Do you pull
out your phone at every idle moment? Do hours slip away as you mindlessly
scroll? Allen Carr's Easyway offers a brilliant method of tackling this reliance,
applying tried and tested addiction strategies to the digital world. Smart Phone Dumb Phone: Free Yourself from Digital Addiction (978 1788280860, pb, £9.99) unravels the brainwashing
process behind this addictive behaviour and is a unique method that does not
require willpower and removes the addiction to constantly look at your mobile easily,
painlessly and permanently. There is a nationwide publicity campaign for this
one, kicking off with some terrific publicity in the Daily Express who
said "The Allen Carr method has helped millions quit smoking. Now its
experts are determined to tackle the UK's obsession with digital devices"
and the Mirror who wrote "You'll be aware of how your devices
affect you and most of all, you will enjoy the feeling of regaining control."
It’s just been published by Arcturus.
Here
is
the article in the Metro we mentioned last week by Mike Wendling author
of Pluto’s Alt-Right: From 4chan to the White
House (£12.99, pb, 978 0745337456).
Both this article and the book are a vital guide to understanding the serious threats
posed by this white nationalist, anti-feminist, far-right movement.
“If we would learn what the human race
really is at bottom,” wrote Mark Twain in 1885, “we need
only observe it at election time.” Sex, Lies and
Politics (£9.99, pb, 978 1785905063) which
is new in September from Biteback, shows that the more we learn about
voters, the more we realise how right he was. Written by leading political
experts, it draws on surveys, studies and polls to reveal what makes voters
tick. It covers the things that really matter, like how attractive the
candidates are, what letters their surnames begin with, when they lie to
pollsters, why men in particular make things up and how Remainers think they
have a better sex life. At once funny, revealing and shocking, this is a witty examination
of what really stimulates the voting public. Cowley
and Ford are the authors of Sex, Lies and the Ballot Box (978 1849547550),
which has sold over 4,500 copies to date. Channel 4 News said “This is
the perfect navigation kit for the inevitable general election coming towards
us. Buy it, read it and assume the brace position,” while Sky commented
that “This book answers everything you want to know about UK politics but
were afraid to ask.” Daniel Finkelstein in the Times said “I am
really excited about this book. Politics is like anything: you can’t know
something, really know it, unless you have used proper scientific methods to
find it out. Read it, or remain a ‘Don’t know’ – those are your alternatives.”
Recent scandals at Save the Children
and Oxfam have raised questions about the scale, power and role of international
non-governmental organisations (INGOs). Drawing on his experience working with large
and small, international and local INGOs in over 40 countries, and also on his
own academic research, Terry Gibson addresses these questions head on. Making Aid Agencies Work (pb,
£24.99, 978 1787695122) has just been published by Emerald, and there
was a big piece on it in the August issue of the Big Issue entitled The
Aid Industry Isn’t Working and This is Why which you can read here.
Development
Entrepreneur Dr Simon Batchelor said "Never afraid to ask the difficult
questions and to come up with challenging answers, Gibson digs under the
surface of recent problems in the aid industry and provides disruptive and
innovative solutions."
Here's
a
very interesting article about James Daunt in the New York Times
entitled Can Britain’s Top Bookseller Save Barnes & Noble? Loads of fascinating
titbits of intriguing info, lots of good press for some of our favourite
Waterstone’s shops including the fabulous Waterstones in Horsham, and it
even mentions a Biteback book, Bloody
Southerners: Clough and Taylor's Brighton & Hove Odyssey by Spencer Vignes (pb, £12.99, 978 1785904363). Enjoy!
The celebrations for Carcanet’s 50th
birthday begin this autumn, and run through until summer 2020. If any bookseller
wants to talk about hosting a poetry event in their shop, then please get in
touch with Jazmine@carcanet.co.uk or Becky@carcanet.co.uk. It would be useful to know which authors
you ideally would like to invite; whether there are any poets local to you who might
like to get involved; which Carcanet books sell best for you and also whether
you have a shop budget for authors’ travel expenses! The first Carcanet Jubilee
event is Poetry Ireland in Dublin on Friday 25 Oct. This promises to be
a wonderful day of presentations, discussions and readings exploring the
relationships between publisher and poet over the years and Irish poetry beyond
Ireland. You can find out more on the Carcanet website here.
The mental health of the nation’s
children could not be a more relevant topic with a new study this week uncovering
how heavy social media use disrupts girls’ mental health in particular, that research
is here.
