Saturday 29 August 2015

Compass Points 137

I am very much looking forward to seeing a copy of Looking Through You: Rare and Unseen Photographs from The Beatles Monthly Archive by Tom Adams, (hb £39.95 978 1783058679) which is from a publisher new to the Compass team: Omnibus Press. This is a  unique and original colour and black and white photographic record preserving many important moments within the Beatles’ career and providing fabulous glimpse into the world’s greatest ever entertainment phenomenon. It’s published as a beautiful limited (3000 copy) slipcase edition which includes a facsimile of a calendar from 1964. In 1963, it was highly unusual for a pop group to have a monthly magazine devoted exclusively to their career and only Elvis Presley had been considered important enough to warrant such an honour. One of the first people to astutely recognise their greatness was editor Sean O’Mahony and the monthly magazine he launched with the full blessing of The Beatles and their manager Brian Epstein was called The Beatles Book MonthlyLooking Through You presents a selection of over 300 images from the precious Beatles Book Monthly photo archive, many of which have never been published before. Looking Through You also tells the story of this regular Beatle bulletin. I’d certainly never heard of it before – but The Beatles Book Monthly ran for six years, and with each new issue, fans worldwide would voraciously devour the contents, discovering the Fab Four’s latest news and activities and most of all, savouring the exclusive photographs, captured by its in-house photographer, Leslie Bryce. The Beatles Book Monthly captured the Beatles’ development from British provincial theatres – through foreign tours including their ground-breaking first American visit – and onwards to the band’s withdrawal into the recording studio. Not surprisingly there is a lot of media interest in this title, and it has already been featured in the Sunday Mirror Magazine and the August issue of NME and there will be lots more coverage to come. There is a dedicated Facebook page for Looking Through You – have a look – you can view lots of the terrific pics, and I think there will be plenty of customers for this handsome hardback – going right up to Christmas. This is not one of those make-a-quick-buck bodged together photographic coffee table books – this is the real deal.

And here are the Fab Four themselves – with that 1965 hit.


On 10 February 1962, Gary Powers, the American pilot whose U-2 spy plane was shot down in Soviet airspace, was brought to Berlin’s Glienicke Bridge, where he was to take part in the most famous prisoner exchange in history. The man Powers was traded for was one Colonel Rudolf Abel, a cover name for KGB Colonel Vilyam Fisher, one of the most extraordinary characters in the history of the Cold War. Abel was born plain Willie Fisher in Newcastle-upon Tyne, son to revolutionary parents who fled tsarist oppression in Russia. Arriving in the newly formed Soviet Union in 1921, Fisher was trained as a spy and eventually sent to New York, where, posing as an artist, he ran the network that purloined America’s atomic secrets. In 1957, his luck ran out and he was arrested and sentenced to thirty years in prison. Six years later, the USSR’s regard for Fisher was evidenced when they insisted on swapping him for the stricken Powers. This is a truly amazing story – and is about to come to cinemas as the new Steven Spielberg film Bridge of Spies starring Tom Hanks and Mark Rylance – so it’s going to be BIG! You can watch a trailer for it here. The book it’s based on is Abel: The True Story of the Spy they Traded for Gary Powers by Vin Arthey. Abel is a singular and absorbing true story of Cold War espionage to rival anything in fiction, moving from the most unlikely of beginnings in Newcastle, to Moscow and beyond to the streets of New York, where the final trade was negotiated by New York lawyer James Donovan.  Abel: The True Story of the Spy they Traded for Gary Powers by Vin Arthey (pb, 9781849549691, £9.99) is published in October (the film opens on 6 November in the UK) by Biteback and you can find out more and order it here


And still on the topic of the Cold War of yesteryear The Oligarch by Joseph Clyde (pb, 9781908096715) is a “well-paced thriller with a refreshing sense of realism” according to the Standard and “skilfully exploited the clash between the old and the clichés about Russia to give us an intelligent thriller” The Times.  You can find out more and order it here!

