Compass Points 129

We at Compass love it when publishers make short trailers for their books on YouTube – it’s a great way of summarising the feel and mood of a title. Here’s an atmospheric 40 seconds promoting Escape to Perdition by James Silvester (pb, £8.99 978 1909273795) which is coming from Urbane Publications in July. This is a contemporary international political thriller in the best traditions of Le Carre and Robert Harris. Set in Prague 2015; love, deception and murder dominate as the city becomes the centre of international intrigue and shadowy organizations battle for power over a nation's future. Escape to Perdition is a timely slice of high quality political intrigue, at a time when Europe is at the centre of constantly evolving debates about its role. This is intelligent thriller writing that will appeal those who like exiting stories with depth, great characterization and a realistic setting. As the novel progresses the body count rises, options fade, and the hero’s path to redemption is clouded in a maelstrom of love, deception and murder – can he confront his past to save the future? Sounds pretty cool to me – and you can find out more and order it here.

Here’s an interesting question – when does your bum become your hip? I only ask, because there’s been a bit of stooshie (as my Scottish colleagues would say) over the redesign of the iconic cover for Jilly Cooper’s Riders! Have a look here to see what you think!

Don’t miss out on all the buzz building for Journeyman: One Man’s Odyssey Through the Lower Leagues of English Football by Ben Smith (978 1849548540, £12.99., pb)  FourFourTwo  (the biggest footie magazine) has just given it a rave review and a five star rating – making it their No.1 book of the month. This is a refreshing enlightening and candid, unvarnished life of a jobbing footballer.  It starts in 1995, when its author Ben Smith, with a dream of playing professional football, arrives at the training ground of one of England's biggest clubs to begin his journey. Aged just sixteen, he shares pre-season sessions with the likes of Dennis Bergkamp and Ian Wright at Arsenal. Surely his career can only go one way from here? The next seventeen years duly see him descend from Highbury to obscurity in a career that involves seasons playing for Reading, Yeovil, Weymouth, Hereford, Shrewsbury, Southend, Crawley, Kettering and Sudbury AFC. Smith candidly describes the contract negotiations, the insecurities, the fear and realities of injury, the impact on his personal life and the wet Saturday afternoons playing in front of 500 people. This is the honest, intelligent memoir of a quintessential journeyman footballer. The Express summed it up nicely by calling it a “fascinating tale, so ditch the latest predictable ghost written life story of a pampered Premier League star for this.” This is a title which started building with word of mouth recommendations – its fans on Twitter said “by far the best footballers autobiography I've ever read. Cheers for a great book”, “Absolute gold”, “they should give it to scholars to read. No sugar coating”, “a fantastic read … a great insight into lower league football. Well done.” “Loved the book … read it in a weekend.” The book has consistently done well since its publication in April, and is fast becoming a bestseller – so make sure you have it on display – clearly footie is much in the news at present and I would say this is absolutely ideal as a Father’s Day gift for example.  Ben Smith is still in hot demand from the media and there will be lots more publicity for Journeyman to come. It is published by Biteback and you can find out more and order it here

Stop Press – we’ve just heard today that the Sunday Telegraph will be running an extract and (in their words) “a good plug for the book” this Sunday (8 June) from I Know I am Rude But It is Fun: The Royals and the Rest of Us as Seen by Prince Philip by Nigel Cawthorne (pb, £8.99, 978 1783340125)This is the affectionate compendium of the Duke of Edinburgh's propensity for putting his foot in his mouth which has just been published by Gibson Square, and coincides nicely with the Duke of Edinburgh’s 94th birthday next Wednesday!

Find out more and order it here

Congratulations to Helen Tookey and Caoilinn Hughes whose Carcanet collections Missel Child and Gathering Evidence have both been shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry Prize. 

You can find out more about that prize on their website here.

