Your weekly round
up of publishing news, publicity information and trivia!
Were you glued to every word of the budget on
Tuesday? Are you rushing down to the pub to get your pint for a penny less? Well, for all of those who need to know what
the real implications of George Osborne’s words are; comes the Tax Handbook 2013—14 published by Which.
This is essential reading for all UK taxpayers and has been fully
updated with all the 2013 Budget changes. Tax
Handbook 2013—14 clearly explains how to complete a tax return and
online assessment and how to check a tax code and National Insurance. This
essential guide offers a wealth of advice, including how to reduce Inheritance
Tax and Capital Gains Tax and also covers making the most of tax-free perks at
work, savings and investments. It shows you how you can navigate the current tax
system with ease! It is aimed at everyone from the self-employed to those on the
highest income and is written by an experienced financial journalist. Tony Levene has been a financial journalist for
over three decades. He was recently voted Consumer Champion of the Year
and has also received a lifetime achievement award from the Association of
British Insurers. This book has been described as “One of the clearest
practical guides on tax around” and is published in a few weeks time – order
it now.
No, no, no I hear you cry – we really are not very
interested in all that financial malarkey, just give us something about the
things we really want – like love, sex travel and music for example. Well, what
a bit of luck, next month comes a short story collection that gives you exactly
that. LoveSexTravelMusik is great short
story collection published in April by Freight. I’m sure many of you were fans of the
universally acclaimed novel, Bring Me the Head of
Ryan Giggs – well this is a themed, contemporary story collection
from its author; Somerset Maugham Award-winner, Rodge Glass. With insight and pathos, he examines
men and women of all ages who, through the advent of discount air travel, play
out their lives and loves across the globe. A lads’ weekend in Eastern Europe spirals out of control. A bleeding tourist
is rescued by a stranger in downtown Toronto . A middle-aged woman holidaying in
Tunisia considers the local options
for love. An unemployed man shares his fantasies of a sex tour of Arizona with his
long-suffering girlfriend. A woman is drawn into an impromptu but life-changing
football game in the heart of the Amazon. Glass brilliantly captures the isolation,
dislocation and occasional epiphanies of those who find themselves a thousand
miles from home, and those who long to be. Rodge
Glass was born in Manchester and educated at the Universities of
Strathclyde and Glasgow. He has published three novels, a literary biography and
a graphic novel and regularly appears at literary festivals and events
throughout the UK , as well as on TV and radio. With
stories set across the world, this is the perfect holiday companion and will
attract wide review coverage. Find out more and order it here.
There will be plenty of different anniversaries
celebrated this year – 150 years of the Tube, 70 years since the Dambusters raid
and 50 years of Dr Who, to name but a few. But one of the most fascinating is
that 2013 marks the centenary of The Suffragette
Derby. On Wednesday 4 June 1913 Emily Davison, a militant activist for women’s suffrage,
stepped out in front of Anmer, the King’s horse, sustaining injuries from which
she would die four days later. The horse’s jockey, Herbert Jones, would famously
be “haunted by that poor woman’s face” and later took his own life. The Suffragette Derby by Michael Tanner is published by Robson Press
in May and is a brilliant read. The 250,000 people thronging Epsom Downs on that
day in June 1913 masked a quartet of combustible elements: a fanatical,
publicity-hungry suffragette; a scapegoat for the Titanic disaster and the
pillar of the Establishment who bore him a personal grudge; a pair of feuding
jockeys at odds over money and glory; and, finally, at the heart of the action,
two thoroughbreds – one a nasty savage and one the consummate equine athlete.
What brought this disparate group to Epsom Downs for one of the nation’s
greatest social and sporting jamborees? How did they contribute to a day that
will forever live in infamy? Acclaimed racing writer Michael Tanner has scoured
public and private sources – drawing on unpublished diaries and interviews with
descendants of the principals – to debunk the myths and reveal for the first
time the definitive account of what led to the events of that day and how they
unfolded. This is British social history at its best and is absolutely
guaranteed to get lots of coverage by the media. Order The Suffragette Derby here.