Who's watching Bake Off ? Everyone loved last week's bread week – and I would have been happy to munch on any of the creations dished up by the contestants – especially that extraordinary lion! Talking of fierce creatures, Paul Hollywood seems to be getting more acerbic every series – but even he couldn’t summon up too many of his sarky comments on that! However, we definitely mustn’t let him getting any bigger in his boots – it’s surely time for another baker on the block – and that person could well be Ori Hellerstein! Artisan Baker (hb, 978 1859063965, £14.99) is published by Connections in October and is packed full of delicious recipes for passionate home bakers. Ori Hellerstein is a professionally trained pastry chef, and in 2012 he fulfilled his dream of opening The Artisan Baker in the heart of the Cotswolds, where he runs baking master-classes as well as hand-crafting exquisite artisan breads, cakes and confectionery. This full colour hardback is packed with his own mouth-watering tried-and-tested recipes which are easy-to-follow and packed full of flavour, from a textured wild-rice loaf and aubergine & feta triangles, to decadent Nutella brioches and date baklava! His delicious creations bring an international twist to old classics, while his signature bakes – firm favourites at his own bakery – will have you coming back for more. With insider tips on using professional techniques at home, plus advice on store-cupboard essentials and making the most of local ingredients, now you too can discover how to become an artisan baker! Artisan Baker includes a foreword by renowned food critic Matthew Fort and you can find out more and order it here!


The Good Hotel Guide 2016 by Desmond Balmer and Adam Raphael (pb, £20.00, 978 0993248405) is published in October – as the Times says this is “Britain’s leading independent hotel guidebook” and according to the Mail on Sunday: “The one guide that offers a sense of what a place is really like”. This paperback has 672 pages, is full colour throughout includes11 pages colour maps and there are discount vouchers worth £150 included in every copy. The Good Hotel Guide is totally independent; and accepts no payment, advertising or hospitality from the hotels it lists. It includes good-value B&Bs, smart city boutique hotels, and elegant country house hotels and in total contains 825 selected hotels in Great Britain and 75 in Ireland ranging from those that are great value and child and dog-friendly to the boutique and romantic . It is undoubtedly the market leader: “Number 1 of the guides that take no freebies” says the Guardian – so make sure you’re stocking the 2016 edition – you can order it here!

And this is my annual cue to show a little clip for a hotel that certainly isn’t listed – that gem on the English Riveriera – full of satisfied customers!


We finish with something rather special – John Burningham's Champagne. This is a book of pure loveliness, as cheering and restorative as a glass of fizz itself. It is an album, a scrapbook, a potted history and a celebration all rolled into one by the creator of some of our best loved books for children, also a connoisseur of the 'King of Wines' and how it makes us feel. John Burningham has created a beautiful book of 184 pages, combining his own matchless illustrations with photographs, clippings, menus and ephemera that help us relive a sequence of 'champagne moments'. The cast of characters includes Napoleon, Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Noel Coward, Bette Davis, Marilyn Monroe, Larry Hagman, John Betjeman, Jay-Z and those amazingly long-lived matriarchs of fizz, Mesdames Clicquot, Pommery and Bollinger. It is a handsome looking hardback (276 x 216mm) absolutely ideal as a gift – and full to the brim with an enchanting mix of colour drawings and photographs – as Joanna Lumley calls it in her introduction:  “a superbly entertaining book with delicious illustrations” John has previously produced a series of highly distinctive books for adult readers including John Burningham's England (1992) and John Burningham's France (1998). This new title is as original, and beautiful as any he's ever created, and, like its predecessors, it is born of personal experience and infectious enthusiasm. When you see your Compass Sales Manager ask them to show you the proof pages we have for this book and I promise you will be seduced – it really is charming – even for those of us whose budgets run more to cheap cava than the real stuff! John Burningham's Champagne (hb, £25.00, 978 0993386206) is published in October by LochAwe Books and you can order it here.

This gorgeous book is full of photos of sparkling cinematic champagne moments – but here’s one of my favourites – The Night They Invented Champagne from Gigi.


And finally – we love this chart from Waterstone’s giving the pros and cons of lending your books!


That’s all for now folks! More next week!

This blog is taken from a newsletter which is sent weekly to over 700 booksellers as well as 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 or talk to your Compass Sales representative.