Lots of great press for Janice Galloway's Jellyfish  (hb, £8.99, 978 1908754950): a stunning short story collection by one of the United Kingdom’s best contemporary fiction writers which is out at the end of this month from Freight. It will be featured on BBC Radio 4’s Open Book programme on 18 June, and also reviewed in the Scotsman, The Skinny, Prospect Magazine, the Evening Times and the Guardian. There will be a cover interview in the Herald magazine on Saturday 20th June and a feature interview in Scotland on Sunday on 21st June. Janice Galloway’s stories have already attracted a great deal of praise with the Times Literary Supplement writing “in her best work, nothing is ordinary... she makes the surreal flicker like a blue flame from the edge of the everyday.” The New Statesman called them “stories that walk with steady, nerve-cracking skill down a nightmare edge” while the Independent enthused “the writing can be felt on your pulses…writing has rarely been so visceral.” Jellyfish is Blackwell’s Scottish Book of the Month and you can find out more and order Jellyfish here

A warm welcome to BC Books – Bold Books for Curious Kids – a new children’s imprint from Birlinn, designed to provide writing and illustration of the highest quality for young readers throughout the UK and beyond which launched this week in Edinburgh with plenty of accompanying publicity. 

The four launch titles are Sixteen String Jack by Tom Pow (978 1780272269, £9.99), The Secret Dog by Joe Friedman (978 1780272870, £6.99), Silver Skin by Joan Lennon (£6.99, 978 1780272849) and a Peter Pan graphic novel by Stephen White (978 1780272900, £12.99). There were illustrated articles on the whole list this weekend in the Times, the Daily Mail, the Mail on Sunday and Scotland on Sunday.  Author Tom Pow and illustrator Ian Andrew did an interview on Radio BBC Scotland; there was an article about the new list in Scottish Field; Silver Skin, The Secret Dog and Sixteen String Jack all featured on the LoveReading blog; there was a feature on The Secret Dog on BBC Online, and there were reviews of all four new books in Carousel magazine. If you would like some POS (posters, bunting and bookmarks) to support the new list then please email VikkiR@birlinn.co.uk and for more information on BC Books, go to the Birlinn Children's Books website here.

A big piece in the Bookseller today on the Rising Stars of 2015; their annual list of the up-and-comers and leaders of the future in the book trade – the publishing industry’s movers and shakers! Maybe you or someone from your shop is on the list? If so, many congrats from all at Compass Points! We’re very pleased to see one of our publishers – Adrian Searle from Freight has made the grade, and you can see the whole list of the 39 stellar superstars here!

We were all most excited to hear that Sixty Degrees North: Around the World in Search of Home (hb, £12.99, 978 1846973369) by Malachy Tallack will be BBC Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4 from 13 July 2015. There is lots of great publicity coming up for this title too – including a Will Self review in the Guardian. Polygon are submitting this lovely title for all the major book prizes so there may well be more good news to come. It is going to be Scottish Book of the Month for Waterstones – and has a new pub date of 1 July. Sixty Degrees North is a deeply personal book which begins with the author’s loss of his father, and his troubled relationship. It is also a book of travel and culture, of history and natural history and most of all it is a book about home. It will appeal to readers of travel and nature books, as well as to those especially interested in “the North” and Arctic regions – and anyone who loves quality writing. You can order it and find out more here

A great piece in the Weekend Telegraph Travel section by Jonathan Knight, Punk Publishing editor of the Cool Camping series, chooses his favourite campsites in Europe with mountain views which you can read here – even those not remotely keen on camping cannot fail to be enthralled the thought of waking up and unzipping your tent to these jaw-dropping views! Cool Camping Europe (978 190688964, £18.95, pb) has just been published and is available now.

How well do you know your James Bond? Test your Bond knowledge with this fiendish little quiz from those folk at Bluffer’s Guides here and then swot up with The Bluffer’s Guide to Bond (£6.99, pb, 978 1909365049)!

A couple of books to lift your spirits from Birlinn; firstly MacLean's Whiskypedia: A Gazetteer of Scotch Whisky (978 1780272535, pb, £14.88) by Charles MacLean. This is the author who the Sunday Times called “Whisky’s finest guru” and of whom the Independent said “Charles MacLean writes like no other expert on the subject, his prose is informed and highly entertaining”. Whiskypedia explores the influences of history, craft, tradition and science on Scottish whisky. Each entry provides a brief account of the distillery’s history and curiosities, details how the whisky is made, and explores the flavour and character of each make. Charles MacLean has spent thirty years researching; writing and lecturing about Scotch whisky and Whiskypedia guides, entertains and informs novices and experts alike. The Telegraph is giving this one quite a bit of promotion on the back of their Whiskey Tasting Experience Event which they are running with Charles MacLean on 8 and 9 June. 

