Congratulations to Carcanet, Fairlight and New Island, who all have titles on the
thirteen-book longlist for the Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Presses.
This is the prize for literary publishers (five employees or less) backed by
the TLS and Arts Council England. You
can find out lots more on the TLS website
here,
but
they champion genuinely small publishers – which of course we at Compass do too
– so hurrah! They point out that despite small press publishing apparently now
being “a thing”; this year’s Man Booker Prize didn’t longlist a single one and
also that “the British Books Awards Best
Small Press Category means a company with less than a million pounds a year in
revenue, but by contrast, we at the Republic of Consciousness go for fewer than
five full-time employees, and aim for the less number-based criteria of
hard-core literary fiction, and gorgeous prose.” The titles are The Cemetery In
Barnes (£9.99, pb, 978-1784105464 ) by Gabriel Josipovici: “a beautifully patterned work, both playful
and serious, which reminds us that he is one of our great writers”; Bottled Goods (£7.99, pb, 978 1912054305 ) by Sophie van Llewyn: “If you’re looking for intrigue,
psychological depth and the darkly comic in a book that can be read in one
hour, this is for you” and Follow Me to Ground (£9.99,
pb, 978 1848406889 ) by Sue Rainsford: “It
achieves something quite uncanny: believability. This book is deeply evocative
of what it might be like to find true healing in nature, if not in ourselves.”
The announcement of the 2019 shortlist will be on 2 March.
Did you know that drawing for just 30
minutes lowers your stress levels? By engaging more of your brain, it can help
you focus better. Lots of great tips like this are in Draw a Better Business by Cara Holland (£14.99,
pb, 978 1910056639) which has a great triple page spread in the current issue
of DIVA magazine, the leading monthly
glossy for lesbians and bi women in the UK and Europe spotlighting all that is
fresh, funny, exciting, controversial and cutting-edge. Great publicity for
this title which is an illustrated practical guide for freelancers and business
people who want to tap into their innate creativity and learn to use visual
skills and techniques to gain the business benefits. Cara has worked with companies
such as TimeWarner, Google and the NHS and has a lot to say about the benefits
of working visually! It’s published by Practical
Inspiration.
The mega-publicity started yesterday for
the Stuart
Barnes memoir, Sketches from Memory (£16.99, hb,
978 1909715714), with a special edition of the Times’ Ruck podcast (regularly topping the sports podcast charts),
discussing the book with Stephen Jones, released yesterday. There are confirmed
extracts in the Times in the week of
the England v France game (w/c 4th Feb) followed by confirmed and rather
brilliant reviews in the Times, the Guardian, the Sunday Times and Rugby World.
Stuart Barnes has been the face and voice of rugby union on Sky Sports since 1994 and he will be on TV
screens throughout the Six Nations tournament and there are events, social
media competitions and a full-page ad for this title in the Official Guide to the Six Nations
magazine, so it will be hard to miss! Tom English on BBC Sport called it “A blast.
Barnes is one of rugby’s original thinkers. He looks at the game like few
others” while the Guardian said “there is something for everyone in these
honest, trenchant, revealing and occasionally poetic pages… vintage Barnes”.
Stuart will be at Hodges Figgis in Dublin on 31st January and at Toppings, Bath
on 19th March 2019. It’s published by Arena
Sport.
A fascinating article here
in the Guardian
this week entitled “Growing Pains: How
the Climate Crisis is Changing British Gardens”. It chimes perfectly with
the Lorenz title Gardening in a
Changing Climate (£14.99, hb, 978
1903141625) which is a truly inspirational book looks looking at the garden
styles of nine individual regions which have always dealt superbly with heat,
drought and water shortages. Each one represents a gardening specialism: the
Italian Garden, the Islamic Garden, the Patio Garden, the Mediterranean Garden,
the Gravel Garden, the Desert Garden, the Bush Garden, the Flower Desert and
the Jungle Garden and each chapter explains the essence of the style and
includes a practical tutorial, a colour planting plan and a step-by-step
project. The beautiful gardens photographed range from world-famous locations
such as the Tresco garden in the Isle of Scilly to the patio gardens of
Cordoba, Spain, the desert gardens of Arizona, the Hamilton Gardens in New
Zealand and the Beth Chatto gravel garden in the UK.