Thursday 20 August 2015

Compass Points 136

Let’s open with a #fridayfreebie as they say on Twitter! When the Professor Got Stuck in the Snow by Dan Rhodes (pb, 978 1910709016, £8.99) has already had quite a bit of pre-publicity – it’s one of the first titles from hip and happening new publisher Aardvark Bureau. You will no doubt remember that this is the laugh-out-loud satire on dogma, which tests the limits of freedom of expression, originally self-published by Dan – once a lowly stockroom assistant in a branch of Waterstones! The original hardback editions of this title are now changing hands for upwards of £100 – and it attracted plenty of attention – the Guardian calling it “A zippy little farce… a hoot!” It begins at the Women’s Institute in the village of Upper Bottom where everyone is eagerly awaiting the arrival of a very special guest speaker: the world famous evolutionary biologist Professor Richard Dawkins. But with a blizzard setting in, their visitor finds himself trapped in the nearby town, with no choice but to take lodgings with the local Anglican vicar. Will the professor be able to abide by his motto – cordiality always – while surrounded by Christians? Will he ever reach Upper Bottom? And can his assistant, Smee, save the day? The Evening Standard said “Finally, one plucky publisher has taken on the challenge of the book hailed by Michael Holroyd as a satire ‘as devastating as Candide’” while the Observer commented “Going too far is Dan Rhodes’ forte.” I’m sure there are lots of you out there very keen to read this controversial title – and we now have finished copies to share! Make sure you are one of the first ten booksellers to email nuala@compass-ips.london with your name and address – and we’ll send you one! And if you want to find out more about this book, and hopefully place a nice fat order; you can do that here!

Loving these great pics of book pillows  - cushions to snuggle up on while you read! I especially like this Pride and Prejudice one!

Nick Lezard has chosen A Doctor’s Dictionary: Writings on Culture and Medicine for the Saturday Review Guardian Book of the Week. Art and medicine collide in these fascinating essays by this the notable doctor and poet, which explore the links between art and medicine, culture and science. Bamforth uses his wide experience of medicine around the world, to examine various interesting cases; including the mysterious ‘Stendhal’s syndrome’, which caused 106 tourists in Florence to be hospitalised due to an overload of sublime Renaissance art. Iain Bamforth has worked as a hospital doctor in places as diverse as Paris, the Australian outback, and south-east Asia. He has published a history of modern medicine as told through literature (The Body in the Library), as well as five collections of poetry and writes regularly for literary and medical journals. The Guardian previously said of his writing: “Bamforth’s work is rich in perceptual acquaintance, making it not only intelligent but also extremely sensual. To read him makes the patterns of our minds richer.” and to be a Guardian Book of the Week is a real achievement which should lead lots of interested readers to this title.  A Doctor’s Dictionary by Iain Bamforth (pb, 978 1784100568, £16.99) is published by Carcanet this month and you can find out more and order it here

Another doctor – another dictionary – another time – but still a very good opportunity to view this clip I think!


Burnham, Cooper, Corbyn or Kendall? Who knows – but your customers can certainly find out all they could possibly want to know about the history of Labour party leadership in an essential new title from Biteback coming in September. British Labour Leaders by Charles Clarke and Toby S James (hb, 978 1849548168 £25.00) is a handsome hardback, published on the eve of the Labour Party conference in September, which considers the qualities of leaders from this historic party, among them some of the towering figures of British political history, and places each in the context of their respective time and political landscape. From Keir Hardie to Ed Miliband, and featuring eight Labour prime ministers since the inauguration of James Ramsay MacDonald; this book offers an analytical framework by which those leaders may be judged, and a detailed personal biography of each. Charles Clarke’s previous book The Too Difficult Box won the Practical Politics Book of the Year at The Political Book Awards 2015 and this new title is certain to provoke discussion and debate.

And in the interests of balance, of course Biteback are publishing British Conservative Leaders  (hb, £25.00, 978 1849549219) which takes us from Robert Peel to David Cameron, featuring twenty-two Conservative prime ministers also by Charles Clarke and Toby S James which you can order here and British Liberal Leaders (hb, £25.00, 978 1849541978). 