And secondly don’t forget 101 Gins to Try Before you Die (hb, 978 1780272993 £12.99) by Ian Buxton This new book from another best-selling drinks writer is out in August and is the authoritative guide to the world of gin, and the first book to explore the explosion of innovative gin brands and the artisanal distillers that are reinventing this highly popular drink.

Find out about 101 Gins here

And on a related subject, here’s a great podcast of Alexander McCall Smith talking whiskey and writing in a bar in Dublin with the Irish Times.

A major serialisation is coming up in the Mail on Sunday of Black Horse Ride: The Inside Story of Lloyds and the Banking Crisis over the 7th June and 14th June. Black Horse Ride is the first account from the perspective of senior figures at Lloyds TSB of the doomed takeover of HBOS at the height of the economic crash and provides key insights from high-ranking officials at the Bank of England and civil servants on Whitehall. It tells the inside story of what really occurred in the aftermath of the worst single day in banking history, a day in which two of the world’s banking giants, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch, either filed for bankruptcy or had to be bailed out by the US government. Through a compelling cast of high-profile bankers, politicians and investors, Ivan Fallon brings together the accounts of all the power players involved in this dramatic saga for the first time – including the key roles played by the Governor of the Bank of England and the Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The Mail on Sunday serialisation will make sure that this is picked up as a story by all the other newspapers – so make sure you’ve got copies on display. Black Horse Ride: The Inside Story of Lloyds and the Banking Crisis (hb, £20.00, 978 1849546423) by Ivan Fallon is published on 18 June by Robson Press You can find out more about Black Horse Ride here

We love a bit of music on a Friday, so let's think of our top five songs involving horses – or even more specifically black horses?  Well, crazy horses by one of my favourite bands probably describes the behaviour of some of those bankers quite well – as does Mick singing about those wild horses. With hindsight, I think we all feel that many of those highly paid individuals were just one trick ponies leaving Lloyds TSB as a bit of a horse with no name. And what a great song is this one by KT Tunstall! (However, I’m not a fan of this one from Katy Perry- great video though!)

Compass is on Twitter! Follow us @CompassIPS. Here are some of our favourite Tweets from last week...

Nicholas Hogg ‏@nicholas_hogg  

A thousand thank yous for last night's TOKYO launch on the river, including @cargopublishing @NikkaWhiskyEU, Tengu Sake and Choya Wine...

Iain Dale ‏@IainDale  

So proud to have taken a punt on @bsmudger7's autobiog of a lower league footballer. It's become a bestseller!

Leah Moyse ‏@LeahJMoyse  

Up for the Challenge of reading Sod the Bitches. Thanks @urbanepub

Carcanet Press ‏@Carcanet 

'ambitious, playful poems' - Great review in the TLS for @CaoilinnHughes' Gathering Evidence today! http://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9781847772626 …

Polygon Books ‏@PolygonBooks  

So excited for @malachytallack Sixty Degrees North as #BookOfTheWeek @bbcradio4 @agentjenny roll on July!

Compass Points ‏@CompassIPS  

Congrats to Adam @frostatwork on another Chelsea Gold! Book @RedPlanetZone in July

UrbanePublications ‏@urbanebooks  

Please place your vote for More Life, Please! in the People's Book Prize http://www.peoplesbookprize.com/book.php?id=1289 … @PeoplesBkPrize

Compass Points ‏@CompassIPS  

Wild weather gone now so we can appreciate the fab @wildthingsbooks display at @blackwelloxford Sunny #FridayFeeling!

That’s all for now folks, more next week!

This blog is taken form a newsletter 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 click here to go to the Compass New Titles Website or talk to your Compass Sales representative.

