2016 marked the dawn of the post-truth era. The year’s two
shock election results, highlighted many of the same issues; but, more than
anything they heralded an unprecedented rise of bullshit. Of course, sophistry
and spin have been part of politics forever, but the modern era has taken it to
a whole new level. Millions were fed false reports that Hillary Clinton ordered
30,000 guillotines to use on her opponents following her victory, while Trump
claimed he “never said that” about speeches recorded on video. In the
UK, the Leave campaign's divisive claims about £350 million extra funding for
the NHS and “swarms” of new EU immigrants from Turkey proved pivotal to
the referendum result. Post-truth is bigger than fake news and bigger than
social media. It's about the slow rise of a political, media and online infrastructure
that has devalued truth. Post Truth: How Bullshit
Took Over the World (pb, £9.99, 978 1785902147) is published by
Biteback in May and delves into the reality of exactly why this nonsense
gets you noticed and makes you rich. It’s by James
Ball, an author who really knows his shit – he’s currently special
correspondent at BuzzFeed UK and was previously special projects editor
at the Guardian, playing a key role in the Pulitzer Prize-winning
coverage of the NSA leaks by Edward Snowden, as well as well as also working in
investigative journalism at the Washington Post.
Well, I think what we need is this – Karl
Pilkington’s Bullshit Superman – that would put a stop to it!
Literary historical fiction based on true stories is definitely having a bit of a “moment” – and those readers who loved titles such as Burial Rites will probably enjoy Unspeakable – the brilliant third novel by acclaimed author, Dilys Rose which has just been published by Freight. This is a fictional account of the true story of Thomas Aikenhead, the last man in the British Isles to be tried for blasphemy, who was executed in Edinburgh in 1697. You can read an interview with Dilys Rose about this fascinating historical novel here . This is a beautifully written and thought provoking evocation of Edinburgh in the late 17th century; a centre of religious authoritarianism, intolerance and fear where the flames of the city's famous Enlightenment are yet to burn.
We mentioned the fun new podcast A Hitchhikers Guide to Scottish Literature last week, and the February edition discusses Nan Shepherd’s The Living Mountain – her
reflection on her experiences walking in the Cairngorm mountains. you can listen
to it here. It feels like Nan Shepherd has been a bit of a
cult classic for too long, and with her addition to the Royal Bank of Scotland
five-pound note, as well as several beautiful new editions of her three novels
now making their way into bookshops, she is having a much-deserved resurgence.
Hill-walking was her great love; and her single collection of poetry In the Cairngorms (978 1903385333, £9.99, pb),
which she wrote in 1934 is published by Galileo. They are poems
written with the perception of one who has climbed the mountains, truly knows
them and express an intensity of deep kinship with nature. As Robert
Macfarlane wrote: “most works of mountain literature are written by men, and
most of them focus on the goal of the summit. Nan Shepherd's aimless, sensual
exploration of the Cairngorms is bracingly different." In this
atmospheric collection, rocks, burns, wildlife and plants are given real
presence and by allowing herself to be absorbed into the totality of the
mountain Shepherd discovers her true essence. In addition to the hill poetry, In the Cairngorms includes
some intensely felt love poems and is illustrated by some lovely line drawings.
It has a foreword by Robert Macfarlane.
This
is fun
– Harry Potter as if written by other authors. “It is a truth
universally acknowledged that a young wizard in possession of a good fortune
must be in want of a wand.” From those merry funsters over at Buzzfeed!
Part murder ballad, part ghost story, part true crime, All The Places I've Ever Lived takes you on a gripping journey from the small-town
murder of a teenage girl in the 1970s to the recent real-life shootings in
Whitehaven, West Cumbria. Are the crimes linked? Fifteen-year-old Barry Dyer
may have the answers, but when events impact so horrifically on a town and its
people, it always pays to tread carefully when revealing the truth... Quirky,
disturbing, and haunting, All The Places I've Ever
Lived is a moving and tender exploration
of a teenage outsider in a small community, as well as being a finely wrought
portrayal of neglected industrial settlements, where nuclear plants,
thermometer factories and chemical works contrast vividly with the desolate
beauty of the Lake District. David Peace meets Murakami in award-winning writer
David Gaffney's compelling mash up of Twin
Peaks weirdness and peri-urban noir.