Some of you may have cynically assumed this last book might be rather a slim volume; but of course the Liberals have a good claim to be the oldest political party in the world. From the Whigs of 1679 to the formation of the Liberal Party in 1859, and then to 1988 and the merger with the Social Democratic Party to form today’s Liberal Democrats; politicians of all these labels have held to a core of liberal principles: the belief in individual liberty with the aim of enlarging freedom for all. This book is the story of those parties’ leaders, from Earl Grey, who led the Whigs through the Great Reform Act of 1832, to Nick Clegg, the first Liberal leader to enter government for more than sixty years. It is edited by Duncan Brack, Tony Little and Robert Ingham and you can find out more and order it here.

And before we leave the subject of party leaders, let’s just remind ourselves again of the side-splitting sight of Cameron rapping! When’s Cassetteboy going to turn his attention to Jeremy Corbyn, that’s what I want to know?!


What is the number one gardening book on Amazon at present? Well I’m pleased to tell you that it is Gardening in Your Slippers: New Poems for Garden Lovers (hb, £9.99 978 1783340750) by Liz Cowley. This together with Liz’s previous poetry collection; Outside in my Dressing Gown: Poems for Garden Lovers (hb, £9.99 978 1783340798) are selling like pink begonias – so don’t miss out on these super little hardback s, they are absolutely perfect gifts and will carry on blooming and bearing fruit right through the autumn to Christmas. 
You Magazine (4 million readers) said they will “plant a smile on your lips” and Joanna Lumley has praised the poems as being “straight from the heart.” Liz Cowley was recently interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Live show which you can listen to here and both titles are published by Gibson Square.

Still on a botanical theme, look out for Painting Flowers by Jill Winch (£7.99, pb, 978 1784047436) published by Arcturus in October. This inspirational title shows you how to create beautiful watercolours with this step by step guide. Topics include: equipment, accurate drawing, getting started with watercolour and useful techniques and how to paint leaves and stems. It includes a section on the increasingly popular method of using watercolour pencils to illustrate flowers. Jill Winch is an award-winning botanical artist and has been teaching people to paint and draw flowers for many years. She breaks the process down into manageable steps; taking examples from a wide range of flowers and throughout the book, Jill's own beautiful paintings provide inspiration and guidance. Art for adults is a huge growth market, and you can find out more about this lovely book and order it here.

And while we’re on the subject of art, we must of course mention the rise and rise of the adult colouring book – again this market is very well served by Arcturus Publishing. New in October from them comes the the Calm and Creative Colouring Book (pb, 978 1785990366, £6.99) which you can order here. The popularity of adult colouring books seems to know no limits and perhaps that's not surprising, as this peaceful activity improves concentration, reduces worry and stress, and provides enjoyable, all-important downtime. In a world that is always hurrying towards the next goal or deadline, stillness and calm have become increasingly valuable and “mindfulness” – in particular – is undoubtedly one of the buzz words of the moment.  These books, with their wealth of patterns and pictures, offer a creative outlet for busy adults, removing the pressure of having to start with a blank page and providing a framework for self-expression. Whatever the reason for their success, there is no doubt that if you’re not stocking them you are missing out – by their very nature colouring books get “used up” – leaving your customers clamouring for more! 
Previous successful titles from Arcturus include: The Meditation Colouring Book (pb, £6.99, 978 1784046323) The Mindfulness Colouring Book (pb, £6.99 978 1784049775) and The Calm Colouring Book (pb, £6.99, 978 1784046316). 
And don’t forget My Magical Oasis: Art Therapy Colouring Book for Creative Minds by Eglantine de la Fontaine (pb, 978 0859655354, £9.99) which was published by Plexus in June – you can order that here.

Compass is on Twitter! Follow us @CompassIPS. Here are some of our favourite tweets from last week...
I can confirm that Janice Galloway's new stories are GLORIOUS. (Gutted I won't be at @edbookfest to see her).
We're all brand new, even our FB page is new. Follow us there too! facebook.com/pages/Aardvark
"I intend to live forever - or die trying!" Groucho Marx #Anniversary
Thanks to The Beatles Photo blog who have given us a nice plug! Our new Beatle photo book has just hit the shelves... fb.me/6H53qATfY
Calling all picnickers! Don't forget to nominate your favourite heritage picnic spot!
The Hairdresser of Harare a "moving account of contemporary Zimbabwe," says @nytimesbooks.
The Peculiar Life of a Lonely Pancake. #LiteraryCakes @HesperusPress

That’s all for now folks! More next week!