Compass Points 128

Compass Points did not unfortunately get to go to the Chelsea Flower Show – but maybe some of you booksellers were lucky enough to attend, and maybe some of you saw Adam Frost’s garden win his 6th Gold Medal. However, even if you didn’t see it you can re-create Adam’s design ideas and planting schemes to create your own beautiful outdoor space with Real Gardens: Adam Frost’s Chelsea Gold Medal Designs . Adam Frost appears on BBC radio and television as a contributor and his a regular contributor to garden magazines He has won an astonishing six gold medals at Chelsea Flower Show from his first self-financed garden in 2007 to his Show Gardens for Homebase over the past few years and is recognized as the designers designer creating a mixture of great design and brilliant planting. In this beautiful full-colour book bursting with gorgeous photographs, he tells the story of the creation of each garden and reveals tips and information to allow readers to create their own great spaces. The book also contains constructional details for to build garden features from paths and ponds through to walling and fences and has a palette of thirty basic plants to ensure gardening success. Real Gardens: Adam Frost’s Chelsea Gold Medal Designs (pb, 978 1905959488, £16.99) is published in July by Red Planet and you can order Real Gardens and find out more here

Have a look at Adam's lovely garden at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show here.

The poetry from those lovely folk at Carcanet continues to sell well, and be well reviewed: The Bookseller recommended New Poetries VI as one of the London Review Bookshop’s top ‘summer tips’. This is the sixth volume in the bestselling series edited by Helen Tookey and Michael Schmidt (pb, £12.99, 978 1784100377) showcasing work from the most exciting new poets from around the globe. As the Guardian said “These editors know their onions when it comes to poetry” and the poets in previous volumes have gone on to achieve notable success: Sophie Hannah (bestselling crime novelist), Kei Miller (winner of the 2014 Forward Prize), Tara Bergin (winner of the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry Prize) etc… The poets in this new anthology New Poetries VI vary in style, form and approach and include exceptional performers, experimentalists, traditional formalists, and poets from a myriad of racial and cultural backgrounds.

Find out more and order New Poetries VI here

We love all of you lovely booksellers out there and your inspirational shops and we also love browsing in bookshops when we leave these shores for foreign climes – have a look here for a great selection of 17 extraordinary bookshops from all over the world!

Really good news this week about a title I mentioned a couple of weeks ago: Long Time No See by Hannah Lowe is going to be a Book of the Week on Radio 4 – to be broadcast w/c 27^th July. You will recall this moving and revealing memoir moves between  the vivid world of Hannah’s father “Chick”, a half-Chinese, half Jamaican immigrant and a legendary East London gambler, and scenes of racially charged and often plain intolerant Essex life in the 80s, with flashbacks to Jamaica. This hugely satisfying read is told with an impressive generosity of spirit and it is really great news that it is going to get such brilliant publicity bringing it to a very large audience – and all around its pub date in July too! Long Time No See by Hannah Lowe (pb, 978 1859643969, £9.99) is published by Periscope and you can find out more and order it here.

There has been quite a bit of publicity for Extradited! The European Arrest Warrant and my Fight for Justice from a Greek Prison Cell by Andrew Symeou which has been published this month by Robson Press (hb, 978 1849548458, £16.99). Andrew Symeou was a university student when he was extradited to Greece on a European Arrest Warrant in 2008 on a charge of murder. Private Eye described the Greeks’ investigation as "flawed, contradictory and in places ludicrous" and a British Coroner slammed the investigation as being “a misguided effort to solve the crime”. Regardless, a British court was unable to prevent Andrew’s extradition and he was dragged away and thrown into a Greek prison where he spent almost a year pre-trial in truly horrific conditions.  Following his acquittal in 2011 he returned to London and his family, to complete his studies and campaign for a change in the law. Extradited! is a highly disturbing story of an ordinary man and his family’s fight against his wrongful imprisonment in a foreign state and a devastating examination of the system that allowed it to happen. You can see Andrew Symeou’s interview with BBC World News here which went out last week, and he has also recently been a guest on ITV This Morning, (13 May)  ITV London’s evening news show,  Talk Radio Europe (18th May) BBC Wales (19th May), and Radio 5 Live.

Find out more and order Extradited! here

We literary types all know the answers to those quizzes where they ask us to name the first line of famous books – It was a bright cold day in April; It was the best of times; If you really want to hear about it etc. etc.  But how about remembering who said the first spoken line in any given novel! Not as easy as you think – test yourself here!

