Hurrah! Carcanet
have not one, not two but THREE poets on the TS
Eliot Prize shortlist! Former
Poet Laureate Andrew Motion described this annual prize for the best new poetry
collection as “the prize most poets want to win.” And in a very strong
year, (with a record 154 poetry collections submitted) the TS Eliot Foundation
has increased the winner’s prize money to £25,000 to mark the 25th anniversary
of the award! The poets are: Tara Bergin for The Tragic Death of
Eleanor Marx (978 1784103804), Caroline Bird for In these Days of Prohibition (978 1784104788) and Robert Minhinnick for
Diary of the Last Man (978 1784103484). All are £9.99 paperbacks. One of
the highlights of this prize are the TS Eliot
Shortlist Readings which is the largest annual poetry event in the
UK and which will be hosted once again by Ian McMillan. They are on Sunday 14th
January, the day before the Award Ceremony itself which will be at the Wallace
Collection on Monday 15th January. An exciting new addition coming
this year to celebrate the 25th anniversary of this highly prestigious prize; is a series of little films of all the shortlisted poets, reading their
work and giving a short interview. I’ll let you know when these are available
to view! You can see the full shortlist of ten and find out more on the TS Eliot Prize website.
What’s your
opinion on Katie Hopkins? Do you share
the opinions of Donald Trump who tweeted recently “thank you to respected
columnist Katie Hopkins for her powerful writing” or are you more in
agreement with Simon Cowell who said he “would rather take a bath, fill it
with vinegar, cut myself a thousand times, immerse myself slowly for an hour
than work with her.” Love her or loathe her, she is impossible to ignore,
and Rude (pb, £9.99, 978 1785902468)
which is out from Biteback on 7 November is equally in your face. Part
memoir, part handbook for the modern woman, this book shares Katie’s disasters,
her biggest disappointments and the time she had to ring her super sensible
boss to say she was on the front pages of the tabloids having sex in a field.
Like you do. From being kicked out of the army for being epileptic, to firing
little Lord Sugar; from her first husband leaving her in the maternity ward for
the big-boobed secretary, to the reality behind Celebrity Big Brother,
to the privacy of her home and role as a mum of three; she has plenty of
surprises to share and lessons she thinks we should learn. As you would expect,
Katie doesn’t sugar-coat anything, and neither does she hold back, making her
as honest in her book as she is in life.
Let’s just
remind ourselves of some classic Katie Hopkins
moments here!
So, so
pleased to see the braw Scottish Bothy Bible winning the of Travel
Guidebook of the Year on Wednesday at the Travel Media Awards 2017. The awards were created in
recognition of the hugely influential role that today’s travel media play, and
categories cover a wide range of media, from consumer travel magazines to
travel trade titles and guide books. The evening saw 20 publications,
broadcasters, journalists and photographers awarded prestigious trophies. You
can find out more on their website here. The Scottish Bothy Bible
(£16.99, pb, 978 1910636107) is rightly a bestseller for Wild Things and
whether you are actually planning your own bothy break or just an armchair
traveller it is a captivating read. Beautifully produced, full of gorgeous
captivating photos and maps so that just by reading it you feel you are
learning more about the real Scotland.
Huge
congratulations to debut novelist Winnie M Li whose vivid account of the aftermath of a sexual
assault, Dark Chapter (£8.99, pb, 978 1785079061) is the winner of this
year’s Not the Booker Prize. It was
the voting public’s favourite, and the Guardian judges concurred. You
can read more about that in the Guardian here. Dark Chapter which is an astonishing and unique
novel inspired by the author’s own story, is out in paperback from Legend
on 1 November and there’s a LOT of buzz about it. The Stylist made it
one of their Top 10 Debuts to Look Out for in 2017 calling it “an
important and moving book” while Cathy Rentzenbrink said it was “complex
and rewarding” and Erin Kelly said “Dark
Chapter is a must-read. It’s
gripping, compelling and all the more authentic for inhabiting both voices so
completely. Stunning.” The Daily Mail said it was a “heart-wrenching
depiction... Brave, raw and strikingly original, it is a story that will
resonate for many years.”
Sexual
assault is not an easy subject to write about – and an even harder subject to
laugh about. I think Tracy Ullman successfully manages it in her sharp
parody of police attitudes here though!
