Compass Points 310

The Money Revolution: Easy Ways to Manage Your Finances in a Digital World (£14.99, pb, 978 1789660616) new from Kogan Page has already reprinted following a double page spread in the Times last week, so I’m anticipating even more sales following a big piece in the Sun this Sunday. There's never been a shortage of advice on managing your money, but it can be hard work, and everyone seems to be saying something different. The Money Revolution by banking entrepreneur Anne Boden cuts through all the jargon and rhetoric and makes everything straightforward, shining a spotlight on how we save, spend and invest our money. It breaks through the traditional thinking and covers a range of financial solutions, from savings and investments to pensions, bill payments and travel money. PR for this one includes articles in the Spectator, the Economist, Financial Times and Good Housekeeping, Women and Home, the New Statesman, Forbes and Wall Street Journal and interviews with Anne on Sky News, LBC (Business Hour), BBC Radio 4’s Money Box and Talk Radio.

Happy Birthday to multi award-winning women's fiction publisher, Choc Lit who celebrate their tenth birthday! Choc Lit sees themselves as early adopters; they were one of the first publishers to go down the Digital First route and have added audio to that format in recent years. Choc Lit's MD Lyn Vernham, says. “Ten years ago, we launched ourselves into a marketplace that was pulling back on women’s fiction and romance. We took a gamble on what we could see was happening in the US and believed that as a brand we could achieve our strategy in the UK. We had no clout or big named authors so the brand was critical and remains so today.” From releasing six books a year they now release thirty-six and in the last four years they’ve won nineteen awards, including 2019’s Romantic Fantasy Novel of the Year, 2016’s Contemporary Romantic Novel of the Year, 2017’s Epic Romantic Novel of the Year and 2018’s Romantic Novel of the Year Rose Award. Choc Lit has recently announced a partnership with Soundings, the unabridged audiobook publisher to record and co-publish all of their publications, and they are also expanding internationally, firstly by launching Choc Lit NL. Congratulations! And if you’d like to sample the delights of Choc Lit yourself, we have copies of the new book from Victoria Cornwall, The Daughter of River Valley (£7.99, pb, 978 1781893807) to give away! Victoria brings the county of Cornwall beautifully alive with evocative descriptions and strong relatable characters – it’s published on 4 July. Just email info@choc-lit.co.uk with your name and bookshop address and I’d Like a Daughter Please in the subject line.

Following Liverpool Football Club’s historic Champions League victory, De Coubertin are speedily publishing Numero 6 (£14.99, pb, 978 1909245990) which relives an unforgettable and historic year for Liverpool Football Club. It’s out on 25th July 2019 and charts a year of inexorable hope, unprecedented success and European adventure; where domestic disappointment was swiftly followed by incredible, dramatic triumphs on the highest club stage of them all. The book is authored by The Anfield Wrap which since its inception in 2011 has grown from a website and single weekly podcast to a respected media outlet with 11 full-time staff, over 100 contributors, and over 12,000 subscribers. Numero 6 is The Anfield Wrap's second book following Make Us Dream: The Story Of Liverpool's 2013/14 Season of which the BBC said “What leaps off the pages and what all their many esteemed contributors capture so brilliantly, is the feeling of reclamation, the feeling of a city and a football club finding harmony.”

And if you can’t wait until 25 July, then perhaps you’ll enjoy this animated ditty. Yes well.

Improving our gut health is fast becoming one of 2019’s biggest trends, and Fermentation (£15, hb, 978 0754834649) by Asa Simonsson is a new book out next week from Lorenz showing you how by using just cabbage, salt and water you can do exactly that. Ferments are not only very good for you but are great-tasting, and have been used for centuries. This fully illustrated, detailed and practical book shows you how to make not just sauerkraut but also kimchi, brine pickles, kefir, kombucha, vegan dairy, nut cheeses, sourdough and more.