In 2002, Dean Lilleyman left his warehouse job drunk and went home. He stayed at home for six months and got sober. Then he went to college to get some qualifications (at the age of 35) where he read Raymond Carver and started writing short stories. By 2013, he’d won several awards for his writing, been awarded an MA scholarship, written a novel, and lectured in creative writing at a university. He now writes full time and Billy and the Devil is his startling debut novel published by Urbane Publications.  Billy and the Devil presents the emotive story of Billy and his battle with alcoholism – it is a shocking and intimate portrayal of isolation, sexual misadventure, and addiction. Told in a series of unflinching episodes from Billy’s life either first-hand or through the eyes of others, it charts his experiences as child and adult growing up and living in 70s, 80s and 90s Sheffield. There’s quite a buzz building for this challenging novel; one reviewer said "Put it this way, a great novel doesn't end after you have read the last page. It reaches out after publication and plants its own mythology in the world. This is the highest achievement of Lilleyman's debut. I recommend you read this book." while another enthused "This is wild stuff, very dark and very brilliant." Billy and the Devil (pb, 978 1910692332, £8.99) is published in August and you can find out more and order it here.

Talking of addiction, alcoholics and sexual misadventure brings us neatly to a couple of biographies of fast living individuals – some who sadly did die before they got old, and some who (perhaps rather surprisingly) didn’t. Before I Get Old: The Story of the Who by Dave Marsh is the original and best biography of The Who re-issued to mark the 50th anniversary of the band and their Hits 50! tour which runs from 15 April to 4 November 2015, comprising 54 shows across the UK, Europe and the US. Commissioned by Pete Townshend and fully endorsed by everyone in the band, this is the definitive account of the seventies legend – essential reading for fans of every generation. Before I Get Old (containing 85 photos) tells the story of not one but six personalities – guitarist Pete Townshend, bassist John Entwistle, drummer Keith Moon and singer Roger Daltrey plus their original managers Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp. It describes the group’s origins in the steamy nightlife of London and charts their meteoric rise to fame. Here is the pathos, the laughter, the crazy world they worked in, the drugs, the destruction, the vandalism, the debts, the multi-million-dollar tours, and of course the music.

Another anniversary this year: September 2015 marks the 60th year since James Dean’s death. A lavish new biopic Life directed by Anton Corbijn, and starring Robert Pattinson, Dane DeHaan and Ben Kingsley will be released in cinemas worldwide this autumn -  -  you can see DeHaan talking about it here.  James Dean: Rebel Life by John Howlett is a new biography, containing 100 b/w photos, which brings to light graphic details of James Dean’s private life, reassessing the legacy of one of the greatest icons of the twentieth century. Dean’s public image was carefully constructed and maintained by the Warner Brothers studio through much publicized dates with Hollywood actresses. Recently however, revelations about Dean’s sex life – that he was a promiscuous homosexual who slept with many other actors and casting directors – have flown in the face of his traditional image, and revealed another side of Dean. The opening of the Warner Brothers archive containing letters and other documents surrounding Dean’s original casting and the making of his films have also provided an insight into his behaviour and revealed the real opinions of those who worked with him. John Howlett has interviewed many actors, lovers and girlfriends who knew Dean in New York and Hollywood and has incorporated significant new material in this new book.

Before I Get Old: The Story of the Who (pb, £14.99 978 0859655248) by Dave Marsh which you can order here and James Dean: Rebel Life (978 0859655347, pb, 14.99) by John Howlett which you can see here, are both published by Plexus in August.

And let’s remind ourselves of what real rebellious geniuses look like shall we? Here’s Who Are You? and here’s a five min tribute to the extraordinary James Dean.

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 click here to go to the Compass New Titles Website or talk to your Compass Sales representative.

Compass Points 127

It’s official – Alexander McCall Smith is an uproariously funny writer! He has just won this year’s Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Fatty O’Leary’s Dinner Party, (£7.99, pb 978-1846973239 ) published by Birlinn imprint Polygon. This is the first time McCall Smith, has appeared on the comic fiction prize shortlist and he beat off competition from Caitlin Moran, Irvine Welsh, Nina Stibbe, Helen Lederer and Joseph O’Neill. Following his win, McCall Smith has been presented with a locally-bred Gloucestershire Old Spot pig, which will be named after his winning novel. He will also receive a jeroboam of Champagne Bollinger Special Cuvee, a case of Bollinger La Grande Année and the complete Everyman Wodehouse Collection. What a great prize! McCall Smith said of his win: “I am greatly honoured to be awarded the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize. I very much enjoyed writing that book and if there are those who are enjoying reading it, then I am content. I am also content with the jeroboam of champagne, the 52 Wodehouse novels, and the pig that go with this award. That is what I would call a very well-balanced prize.” Broadcaster and author James Naughtie, who was one the prize judges, added: “It's right and proper to couple the names of Alexander McCall Smith and P G Wodehouse. No writer in recent times has been a more prolific dispenser of wit. He makes people laugh out loud and, like everyone who understands the absurdities of life, he understands sadness too.” We couldn’t agree more! Congratulations!