This blog is taken from a newsletter sent weekly to over 700 booksellers as well as 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 or talk to your Compass Sales representative.

Friday 14 August 2015

Compass Points 135

Fantastic news that a Compass  title is one of the 13 on the Booker Prize longlist, so many congratulations to Periscope Books and Laila Lalami for The Moor's Account (pb, 978 1859644270, £9.99). This absorbing tale (inspired by Spanish records from 1536) of Estebanico (who becomes Mustafa); a vibrant merchant from Azemmur forced into slavery then reborn as the first black explorer of the Americas, discovering various tribes both hostile and compassionate, but remaining resourceful and hopeful that he might one day find his way back to his family is an inspiring read. It illuminates the ways in which stories can transmigrate into history, and how storytelling can offer a chance for redemption, reinvention and survival. You can find the full longlist of 13 titles at the Booker Prize website here. The shortlist will be announced on Tuesday 15 September and the eventual winner on 13 October and you can order The Moor's Account here

And congratulations also to author Kirstin Innes and publisher Freight Books for having Fishnet on the Not the Booker Prize shortlist! This is an award that the Guardian have been running for seven years and is a hunt by readers of the Guardian books blog to find the year's best book, which may – or may not – tally with the assessment of the Booker prize judges! Fishnet (pb, 978 1910449066, £8.99) was published in April, and has been hailed by reviewers as “dark and provocative” bittersweet, sensual and rich. It is a novel which takes a clear-eyed, meticulously researched, controversial look at the sex industry and the lives of sex workers, questioning our perception of contemporary femininity. The Huffington Post called it “Extraordinarily refreshing...a very erotic read...set to be a massive hit and deserves every ounce of that success.”  This year’s shortlist of six is Kirstin Innes for Fishnet (Freight Books), Kat Gordon for The Artificial Anatomy of Parks (Legend Press), Oliver Langmead for Dark Star (Unsung Stories), Paul McVeigh for The Good Son (Salt), Tasha Kavanagh for Things We Have in Common (Canongate) and Melanie Finn for Shame (Weidenfeld & Nicolson), The prize is a Guardian mug, the glory – and lots of publicity of course! Go to the Guardian Book Blog Not the Booker page if you’d like to join in!

There’s nothing better for a bit of holiday reading than a cracking thriller – and The Oligarch (pb, 9781908096715, £8.99)  by Joseph Clyde which has just been published by Gibson Square certainly fits that bill. It was reviewed this week in the Independent, who wrote “If the worlds of London's "new" Russians, MI5, international summit meetings and Vladimir Putin have ever impinged on yours, however peripherally, this is the thriller for you. And if they haven't, well, you can sit back in wonderment and enjoy this romp around a parallel universe that exists – I assure you, it does – not a million miles from our own. The author, Joseph Clyde, is actually the former diplomat, former MP and polyglot, George Walden, and serves up a treat of acute observation and dead-pan humour that testifies to a highly-informed eye. From the Chelsea flat, to the cars, to the restored trophy castle, from the hedonism to the paranoia – some warranted, much not – the atmospherics largely ring true.”  Jonathan Meades called The Oligarch “unputdownable”, and there will be more reviews over the next fortnight in the Daily Telegraph, Spectator, Times and TLS. This is a totally gripping MI5 crime thriller; set in the South of France and the UK which really uses George Walden's intimate knowledge of Whitehall, France, and Russian politics – it canters through a world of billionaires, opulence, spies, the Russian secret service, druggy dissolute Etonians and Russian princesses and I can thoroughly recommend it! 
Joseph Clyde’s previous paperback A State of Fear: Britain After a Dirty Bomb (pb, £8.99, 978 1906142957) also attracted much praise, with the Daily Mail calling it “Compelling… deserves to be a best-seller” and the Times Literary Supplement saying it “Echoes the best of Len Deighton or John Le Carré”. If you haven’t yet discovered Joseph Clyde you really should – you can order The Oligarch here and State of Fear here.

