Good afternoon
booksellers, I hope that everyone is keeping safe and well. This will be the last
Compass Points for
a while. As we know, although plenty of customers are still buying books, bookshops
are closed and festivals, launch parties, readings etc are postponed, so there
is not going to be much marketing and publicity news to relay to you over the
next few months! I look forward to coming back some time in the summer with lots
of fun events to tell you about and plenty more fabulous books for you to order!
In the meantime, of course Compass IPS is still very much here for you. Questions about
trade titles should go to simon.kingsley@compassips.london
and academic titles to lee.morgan@compassips.london
With life seeming ever scarier and more
difficult, The Simplicity Principle: Six Steps Towards
Clarity in a Complex World (£14.99, hb, 978 1789663556) by Julia Hobsbawm OBE
is what we need. You can hear her talking about it here
on the Extraordinary Business Book Club podcast. Published this week by Kogan
Page, during the pandemic that was unimaginable when it was written, this
book passes the ultimate test: its principles retain their power and relevance
despite the seismic shift that’s taken place in the world. Essential listening.
Dot-to-dot puzzles
are the ideal popular pastime for now, giving all generations the opportunity
to while away the hours uncovering the scenes, faces and creatures hidden
within the dots. The range of activity books from Southwater, take
dotting to the next level, each offering 40 intriguing pictures to discover.
Intricate, challenging and rewarding to finish, the puzzles range from 136 to
1098 dots and will have you transfixed as you progress from dot to dot and
gradually recognise what you have drawn. They are all £7.99, 96 pages, 282 x
216mm and the ISBNs are listed below.
Famous Paintings:
9781780194967
Amazing Animals:
9781780194950
Famous Landmarks:
9781780194943
Famous Faces:
9781780194936
Mystery and Magic:
9781780195131
Ancient World:
9781780195117
Under the Sea:
9781780195148
Natural World:
9781780195124
Outsized editions are also available,
great for families to do together! These each have 20 floor puzzles and are £5.99,
24 pages, 400 x 344mm
Giant Join the Dots - Amazing
Animals: 9781780195032
Giant Join the Dots - Famous
Landmarks: 9781780195018
Giant Join the Dots - Famous
Paintings: 9781780195025
Giant Join the Dots - Famous
Faces: 9781780195001
The Booksellers Association
is regularly updating its page of advice for booksellers during the pandemic here with coronavirus resources and they'll
continue to give you help and share advice as they continue to monitor the
situation.
To mark the publication of Resist (pb, £12.99, 978 1912697311) in the US and its
forthcoming paperback release on 21 May in the UK from Comma, Literary
Hub have published Kamila Shamsie's
contributing story Savage, which you can read here.
For those looking for calming
activities at home, look no further than the colouring in titles from Southwater.
For young and old alike, these beautiful activity books will provide hours of
peace in an increasingly stressful world. In each unique colour-by-numbers
book, the 45 illustrations have been separated into segments marked with a
number. Each number corresponds to one of 12 colours on a palette guide
provided. Patterns from Nature (978 1780195070) and Relaxing
Patterns (978 1780195063) are both £7.99,
96 pages, 282 x 216mm. There are loads more great activity titles on the Anness
website at www.annesspublishing.com
Pieces of Me
(£8.99, pb, 978 1787198036 )which was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel and
Prima Magazine called ‘an astounding debut' has been shortlisted
for the Waverton Good Read Award which you can read more about here. It’s published by Legend.
One of the contributors to Comma’s
forthcoming Book of Shanghai (pb, £9.99, 978 1912697274), Chen Qiufan, is speaking on BBC World Service
tomorrow about writing dystopic science-fiction in China amidst the corona
crisis. Do tune in! The characters in this literary exploration of one of the
world’s biggest cities are all on a mission. Whether it is responding to events
around them, or following some impulse of their own, they are defined by their
determination – a refusal to lose themselves in a city that might otherwise
leave them anonymous, disconnected, alone. From the neglected mother whose
side-hustle in collecting sellable waste becomes an obsession, to the schoolboy
determined to end a long-standing feud between his family and another, these
characters show a defiance that reminds us why Shanghai – despite its hurtling
economic growth –remains an epicentre for individual creativity.