Three trade news stories this week on forthcoming titles from Compass publishers: Skyscraper Publications is publishing a controversial new book in September by Joan Brady entitled America’s Dreyfus: The Case Nixon Rigged. The book is the culmination of 10 years of research into the case of Alger Hiss, the American lawyer and government official accused and convicted of being a Soviet spy in 1950. The book claims that Richard Nixon exploited the anti-Communist feeling in the US during his presidency, manipulated the media and invented evidence in order to have Hiss convicted. Using her conversations with Hiss as well as evidence she has unearthed, Brady sets out to prove his innocence while also drawing comparisons with modern global politics. Karl Sabbagh, Skyscraper MD, said: “The book has not yet been published in the US; the thought of Hiss’ innocence is apparently too shocking to contemplate. I am delighted to bring this story to a UK readership, who will see the resonance between US anti-Communism in the 1940s and ‘50s and the hysteria governments try to create in the 21st century against a range of other enemies, from terrorists to immigrants.”

There was a piece in the Bookseller about an exciting new signing for Robson Press – who have acquired a book from veteran advice columnist Bel Mooney. The book will be entitled Lifelines: Words to See You Through. The book will draw on Mooney's years of columns, which have revised and updated to create what the publisher calls an “inspirational" collection. Mooney has been an advice columnist in the Daily Mail for several years, offering help on topics from grief to martial breakdown and says "This book comes as a result of many requests from readers who have asked whether I intend to collect an anthology of my own columns and the quotations I choose carefully each week to provide uplifting thoughts on my page. I hope it will make a comforting book to dip into." The book will be coming in October 2015 – you’ll hear more about both of these titles in the coming months!

And Scott Pack has announced his latest acquisition for Aardvark Bureau; Self & I which will be published next spring. This is a memoir by Will Self’s former personal assistant, novelist Matthew De Abaitua who spent six months in the early 1990s living and working with author Will Self in his remote Suffolk cottage as his amanuensis. Pack said: “This is a remarkable insight into two fascinating writers: Self as his career was just taking off and De Abaitua before his had really started. Self is aware of the book but will not be endorsing it. It is frequently hilarious, often revelatory and always hugely readable.”  De Abaitua said: “I am delighted that Aardvark Bureau is publishing Self & I and brimful with innovative ideas on how to bring this story to a wide audience. It’s not a gossipy book, it’s not a biography, it’s a true comic story of a great writer and his wide-eyed apprentice.” 

Compass attended an excellent launch party for new publisher Periscope this week at Pushkin House in London. Periscope describe themselves as “fiercely independent” and say they aim to “present bold, distinctive voices in fiction and non-fiction from around the world. We maintain that although the industry is changing, the power of narrative to question, inspire, inform and stir remains constant. Revelling in its size as a small publisher, Periscope will move nimbly in a heavily consolidated publishing environment. Dancing in the path of juggernauts, we can enable stories to be told that might otherwise be lost.” Dennison Smith, Hannah Lowe. Hwang Sok-yong and Neamat Imam all read from their books during the party.