We were
pleased to see Critical Publishing,
Practical Inspiration, Crown House and Kogan
Page all with shortlisted titles in the 2019 Business Book Awards. Corporate Emotional
Intelligence: Being Human in a Corporate World (pb, £29.99, 978
1912508044) by Gareth
Chick is up for the Embracing Change category and Executive
Presentations: Develop Presence to Speak with Confidence and Skill (£15.99, pb, 978 1788600163) by Jacqui Harper is shortlisted in the Self-Development
category. The
Learning Imperative (pb, £13.99, 978 1785832697)
by Mark Burns
and Andy Griffith is shortlisted in
the in HR & Management list and Kogan Page have SEVEN titles shortlisted
(The Post Truth
Business (in the Embracing Change category), The Leadership Lab and
Get Social (in Leadership),
Working in the
Gig Economy (in Start-Up Inspiration), 100 Practical Ways to Improve Customer Experience (in
Sales and Marketing), and Accelerated
Leadership Development and Data-Driven HR (in HR &
Management)) and are nominated in almost every category – very well done
guys! You can see all the books and find out more at www.businessbookawards.co.uk. The awards will be announced on March
26th.
I
Caught Beneath The Landslide: Manchester City in the 1990s (hb, £18.99, 978 1909245808) had a
brilliant review recently in When
Saturday Comes saying “The author
displays impressive levels of research throughout with many anecdotes,
including private conversations and phone calls, quoted verbatim rather than
paraphrased, displaying an admirable trust in both the credibility and recall
of his sources. It adds to the integrity of a fascinating and insightful book
that ought to be enjoyed far beyond Manchester City’s fanbase.” You can
read that here.
It’s published by De Coubertin
We’re pleased to hear that A Handbook of Food Crime (£85, hb, 978 1447336013) by Allison Gray and Ronald Hinch, has
been chosen as a Choice
Outstanding Academic Title. The books have been selected for the
significance of their contribution to the field and their value as an important
– often the first – treatment of their subject, and you can find out more about
the award here.
A Handbook of
Food Crime talks
about immoral and illegal practices in the food industry and what to do about
them. As the authors say: “Big problems
require big solutions, and there is a role for everyone.” Through
discussions of food safety, food fraud, food insecurity, agricultural labour,
livestock welfare, genetically modified foods, food sustainability, food waste,
food policy, and food democracy, they argue for the importance of thinking
criminologically about food and propose radical solutions You can read more on
what food crime is and why it can't be ignored in this blog piece
by Allison. It’s published by Policy
Press.
I know I often use the phrase “rave
review” but this one in the Guardian
for Glen James
Brown’s stunning debut novel Ironopolis (pb, £9.99, 978 1912681099) really is! “this unflinching depiction of an estate’s
glory days and its eventual decline is nothing short of a triumph… wry,
multilayered … hugely ambitious… a fascinating, absorbing world…” you can
read the whole piece here. High praise and richly deserved for this Parthian title which came out in
paperback in November – all who have read it in the Compass office have
absolutely loved it too!
Things fall apart when empires crumble.
This time, we think, things will be different. They are not. This time, we are
told, we will become great again. We will not. In Rule Britannia (£12.99, hb, 978 1785904530), which was published
this week by Biteback, Danny Dorling and
Sally Tomlinson argue that the vote to leave the EU was the last
gasp of the old empire working its way out of the British psyche. Fuelled by a
misplaced nostalgia, the result was driven by a lack of knowledge of Britain’s
imperial history, by a profound anxiety about Britain's status today, and by a
deeply unrealistic vision of our future. And yet, there is hope. In this
wide-ranging and thoughtful analysis, Dorling and Tomlinson argue
that if Britain can reconcile itself to a new beginning, there is the chance to
carve out a new identity. Rule Britannia is a
call to leave behind the jingoistic ignorance of the past and build a fairer
Britain, eradicating the inequality that blights our society and embracing our
true strengths.
And in these days of political splits
and rifts, these maps made me laugh as they point out some of the more basic
divisions that exists in our nation!
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
thanks for sharing information....
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