And you can watch a five minute film all about it below which includes the original British Pathé newsreel footage taken on
the day.
And while we’re on the subject of anniversaries,
2013 also marks the 100th anniversary of the Tour de France. To celebrate,
Punk is publishing Mountain Kings: Agony and
Euphoria on the Iconic Peaks of the Tour de France. This is a
beautifully produced premium paperback (£16.95) in a highly ‘flickable’ and
portable format. It contains over 200 high-quality colour images which really
bring the mountains and Tour legends to life and is the ideal gift for any
cycling fan in what promises to be a red letter year for the Tour de France.
This race is one of the world’s most renowned and best-loved sporting events,
and its challenging climbs are the stuff of pure legend. In Mountain Kings, author and cycling journalist
Giles Belbin gets up close and personal
to the Tour’s most iconic peaks and the indomitable heroes who’ve powered their
way up them. Belbin has selected and
cycled 25 of these classic mountain climbs to give a compelling and personalised
account, reflecting upon the legendary tales from the Tour, its history and the
heroes that have made France ’s famous road race such an
enduring and popular sporting event. Mountain
Kings features profiles on the most influential and memorable
climbers of the Tour, plus chapters on the event’s creation, its history and
highlights. Featuring all the must-know stats for each climb alongside
breathtaking photography and evocative descriptions of the ride, this book forms
a stunning celebration of the Tour’s relationship with the majestic mountains of
this historic road race, to capture the imagination of every Tour fan. Click here to find out more and see some sample spreads
from this stunning book, published in May. And if, like me, you are getting very
excited already about the 100th Tour – then click below to watch le teaser officiel!
All of us today in the UK are
feeling the bitter wind – whether it’s bringing us sleet, snow or freezing rain.
But imagine if you were somewhere completely different and the wind blowing was
the Harmattan – a dry, dusty wind that
blows from the Sahara and whose meaning comes from the from the Arabic word
haram, meaning a forbidden or accursed thing. Set against the stark beauty of
sub-Saharan West Africa , Harmattan by Gavin
Weston is an evocative and heart wrenching novel. Suffused with anger
that is all the more powerful for its masterful understatement; this book is
both commercially appealing and a savage indictment of child marriage. It will
appeal strongly to readers of A Thousand Splendid Suns, Half a Yellow
Sun and similar novels. Its heroine is Haoua, is a young girl growing up in
a remote village in the Republic of Niger . Spirited, independent and
intelligent, she has benefited from a stable home life and a loving and
attentive mother. She worships her elder brother, Abdelkrim, a serving soldier
who sends money home to support the family. But, on his last home visit,
Abdelkrim quarrels with their father accusing him of gambling away the money he
sends and being the cause of their mother’s worsening health. It also emerges
that their father plans to take a second wife. As civil strife mounts in
Niger , she begins to fear for
Abdelkrim’s safety; and her father’s plans turn out to be far more threatening
than she could have ever imagined. Approaching her twelfth birthday, Haoua feels
alone and vulnerable for the very first time in her life. If you would like to
read an extract from this powerful novel then go to the Myrmidon website
at www.myrmidonbooks.com. And click here to order Harmattan.
Everyone at Compass is very much in support of
Calypso Nash the university librarian sacked from an Oxford college library,
just because some students were doing the Harlem Shake when they should have
been reading quietly. Click below to
see what all the fuss was about.
Who says that books and dancing can’t mix? I say let’s bring the Harlem Shake into
British bookshops up and down the country! Just look at this video to see how it sprang into life in a
US bookstore – yes, yes I’m
definitely thinking this could catch on…
This blog is read weekly by over 600
booksellers, publishers and publicists. If you would like to order any of the
titles mentioned, then please click here to go to the Compass New Titles
Website.
That’s all for now
folks, more next week!
Can't wait for that Tour de France book - they look like great pix.
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