So, so much
buzz from Cannes about the new Tarantino film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood; you can see a trailer here. OMG it looks extraordinary,
and stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Kurt Russell and Al
Pacino! Set in the film industry during the final years of Hollywood's Golden
Age in 1969 Los Angeles, it is the usual Tarantino mix of provocative, dazzling,
bloody and shocking; unsurprising when you realise that much of the plot involves
Sharon Tate, Roman Polanski and Charles Manson. It’s out in the UK on 14 August
and there is going to be an absolute avalanche of publicity (the Guardian
has already given it five stars). So this is a good opportunity for some 1969 Hollywood
themed windows/tables/displays in your bookshops, and Charles Manson: The Man Who Murdered the
Sixties (pb, £9.99, 978 1789501834) by
Professor, David
J Krajicek which is published on 15 August is absolutely perfect! Posing
as a musician-come-guru-come-Christ-figure, Manson built a commune cult of
hippies, consisting mainly of troubled young women. But what made this group
set out on the four-week killing spree that claimed seven lives? Set against
events of the time, this book includes breakdowns of each murder, including
diary accounts, interviews and legal testimonies from the killers themselves, an
account of the events in Manson's own words, an insight into Manson's psychology
and in-depth profiles of his followers. The Tarantino film’s ending is a
closely guarded secret, but it’s bizarre, brutal and bloody and the Manson story
is likely to be endlessly debated over the coming months. It’s published by Arcturus.
Talking of shocking
stories; here's
a very interesting piece in the Guardian
on shocking books. Would American Psycho
be published today? Do disturbing novels reflect an extreme reality or are they
just titillation? Plenty to ponder!
Thatcher: A Very British Revolution is a five-part BBC Two documentary now
screening on Monday evenings. You can see the episodes so far here.
Two Biteback authors have been interviewed
for it; Caroline
Slocock author of People Like Us: Margaret
Thatcher and Me (pb, £9.99, 978 1785904608)
and Bernard
Ingham whose diaries The Slow Downfall
of Margaret Thatcher (hb, £20, 978 1785904783) are published on 11
June. Caroline
has been much in demand by the media including Women’s Hour, Channel 4
and Sky News and Newsnight since Theresa May’s resignation last week. Her
contributions have been knowledgeable, insightful and refreshing from someone
now outside the Westminster bubble. Bernard will be interviewed on BBC R4’s Today programme on 10 June and will
feature on the BBC R4 Today podcast.
He will also be interviewed in the Fame
& Fortune feature in the Sunday
Times, for the Sunday Telegraph and
on BBC Radio 5 Live for the Emma Barnett show.
I think Dominic
Raab urgently needs to get himself a copy of Bell Hooks’ Feminism is for Everybody (£18.99,
pb, 978-0745317335 ) after this
dismal performance! Published by Pluto
in their Passionate Politics series,
this is a short, accessible introduction to feminist theory by one of its
liveliest and most influential practitioners which provides both a primer to
the question “what is feminism?” and an argument for the enduring importance of
the movement today. The books was included in Grazia recently on their essential feminist reading list which you can
see here.
Some exciting
news announced this week by Comma in
collaboration with Hay Festival. A
selection of women writers, artists and scientists are taking part in a new
global project reimagining the future of Europe. Their short stories and essays
will be shared through an anthology, Europa28: Visions for the Future which will be published in March 2020. These twenty-eight
women, one from each European country, represent a multi-disciplinary snapshot
of the best minds of our time, including novelist Leïla Slimani, entrepreneur Hilary Cottam,
activist Janne
Teller, anthropologist Gloria Wekker and
actress Lisa
Dwan. You can find out more here.
The twelve
strong longlist for the Edge Hill University Short Story Prize, (the
only UK based award to recognise excellence in a single authored short story
collection) was announced this week and hurrah, two Compass titles are on it! You see the full longlist, and find out
more about the prize here.
The magnificent Mia Gallagher is
back with Shift
(£9.99, pb, 978 1848406698) a captivating new short story collection published
by New Island that explores the dark
side of the feminine psyche. Told in diverse voices and from multiple points of
view, each story packs an emotional punch. Mia Gallagher lives
in Dublin and her debut novel, HellFire,
received the Irish
Tatler Women of the Year Literature Award
while her second novel, Beautiful Pictures of the Lost Homeland (£9.99, pb, 978 184805066) has been acclaimed as one
of the most important Irish novels published in the last decade. Elsewhere, Home by Leila Aboulela (£8.99,
pb, 978 1846592119) won the 2018 Saltire Fiction Society Book of the Year and was acclaimed by the Observer as “a beautiful and
desolate collection ... quiet brilliance”. Its published by Telegram. The prize is awarded in October
– good luck to Mia and Leila!
IVF is now
mainstream medicine – an established procedure that has provided the means of
realising the dream of parenthood for millions worldwide. But 40 years ago,
plenty viewed the method of fertilising an egg with sperm in a laboratory with
the deepest suspicion. There’s a great interview with Professor Simon Fishel in the Star
here
talking about his brilliant new book, Breakthrough Babies (pb,
£14.99, 978-1788600736) which has just been published by Practical Inspiration. The Yorkshire
Post also ran a feature on it in Monday’s issue, you can see that here.