Kay Hutchison had a successful career, a beautiful home, and a loving husband until the day she woke up and said “I'm leaving”. Why on earth did she walk away from it all and turn to a host of weird and wonderful treatments in search of answers to a question she couldn't even articulate? Part memoir, part guide, My Life in 37 Therapies (pb, £9.99,978 1910453773) is one woman’s journey of self-discovery in pursuit of happiness and inner peace. There is lots of confirmed publicity for this one; the Daily Mail are running an interview for the Femail page around publication. BBC Radio Manchester, BBC Radio Newcastle, BBC Radio Guernsey and BBC Radio Northampton will all interview Kay around publication day on 4 July. InBusiness, Business Load, Customer Experience Magazine, New Business, and Irish Tech News are all running articles. Good Housekeeping is running an exclusive double page feature in August, the Scotsman is running a double page feature all about the book around publication, as is Northern Woman; the Sunday Express magazine has a feature on the book on 07 July and Best Magazine will have three pages on it in their Summer Special issue. You can listen to an hour-long interview that Kay has already done on Radio Leeds here, it’s at 2 hrs 8 mins. It’s published on 4 July by Red Door.

Refugee Tales III (£9.99, pb, 978 1912697113) is out from Comma on the 4 July and contributor Monica Ali went on BBC Radio's A Point of View, discussing the UK's use of immigration detention centres and her story in the collection. You can listen that here. Alex Preston, one of the contributors to Volume II has a piece in the Observer Review on refugee literature, look out for that this Sunday! And Refugee Hosts have shared an extract of Lisa Appignanesi's The Dancer's Tale from Volume III which you can read here here. I have a couple of copies of Refugee Tales III to give away so the first bookseller to email Becca Parkinson commapublications@yahoo.co.uk with their name, bookshop address and Refugees Welcome! in the subject line will nab them!

If Twitter is your social media drug of choice then these funny tweet jokes about books may give you a giggle!

Amber author James Trapp was interviewed this week on Talk Radio Europe about his book Chinese Proverbs (hb, £14.99, 978 1782747239). This is a gorgeously illustrated and designed exploration of Eastern spirituality and culture through more than 80 proverbs drawn from Chinese philosophy. The sayings known as Cheng-yu, represented in four elegantly drawn Chinese characters, are comparable to English proverbs, but each has a depth of meaning, with many rooted in ancient Chinese culture making oblique references to poetry, philosophy or history. Chinese Proverbs features a selection of the most famous and most interesting sayings including "beat grass warn snake" (give the game away, tip someone off) and "sorrowing army must win" (justice will prevail). Alongside each phrase is an accessible and inspiring explanation, its literal translation in English, what the particular calligraphic strokes symbolize, and its various uses. It was published in March by Amber.

A great feature in the Guardian today promoting Tatenda Taibu’ s new autobiography, Keeper of Faith (£12.99, pb, 978 1909245860) which you can read here. There will also be a big feature in the Telegraph coming very soon. It’s just been published by De Coubertin

If you think the Mind Body Spirit section in your bookshop could do with a bit of a glow up, then you could do worse than to look at the chart above,  see what the top ten Hay House bestsellers currently are – and then order them! I will tell you that the top three are Good Vibes, Good Life (£10.99, 978 1788171823) Medical Medium: Liver Rescue (£26.99, 978 1401954406) and Medical Medium: Secrets Behind Chronic and Mystery Illness and How To Finally Heal (£12.99, 978 1781805367) so if you haven’t got those for starters, then you really are missing out!