One of Periscope’s first titles is The Moors Account by Laila Lalami (pb, 978 1859644270, £9.99) which comes out in August. This extraordinary novel, which one reviewer described “ringing with thunder”, illuminates the ways in which a story can transmigrate into history. It takes as its starting point the year 1527, when the Spanish conquistador Pánfilo de Narváez arrived on the coast of modern-day Florida with hundreds of settlers, and claimed the region for Spain. Almost immediately, the expedition was decimated by a combination of navigational errors, disease, starvation and fierce resistance from indigenous tribes; and within a year, only four survivors remained. These were three noblemen and a Moroccan slave called “Estebanico”. The official record, set down after a reunion with Spanish forces in 1536, contains only the three noblemen’s accounts, but Laila Lalami’s masterful novel gives us The Moor’s Account – her imagined version from Estebanico’s point of view. Lalami gives us Estebanico as history never did: as a vibrant merchant forced into slavery and a new name, and then reborn as the first black explorer of the Americas, discovering and being discovered by various tribes both hostile and compassionate. In Estebanico’s telling, the survivors’ journey across great swathes of the New World transforms would-be conquerors into humble servants and fearful outcasts into faith healers. He remains ever-observant, resourceful and hopeful that he might one day find his way back to his family, even as he experiences an unexpected (if ambiguous) camaraderie with his masters. The Moor’s Account shows how storytelling can offer a chance for redemption, reinvention and survival. Salman Rushdie called it “An absorbing story … brilliantly imagined … feels very like the truth.”  Laila Lalami has previously been longlisted for the Orange Prize and as the New Yorker said, this novel is “an exciting tale of wild hopes, divided loyalties, and highly precarious fortunes” which I think could do very well.

Order it here

Now we all know that many of your customers have an ongoing fascination with true life espionage; and in August comes the first complete history of “Special Branch” – or to use its full name – The Special Branch of the Metropolitan Police – right from its formation in 1883 to its demise in 2006, when it was subsumed into the Counter Terrorism Command of the Metropolitan Police Service. The first Special Branch was set up as the ‘Special Irish Branch’ to combat the threat posed by the Irish Republican Brotherhood. From there its early role broadened to include tackling the suffragettes, anarchists and Bolsheviks, as well as more peaceful responsibilities. A unique feature of the Special Branch was its role within the intelligence community, sitting somewhere between the secret service, with whom it maintained close ties, and the police’s anti-terrorism functions. Special Branch would generally be deployed to arrest suspected spies. MI5 having no jurisdiction to do so. The book details some of the most fascinating espionage stories from the Branch’s long history, including how it was used to counter the rise of British fascism before the war. It deals with the rivalry between Special Branch and MI5 which ended with the latter eventually wresting back primacy in the investigation of Irish republican terrorism on mainland Britain from the former.  This is the first complete history of the Special Branch, and its authors Ray Wilson and Ian Adams are both former Special Branch officers who have had have had access to archive documents and interviewed former members. The Special Branch: A History 1883-2006 by Ray Wilson and Ian Adams (hb, 978 1849549103, £20.00) is published by Robson Press and you can order it here.

All a lot more exciting than the portrayal of the London Police force as seen in the much loved Dixon of Dock Green; give yourself a 90 second burst of burst of nostalgia here!

Exciting news this week for Skyscraper Publications and their author Anna Starobinets whose collection of short stories, The Icarus Gland, has been shortlisted for the Read Russia Prize, awarded each year for the best translation of a Russian book into English. (The U.K. based translator, Jamie Rann, also translated Starobinets’ dystopian novel The Living.) The Icarus Gland is a collection of short stories set in a time that is almost today, and a place that is almost anywhere, Starobinets stories are neither science fiction nor magical realism but combine elements of both. They remind me a bit of Roald Dahl’s short story collections that became the TV series Tales of the Unexpected – and like Dahl, they will appeal to YA readers as well as adults. Examples of these unsettling tales are:  The effects on family life of a routine surgical operation to make males nicer; Two mysterious movie producers offer a budding screenwriter his first major break, but they are not what they seem; A hospital cleaner whom no one notices witnesses the astonishing result of a doctor’s experiments in metamorphosis; The holiday outing to end all holiday outings, and not everyone can return and The electronic nanny that every child wants, who takes over the family in a sinister way. Last year, Starobinets was awarded the Russian Bestseller Award for a writer under 35 and the winner of this Read Russia award will be announced on May 29th in New York, coinciding with Book Expo America.  Karl Sabbagh, managing director of Skyscraper Publications, said: “Anna is a very unusual writer with an appeal to young adult readers, and James Rann has achieved a fine translation reflecting the popular speech and narrative style which makes the stories compelling to read.  The book is competing with translations of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, as well as other dead Russian writers, so we hope that this nomination helps to focus on the new generation of writing that is coming out of Russia.”  This is Anna’s second collection of stories – her first led to her being dubbed “Russia’s Stephen King” . The Icarus Gland (pb, 978 0955181054, £12.99) is available now – it has an eye-catching cover, and as I say I think you could definitely sell this collection to teenagers as well as adults. Find out more here.

