Compass Points 301

We’re so thrilled that The Remainder (£10, pb, 978 1911508328), the debut novel by Chilean author Alia Trabucco Zerån and translated by Sophie Hughes is one of the six titles to be shortlisted this week for the £50,000 Man Booker International Prize. This remarkable debut by one of Latin America’s rising literary stars has already won much praise, with the Spectator calling it “a literary kaleidoscope … lyrical, demotic, bawdy, elegiac” and the TLS “intelligent and immersive … surreal and captivating.” Alia Trabucco Zerån is the only one of the six authors who is resident in the UK and if you’d like to talk about publicity, then please contact Catherine Taylor Catherine@andotherstories.org . The winners will be announced at a dinner in London on the evening of Tuesday 21 May and prior to that there will be a shortlisted translators' panel event at Foyles Charing Cross Road London on Thursday 16 May and readings from authors and translators at the South Bank Centre on 20 May. You can read more about the prize in the Guardian here.

BBC Radio 4 soap The Archers has over 5 million listeners and now the intrepid team of researchers who brought you Custard, Culverts and Cake: Academics on Life in The Archers (£14.99, pb, 978 1787432864) return with a hard-hitting exposé on the lives of Ambridge’s women, with an introduction co-authored by Archers producer Alison Hindell and cast members Charlotte Connor and Tamsin Greig. Gender, Sex and Gossip in Ambridge (£14.99. pb, 978 1787699489) examines portrayals of love, marriage, and motherhood, female education and career expectations, women's mental health and the hard-won right of women to play cricket. Written in an accessible style this title addresses important current issues around women's rights and the representation of women in popular culture. It taps into a lot of hot topics and I think it should do rather well! There was a big half page feature on the Academic Archers in yesterday’s Telegraph, headed Analysing the Archers: My Weekend at the University of Ambridge here which includes a lot about the new book, including mention of a study in it that concluded that the show was more sexist than a James Bond film! The previous title got a LOT of publicity in the national press and lifestyle media, and I think this one will too, there’s a Twitter campaign coming up and the authors will be contributing to various feminist podcasts. The contributors to the book are based all around the UK and are happy to do Archers themed bookshop events; please contact Katherine Lowe at Emerald Katherine.lowe@oppuk.co.uk  if this is something you’d like to explore!

The Yorkshire coastline is one of the most spectacular in Britain and you can walk the length of it! A definitive new walking guide Yorkshire Coast Path (£14.99, pb, 978 0993291180) out next week from Safe Haven and maps the whole route on large-scale OS maps and is packed with colour photos; an essential purchase for the long-distance walker and afternoon stroller alike.  From Redcar all the way south to Bridlington, and then on along Spurn Point on the Humber Estuary, is magnificent clifftop and seaside walking, by turns exhilarating, picturesque and lonely. There is going to be a big feature on this one in the Yorkshire Post this Saturday with the cover and lots of lovely pics featured on the front page! It sells 45,000 copies, so this is a terrific showcase for this indispensable book! Its author Andrew Vine was interviewed by Rob Walker of the BBC in front of a thousand delegates at Welcome to Yorkshire's annual tourism conference in Leeds last week!

“There’s Life Before Baby and Life After Baby. Any idiot knows that. I knew that. Except I didn’t know what Life After Baby would really be like…” Crazy Busy Guilty by Lauren Sams (£8.99, pb. 978 1789550108) is a hilarious new novel from Legend exploring the highs and lows of parenting which will be instantly relatable to many: “Lauren Sams is the hilarious best friend you haven’t met yet” said Maggie Alderson, The Chicklit Club called it “The perfect read for a sleep-deprived new mum” while the Better Reading blog said it was “Hilariously funny and wickedly insightful”

Publicity has just begun for Leanne Maskell’s The Model Manifesto (£14.99, pb, 978 1788600651) which includes an exclusive interview (and front cover image) with Leanne in The Times 2 at the end of this month focusing on what needs to change in the industry. There will also be an interview in Grazia on 1 May; a 1,000+ word extract in The Week on what you should know if you are planning to become a model; an article in Into_view magazine from Leanne headlined Instagram Mental Health Crisis: Model Reveals How to Protect Your Mind on Social Media; an interview for BBC Radio London’s The Scene with Jasmine Dotiwala; an article for Healthista on The Dark Side of Fashion: 10 Things This Model Wants You To Know and an interview in the Independent. All of these are on 2 May which is superb publicity for this empowering title which has just been published by Practical Inspiration. With contributions from top industry experts, The Model Manifesto includes solid advice on everything from mental health issues to paying tax and is an honest and realistic insider view.

