nations and the
ingratitude of the Libyan people. The novella ends with Gaddaffi’s thoughts
as he is dragged out of a water drain, beaten and eventually shot
dead. Yasmina Khadra is a bestselling author with sales
of 3 million copies in 42 countries: one reviewer said of his writing that
“like all the great storytellers of history, Khadra espouses the
contradictions of his characters, who carry in themselves the entirety of the
human condition." This is an interesting title, by an author who the TLS
describe as “a skilled storyteller working at the height of his powers” –
you can read a thoughtful review by a blogger here. The Dictator’s Last Night (pb, 978 1910477137,
£7.99) is published by Gallic in October and you can find out more and order it
here.
You know we love a bit of Harry Potter gossip
in Compass Points, and OMG – apparently we’ve been pronouncing
Voldemort’s name wrong all these years! Read here how JK thinks he who cannot be named should
be said!
Thanks very much for all your support of The Moor’s Account (pb, 978 1859644270, £9.99) by
Laila Lalami published by Periscope which
is selling strongly – so far it’s the 7th bestselling title on the
Booker Longlist of thirteen titles
– which is pretty good considering it
wasn’t released when the longlist was announced! There’s less than a week
(Tuesday 15th September) to go until the shortlist is announced –
have a look at this article in the Bookseller here which tells you how
all the titles are doing and what the odds are on the
winner!
And if you haven’t got round to reading all the
titles yet, have a look at some extracts from each of them here to give you a
flavour!
Paul Gambaccini is going to be all over the airwaves and press next
week publicising his autobiography:
Love, Paul Gambaccini (hb, £20.00,
978 1849549110). Subtitled My Year Under the
Yewtree, this book could not be more topical – and this full,
no-holds-barred story of Paul
Gambaccini’s twelve months of horror and trauma before being told he
would not face historic sex assault charges looks set to trigger a change in how
we prosecute allegations of abuse in the UK. Paul
Gambaccini was arrested in October 2013. Forced awake in the middle
of the night, he had many of his possessions confiscated for more than a year.
He was disgraced in the press and made unemployable, despite having to pay tens
of thousands of pounds in legal fees during a year in which he had no income.
Finally, and inevitably, he became the latest celebrity to be exonerated over
allegations of historic sexual abuse. The serialisation of this first person
account has just begun the Mail on Sunday , and you can also read these articles
in the Daily Telegraph, the The Times and
the Daily Mail – The Mail on Sunday serialisation
continues this weekend.
Paul will be on ITV’s Loose Women next Tuesday,
and also that day he’ll be interviewed on BBC Radio 4, on the Today Programme and there will be a
live interview that evening with Evan Davies. Then the next morning (Weds) he’ll
be on Radio 5 Live Breakfast –with Nicky Campbell and The Victoria
Derbyshire Programme and BBC Radio 2, talking to Jeremy Vine at
lunchtime, then HardTALK for an interview with Stephen Sackur and
finally a live interview with Huw Edwards the BBC News Channel. Love, Paul
Gambaccini is published this week by Biteback and you can order it and find out more
here.
Imagine a young mother, standing on Tower Bridge , holding her baby, ready to jump.
No, this isn’t the start of some gripping new thriller – but an event that
really happened. This single defining moment was Mary Daniels' darkest time – and the point when
her life changed forever. Wild Awakening
tells the story of what happened next, the journey to 'self' that she never saw
coming and the discovery of nine simple, yet powerful questions that truly saved
her life. Wild Awakening: 9 Questions that Saved my
Life is an uplifting and moving story of how a series of events
culminated in nine powerful questions that not only saved Mary’s life, but have gone on to become a
transformative process for many others. This deeply moving story reveals how all
it takes is 9 minutes each morning – so this is the ideal guide for real people,
living real lives, who are looking for a 'doable' daily practice for lasting
change. An inspiring speaker, powerful storyteller and original 'wild woman',
Mary Daniels and this title, Wild Awakening, will feature in a future issue of
the Daily Express, the November issue of Soul & Spirit
magazine and also in Kindred Spirit magazine. Wild Awakening (pb, 978 1781805831, £10.99) is
published by Hay House in October and you can find out more and order it here.