There
has also been plenty of coverage of the fact that the mental health services
available to young people are something of a postcode lottery as this article on the BBC website confirms. A
good opportunity therefore to suggest you stock these four excellent titles
from Critical, which have been praised by the academic community as “very
valuable,” “accessible” and “absolutely excellent.”. Meeting the Mental Health Needs of Children 4-11 Years
(978 1912508082), Positive Mental Health: A Whole
School Approach (978 1912096084), Meeting the Mental Health Needs of Learners 11-18 Years
(978 1912508129) and perhaps most relevantly Social
Media and Mental Health in Schools (978 1912508167) are all by Jonathan Glazzard and Colin Mitchell and are paperbacks, £15.99. Jonathan is an experienced
teacher educator and the professor attached to the Carnegie Centre of
Excellence for Mental Health in Schools. Colin is passionate about empowering
students and academics to harness technology to enhance teaching and learning
and a firm believer that technology is not always the answer and sometimes the
best approach can be a simple one.
Next Tuesday (20th August) there will
be an interview on BBC Radio 5 Live’s Afternoon Edition with Nial Giacomelli talking
about his mesmerising debut novella The Therapist (£7.99, pb, 978 1912054909) which is currently Book
of the Month for August for Foyles Royal Festival Hall. This bittersweet and hauntingly surreal tale
has just been published by Fairlight Moderns. Everyone who have read
this one is absolutely raving about it, for example: “Read the synopsis of
this book and then dismiss any assumptions you may have about it. It’s a
dystopian-horror-sci-fi-fantasy novella all wrapped up in a stunning 118-page
bundle. I don’t say this easily – this is, without doubt, one of my favourite
books so far this year. It took me about two hours to read, devour, demolish and
it was flipping amazing.”
Part memoir, part social history and a
call to action, Constitution Street (£12.99, 978 1912489206) by Jemma Neville is
getting plenty of publicity. Her event at Edinburgh International Book
Festival next week has sold out, with its director Nick Barley, saying “I
love this book. It's a gorgeously written, authentic and genuinely hopeful text
which manages to be local and universal.” There was a full spread in the Scotsman
last weekend, talking all about the book and the street. You can read the piece here. David Robinson also reviewed Constitution Street in Books from Scotland saying “Constitution
Street is informative, empathetic, and almost certainly the best on the market.
It will probably remain so for a long time" You can read the full review here. It’s published by 404Ink.
Comma’s
The Sea Cloak by
Nayrouz Qarmout (£9.99,
pb 978 1905583782) has gathered some of its first coverage in the wake of EIBF
events. There’s a review here, a
piece in the Scotsman here,
and
a feature here.
Whether
following the daily struggles of orphaned children fighting to survive in the
rubble of recent bombardments, or mapping the complex, cultural tensions
between different generations of refugees in wider Gazan society, these stories
offer rare insights into one of the most talked about, but least understood
cities in the Middle East. Taken together, the collection affords us a local
perspective on a global story.
Don’t forget to listen out for The Woman in the White Kimono (£8.99, pb, 978 1789550696) by Ana Johns which
will be featured on the Radio 2 Book Club this coming Monday 19th August.
Ana will be interviewed on the Jo Whiley Show at 7pm; this show is
terrific publicity for any title as there is always a lengthy discussion of the
book, and then listeners call in to say how much they love it! The Woman in the White Kimono is a heartfelt portrait of one woman torn between her
culture and her heart, and another woman on a quest for truth. It’s published by
Legend and is inspired by the true story of Ana John’s father, who as an
American US Navy soldier in the 1950s fell in love with a Japanese girl. Their
relationship was ultimately stopped by cultural pressures and Ana has done
extensive research into the thousands of love stories that were thwarted and
babies abandoned.
When Valerie
Pirie interviewed for her first secretarial
job after college, she did not expect to end up working for Stirling Moss. Regarded as the greatest driver who
was never crowned world champion, he would become not only her new boss, but a
lifelong friend. Now she opens up about the man behind the steering wheel in a playful
and moving memoir recounting anecdotes from the track, the office and nights
out with one of the best-known names in motor racing. Whether at Goodwood, Le
Mans or the Nürburgring, Pirie was there beside Moss to witness the wins and
losses and of course, his career-ending crash in 1962. Never just colleagues,
the pair were true companions, and this book brings to light the story of their
enduring friendship from the classic post-war era of motor racing through to
today. Ciao Stirling (978 1785904639, £20, hb) is out on 3 September and there
will be an extract from this title in Motorsport magazine, an interview
with Val in People’s Friend and a review in Classic and Sports Car.
If you’d like
to see a bit of the great Stirling Moss in action, then have a look at this highly nostalgic four
minutes of old footage.
And in this week’s Hot Topics, here's Quentin Tarantino
talking about his favourite music, here's Nessa from Gavin and Stacey
telling fans to stay quiet while they film the 2019 Christmas special, and
following the UEFA Super Cup, here are some other disastrous penalty
kicks – or brilliant saves, depending on your point of view!
Compass Points is now on
holiday. More in a fortnight!
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@compassips.london