Bottled Goods (pb, £7.99, 978 1912054305) by Sophie van Llewyn has been getting some stupendous reviews ever since it was longlisted for the 2019 Women’s Prize for Fiction and it’s now back in stock, so do order it! Dolly Alderton on her popular High Low podcast called it “a lovely, funny, sad and informative book … there is a very surreal twist at the end that weirdly I felt so on board with when it arrived. It almost reads like a Wes Anderson film … the story is told in vignettes, so it’s really quick and enjoyable to read, and about a world that I know very little about, so I was very grateful to be more illuminated.” The Republic of Consciousness Prize 2019 judges said it was “an assured debut which is part-absurdist, part-thriller, part-social realism. If you’re looking for intrigue, psychological depth and the darkly comic in a book that can be read in one hour, this is for you.”  There’s a fab Q&A with Sophie on the Women’s Prize website which you can see here.

A couple of great features for Carcanet poetry collections this week, firstly one on a book from the Classics imprint, George Seferis’ Complete Poems (£25, pb, 978 1784106676) in Poetry Review which you can see here here and secondly a glowing piece about on Thomas McCarthy’s Prophecy (pb, £9.99, 978 1784107277) in the Irish Times; that’s here.  

Sattva is one of the three basic life forces outlined in Ayurvedic teachings. It embodies seven main qualities: unity, harmony, purity, vitality, clarity, gentleness and serenity. In a new book Sattva: The Ayurvedic Way to Live Well (978 1788172240, £12.99, pb) out in June from Hay House, Eminé and Paul Rushton show how the life-changing principles of sattva can be applied to the home, the family, health, relationships and wellbeing. Jasmine Hemsley said “Eminé and Paul live and breathe Ayurveda every day, and I love their gentle, intuitive, conscious approach to life” and there will be lots of publicity for this one. Sattva will be featured across four pages in July’s Psychologies magazine and it will also be featured in July’s Top Sante, in August’s Bloom magazine and July’s issue of Woman’s Way. Kindred Spirit will be taking an extract in their August issue and Eminé will be speaking on Madeline Shaw’s podcast in August and writing an article for Get The Gloss website in July.

The Guardian’s Fiver newsletter is going to be running a competition for a week of signed copies of From Delhi to the Den: The Story of Football’s Most Travelled Coach (£12.99, pb, 978 1909245471 ) over the next few weeks, you can see that here. This newsletter has over 35,000 subscribers, so this is good PR for this title which is for anyone interested in football, travel, or adventure. From the Cypriot fourth division to the Indian national team, Stephen Constantine's career has taken the scenic route and led him into a host of unique situations. He has hugged a pitch-invading prince in Kathmandu. He has been threatened with kidnap in Khartoum. He has seen the Millwall chairman tip £10,000 onto the changing room floor, and he has watched his goalkeeping coach attack a pitch invader in Congo. Many in the game allege to have seen it all, but there is no one with a better claim to such a statement than Constantine, a veteran manager of six different national sides across four continents. And this isn't simply a tale of one man planning his next coaching expedition in another far-flung corner of the world. Constantine explores the pressures of paying the mortgage when most jobs don't last 12 months, and the solitude of life on the road when your wife and children still reside thousands of miles away.

It's Friday, it’s only a week until the bank holiday weekend – so who doesn’t want to see these  – the hundred funniest pics currently on the internet! Compass Points is now on holiday and will be back in a couple of weeks! Happy Easter everyone!

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@compass-ips.london