And if you’d like to find out a bit more about Joseph Clyde aka George Walden, then there’s a really good 15 minute interview with him by BBC journalist Nick Higham, which you can watch on the iplayer here.

Barney Thomson — an awkward, diffident, Glasgow barber — lives a life of desperate mediocrity. Shunned at work and at home, unable to break out of a twenty-year rut, each dull day blends seamlessly into the next. However, there is no life so tedious that it cannot be spiced up by inadvertent murder, a deranged psychopath, and a freezer full of neatly packaged meat. Barney Thomson’s uninteresting life is about to go from 0 to 60 in five seconds, as he enters the grotesque and comically absurd world of the serial killer. If you think this sounds like a black comedy Scottish film – probably starring Robert Carlyle and Ray Winstone you’d be dead right – it is! The Legend of Barney Thomson is now showing across the UK, to good reviews. It also stars (much less predictably!) Emma Thompson – who by all accounts is uproariously brilliant. 
The Legend of Barney Thomson is a debut novel by Douglas Lindsay; do make sure you have it in stock – it has a great film tie-in cover – and has also had ace reviews – the Mirror said “This chilling black comedy unfolds at dizzying speed... an impressive debut” and “The plot, Russian literature fans, is a modern spin on Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. The bloody ending, movie buffs, is pure Reservoir Dogs” while New Woman wrote “This is pitch-black comedy spun from the finest writing. Fantastic plot, unforgettable scenes and plenty of twisted belly laughs.” The Legend of Barney Thomson (pb, £8.99, 978 1910449318) by Douglas Lindsay is out now from Freight and you can find out more and order it here.

You can watch a trailer for the film of The Legend of Barney Thomson here!


Super reviews in the Guardian, Mail on Sunday and Telegraph for Going Up (hb, 978 1849548700, £20); the compelling personal story of one of Britain’s most celebrated writers, Frederic Raphael. Going Up is a journey from Chicago to Putney, to Charterhouse, on up to Cambridge, and beyond to Fleet Street, recording early experiences that were absorbed in Raphael’s many opulent novels and screenplays. This memoir is a dazzling piece of virtuoso prose writing that is fabulously indiscreet but also deeply moving, and punctuated throughout by Raphael’s indefatigable wit and incomparable erudition. Going Up has just been published by Robson Press and you can find out more and order it here.

Books on the perils of technology, the gender gap in business and how to revive economies make the longlist of the 2015 Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year. The £30,000 prize is given for the book that “provides the most compelling and enjoyable insight into modern business issues, including management, finance and economics”. I’m pleased to tell you that among the 15 longlisted titles is Ivan Fallon’s timely investigation of Lloyds and the financial crisis: Black Horse Ride: The Inside Story of Lloyds and the Banking Crisis which is published by Biteback. There was an excellent review in the Times last week for this hardback which called it “A pacy, exceptionally well-informed and grimly riveting account that illuminates in microcosm the greatest economic disaster this county has suffered since the great depression.”   The judges will select a shortlist of up to six books on 22nd September, and the winner will be announced in New York on 17th November. You can find the full longlist here. And you can find out more about it and order Black Horse Ride (£20, hb, 978 1849546423) here.

BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Review programme is going to discuss Waiting for the Past on the programme on 29th August. This is a new collection from internationally renowned Australian poet Les Murray which champions the beauty of the natural world and rejects certain aspects of modern life as destructive elements which threaten the eco-system. Blake Morrison, writing in the Independent on Sunday, called Murray: “one of the finest poets writing in English today” and the London Review of Books said that Murray is one of the very few poets with whose best work you feel that having read it you won’t, can’t, be quite the same again.” Waiting for the Past (pb, £9.99 978 1784101169) is published this month by Carcanet and you can find out more and order it here.