Here's
a great blog post on the fabulous Tentacle (£8.99, pb, 978 1911508342) by Rita Indiana;
and you see it pictured here looking very swanky in the newly opened Margate Bookshop! It begins “Now translated into English by Achy Obejas and published by the wonderful And Other Stories, both the cover and the blurb were enticing
enough to catch my eye. Well then, what about the content within the pages? It
was excellent. Here’s why…”
A really
interesting article here
in the Scotsman entitled “Against all odds: The rebirth of Scottish
publishing.” Of course, there is plenty of mention of the great publishing
done by our pals at Birlinn and 404Ink and it concludes that “there seems to be a renewed buzz around
books” which is a message we can all heartily agree with!
And talking of
404Ink, there will be a new edition
of the flash fiction favourite The Goldblum Variations coming in October from
them to coincide with the indie publisher's first international rights deal
which sees Penguin publishing it in the US this autumn. The collection follows
the adventures of Jeff Goldblum and alternate versions of himself as he travels
the universe, in a mighty celebration of weird and wonderful Goldbluminess and
it will be released with brand new content. Heather McDaid from 404 Ink said “It’s a bitesize but incredibly fun book,
and we’re thrilled that Penguin will be helping bring the gift of Goldblum to
many more people.” You can read more about it in the Bookseller here.
I’m really
pleased to share the news that Carcanet’s
In Her Feminine
Sign (£12.99, pb 978 1784108533) by Dunya Mikhail has been chosen by the Poetry Book Society as their Wild Card
in the Autumn
2019 Selections! This brilliant poetic exploration of language and
gender, place and time, through the mirror of exile is Dunya’s fourth collection
to be published in English and is out in August. Congratulations, Dunya! And
well done to all the poets and publishers who made the list; you can see the
full list of selections at the Poetry Book Society's website here.
Here's
a very sad story from the Guardian
entitled “Amazon blamed as iconic bookshops
announce closure” with the news that award-winning indie Wenlock Books in Shropshire and Camden Lock Books in London are set to
shut forever. I so applaud The Wigtown
Bookshop’s tweet in response to this news; who said: “One day, hopefully the headline will read Iconic bookshops blamed as
Amazon announces closure”.
Now We Can Talk Openly About
Men by Martina Evans (pb, £9.99, 978 1784105785) has been shortlisted for
yet another poetry prize – it was selected as a 2018 TLS
and Irish
Times Book of the Year, shortlisted for the Poetry Now Award and the Piggot Poetry Prize, and has now been
shortlisted for the Roehampton Poetry Prize 2019! The prize is
given for the best poetry collection of the year written by a poet of any
nationality who is currently living in the UK. Now We Can Talk Openly About Men is a book of vivid contrasts: age and youth, women
and men, the Irish and the English.
Congrats to Celestial Bodies, written by Jokha
Alharthi, translated by Marilyn Booth from
Arabic and published by Sandstone Press, which won the Man Booker International Prize. You
may not be aware that three other titles from Marilyn Booth are published by Edinburgh
University Press, and you can find them on their website here.
Why is it
getting harder to secure a job that matches our qualifications, buy a home of
our own and achieve financial stability? Underprivileged people have always
faced barriers, but people from middle-income families are increasingly more
likely to slide down the social scale than climb up. There’s just been a
terrific review for the new Policy Press
title, The End
of Aspiration? Social Mobility and Our Children’s Fading Prospects
(£12.99, 978 14473483200, pb) by Duncan Exley saying
“exhaustive research and empathetic human narrative creates a devastating
picture of how wealth and privilege all too often shape experience and
opportunity. A book that should not only be read, but urgently acted
upon."
Great to see an
excerpt from the forthcoming Resist anthology from Comma featured in the Times
Literary Supplement, Eley William's reimagining of the Rebecca Riots
(1839-44) is here. Resist: Stories of Uprising (£14.99, pb, 978 1912697076) is out in July, and builds on the
success of their previous anthology, Protest. From the anti-gun rallies in the US, to
the demos in Palestine, people are taking to the streets around the globe and
standing up to governments that have fallen out of step with the popular mood.
As Britain teeters over the brink of Brexit, it has never been more important
to re-engage with its own long history of popular resistance and this anthology
challenges 20 acclaimed authors to get under the skin of key moments of British
protest, working closely with historians, crowd scientists, and activists.
This evening
sees the launch at the Writers Centre in
Norwich of Vahni
Capildeo's third Carcanet collection,
Skin Can Hold (pb, £9.99, 978 1784107314).
The collection marks an adventurous departure for a pen-and-paper poet and these
texts are the fruit of collaborative experiments in theatre, dance and other
performance, drawing on burlesque and mime as well as Capildeo’s fascination with
Caribbean masquerade. The evening also includes the UEA MA Poetry Showcase,
with readings and performances, discussion and drinks. Sounds terrific!
And finally,
for some Friday fun, I found this
very funny – some of the most uncomfortably suggestive moments and characters
in favourite childhood films. From the Little Mermaid, to Princesses Leia and Jasmine
– these are moments in U rated films that are maybe just a little too
tantalizing!
That’s all
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
