Friday 14 February 2020

Compass Points 337


Happy Valentine’s Day! We do have a love poem for you – taken from Carcanet’s new collection by Peter Gizi which the Guardian said was ‘a new love song … a remarkable fusion of sound and vision, realism and fanciful flight.’ Read on to find out more!

Compass are very pleased to welcome CAMRA to our ever-growing list of client publishers! The Good Beer Guide 2020 (£15.99, pb, 978 1852493585), now in its 47th edition is fully revised and updated, with detailed entries recommending 4,500 of the UK’s best real-ale pubs in rural and urban areas. All entries are selected by CAMRA members and it includes a unique breweries section along with hundreds of CAMRA tasting notes. The full-colour introduction includes a foreword by eminent physicist Professor Brian Cox, who fresh from working alongside Manchester brewers J.W.Lees to brew a beer aptly named Cosmic Brew, gives us his personal story of the importance of beer and brewing. British Guild of Beer Writers’ Beer Writer of the year Emma Inch writes about how diversity enriches the beer world while licensee and former model Jodie Kidd writes about the importance of preserving the local, drawing upon her experiences as the licensee of the Half Moon in Kirdford. As well as the Guide, CAMRA have loads of other delectable titles – have a look here for more information!

Do judges use the power of the state for the good of the nation? Or do they create new laws in line with their personal views? When newspapers reported a court ruling on Brexit, senior judges were shocked to see themselves condemned as enemies of the people. But that did not stop them ruling that an order made by the Queen on the advice of her prime minister was just a blank piece of paper. Enemies of the People? How Judges Shape Society (£14.99, pb, 978 1529204506) by Joshua Rozenberg, asks how the judges can maintain public confidence while making hard choices. Joshua Rozenberg is Britain’s best-known commentator on the law and the only journalist to be made an honorary QC. There have already been high-profile testimonials for this title from professionals and lawyers including Lord Pannick, Dinah Rose QC, Baroness Ruth Deech and Lord Dyson, calling it ‘informed and entertaining’ and ‘clear and entertaining’. The author will be heavily promoting the book via his own Twitter (@JoshuaRozenburg, 82.1K followers) and Facebook pages and there are a whole array of promotional events including:
  • ·         8th March Jewish Book Week event with Blackwell’s
  • ·         High profile panel launch event at Gray’s Inn 21st April. Confirmed speakers: Dominic Grieve QC, Lord Pannick, Professor Alison Young
  • ·         Blackwell’s High Holborn launch 29 April
  • ·         Bristol Festival of Ideas at We the Curious in Bristol 5th May
  • ·         Hay Festival 25 May
  • ·         Blairgowrie Literary Festival 14 June
  • ·         Mishcon de Reya client evening 23 June
  • ·         Edinburgh Book Festival August
  • ·         Society of Legal Scholars conference September (TBC)
  • ·         Bar Conference November (TBC)

There will be lots of media coverage including a Law Society Gazette article which you can read here, a feature in the Jewish Chronicle, a slot on the Better Human podcast: in April and an extract in Booklaunch magazine. We also expect plenty of reviews in the broadsheets and tabloids, on the regional news stations and the BBC. Enemies of the People is published on 21 April by Bristol University Press.

We’re so impressed by these before and after pictures from The Bookcase in Hebden this week. Great to hear that their flood resilience methods have made such a difference to their ability to recover. Fingers crossed that storm Dennis doesn’t cause any damage this weekend. If it’s not too close to the bone, you may enjoy this little five minute film from Inside Cinema of storms in movies!

