As predicted
in last week’s Compass Points, the appearance
of 96-year-old war veteran John Martin talking
about A Raid
Over Berlin (pb, £7.99, 978 1912681198)
on the One Show last week had an absolutely
electrifying effect on sales, shooting this title straight into the Amazon bestseller
lists. This miraculous true-life Second World War survival story of the brave airman
who cheated death in the sky, only to face interrogation by the Gestapo, and
months of hardship as a prisoner of war; is poignant and thrilling and you can watch
the emotional moment when John is given a copy of the book on The One Show here
– it’s at 29 minutes in, just after
an interview with Mick Hucknall! It’s published by Parthian – put it on display with a Pick of the Week card referencing The One Show and it will sell – let’s not let Amazon get all those
sales in the run up to Christmas!
I’m so looking
forward to hearing Brian May on Johnnie Walker’s Sounds of the 70s this Sunday
at 3pm on Radio 2 discussing his two
latest London Stereoscopic ventures Mission Moon 3D (£30, hb, 978 1999667405) and Queen in 3D (£30,
hb, 978 1999667429). You’ll be able to listen again here if you miss Sunday’s
show. All the promotion Brian has done so far has given the sale of these books
a HUGE boost – so please do make sure they’re on display ready for Sunday!
And talking of
radio shows giving a boost to sales; listen out for Nige Tassel author
of Butch Wilkins
and the Sundance Kid (pb, £9.99, 978 1909715615)
on BBC Radio 5 Adrian Chiles show
next Friday, 7th December. Nige is terrific on the radio and last time he was
on Talk Radio and TalkSport we got a big spike in sales. Charting
similar waters to Nick Hornby's classic Fever
Pitch, Butch
Wilkins and the Sundance Kid chronicles
the author's decade-long obsession with televised sport during his teenage
years in the 1980s. It is memoir intertwined with nostalgia, combining humour,
insight and poignancy to vividly depict the way sport can transcend the
television screen to impact on wider life, hopes and ambitions. It’s published
by Arena Sport.
Many of you are
already doing extremely well with Canbury’s
Under the Wig by William Clegg. There is a new review of it in the December
edition of Counsel magazine, the
house magazine for barristers which goes to 23,000 legal professionals in
England and Wales. It describes the book
as "utterly compelling",
"direct", "clear", and with chapters that should be
absorbed "with joy" and "cherished" — and concludes: "My independent verdict is that I have
never read a more accurate portrayal of our profession. Buy it."
It's Friday –
who fancies a curry? Definitely me – and what I also fancy is watching this classic clip from Gavin and Stacey. While we’re on the subject, this is a good time
to tell you that South East Asian Curries (hb,
£8.00, 978 0754834298) by Mridula Baljekar has
just won a prestigious Gourmand World Cookbooks Award for best single subject cookbook in the UK and so is going forward to represent
the UK in the best of the world in this category in Macau in July 2019. Some of
the world's most exciting cuisines are found in the south-eastern corner of
Asia. Each country has its own traditional cooking style, but all share a
passion for fragrant dishes made with exotic spices and the very freshest of
ingredients. This great little book published by Lorenz offers signature curries from Thailand, Burma, Vietnam, Malaysia,
Indonesia and the Philippines.
In the winter
of 2009 Mac
Macartney walked from his birthplace
in England across Wales to the island of Anglesey, once the spiritual epicentre
of Iron Age Britain, navigating by the sun and the stars, with no map, compass,
stove or tent, and in the coldest winter for many years. The Children’s Fire records that journey, and seeks to understand
sacredness as it applies to everything ordinary that brings joy to the human
heart. There’s a thought-provoking interview with Mac in the latest issue of JUNO magazine talking about climate
change and saying “We’re all keen to talk
about plastic pollution, which is certainly a serious issue, but we don’t want
to admit that it pales in comparison to the reality of climate change. We need
a habitable planet to live on, yet we are destroying it. We describe ourselves
as rational beings, but evidence suggests we are entirely the opposite. For all
our cleverness, wisdom seems beyond our reach.” The Children’s Fire (£12.99, pb 978 1788600453) is published by Practical Inspiration and forges a
trail into Britain’s wild and ancient Celtic past, locating the fragments of a
story that still has resonance today; the pulse and surge of an older wisdom that
is surfacing all around the world.