Why would one of Silicon Valley's most powerful billionaires offer a British ghostwriter a million dollars to write the autobiography of Hollywood's biggest star? What Lies Around Us (hb, £12.99, 978 1910453704) is a gripping thriller, taking the reader into a world of myth-makers and power-brokers. Who is telling the stories and controlling the way we all think with a mixture of old media, social media and fake media? Its author Andrew Crofts is himself a ghostwriter who has published more than eighty books, a dozen of which were Sunday Times number one bestsellers. There’s plenty of publicity coming; Andrew has already been interviewed on BBC Breakfast News and will be on Sky News Sunrise on 26 June, Open Book on BBC Radio 4 on 28 July as well as BBC Radio Manchester and BBC Radio Northampton. There’s a great feature entitled Top 10 things you should know about being a ghostwriter here on FemaleFirst.co.uk. The bloggers have absolutely loved it with Bibliophile Chronicles saying “gripping and addictive…I could not put it down… The plot is brilliantly executed and definitely kept me guessing. The characters are really fascinating… an engaging, thought provoking thriller” here; Joyful Antidotes saying “I just can’t seem to express how good this book is. So many important themes plus a great storyline” here; and AlexJBooks calling it “a story rich in American politics mixed in with the celebrity and technology worlds, this book delves into the murky waters of publishing, social media and it’s influencers…absolutely captivating…Fast paced, and thrilling, it’s gripping, superbly written and completely fascinating whilst shocking and very dark in parts. An up to the minute, sign of our times thriller. Not to be missed” here. Too many rave reviews to print them all here – but this is definitely a popular book! It’s just been published by Red Door.

Ooh – this is right up my street – eighteen fictional characters who did actually exist in real life! Ursula from Little Mermaid, Indiana Jones, Miss Piggy, Alice in Wonderland – how many did you know about?!

Women make up the majority of university graduates and enter the workplace in equal numbers with men. But many workplaces still operate with cultures developed over a century ago to reflect a predominantly male workforce and vastly differing social expectations. Anna Meller believes it’s high time we changed this. #Upcycle Your Job: The Smart Way to Balance Family Life and Career (£16.99, pb, 978 1788600743) offers ambitious working mothers new possibilities for progressing their corporate careers through an evidence-based six-step process that enables women to craft a working arrangement that meets their employer’s expectations as well as their own aspirations, There’s a great interview with Anna in The Psychologist here and it’s also been reviewed in Families SE Magazine and The HR Director here. It’s published by Practical Inspiration.

Very pleased that two Carcanet poets have made it onto the Seamus Heaney Prize shortlist; Phoebe Power with Shrines of Upper Austria (£9.99, pb, 978 1784105341) and Ned Denny with Unearthly Toys (pb, £12.99, 978 1784105389)! Phoebe also won a Somerset Maugham Award at the Society of Authors awards this week! You can find out more on the Carcanet website here.

Good publicity coming up for a couple of De Coubertin titles in Fiver, which is a sports newsletter from the Guardian (find out about it here) that goes out daily to 10,000+ subscribers. Firstly there’s a chance to win a signed copy of From Delhi to the Den: The Story of Football’s Most Travelled Coach (£12.99, pb, 978 1909245471) all next week, and then the week after they’re running another competition to win Here We Go: Everton in the 80’s the Players Stories (£9.99, pb, 978 1909245839). Fiver gets plenty of promotion in the Guardian online, so this is very good PR for these two books!

We like to finish with music, and I am SO looking forward to seeing Yesterday, the new Danny Boyle and Richard Curtis film which is out at the end of the month, you can see a trailer here. Author Ken McNab has just done a piece for the Guardian here speculating, along with some others, about what the world would actually be like if the Beatles had never existed – the premise of the film. Ken’s book, And In the End: The Last Days of the Beatles (£16.99, hb, 978 1846974724) which was published in March by Birlinn is selling really well at the moment and if you’re planning a Yesterday/Beatles themed display, then it’s definitely one to include! This is the absorbing story of the last acrimonious days of the Beatles, a final chapter reconstructing the seismic events of 1969, the year that saw the band reach new highs of musical creativity and new lows of internal strife. Two years after Flower Power and the hippie idealism of the Summer of Love, the Sixties dream had perished on the vine with Vietnam and the Cold War supplanting hope and optimism. And just as the decade foundered on the altar of a cold, harsh reality, so too did the Beatles. I have one copy of And In The End to give away – the first bookseller to email their name and bookshop address to jamie@birlinn.co.uk with And In the End Please Please Me! in the subject line will get it!

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