Happy
Christmas! All of us at Compass wish every bookseller a successful festive
season and hope you all enjoy a fabulous Christmas and joyful New Year!
If you are struggling to come up with innovative ideas for
your own Christmas lunch, then have a look here
at the ever-resourceful Theo Michaels who shows us how to do Christmas in a Mug!
This article was from the Daily Mail and is just part of the tremendous
publicity that Microwave Mug Meals (hb, £9.99, 978 0754832850) published
by Lorenz Books has received. He was back again on This Morning
on 8 December showing us how to make an entire festive feast in a mug in matter
of minutes finishing off with a perfect Christmas pudding! You can watch that here.
Compass have
been enjoying the company of all of our lovely publishers this week at our
sales conference where we heard about lots of the brilliant books that will be
bouncing into your shops between March and August 2017.Our conference was in
Slough – and of course I’m NOT saying that the Compass MD is anything like
David Brent – however, while the motivational messages from the conference are
fresh in our minds, this does seem like a good opportunity to remind ourselves
of some of the
best bits from The Office.
OK, back to the books. Highlights from our conference
included some gripping novels including Death's
Silent Judgement; the next thrilling book in the Hannah Weybridge
thriller series by Anne Coates from Urbane; Death
of a Translator from Arcadia
and Because I Was Lonely (pb, £8.99, 978-1910453292) from Red Door.
This is a cleverly crafted, unputdownable debut novel from Hayley Mitchell
which traces the rollercoaster of actions and reactions experienced by a cast
of credible, fallible, characters who rekindle an old friendship on Facebook;
but what begins as a little harmless flirtation soon becomes an obsession, and
slowly the threads of their lives unravel before them…
Baby Wise: Learn to Trust Your
Baby’s Instincts in the First Year by Rachel Fitz-Desorgher (pb, 978 1910336311 £12.99)
which is published by White Ladder met with an enthusiastic response
from our sales team – it sounds terrific! Written by an experienced midwife
this title shows that by responding to your baby’s needs, you can’t parent
“wrongly” and that contrary to what many so-called experts will tell you; your
baby is a highly evolved being with an instinct to survive that you don’t need
to “train”!
Comma Press are publishing second
volume of Refugee Tales – I know many of you have done extremely well with
the first collection of these moving and poignant and all too frighteningly
common experiences of Europe’s new underclass: its refugees. Here, poets and
novelists retell the stories of individuals; presenting their experiences
anonymously, as modern day counterparts to the pilgrims’ stories in Chaucer’s Canterbury
Tales, this new book offers more intimate glimpses into otherwise untold
suffering.
His many fans will be delighted to hear that Gallic have
a new novel from Antoine Laurain – the hugely popular author of The Red Notebook and
The President’s Hat. The Portrait (pb,
£7.99, 978 1910477434) begins when an avid collector unearths the find of a
lifetime a Paris auction house: an eighteenth-century portrait of a man who
looks uncannily like him. Much to his delight, his bid for the work is
successful, but back at home his jaded wife and circle of friends are unable to
see the resemblance. However, as he researches into the painting’s history, he
is presented with the opportunity to abandon his tedious existence and walk
into a brand-new life…
And Other Stories have
The Little Buddhist Monk which is the new title by Cesar
Aira; the most important and
influential writer in Latin America today. Those who love his extreme
eccentricity and innovation and playful spirit will adore this new tour de
force set in Korea, where a Buddhist monk (who’s really very tiny) dreams of
the Western world and secretly reads up on Western culture. When he meets the
holidaying French couple Napoleon Chirac and Jacqueline Bloodymary he offers
his services as their guide, in the hope they will take him, a penniless monk,
to Europe. He whisks them off on a tour of the temples. Among the many twists
and turns, our stunned tourists encounter a suicidal horse and discover that a
person can also be a robot.
Birlinn also have some fantastic
titles coming up in 2017 – one which caught my eye in particular was Captain Fantastic: Elton John’s Stellar Trip Through the 70’s by acclaimed music journalist Tom Doyle. In August 1970 Elton John achieved
overnight fame after a rousing performance at the Troubadour in Los Angeles;
over the next five years he was unstoppable, scoring seven consecutive number 1
albums and sixteen Top 10 singles in America. But behind his outré image and
comedy glasses lay a desperately shy individual, conflicted about his success,
his sexuality, and his narcotic indulgences. In 1975, at the apex of his fame,
John attempted suicide twice yet, after announcing his retirement in 1977 at
the age of thirty as well as coming out as a gay man, he gradually found his
way back to music. Captain Fantastic is an intimate look at the rise, fall and rise again
of John’s fame-and-drug fuelled decade, with a final section bringing his life
up to the present.
And while we’re on the subject of music – there is a MEGA
exciting title coming in May from Brian May – yes THAT Brian May – which is an all new, never before seen pictorial
biography of Queen – yes THAT Queen – in …. wait for it…. 3D!!!
I LOVE this – people
reading fake books with highly controversial covers in the subway and then
filming other commuters’ reactions to them. Hilarious!
That’s all for this year folks!
See you in 2017!
This blog is taken from a newsletter is sent weekly to over 700 booksellers as
well as publishers and publicists. If you would like to order any of the titles
mentioned, then please talk to your Compass Sales Manager, or call the office
on 020 8326 5696.