If the above title is not your cup of tea, you may
be one of the many booksellers with a deep suspicion of anything “new agey” or
“dippy hippie”. Perhaps you also believe that food intolerances are an entirely
21st century invention, and that it’s the abandoning of meat and two veg every
day that has plunged the world into decline? Well, you might be surprised to
know that the world’s first ever raw, gluten-free, vegan restaurant actually
opened in 1917! Mrs Vera Richter was
something of a trailblazing guru whose restaurant in LA served up a delicious
array of soups, pies and confections, enticing diners to the table throughout
the 1920s. Vintage Vegan: Recipes from Inside the
World’s First Vegan Restaurant collects over 100 of her most
mouth-watering recipes for readers to recreate at home. From cow-less ice-cream
to egg-less mayonnaise, gluten-free tamales to homemade almond milk, Vintage Vegan relies upon choppers and blenders;
but never the oven or the hob. One hundred percent raw, the vitamin content of
her dishes was never compromised by conventional baking or frying methods.
Thanks to endorsements from A-list celebrities like Beyoncé and Gwyneth Paltrow
and a vast array of bloggers online; interest in the raw food and vegan
lifestyle is at an all-time high. Over 60% of the British population is either
obese or overweight, with 45% of people suffering from gluten intolerance, and
Vintage Vegan offers a more wholesome,
healthier lifestyle; guaranteed to make you glow from the inside out while
shedding a few pounds in the process. It also provides a tantalising taste of
the Roaring Twenties – what’s not to love! Vintage
Vegan by Mrs Vera Richter (hb,
978 0859655446, £12.99) is published by Plexus in October and you can find out more about it
here.
Mind you; if we’re on the subject of retro diets – I
think I’d probably prefer to follow Fats Waller’s – here he is with all that
meat and no potatoes!
I expect there are times when you wonder whether it
would be better to be an author than a bookseller – none of that tiresome
stock-checking or unpacking boxes – and plenty of working in your pyjamas and
drinking warm white wine at parties! But maybe it’s not all fun fun fun – here’s
an entertaining list of the many fears that plague
writers!
There’s been quite a bit of publicity coming up for
101 Gins to Try Before You Die by
Ian Buxton (£12.99, hb, 978 1780272993)
from Birlinn. There’s going an interview with Ian coming up in the
Times, and there’s just been a feature in the Daily Record. Also
many local papers have featured it – including the Irish News, the
Liverpool Echo and the Manchester Evening News. Here are two
videos which you may enjoy – firstly Ian talking about his book and then secondly, a one minute film
showing us how to make the perfect gin based cocktail – just the
pick-me-up required for a tired bookseller on a Friday evening I would think!
Cheers!
And
you can order 101 gins here (the book that is – sadly not literally
101 gins.)
Compass is on
Twitter! Follow us @CompassIPS. Here are some of our favourite tweets from last
week...
We're
delighted to announce that @freightbooks is joining forces with @cargopublishing 312030 …
'TV
book shows could help BBC survive' says Robert Harris: http://bit.ly/1VRggPO
@urbanebooks @deanlilleyman @CompassIPS Amazing interview. Must read Billy
and the Devil but scared for personal reasons. Such candidness is
admirable.
Thrilled
to see a nice pile of The Miner at Foyles Waterloo.
Great
storytelling....5 stars....I love this book....thrilling... Eden-Burning
Yes! @DanRhodes101 will be
here October 1st - free event for the launch of @AardvarkBureau's
release of Professor!
History from a
Woman's Perspective- A Book Blog: The Lady Agnès Mystery - Volume 1: The Season
of t... http://www.historywomanperspective.comme-1-season.html?spref=tw …
That’s all for now
folks! More next week!
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