Gardners are
reinstating their home delivery service, after temporarily closing last week
due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The move will allow bookshops to service remote
customer orders from their websites or via telephone. The wholesaler confirmed
it had ‘managed to set a safe working environment for a team of staff,
adhering to guidelines previously set out, and working comfortably within
current government guidelines.’ Customers will be restricted to ordering
one book per order, to preserve the safety guidelines surrounding minimal
handling of items. Booksellers responded positively on Twitter to the news. Booka
Bookshop tweeted: ‘Really appreciate the lengths you’ve gone to deliver
a safe and workable solution to support the indie bookselling sector’. In
response to a question about delivering to bookshops, Gardners added: ‘That
will follow in due course, we are reviewing each area as we go, first and
foremost our staff need a safe working environment.’ You can read more on
that in the Bookseller here.
We were very pleased to see that Rebecca Elson’s A
Responsibility to Awe (pb, £12.99,
978
1784106553), was the Poem of the Week in last week’s Guardian. You
can read it here. Elson was an astronomer. Her work
took her to the boundary of the visible and measurable, involving research into
‘dark matter’ and as the Guardian writes, the poem ‘includes readers
by its imaginative accessibility and universal theme. A Responsibility to Awe was
first published in 2001, and was reissued in 2018 as a Carcanet Classic.
To read Elson’s brave and gentle work during the current pandemic crisis is to
take a fresh breath, and to see a little farther.’
There are
quite a few organisations in the UK at the moment who are going to be looking
for the key ingredients for successfully delivering large projects and Tony
Llewellyn’s Big Teams is what they
need! This week it reached #1 on Amazon in Hot New Releases in Project
Management and there’s been some good coverage including an article for the PI
Medium page 'Leading Big Teams in the 21st century’, that’s here,
a three-page featured extract in the March issue of The HR Director and
an article and review in Project, the journal of the Association for
Project Management.
During the corona crisis some people are
finding their homes have never been cleaners as millions of people stuck indoors,
look for something to occupy themselves with. At the same time, millions of
others are finding that their houses have never been messier, as families all
squashed in together, cause chaos and disruption! Practical
Tidiness: How to clear your clutter and make space for the important things in
life (£12, 978 0754834878, bb) by Martha Roberts which
is out from Lorenz on 30 April is just what they need. Humans need order, calm
and sanctuary in a chaotic and frankly frightening world, and this inspired
handbook gives practical pointers on how to start, working through your home
room by room to find order in your life, with lots tips on how to tackle the
physical and mental gremlins you may encounter along the way.
Titles for those who like to prep
rather than panic are selling well, and Southwater have a good one! Survival: The ultimate practical guide to staying alive in
extreme conditions and emergency situations in all environments, anywhere in
the world (£11.99, pb, 9781780191034)
is ilustrated with 1400 photographs and illustrations, including step-by-step
sequences throughout, and will show you how to protect your your loved ones
whatever the conditions.
Vertebrate
have a great blog page entitled Ten Ways to keep Yourself Entertained if You’re
Self-Isolating which you can read here. It includes lots of top
recommendations to get both adult and child readers through the next few
months.
The power of the state versus the good
of the nation is a topic that is going to be much in the news for the foreseeable
future, so a good time to talk about Enemies of the People:
How Judges Shape Society (£14.99, 978-1529204506) by Joshua Rozenberg. The Critic published an
extended article written by Rozenberg on the 23rd of March discussing the book
and current affairs titled ‘Supremely Impartial‘ which you can read here and the Law Gazette published
an article written by Rozenberg titled ‘An Insider’s Account of the Brenda
Agenda’ on the 3rd of February which you can read here. It’s out on 21 April from Bristol
University Press.
And finally, like many I have been very
inspired by the words of David Hockney, who urged us to remember that ‘these
days will pass …. and do remember that they can’t cancel the spring.’ You
can read more from him, and look at the wonderful pictures here.
In this week’s Hot
Topics, here's
a link to the fifty best Coronavirus memes, here's a link to the Virtual
Pub Quiz, here's
a link to an exciting announcement from Andrew Lloyd Webber, here's a link to Yoga
with Adriene, here's
a link to PE with Joe and here's a link to the National
Theatre performance of One Man, Two Guvnors!
That’s all for now folks,
more when the virus allows!
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@compassips.london
