Next Thursday 17 August is A level results day for
thousands of students across the UK. In a brilliantly timed publicity coup,
author Lucy Tobinwill be talking about her bestselling title A
Guide to Uni Life: The One Stop Guide to What University is REALLY Like(pb, £9.99, 978 1844552160) on the Steve Wright
Show on Radio 2 on the same day. The last time the Steve Wright
Show featured this title, it went straight into the top ten of ALL books at
Amazon – PLEASE do not let them scoop up all the sales – stock up on this book
now and get it front of store – it will sell!! A
Guide to Uni Lifewhich is published
by Trotman/Crimson offers a unique viewpoint on how to juggle studying,
having fun and avoiding money troubles by someone who has lived through the
experience themselves and can pass on lots of handy tips and advice. Compass
Points has it on good authority from a uni student who has just finished her
first year that this title is on fleek – the tips on essay writing were
apparently especially useful! When Lucy talked about her insightful, honest
and entertaining paperback on Steve Wright two years ago it sold 2,000
copies in just two months – let’s see if we can do even better this time
around!
Another excellent way to find out what student life is
REALLY like would be to box set the whole of Fresh Meat – although this three
minute clip of Jack Whitehall advertising for a new housemate also gives you a
pretty good idea!
Congregations to Aardvark – Rowena Macdonald’s brilliant debut novel The Threat Level Remains Severe has been
shortlisted as one five titles on the Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize. The other titles are: Not
Thomas by Sara Gethin (Honno Press), Dark Chapter by Winnie M Li
(Legend Press) Man With a Seagull on His Head by Harriet Paige
(Bluemoose Books) and The Ludlow Ladies’ Society by Ann O’Loughlin
(Black and White Publishing). If you’d like to find out more – and maybe try
and get yourself on the judging panel for the final choice – then go to the Guardian
page here.
Oberon Books is a must for any
culture vulture. This independent UK publisher specialises in the performing
arts and are currently running a “Stars” scheme, which means they are looking
for bloggers to work with. You can read one popular blogger CultureBean’s
enthusiastic response to that cool idea here. And
this is why she thinks readers should go out of their comfort zone and read a
play!
1) You can interpret the text however you want. Take back
some creative control.
2) It’s fun to play each part as you read. Talk out loud and freak out your
partner.
3) Dialogue is much quicker to read than prose. Get through a book in a single
sitting!
To celebrate Women in
Translationmonth, Gallic
are giving away a bundle of their bestsellers on Twitter including the “enchanting”
(Irish Times) and “beguiling” (New York Times) novel The Life of Elvesby
bestselling author Muriel Barbery(pb, £8.99, 978 1910477335). The winner will be
selected on 31 August and you can find out more about that promotion on Twitter
here.
And then to celebrate World
Lion Dayyesterday (LOVING these
promotional opportunities!) Gallic are giving away copies of Henrietta Rose-Innes’s gorgeous new novel Green Lion(£8.99,
pb, 978 1910709252). J M Coetzee said that Henrietta
Rose-Inneswas “a welcome addition
to the new South African literature” and the novel challenges the way we
interact with nature, raising questions of endangered species but also about
human relations. You can find out about that giveaway here.
Henrietta Rose-Inneswill
be at the Edinburgh Festival and is also is going to the fabulous Golden
Hare Books in Edinburgh on 22 August to read from Green Lion and discuss the issues raised by
eco-fiction. The book is published the previous day. Can I come up with a witty
remark here about lions and hares? No.
Favourite fictional lions? I think my top three would be
Michael Morpurgo’s wonderful Butterfly Lion, then the cowardly one from The
Wizard of Oz – but top of the food chain must of course be the mighty
Aslan! Hear me ROAAAR!
From the top of the food chain to an animal fairly near
the bottom? Dogs! Or doggos as the internet rather perplexingly seems to refer
to them! Our rep for London and the South-East Sophie is currently being helped
out on her calls by the enchanting Carys, an 11-month-old cocker spaniel – who you can see here in Blackwells! Gorgeous doggos frolicking in
bookshops are of course “a thing” as evidenced by #BookshopDogs!
Carys especially enjoyed subbing in Dogs Enjoy the
Morning(pb, £10.99, 978 1848406551)
by Benedict Kiely which was originally
published in 1968 and is about to be reissued in a lovely new edition by New
Island as part of their Modern Irish Classics series. Set in
Cosmona, a fictitious village in Ireland, it features a host of weird and
wonderful including the doctor and his plump wife; the one-eyed peeping tom,
Gabriel Rock; the shell-shocked chaplain; and Whispering Christy.
However,
Carys was not quite so keen on Dogs Gone Bad(£6.99, hb, 978 1782743217) which is just out from Amber.