You can see it here nestling up
against Michelle Tea’s fabulous Black Wave (from And
Other Stories) in a Captivating Reads
Promotion in Blackwell’s Oxford. David
Gaffney has been praised by the Observer
for his “ruthless eye and pitch-black humour” and All The Places I've Ever Lived (pb, £8.99, 978 1911331063) has just been published
by Urbane.
Snapchat has been much in the
news recently – but can we publishers and booksellers harness its power to help
us promote books? Have a look here at
this thought-provoking report from The Book Machine which suggests that
maybe we can…
Born in Paris in 1919, Michel
Déon, the author of more than 50 works of fiction and non-fiction
which offered a witty, panoramic view of French society and history; died at
the end of last year in Ireland aged 97. You can read a piece about him in the
New York Times here.
I am very much looking forward to the publication of his fictionalised
memoir, Your Father’s Room (pb, £8.99,
978 1910477342) which is coming from Gallic in June. A vivid recreation
of the interwar period, this is a touching and very true depiction of boyhood
and how our early experiences affect us as Édouard (Michel
Déon's real name) looks back on his 1920’s childhood spent in Paris
and Monte Carlo. Within a bourgeois yet unconventional upbringing, 'Teddy', an
observant and sensitive boy, must deal with not just the universal trials of
growing up, but also the sudden tragedy that strikes at the heart of his
family.
If 1920’s Paris is something that appeals to you, then
you’ll probably enjoy this
five-minute collection of highly evocative film clips from the period!
International
Women’s Day this
week – and I love this idea – Loganberry Books Cleveland in the USA has turned
all the books written by men page side-out to illustrate the colossal gender
gap in male and female authors. Have a look here
at what that looks like – a veritable white-out on the shelves, which
delivers a real wallop for anyone shopping at the store!
And if you’re one of our many friends out there running an
independent bookshop, do you feel threatened by small, unbranded Waterstones
stores “pretending” to be indies? The bookselling giant has opened three
unmarked outposts in small towns and while some retailers say anything that
puts books on the high street is a good move, others are not convinced. The
chain has come under fire for opening three unbranded branches in the past
three years – Southwold Books in Suffolk, Harpenden Books in
Hertfordshire and The Rye Bookshop in East Sussex where the handwritten
signs in the windows are the only overt indication that the three belong to the
bookselling behemoth. Southwold shopkeepers told the Telegraph that
Waterstones had “crept in” on the quiet, accusing the company of
dishonesty. One said that if the shop had a large Waterstones sign on the
front, “the whole town would have been up in arms.” You can read more
about that story in the Guardian here.
She Means Business: Turn Your Ideas
into Reality and Become a Wildly Successful Entrepreneur
(£10.99, pb, 978-1781807408) by Carrie Green is zooming up the bestseller charts on Amazon – don’t
let them get all the sales for this inspirational title which has just been
published by Hay House. With a computer and an internet connection you
can get your ideas, messages and business out there like never before and Carrie Green knows
what it's like to be an ambitious and creative woman with big dreams and huge
determination but she also knows the challenges, the fears and blocks that
entrepreneurs face. Based on her personal, tried-and-tested experience, she
offers valuable guidance and powerful exercises to help readers achieve a clear
business vision, understand their audience, create your brand, maintain focus
and achieve success! She Means Business provides the honest, realistic and practical tools to
bring your vision to life. Carrie Green was named an entrepreneurial rising star by HRH The
Duke of York after winning The Change Makers
Award and in 2014 won Entrepreneurs’
Champion of the Year Award. She’s
been featured on BBC News, and in Glamour and Stylist
magazines and her TED Talk, Programming Your Mind For Success, has had
nearly three million views! You can watch that here on Youtube. This
author has a LOT of fans and She Means Business gets uniformly 5-star reviews on Amazon – comments
such as “Having read many books in this genre I can honestly say that this
is the greatest business book of our time” are typical – so I would
certainly urge you to stock it!!
Never mind the greatest business book of our time – what
would you say is the greatest business movie of our time? Have a look here at the Top
Ten films about business – from Jerry Maguire to Wall Street!
That’s all for now folks! More next
week!
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