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Halloween done and dusted, so we all know what come next, and I will draw your attention to this new title from Armadillo. Christmas Fairy Tales (hb, £10, 978 1861478740) is a collection of twelve traditional fairytales in very readable retellings by folklore expert Neil Philip (with introductory notes for the interested). Some, such as The Nutcracker are well known, others such as the joyous Schnitzle Schotzle and Schnootzle less so; but all offer glorious views of the true meaning of Christmas. It is exquisitely illustrated by Isabelle Brent with gold leaf trims to all the pictures, and the pages are beautifully designed with intricate borders and lots of lovely festive details; you can have a look here. Finished copies have just come in looking absolutely gorgeous and I would highly recommend it! Of course, there are plenty of Christmas anthologies around but this one really is something special and it’s just £10!

A brilliant article in the Observer last weekend about Patrick McCabe, which talks a lot about his new book The Big Yaroo (£12.99, pb, 978 1848407411) which is published by New Island Books this month. Here's another piece on New Statseman.com by the same writer (Megan Nolan, also an Irish author who’s just signed a big book deal, and is quite in vogue right now) explaining exactly why this sequel is something to be thrilled about and why The Butcher Boy, published in 1992, was such a turning point for Irish literature. The Big Yaroo is a roller-coaster of a read, it’s uproariously funny, terrifying and profound. As Nolan says, it reminds you of ‘the joy of McCabe’s sentences, and … how dangerous and thrilling Irish writing can be.’ Nicole Flattery called it ‘dark, irreverent, sharp and energetic—Pat McCabe’s exceptional gifts remain unparalleled’ and I’m sure there will be more rave reviews to come.

Author Simon Parkin is on a bit of a roll at present, he’s got a non-fiction title A Game of Birds and Wolves out from Sceptre this month, which is currently being turned into a film by Steven Spielberg's production company! He’s also a regular contributor to the Guardian's Long Read, a contributing writer for the New Yorker, and the game critic for the Observer. A good time therefore to flag up a new edition of his blockbusting Lorenz title, An Illustrated History of 151 Video Games (978 0754823902, £14.99, hb) which has just been published in a new and updated edition. Beginning in the early 1970s, the book charts five decades of the game evolution. The story of each game is wittily described with loads of great trivia and quotations, and fully illustrated with over 1,000 photographs, screenshots and artwork. This celebratory reference and history by the man whom the New Statesman called ‘one of the most effortlessly masterful voices in video game writing’ will enthral any video games aficionado whether they are playing as a supersonic hedgehog, athletic archaeologist or moustachioed Italian plumber!

A major serialisation of May at 10 (£25, hb, 978 1785905179) by Downing Street's official historian Anthony Seldon began this week in the Times, you can see part one and two here and there were two more big extracts also. Written by one of Britain's leading political and social commentators, May at 10 describes how Theresa arrived in 10 Downing Street in with the clearest, yet toughest, agenda of any Prime Minister since the Second World War: delivering Brexit. What follows defies belief or historical precedent. Including a comprehensive series of interviews with May's closest aides and allies, and with unparalleled access to the advisers who shaped her premiership, Seldon decodes the enigma of the Prime Minister's tenure. Here’s a review in the Guardian entitled ‘Theresa May inflexible, introverted and surly, biography claims’ and also one in the Times saying ‘Readers of his 640-page account of May’s neuralgic time at the top may feel less indulgent to this brine-washed limpet of a prime minister, as incurious and foggy a figure as ever led this country.’

Lots of chat on social media this week about Labour’s crusade against ‘the elite’ with questions about who exactly ‘the elite’ are and whether they are necessarily bad! Plenty of reference was made to BBC Two's recent How to Break into the Elite documentary (available on the iPlayer here ) where Amol Rajan looked at how much class matters in Britain's top professions. It featured Daniel Laurison and Sam Friedman, authors of The Class Ceiling. Sam was described by Amol as ‘the Don when it come to the link between class and top jobs’ and discussing his research into social mobility, he reveals stats that are both shocking and depressing. The Class Ceiling: Why it Pays to be Privileged (978 1447336105, £9.99, pb) is published by Policy Press and the paperback of is coming inJanuary.