Congratulations
to author Guy
Ware who won the London Short Story Prize 2018 this week. Comma know how to spot a winner and they published Guy's debut
short story collection You Have 24 Hours to Love Us (£7.99, pb, 978 1905583263) back in in 2013. The Guardian described it as an "intellectual romp … the best debut I
have read in years" while Time
Out praised Guy
Ware as a “remarkably successful short story writer, the best I've read for a
long, long time.”
The Flag (£20, hb, 978 1612004471) is Book of the
Month in Britain at War magazine and it has also posted a large and
passionate review calling it “poigant,
honest, humane and deeply respectful, The Flag is a tribute to the memory of
David Railton MC MA who served valiantly as a chaplain during the First World
War. Written beautifully be former Household Cavalry officer Andrew Richards,
if there’s one book that should be read about the 1914-1918 conflict then this
is it. The Flag is a memoir full of hope and inspiration. It offers up a lesson
to us all. It’s a must-read and, once and for all, ensures the life and times
of Padré Railton will never be forgotten”. It’s published by Casemate.
Yes, yes we
know that you may well be up to your ears in Brexit books, but a new title from
Emerald provides a compelling
insight in a uniquely historical context. Looking at previous 'Brexits' the
book tackles five specific themes relating to the Brexit result - competition
in the global innovation economy, the generational split, the 'left behind'
aspirational working and middle classes, the impact on international relations,
and popularism in the internet age. Tales of Brexits Past and Present: Understanding the Choices,
Threats and Opportunities In Our Separation from the EU (pb, 978 1787694385, £12.99) by Nigel Culkin and Richard Simmons is published next week, and Richard will be appearing
on the All Out Politics show on Sky, hosted by Adam Boulton, to talk
about it on the 6th, 10th or 11th December. The book explains that far from entirely
unprecedented, that there have been similarly disruptive experiences in
Britain, and in England in particular. The book is part history lesson, part
stakeholder manual and in part a stepping stone to help wider public debate.
I’m pleased to
say that Oxbow have not just one,
but two title in the 2019 Archaeology Book of the Year Award which is
announced in March. Winchester: Swithun's City of Happiness and Good Fortune: An
Archaeological Assessment (hb, £40, 978
1785704499) by Patrick Ottaway which
is the first published comprehensive review and critical assessment of the
archaeology of the historic city of Winchester and its immediate environs from
earliest times to the present day. Britannia Romana: Roman Inscriptions and Roman Britain
by RSO Tomlin
(hb, £48.00, 978 1785707001) is based on the author’s forty years’ experience
of the epigraphy of Roman Britain and collects 487 inscriptions (mostly on
stone, but also on metal, wood, tile and ceramic), to illustrate the history
and character of Roman Britain.
Some lovely
pieces about Gaia
Holmes' Comma poetry collection Where the Road Runs Out (978
1910974452, pb, £9.99) this week. Michael Stewart joined Gaia for a walk
through the Dean of Luddenden (where Gaia was born) to discover the hidden
depths behind her third collection, he wrote about the experience here. Also John Foggin gave
the collection a stellar review on his blog, saying "What I want now is for this collection to be given the recognition it
deserves, I want it to win prizes, and I finally want to be able to tell poets
about Gaia Holmes and not need to explain who she is." You can see
that one, together with some excerpts here.
Good to see How to Propagate
375 Plants: A Practical Guide to Propagating Your Own Flowers, Foliage Plants, Trees,
Shrubs, Climbers, Wet-loving Plants, Bog and Water Plants, Vegetables and Herbs
(978 0754834410, hb, £15) by Richard Rosenfeld make
the shortlist of five for the prestigious Garden Media Guild Practical Book of the Year 2018 Award.
This new 2018 edition is beautifully illustrated with over 1,100 clear and
informative photographs and illustrations and as with all Lorenz titles, it’s well -priced, authoritative, comprehensive and
practical.
Who said “Once we have understood housework, we will
understand the economy”? You can find out by reading Wages for Housework: A History of an
International Feminist Movement, 1972-77 by Louise Toupin (£19.99, 978-0745338675, pb) published by Pluto which has just had a great review in the Morning Star which you can read
here.