Neil Powell’s Was and Is: Collected Poems (pb, £14.99, 978 1784102326 )
published by Carcanet is up for the poetry category in the East Anglian Book Awards and you can see the full shortlist here. The winner will be announced at
a celebration of regional writing and publishing in England’s first UNESCO City
of Literature, Norwich on 24th November. These playful and elegiac poems by the
celebrated biographer of Amis and Britten explore music, seascapes and
landscapes, travel, family, love and loss in traditional forms with warmth and
humour. Peter Scupham called them “lucid, elegant, formal and humane.”
There has
been lots of upbeat poetry news to tell you about today hasn’t there, so in
celebration of all things poetic, I don’t think you can do much better than
listen to this highly hilarious ten
minute-clip from Hancock’s Half Hour: The Poetry Society!
We’re always
pleased to tell you about a really good author of historical fiction, as it is
a massively popular market. Tracey Warr’s
first novel was shortlisted for the Impress
Prize for New Fiction, the Rome Film
Festival Book Initiative, and received a Santander
Research Award. Her second historical novel, The Viking Hostage has
now sold more than 1,500 copies. Her Conquest
trilogy is set in medieval Wales and follows the tumultuous life of the last
Welsh Princess and its first book Daughter of the
Last King won much praise from the
book bloggers with Lisa Reads Books calling it “a wonderful novel
brilliantly researched and told in a fantastic page turning style… it will
appeal to fans of Carol McGrath, Joanna Courtney and Patricia Bracewell”.
WhatIRead suggested that it was “recommended if you’re a fan of
Poldark, Outlander or Philippa Gregory” and Cosy Reads said that “Tracey
Warr manages to bring forgotten, historical characters to life with such
vivacity …I impeccably well researched history and well-conjured settings … one
engrossing historical read”. The second book in the trilogy Conquest: The Drowned Court (£8.99, pb, 9781911293088) is out from Impress on 30
October. This title will obviously have a big appeal to Welsh bookshops – but
there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be popular everywhere else too! Tracey is
doing numerous events at medieval castles over the coming months and also
talking about her writing at on 8 November at Gaywood Library in Kings Lynn, 13
November at Pembroke Dock Library (close to Pembroke Castle where the heroine
of The Drowned Court lived), and on 27 November at Downham Market Library.
You can find out more about Tracey Warr
on her website www.traceywarrwriting.com
Talking of
Welsh history, let’s hear what Edmund Blackadder has to say on the subject…
And more
Welsh news with the announcement that Pigeon
by Alys Conran (pb,
£8.99, 978 1910901236) is on the shortlist for the Rhys
Davies Trust Fiction Award – one
of the awards in the 2017 Wales Book of the Year awards. There are 10 prizes on offer for works of
fiction, creative non-fiction and poetry in English and Welsh and the winners
will be announced at a ceremony in Cardiff's Tramshed on 13 November. Pigeon is a journey through the uneasy
half-forgotten memories of childhood, a story about wishful-thinking and the
power of language. The New Welsh Review said it “might have been
authored by Faulkner... just as imaginatively capacious ... never overwrought,
rather pitch-perfect.” It is published by Parthian.
Last week
was World Mental Health Day, which seems like an excellent opportunity
to tell you about Gail Mitchell’s
transformative book, Loving The Life Less Lived (pb, £9.99, 978 1910453261) which is published by Red
Door. Like many people, Gail battled with anxiety and depression for many
years, finding it exhausting, stressful and demoralising at times. Realising
that this approach to her condition was futile, Gail chose a different
approach: acceptance. Taking control in this way removed some of the pressure
and enabled Gail to focus on developing coping strategies, creating the tips
and tools that are included in this empathetic and practical book. Gail Mitchell focuses on the positive aspects of
her condition, showing how a person living with mental illness is so much more
than the label that society puts on them. She found acceptance empowering,
enabling her to live her life to the full. Perhaps not the life she had
planned, but one that is happy and fulfilling and that she loves. You can find
out more on her blog at www.lovingthelifelesslived.com
Theo Michaels appeared
again on ITV This Morning this week – he’s becoming something of a
regular! Introduced by Holly Willoughby as “The king of the microwave”
he cooked winter stews in a matter of minutes which were tasted with great
appreciation by Holly and Phillip Scofield. He was talking about Microwave Mug Meals (978
0754832850, £9.99, hb) and Microwave Mug Soups 978 0754833734, £10, hb,) which is his new title out
on 3 November from Lorenz. Everyone loves soup, it is the ultimate
comfort food. Whether you yearn for a traditional creamy tomato, a spicy fish
chowder or a deliciously umami-rich ramen, a mug of soup is the perfect supper
on the sofa, quick lunch and between-meal savoury snack. And Theo Michaels can show you that a great-tasting
soup does not have to involve long cooking with big pans and bulk ingredients!