This is a hilarious book of 45 quirky real-life deviating dogs. They include
the woman in China who crashed her car while giving her dog a driving lesson; a
Labrador from 1924 who was sentenced to life in Pennsylvania Penitentiary for
having murdered the governor's cat and the dozy guard dog who was retired from
a bar after he slept through their only burglary in 12 years! These, and many
other true canine stories are featured with fun colour photo montages of the
erring pooches along with lots of bizarre tales about the kind of dogs that don’t
win awards for bravery; who chase the cops but not the thief; who eat religious
offerings or chew up all the Christmas prezzies!
Refugee Tales Volumes I and IIhave just been given a great review in Disclaimer Magazine calling them "beautiful
and thought-provoking" A special well done to two of the authors whose
work is featured in these Comma Press collections and who have just had
their novels longlisted for this year’s Man
Booker Prize. Ali Smithis longlisted for Autumn (published by Hamish
Hamilton); and Kamila Shamsieis longlisted for Home Fire (published by
Bloomsbury). Kamila Shamsiewas on Channel 4 News this week talking about Refugee Tales IIand
will also be at Manchester Lit Fest with Marina Warner.
Staying on the subject of refugees, the extraordinary and
vivid Voices from the 'Jungle': Stories from the
Calais Refugee Camp (pb, £14.99, 978 0745399683) published by Pluto
has just been given a terrific review on the socialist website Counterfire
which described it as “important” and “moving … please read this
powerful book, one way we can respect each other is to listen to each other.”
Illustrated with photographs and drawings by the writers, and interspersed with
poems, this book should be read by everyone seeking to understand the human
consequences of this world crisis. You can read that piece in full here.
Some superb reviews for The
Knife Went In: Real Life Murders and Our Culture (9781783341184 hb,
£16.99) by Theodore Dalrymplewhich has just been published by Gibson Square
– and is currently number 24 on Amazon. Peter Hitchens called it “A
razor-sharp exposé of our society” in the Mail on Sunday while the Sunday
Telegraph wrote “Nobody has observed the fallacies of modern England
with a clearer eye, or a more intelligent quill. It would be nice to know that
the BBC had heard of him because we could expect to hear him deliver next
year’s Reith Lectures.” The Times said “Dalrymple is one of the
most interesting men of our times. There is nothing in his tale to celebrate,
yet in the telling he deserves the commendation of anybody who values human
civilization.”
Congrats to Carcanet poets Kate Miller(The Observances, pb, 978 1906188153, £9.99) and John Dennison(Otherwise, pb, 978 1847774996, £9.99) who have
both been shortlisted for the Michael Murphy
Poetry Prize. You can find out more about that one here.
If you read a newspaper in a shop without paying for it,
is it stealing? Do you own the view from your own house? Are you more likely to
find God in hospital than a church or a temple? Is it a lie if you believe it?
Are you a different person with your clothes off? These questions, strange as
they may seem, actually help you’re your brain to work better. By moving away
from stock “right or wrong” answers you can create “neural pruning”, which
means the mind opens up new pathways and creates new connections. They are to
be found in The Compleat Thunks Bookby Ian Gilbert(£12.99, pb, 978 1781352724) which has just been
published by the Independent Thinking Press and was recently featured in
the Daily Express, which you can read here and Ian was also talking about it
recently on BBC Radio Sheffield. We are living in an age in which facts
don’t count, certainty no longer exists and complexity means we never quite
know what just happened, let alone what will happen next. Ian Gilbertbelieves
that to better prepare ourselves for such a world, we need a brain workout that
isn’t so much about finding answers as getting our heads around questions – and
The Compleat Thunks Bookwill help you start to look at the world in a whole
new light. At times controversial and often provocative, these brainteasers are
sure to stimulate philosophical enquiry. Covering as wide a variation of topics
as possible from love and lies to parking a car and molesting robots, The Compleat Thunks Bookwill
appeal to people of all ages, tastes and prejudices, and can be used to steer
pub or family discussions away from the same old topics! Ian is a leading
educational speaker and a man who the IB World magazine named as one of its top
15 educational 'visionaries'. The Little Book of
Thunkswon the first education book awardfrom the Society of Authors for “an
outstanding example of traditionally published non-fiction that enhances
teaching and learning”. This new title brings together classic Thunks from a number of his books, as well as
hundreds of new ones, all designed to make your brain hurt as you think,
question, debate and argue your way to a better understanding of how to survive
in a world gone dangerously bonkers.
The Sunday Times Culture section last weekend
devoted its front cover and three pages to Kathryn Bigelow and her new movie, Detroit.
Kathryn Bigelow directed The Hurt Locker (the first woman to win as
Oscar for direction) and also Zero Dark Thirty, so she has a track
record for intense, controversial and action-packed yet critically acclaimed
thrillers. The Sunday Times piece calls the film “A scalding,
immersive race drama, it zeroes in on a little-known incident during that
city’s race riots of 1967, in which a battalion of cops and National Guardsmen,
thinking they’d heard sniper fire, descended on a flophouse at the Algiers
Motel. There they found two white women partying with black men, at which point
the evening metastasised into a horror show of racial subjugation, involving a
“death game” that would leave three of the men dead and everyone else sworn to
secrecy.” All the secrets of that incident and many more are detailed in
the Polygon book Detroit 67: The Year that
Changed Soul (pb, £9.99, 978 1846973666) by Stuart Cosgroveand
it’s the ONLY one available on the subject. We have stickered the stock to
reinforce the connection, so it’s as close to a film tie-in as there is! The
movie is released on August 25th and I’m sure in the next few weeks there will
be even more previews, reviews, interviews and articles to highlight it – you
can watch a trailer here.