Wages for
Housework was a key movement in
“second-wave” feminism. Totally original in its philosophy, it threw light on
the unrecognised and invisible forms of labour performed mainly by women. The Morning Star calls this book “essential”.
Balfour in the Dock (£16.99, hb, 978 1911072225) by Colin Andersen,
has won joint first prize in the academic section of the MEMO Palestine Book Awards. Balfour in the Dock outlines
the origins of the Balfour Declaration in 1917 and the betrayal of British
promises to Palestine, through a biography of the Daily Mail journalist J.M.N Jeffries and the researches he did
which uncovered the truth. It’s published
by Skyscraper.
Ticket to the Moon: Aston
Villa: The Rise and Fall of a European Champion (£18.99, pb, 978-1909245761) by Richard Sydenham was extracted recently in the Birmingham Mail - you can read
that here,
here
and here.
Richard also was on Talk Sport 2
talking about it and live on Facebook with BBC
Radio Wm here .Aston
Villa’s1982 European Cup win in many ways was the most romantic in football
history. And yet, set against the backdrop of English dominance in the
competition it is widely a forgotten achievement. By taking readers
inside the boardroom, revealing through minutes who said what to whom at key
meetings, Richard
Sydenham paints a vivid portrayal that covers more than 20-years of
turbulent Midland football history. It’s published by De Coubertin
Some strong reviews
coming in for Amy
Arnold's debut novel Slip of a Fish (978
1911508526, pb, £10), winner of the Northern Book Prize 2018, which has just been published
by And Other Stories. The Guardian Review , compared
elements of the book to Virginia Woolf's To
The Lighthouse, praising it as “original,
ambitious and challenging.” The White Review called it
“strange and dextrous” and The Irish Times “an impressive
portrait of motherhood, loss and fragility.” The Sheffield Telegraph said “Arnold’s language is mesmerising; like a
literary fugue, phrases are repeated, looped and returned to as we follow Ash’s
stream of consciousness” and The Skinny wrote:“Few novels achieve the delicate shimmer
Arnold's poetic prose evokes in the mind – a cool-warm, unsettling and very
beautiful new voice.”
Congratulations
to Thomas Kinsella, one of Ireland’s greatest poets, who will
be honoured with the Bob Hughes Lifetime Achievement Award at the An Post Irish
Book Awards 2018, in his 90th year. You can find out more on the Carcanet website here.
Michael Crick’s Biteback
biography of the legendary psephologist David Butler, Sultan of Swing (hb, £25, 978 1785904387)
has featured recently on Radio 4’s Westminster Hour, BBC
Radio London’s Robert Elms Show, the Polling Politics Podcast and BBC Parliament. Following an effusive write-up
by Sky News’ Adam Boulton, Sue
Cameron gave the book a very favourable review in TotalPolitics,
with further coverage expected in The
Political Quarterly and FT.
There has been some exceptional coverage of Speaking the Piano: Reflections on Learning and Teaching (978 1783273256, hb, £19.99) by Susan Tomes over the weekend. It made the Financial Times Best Books List 2018, where they said “learning to play the piano well is about more than getting the notes right. Drawing on a career in chamber music and teaching, Susan Tomes casts her eye over everything from classic TV comedy to Japanese cherry blossom in an all-embracing exploration of how to make music come alive.” The Sunday Times have also featured it in their round up of best music books of 2018 writing “Drawing on her long experience, pianist Susan Tomes investigates, with crystalline clarity, some of the interferences that disrupt the flow between players and their music. The text is studded with gems of insight, encapsulating elusive matters that often defy articulation, including difficult topics such as unconscious biases against female teachers, or why some performers ham up their playing for the YouTube generation. A must-read for anyone who plays or loves the piano.” It’s published by Boydell Press.
So, let’s finish
with some piano music – here
are the “world’s most breathtaking piano pieces ever” courtesy of YouTube –
surely 4.5 million listeners can’t be wrong!
That’s all for now folks! More next week!
This weekly blog is written for the UK
book trade. If you would like to order any of the titles mentioned, then please
talk to your Compass Sales Manager, or call the Compass office on 020 8326
5696. Every Friday an e-newsletter containing highlights from the blog is sent
out to over 700 booksellers – and if you’d like to receive this then please
contact nuala@compass-ips.london