Exciting to see so many Compass publishers on the Saltire Awards shortlists this year! 404 Ink, winners of the Emerging Publisher Award in 2017 are shortlisted for the prestigious Publisher of the Year Award a Jane Haining’s A Life of Love and Courage is up for The Saltire Society Scottish Non-Fiction Book of the Year Award and First Among Equals for The Saltire Scottish History Book of the Year Award, both are published by Birlinn. Scotland, 1846: Living an Antislavery Life from Edinburgh University Press is also shortlisted for the Saltire Scottish History Book of the Year. Polygon New Poets: Iona Lee is shortlisted for the Calum Macdonald Memorial Award and Roseanne Watt's Shetlandic/English collection Moder Dy, also published by Polygon, is on the on the Poetry Award shortlist. The winner of each book award receives a cash prize of £2,000 and goes on to be considered for the top prize of Saltire Scottish Book of the Year, receiving a further £5,000.The winners of all eleven prizes will be announced at a ceremony in Edinburgh on Saturday 30 November.

Congrats to the wonderful City Books in Hove who won last week’s giveaway, a copy of Thunderbook: The World of Bond According to Smersh Pod (hb, £16.99, 978 0957507623) is now on its way to you! The Bond films have entertained annoyed, excited, bored, aroused and invigorated cinemagoers for more than fifty years. Who hasn't wanted to kick a big bloke with metal teeth in the groin? Fly a small plane out of a pretend horse's bottom? Or push a middle-aged man into space? No one, that's who. Thunderbook affectionately examines Bond with tongue firmly in cheek and elbow dug in ribs. Join John Rain as he goes film-by-film pointing out all the good, the bad, and the double-taking pigeons contained within Bond's half-century of world domination. It’s out from Polaris on 7 November.

And if you want to text yourself on your Bond knowledge – then why not try this quiz from the 007.com website!

Here to Stay, Here to Fight: A Race Today Anthology (£17.99, pb, 978 0745339757) which has just been published by Pluto was extracted in Ceasefire magazine, you can read that one here and there’s a brilliant interview which you can watch on YouTube here with one of its authors Leila Howe talking about the book and also discussing racist and sexist abuse against Dianne Abbott, FBI infiltration of Black Panther-inspired groups, the knife crime epidemic in London and the difference between the activism of the previous generations and the activism today. Fascinating stuff. Here to Stay, Here to Fight, is the first book-length anthology of its kind, providing an overview of Race Today's 15-year history, as well as exploring its impressive legacy in contemporary social movements.

A brilliant review for David Constantine's collection The Dressing-Up Box (hb, £14.99, 978 1912697212) in the Guardian this week here calling it an ‘intelligent, unshowy and often moving collection.’ David also wrote a piece for Big Issue North this week, about his work with the homeless in the 1960s, and how it inspired him to tell the truth about people through his stories. The characters in The Dressing Up Box are all in pursuit of sanctuary; the violence and mendacity of the outside world presses in from all sides be it the ritualised brutality suffered by children at a Catholic orphanage, or the harrowing videos shared among refugees of an atrocity 'back home'. In each case, the characters withdraw into themselves, sometimes abandoning language altogether, until something breaks and they can retreat no further. In Constantine's luminous prose, these stories capture such moments in all their clarity. It was published by Comma in September.

Lots of PR for First Aid for Your Child’s Mind (£12.99, pb, 978 1788601177). There will be a feature in Families Nationwide magazine, Jan/Feb 20, a review in Families SE, Jan/Feb 20, a double page interview in The Weekly News, a 500 word feature in Toddle About entitled  'Practical Techniques and Words to Manage Children's Worries', and a feature in the Spring 2020 issue of Country Child magazine. Alicia Eaton is a Harley Street practitioner with over fifteen years’ experience of helping children to feel more confident and as Elaine Halligan (Director of The Parent Practice) says, ‘This book will come as a huge relief to so many parents by helping them understand that much anxiety is actually part of everyday childhood worries and doesn’t need to be catastrophised.’