Who heard Nicky Weller on the Chris Evans Radio 2 Breakfast Show this week talking about The Jam: All About the Young Idea exhibition at Somerset House in London? This massively popular show has now been extended until the end of September 2015 due to high ticket demand, which gives you some idea of how hugely admired this iconic band are. How very fortunate then that Omnibus Press are publishing Growing Up With The Jam by the official exhibition producers Nicky Weller, Gary Crowley, Russell Reader and Den Davis. This is a beautifully presented coffee table book packed from cover to cover with celebrity memories paying tribute to the band that inspired an entire generation. The host of household names from the world of music, film and media have penned fitting tributes to the band includes stars of the sixties who influenced the band such as Ray Davies and Pete Townshend as well as members of the bands who competed with them for chart success like Adam Ant, Sir Bob Geldof, Mick Jones and Jools Holland. Then there are those The Jam inspired, like Noel Gallagher, Kelly Jones and Sharleen Spiteri, to actors and media personalities including Martin Freeman, Max Beesley and many more. With a foreword from all three members of the band, heart-warming personal recollections, spine tingling accolades and unseen photos, this really is a must read for any music fan. There will be a Jam documentary screening on Sky Arts and selected cinemas later this year along with a new 6 CD live box set – so this band really are having “a moment”! Growing Up With The Jam is published in September (pb, £25, 978 0993312700) and you can find out more and order it here.

And you can also order That’s Entertainment: My Life in The Jam by Rick Buckler and Ian Snowball. This autobiography is the first from a member of The Jam, and tells Rick Buckler’s story from growing up in Woking and meeting fellow members Paul Weller and Bruce Foxton at school, through their formation in 1972 and signing to Polydor records. He provides a year by year account of The Jam’s progress whilst describing what it was like being a part of the music industry during the 70’s and 80’s and some of the characters who he met along the way including the Ramones, John Entwistle, Sid Vicious, Blondie, Boy George and Paul McCartney. He also gives a candid account of how he coped with The Jam’s split in 1982, and his subsequent relationship with Paul and Bruce. That’s Entertainment: My Life in The Jam (pb, £16.99, 978 178305 7948) includes many photos from Rick’s personal archives and was also published by Omnibus earlier this year. It has sold 5,000 copies to date!

And here's my personal favourite Jam track:“What you see is what you get. You've made your bed, you'd better lie in it. You choose your leaders and place your trust. As their lies wash you down and their promises rust, you'll see kidney machines replaced by rockets and guns. And the public wants what the public gets.” Wise words boys, wise words.


How to Love yourself (and Sometimes Other People): Spiritual Advice for Modern Relationships by Meggan Watterson and Lodro Rinzler is a smart, hip guide for spiritual seekers who want to experience more love and stability in all forms of relationships. The authors’ dual perspectives as teachers and scholars of Christian mysticism and Buddhism make for a rich and fascinating dialogue that covers everything from sex, self-worth, falling in (and out of) love, deep friendships, to conscious uncoupling - and how to maintain an open heart through it all. At its core, this book is about learning to love yourself no matter what. I’m really not sure I know what any of that means (if anything), but I daresay many of your customers will, and these two authors have written many other very popular self-help books. How to Love Yourself will feature in the November/December issue of Kindred Spirit and will also be excerpted on Red Online in September (450,000 unique monthly browsers). How to Love yourself (and Sometimes Other People): Spiritual Advice for Modern Relationships (£10.99, pb, 978 1781803028) is published by Hay House (of course) in September and you can find out more and order it here.

And talking of love – what would you say are the 50 most romantic lines in literature? Maybe “You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever“ or possibly "You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how”?  Have a look here to see if your favourite is quoted!

Never mind loving yourself, I know what I’m loving and that’s The Great British Bake Off! In celebration of its return, here are our favourite #LiteraryCakes from Twitter!
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Marzipan
Tortehouse Blue.
Farl from the Madding Crowd?
Bridget Scones' Diary
All Quiet on the Western Fondant
Yeast of Eden
The Bun Also Rises
Doughnuts & crosses
The Bundt for Red October
Finnegan's Cake and Lord of the Pies

That’s all for now folks! More next week!
This blog is taken from a newsletter which is sent weekly to over 700 booksellers as well as 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 or talk to your Compass Sales representative.