The poem of the Week in the Guardian this week is Song (£14.99, 978 1784108229, pb) by Peter Gizzi taken from Sky Burial: New and Selected Poems which is out from Carcanet this month. Gathered from over thirty years of work, the poems in this generous selection strike a dynamic balance of honesty, emotion, intellectual depth and otherworldly resonance. Haunted, vibrant and saturated with luminous detail, Gizzi enlists the American vernacular in a magical and complex music. The Guardian said Song was ‘alive with thought-in-action’, and you can read it here

‘Shame is how they get away with it. Shame is the weapon they use. Shame is the weapon you use on yourself that makes you feel so useless. And those who are shamed most often and most deeply, made to feel ashamed for so much of their life, are the poorest among us. Shame beats you down. Shame is an ancient form of control. Shame is the mechanism used to control behaviour.’ You can read more of Danny Dorling's powerful foreword to The Shame Game (pb, £12.99, 978 1447349266) here. In this book, Mary O’Hara shows why the ‘shame game’ being played out against poorer people in the US and the UK is so destructive and effective and dissects how it works to help keep the poor, poor. It’s published by Policy Press this month.

How To Explain Absolutely Anything to Absolutely Anyone: The Art and Science of Teacher Explanation has just had a great review on UK Ed Chat saying ‘In just seven chapters Andy Tharby has written a stunningly helpful and clear guide to explanation.  I suppose given the title of the book it would be horribly ironic if he was not able to explain things clearly – but this is clearly a man who can put his theory into practice.’ This is a book packed with helpful ideas, some to challenge the reader to think, some to inspire the reader to improve their practice and some to help remind us about our core beliefs about teaching.’ This wise and compelling exploration of curriculum, knowledge, memory, human psychology, is new from Crown House.

You can hear Resist (£12.99, pb, 978 1912697311) editor Ra Page on the Versus History podcast this week discussing the anthology, that’s here. The paperback is out from Comma on 21 May.

We’re very much looking forward to the autobiography of Olympic gold and silver medallist Darren Campbell – the popular athlete now turned coach and pundit, written with
Trystan Bevan which is coming from St David’s Press in May 2020. Watch this space for more details! Here he is in action!

Isabel Galleymore has been shortlisted for the John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize for Significant Other (pb, £9.99, 978 1784107116). This debut collection exploring ecology, extinction and climate change was a Telegraph Book of the Year for 2019, and has already been shortlisted for the Forward Prize. The John Pollard Poetry Prize is awarded annually for an outstanding debut English language poetry collection. It is an international award which places no restriction on place of publication and is distinguished by its global reach. You can find out more and see who else is shortlisted on the Carcanet website here.

Lucy Werner was announced a Top 100 Female Entrepreneur by the F:Entrepreneur campaign this week, that story is here and Hype Yourself (£14.99, pb, 978 1788601238)is selling really well! Other recent coverage includes Just Entrepreneurs Top 4 Reads for Startups, a review in The Homeworker, a double page feature and cover in Startups Magazine, a review in GoWrite magazine a piece in Support Local magazine and a guest slot on The Future is Female podcast. It’s published by Practical Inspiration.

Super little piece on It’s Nice That – a website championing creativity – on Seats of London (£12.99, 978 1916045316), entitled What’s Under Your Bum? The Importance of Moquette Design on the London Underground. You can read that one here. It’s published by Safe Haven.

A recent feature in the Guardian entitled ‘Forget wellness. Marmalade is the key to a long, healthy life’, noted how much correspondence they’d had recently on their readers’ marmalade-making habits with reflections on its powers for longevity. Marmalade by Maggie Mayhew (978 0754830450, £4.99, hb) is a great little hardback, and a fab introduction to this classic preserve. There are recipes such such as Oxford Marmalade, St Clement's Marmalade and Lemon and Ginger Marmalade, as well as more unusual combinations like tangerine and lemongrass and peach and kumquat. It also features lots of recipes that include marmalade and the beautiful photographs are sure to inspire and the easy-to-follow instructions guarantee successful results every time. It’s published by Lorenz.

And in this week’s Hot Topics, here's the verdict on the new James Bond theme from Billie Eilish with a fascinating piece here in the Guardian about whether these sultry anthems, usually sung by women, are actually subverting 007. Here's the man that got himself a Valentine’s date by putting up a billboard and in case you need something to pep you up here's Shakira and J. Lo's Super Bowl show from missed it last week! And OMG, a trailer for Stranger Things 4 was just released!

That’s all folks, more next week!

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

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