A great piece about Secret Alliances: Special Operations and Intelligence in Norway 1940-1945 (978 1785904776, £25, hb) in the Times this week. Secret Alliances is published by Biteback next week, and is an extraordinary book in which historian Tony Insall reveals how some of the most striking achievements of the Norwegian resistance were the detailed reports produced by intelligence agents living in the dangerous conditions of the country's desolate wilderness. Offering dramatic details on operations such as the Nazis plans to build an atomic bomb and the sinking of the Tirpitz in November 1944, Secret Alliances is an authoritative new perspective on some of the most remarkable exploits of the Second World War.

You can read an excerpt from Resist (£14.99, hb, 978 1912697076) from Comma’s collection of British protest history inspired stories, on the Minor Literatures website here. The Done Thing by Luan Goldie is based on the Ford Dagenham Women's Strike of 1968. At a time that feels unprecedented in British politics, with unlawful prorogations of parliament, casual race-baiting by senior politicians, and a climate crisis that continues to be ignored it's easy to think these are uncharted waters for us, as a democracy. But Britain has seen political crises and far-right extremism before, just as it has witnessed regressive, heavy-handed governments. Eventually, people have called it out, stood up, resisted and in this new collection spanning two millennia of British protest, authors, historians and activists re-imagine twenty acts of defiance.

A full spread feature for Yorkshire Coast Path by Andrew Vine (pb, £14.99, 978 0993291180) in the November issue of Yorkshire Life, which has a circulation of 12,000. You can see the online version here and admire some of the gorgeous pics from this terrific book! This definitive walking guide maps the whole route on large-scale OS maps and is packed with colour photos, making it an essential purchase for the long-distance walker and afternoon stroller alike. It’s published by Safe Haven.

Super piece in the Guardian here about how Brian May found the two missing cards needed to complete the new edition of Diableries: Stereoscopic Adventures in Hell (£60, hb, 978 1999667436). which has just been published by London Stereoscopic. The tale of how for nearly 30 years, May has attempted to collect all 182 of the 19th-century French stereoscopic photography cards featuring scenes such as The Infernal Cavalry, Satan the Journalist and Bicycle Race in Hell is a fascinating one.

Now that Halloween is over and the ghouls and ghosties are back in their coffins, I enjoyed this deliciously scary read in the Guardian about which books frighten the bejezus out of horror authors!

And in this week’s Hot Topics, here's James Corden talking to Kanye West in a special ‘Airpool Karaoke’, here's the BBC on the correct etiquette for asking for a celeb selfie, (as Dame Emma Thompson is said to have been horrified to learn a waiter lost his job for asking for one with her) and here's a trailer for series three of The Crown which is starting on 17 November – I can’t wait! 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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The James Bond franchise is one of the most successful in cinema history. It’s now over fifty years old, yet still as popular and lucrative as ever. Smersh Pod is a cult podcast celebrating the films, with 40,000 downloads a month, and now its creator John Rain has written Thunderbook (£16.99, hb, 978 0957507623) which is, as Al Murray commented,

 ‘an affectionately droll Bond-by-Bond stroll through the films we know and love, whether we like them or not.’ It is the perfect Christmas gift for Bond lovers, an entertaining and informative read that will prime them for the new adventure No Time To Die which is due for release in April 2020. It has been selected for the BA Christmas Catalogue and there is a full-page ad in the November issue of Total Film. Reviews, features and interviews are planned for Empire and the Guardian. As well as Al Murray, another celeb endorsement comes from Kathy Burke who called it ‘beautifully observed and a laugh-out-loud joy’. Smershpod is already promoting the book extensively through all their social media channels and one lucky bookseller can win a copy of it by emailing laura@birlinn.co.uk with their bookshop name and address and Thunderbook in the subject line.