Who doesn’t love a glass of fizz? As Lily Bollinger – late
heiress of the famous champagne house – once put it: “I only drink champagne
when I’m happy and when I’m sad.”I Love
Champagne (hb, £12.99, 978 1910449936) by wine expert Davy Zyw(the
youngest ever British sommelier at Le Gavroche, whose party trick is to whip
off a cork using his iPhone) has turned his obsession for fizz into a book
which has just been published by Freight. In a really brilliant piece of
publicity for this highly informative, witty and accessible hardback, there
will be a big piece on it in tomorrow’s Daily Mail! This is a fizzer of
a title at a sparkling price and it’s brim full of info about the history of
champagne, how to drink it and food pairing suggestions; as well as being
excellent quality and packed with glossy full colour double page illustrations.
It is written with passion, love and a thoroughly infectious sense of joie de
vivre! Here are some little soupçons from the article to give you a flavour of the
book! Cheers!
Champagne makes you tiddly more quickly than normal
wine. The carbon dioxide in the bubbles increases pressure in the stomach,
which helps force alcohol into the bloodstream via the stomach lining.
There are about 49 million bubbles in a standard size
bottle.
When popped, a champagne cork normally travels at 40mph
but some can speed at 100mph. The furthest one has been recorded to travel
is more than 175 feet.
In France, the Benedictine monk Dom Pierre Perignon
(1638-1715) is credited with developing the method of introducing sparkle
into the acidic white wines of the region round Reims, now known as
Champagne. He is also immortalised as the brand name of one of the most
exclusive champagnes, Dom Perignon and famously said to fellow monks: “Brothers,
I’m drinking the stars!”
Winston Churchill was partial to a bottle of Pol Roger
every day. He told Odette Pol Roger, the grande dame of her family’s
champagne house who died aged 89 in 2000: “I could not live without
Champagne. In victory, I deserve it. In defeat, I need it. My tastes are
simple, I am easily satisfied with the best.”
Londoners drink more champagne than the whole of
America. And, as a nation, we are the biggest consumer apart from France
which keep 52% of the bottles they produce.
Legend has it that the first champagne coupe glass that
was made in the 18th century was modelled on Marie Antoinette’s left
breast. Tall thin flutes have replaced them in recent years, as they keep
the bubbles alive for longer, making the champagne fizzier. But Davy Zyw
says it tastes best in a normal wine glass because the greater surface
area and oxygen in the glass allows the individual flavours and aromas to
come out.
Let’s finish with the three best songs that mention
champagne. Some might enjoy chilling with Oasis in
their Champagne Supernova and some might enjoy strawberry champagne on
ice (?!?) as served up here by
Bruno Mars; but personally I think the master of them all has to be ol’ blue
eyes with this dazzling
gem. And if any of you super health conscious young ’uns ever wondered why a
whole generation grew up thinking smoking looked cool and sexy – here’s the
reason.
Compass is on Twitter! Follow us
@CompassIPS. Yesterday Twitter celebrated #BookLovers Day and here are some of
our favourite tweets about it!
OxbowBooks @OxbowBooks“Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside
of a dog, it’s too dark to read.” Groucho Marx
Melanie Persists @CarverBookCoach“She is too fond of books, and it has turned her
brain." Louisa May Alcott. I love this quote. Here's to powerful
women!
Franklin Graham @Franklin_Graham"The Bible is God's book of promises, and, unlike the
books of men, it does not change or get out of date." @BillyGraham
Lemon @Lemon_LifestyleA child who reads will be an adult who thinks!
Random House@randomhouse“Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They
are the destination, and the journey. They are home.” Anna Quindlen
Shu @shusolix"Many people, myself among them, feel better at the
mere sight of a book." Jane Smiley
Sallyjo @SallyLovesBooks“You can never get a cup of tea large enough
or a book long enough to suit me.” C.S. Lewis
Mental Floss@ MentalFloss"There are worse crimes than burning books. One of
them is not reading them." Ray Bradbury
sé @simpsoncessiiee"If you don't like reading, you haven't found the
right book" J.K Rowling
Suzanne Pardue @PardueSuzanne“Reading gives us some place to go when we have to stay
where we are” Mason Cooley
Sotiria @thinkingxutloud"You know you've read a good book when you turn the
last page and you feel a little as if you have lost a friend"
Pamela Paul @PamelaPaulNYT#BookLoversDay? But that's EVERY day here at
@nytimesbooks!
That’s all for now folks! More next
week!
This 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.
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