If you are too young to have watched the Tales of the Unexpected first time round I can recommend them on YouTube – although the 1970’s adaptations are a little dated, Dahl’s stories still pack quite a punch – have a look at this one here - introduced by Dahl himself and featuring a whole galaxy of British stars!

It’s summer (sort of) so it’s camping season, and Cool Camping Britain is getting a big double page splash in the Guardian tomorrow: Saturday 23rd May. This will also go online. Then Cool Camping Europe is getting the same treatment in the Sunday Telegraph on 31st May, which will also go online. So make sure you have both of these super books on display – they are the definite market leaders in the field (see what I did there). Cool Camping Britain is a fully updated second edition which has been expanded to feature 160 stunning campsites – many of which are new finds and have never featured in a Cool Camping book before - this book showcases the very best of British camping, from the wilds of the Scilly Isles to the sandy shores of Scotland’s coastline. 

Cool Camping Europe is also a fully revised second edition – the original 2009 edition was the best-selling camping guide to Europe and since the book has been out of print, has been selling on Amazon for up to £100! As with the original book, the new edition will feature a selection of the best campsites and glamping sites in Europe and covers 100 outstanding European campsites spread across 12 countries explores a stunning range of camping grounds from the tip of Portugal’s Algarve to the shady forests of Slovenia. Cool Camping Britain (978 1906889630, £16.95, pb) and Cool Camping Europe (978 190688964, £18.95, pb) are both published this month by Punk Publishing and you can find out more here and here.

And to give you a taste of some really cool camping, carry on and have a look here!

Faith in Food: Changing the World One Meal at a Time by Susie Weldon and Sue Campbell published last year by Bene Factum Publishing has been shortlisted for this year’s Derek Cooper Award for Campaigning and Investigative Food Writing in The Guild of Food Writers 2015 Awards: the most prestigious awards in food writing and broadcasting. The winners will be announced on Tuesday 9 June at a ceremony in London. The shortlist highlights emerging talent as well as featuring some of our best-known food writers and broadcasters (including Diana Henry, Yotam Ottolenghi, Tom Parker Bowles and Ruby Tandoh) and celebrates the breadth of knowledge and expertise at work in a thriving creative field. As it features some well known food writers and broadcasters, it is sure to get quite a bit of coverage – so fingers crossed for Faith in Food, which has a foreword by Prince Charles and is a gorgeous trade paperback, combining essays, scripture, storytelling, recipes, initiatives and general wisdom in one beautifully produced book, all seeking to change our relationship with what we eat and how we obtain our food. This is a groundbreaking collaboration between Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, Sikhism and Hinduism, alongside secular organisations as well, to get people thinking, acting and eating! Faith in Food (pb, 978 1909657410, £14.99, pb) is available now.

Compass is now on Twitter! Follow us @CompassIPS. And below here are some of our favourite book and film mash-ups from #BookFilmCrossovers!

Jules Segovia ‏@julie_segovia  

#bookfilmcrossovers Paradise Lost in Translation

Ryan Valentine ‏@perfectblue74  

#bookfilmcrossovers The Unbearable Lightness of Being John Malkovic.

 Waterstones Burysted ‏@Wstonesburysted  

Gone With The Wind in The Willows #bookfilmcrossovers

George Luke ‏@georgeluke 

We Need to Talk About Kevin and Perry #bookfilmcrossovers

Richard Priseman ‏@RichardPriseman 

@Waterstones Nineteen Eighty-Four Weddings and a Funeral #bookfilmcrossovers

‽ ‏@dedaluskinch  

#bookfilmcrossovers Catch-22 Jump Street

YouMadeMeInk ‏@InkyMoron  

#bookfilmcrossovers The Loneliness of the Long Distance Blade Runner

Compass Points ‏@CompassIPS  

Cape Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas #bookfilmcrossovers

And finally – what must it be like when your own literary creation grows up and decides to do a saucy photo shoot? Read JK Rowling’s entertaining twitter banter with Mathew “Neville Longbottom” Lewis on Buzzfeed here!

That’s all for now folks, more next week!

This blog is taken from a newsletter 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 click here to go to the Compass New Titles Website or talk to your Compass Sales representative.