And for Bond fans, you can watch a trailer for No Time to Die here.

Sustainability is the buzz word for businesses right now, and as the Economist said, ‘The Battle to Do Good: Inside McDonald’s Sustainability Journey (hb, £6.99, 978 1787568167) is a must-read even for those who are cynical about the business of corporate social responsibility.’ In it, former McDonald's executive Bob Langert takes readers on a behind-the-scenes eye witness account of the mega brand giant's decades-long battle to address numerous hot-button issues, such as packaging, waste, recycling, obesity, deforestation and animal welfare. Bob gave a talk at the TEDSummit 2019 earlier this year which will be released on TED.com on 4th November and should lead to plenty of promotion from TED on their social media channels, newsletters, homepage, etc. You can find out more at www.ted.com/speakers/bob_langert. Packed with first-hand anecdotes, and scores of lessons learned, The Battle to Do Good is a real page turner that provides unique insights and guidance. It’s published by Emerald.

Always a pleasure to hear the wonderful Brian May talking about his books with London Stereoscopic, and this morning he was on Radio 2’s Zoe Ball’s Breakfast Show promoting Diableries: Stereoscopic Adventures in Hell (£60, hb, 978 1999667436). This cult classic (in a new edition which now includes the two long lost cards that were missing from the first edition) provides a rare and satirical look at an 1860s view of Hell. Thanks to Brian's imagination and his determination to share the wonders of these weird and wonderful 3D cards which show scenes of torture, fire, and every variety of licentious behaviour; readers can find themselves transported them to a nightmarish netherworld. And it’s published (of course) on Halloween! You can listen again to Brian on Radio 2 this morning here.

A fantastic party at the Tate Modern in London this week for Carcanet’s 50th birthday. In November, there will be more festivities in Carcanet’s home town of Manchester and there are also lots of events at bookshops and literary festivals to come. You can find out more about the celebrations for the Jubilee on their website here. Pictured here is founder and MD Michael Schmidt speaking at the party and here in the Bookseller you can read an interview where he discusses the highs and lows of the press's history and their plans for the future.

A brilliant sold-out launch at Off the Shelf Festival Of Words in Sheffield this week for The Book of Sheffield (£9.99, pb, 978 1912697137). You can hear its editor Catherine Taylor, and contributor to the collection Desiree Reynolds, discussing the book on BBC Radio Sheffield also this week here and you can read Catherine's fab piece for the Guardian about her summer job in a cutlery factory in Sheffield in the late 1980s here. From the aspirations of young creatives, to the more immediate demands of refugees, scrap metal collectors, and student radicals; these stories offer ten different look-out points from which to gaze down on the ever-changing face of the 'Steel City'. It’s part of Comma’s popular Reading the City series.

A former marketing director at Pepsi and managing director at HEAD sports, Chris Radford launched his own strategy consulting firm in 1996. He helped Mars create the Celebrations chocolate brand, turned Galaxy into a brand leader in the Middle East and helped make Miracle Gro the market leader in gardening. He has enabled many businesses to take their brands to the next level with his distinctive 'Differentiate' method and now he’s put it all into a book: Attractive Thinking: The Five Questions that Drive Successful Brand Strategy and How to Answer Them (978 11788601030, pb, £15.99). In it, readers can discover the five key questions you must answer to create a better brand strategy and the tools to deliver it. It’s out from Practical Inspiration on 1 November.

Many parents and teachers worry that in these days of endless tests, children’s imagination and originality is getting lost. A new title from Crown Storycraft (978 14785834028, pb, £16.99) is a practical resource to support secondary school teachers in developing their students’ creative writing. This book is not a style manual. Authors Martin Griffin and Jon Mayhew think there are plenty of those about. Instead, it picks apart the craft of narrative writing and provides activities designed to help their students overcome the difficulties they experience when tasked with creating something from nothing. Written by two fiction writers and experienced teachers, Storycraft packs in expert guidance relating to idea generation and the nature of story and provides writing prompts that teachers can immediately adopt and adapt in the classroom. We have three reading copies available for booksellers. Email rwilliams@crownhouse.co.uk with Storycraft in the subject box and your name and bookshop address to receive one.