Every soup in this book has been specially created to suit the microwave and to
be cooked in a single mug, ready to eat. Instead of opening up a can, you can
have an even yummier home-cooked mushroom soup, or chicken, even minestrone –
made fresh in just the same amount of time. The appearances on This Morning
are absolutely fantastic ongoing publicity for this charismatic author and his
books.
Swallow Summer (pb,
£9.99, 978 1905583447) by Larissa Boehning (translated by Lyn Marven from
the German) is one of six titles to be shortlisted for the inaugural Warwick Prize for Women in Translation. The
winner will be announced on the 15th November. The prize aims to address
the gender imbalance in translated literature and to increase the number of
international women’s voices accessible by a British and Irish readership. A
recent report by Nielsen Book showed that translated literary fiction makes up
only 3.5% of the literary fiction titles published in the UK, but accounts for
7% of the volume of sales. You can find out more about the prize here. Each character in Larissa Boehning's unflinching debut collection
experiences a moment where they’re forced to confront how differently things
turned out, how quickly ambitions were shelved, or how easily people change. It
is published by Comma.
Compass
Points has now been
bringing you the very best in new titles, publishing news, trivia and fun every
Friday for five years! The first ever book we featured back then in autumn 2012
was Sex and Punishment: Four Thousand Years of Judging
Desire (pb, £10.99, 9781908906106) by
Eric Berkowitz which
is published by Westbourne Press, who launched the same year. They’re an
imprint of the fabulous Saqi (which also includes international literary
fiction imprint Telegram). Sex and Punishment tells the story of the struggle throughout millennia
to regulate the most powerful engine of human behaviour: sex. The "raging
frenzy" of the sex drive, to use Plato's phrase, has always defied
control but that's not to say that pretty much every civilization hasn’t tried;
wielding their most formidable weapon: the law. At any given point in time,
some forms of sex were condoned while others were punished mercilessly. Jump
forward or backward a century or two (and often far less than that) and the
harmless fun of one era becomes the gravest crime in another. The Sunday
Times called it “enlightening and hugely entertaining” and it has
become a bestseller – proving Compass Points sure knows how to spot
them!
The first
ever film we featured was this one! Still love it!
Compass is on Twitter! Follow us @CompassIPS. Here are our
favourite tweets from the week!
FavershamLitFest @FavershamLit We've started a book exchange on Platform 3 at #Faversham
rail station. Enjoy!
Rachel Newsome @RachelENewsome Brought to tears by the powerful stories of the invisible
& silenced in #refugeetales @commapress
Alex Cobham @alexcobham An amazing book made me cry & laugh on 3 continents this week.
#JusticeforLB. Buy it. Read it. Go change the world.
Winnie M Li @winniemli Great fun yesterday @Legend_Press filming #bookblogger video on
#DarkChapter #NotTheBooker with @Frizbot - look out for it next wk! #books
SF Said @whatSFSaid Happiness is having your own library card - and a well-funded library
service, with specialist librarians there to help you! #SaveLibraries
New Island Books @NewIslandBooks We're 25 years old this year! Come help us celebrate on
Saturday, November 4th @DublinBookFest - all welcome!
Waterstones @Waterstones Wow, we just popped into the new-look @WaterstonesCamb and it is
absolutely gorgeous. People of Cambridge rejoice!
JKP Books @JKPBooks We'll be talking about our three new books on #dyslexia at half 11 today
on Facebook Live. Follow us to be notified
Ashley C. Ford @iSmashFizzle "How's writing the book going?"
First of all, fuck you.
First of all, fuck you.
And Other Stories @andothertweets “It is about time more publishing firms got out of
London" @yorkshirepost on UK literature spreading its wings http://bit.ly/2zcwMUI
Red Lion Books @RedLionBooks 'Don't be seduced into thinking that that which does not make a profit is
without value.' Arthur Miller, born #onthisday in 1915.
That’s all for now folks! More next week!
This newsletter
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 talk to your
Compass Sales Manager, or call the office on 020 8326 5696.
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