Lots more publicity this week for Up Front (£20, hb, 978 1909245969) by Clive Allen. ‘You need to keep moving forward. If you stand still you eventually end up going backwards,’ said Clive chatting to Football.London. ‘It was completely bizarre,’ he says of that deal. ‘People who hear about it now can’t comprehend it. If someone paid what would be the equivalent these days of £50 million for a teenage striker, they wouldn’t be moving them on without even playing them,’ that’s here in his interview by Jim White for the Telegraph. ‘I am not drinking with you,’ he said. ‘You are cheats.’ The Evening Standard ran an extract of Clive and Arsene Wenger’s turbulent meetings, that one’s here.  Knees Up Mother Brown sat down with Clive and talked career, West Ham and his new book, that’s here and finally here's an article in the Belfast Telegraph.

Many congratulations to Parwana Fayyaz who won the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem for Forty Names, which was originally published in PN Review 241 (978 1784101527, £6.99). You can find out more and read about all the winners here. The Forward Prizes are the leading awards for poetry published in the UK and Ireland and Parwana’s poem draws inspiration both narrative and lyrical from medieval Persian traditions. You can read the Forty Names here.

Would you rather eat the food and drink from the Harry Potter books, or that in Disney films? Find out here!

And in this week’s Hot Topics, this week’s top story has got to be which words have made it into the new edition of the Oxford English Dictionary and whether you know what they all mean! Omnishambles? Sumphy? Chirpse? Arlarse? For all 650 new additions, have a look here and there’s an entertaining article discussing them here.

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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Good Vibes Good Life by Instagram guru Vex King (£10.99, pb, 978 1788171823) is flying high for Hay House at the moment, they sold almost 5,500 copies last month, which is their highest monthly volume on any one title had to date. It you’re not stocking it then you are seriously missing out! Vex King is an optimist, visionary and philanthropist. His father died when he was six months old and his single mother raised him and his siblings alone in a traditional Indian household, although they were often homeless. He suffered racist abuse in a violent neighbourhood but did well at school, then went on to work in a corporate job, while pursuing a career in fashion and music production where he worked with stars including Tinie Tempah. He is now a major voice in the world of personal development and spiritual wisdom through his Instagram account @vexking.

If you want a bit of Vex vibes in your life right now, then this  is cool – just take a screenshot/press print screen when you feel the urge, to receive your own personalised message from the universe!

A big serialisation for And What Do You Do? What The Royal Family Don't Want You To Know by Norman Baker (978 1785904912, £20, hb) began last weekend with four pages in the Mail on Sunday, who trumpeted ‘Where did Princess Margaret get £20m and how about the Queen Mother's £70m legacy? In his controversial new book, MP Norman Baker examines the family's finances as he accuses the Windsors of Right Royal Robbery’

 with another extract to follow this weekend. You can read it here. It’s just been published by Biteback. The Daily Mirror said it ‘brilliantly exposes how a Ruritanian farce is ripping us off. Vive la British revolution!’ while Caroline Lucas gave a rather more balanced review saying ‘with our democracy in turmoil, it's right to be asking questions about constitutional reform, and that includes the role of the royal family. Norman Baker tackles the subject with his trademark energy and in forensic detail looking at the facts beyond the headlines. An important book for anyone serious about questioning how our country is run.’

Perhaps now would be a good time to laugh at this  Spitting Image sketch from the 90’s where the royal family lose all their money and move to a council flat…

Great publicity for Up Front (£20, hb, 978-1909245969 ) by Clive Allen in the Mail on Sunday this week, that’s here. Also a fab interview in The Athletic.com here  where Clive revisited all seven of the London clubs he played for. ‘What Clive Allen and I are attempting is no mean feat, a visit to all seven of the London clubs he played for. Throw in a stint playing American football for the London Monarchs, and there can surely be no player with more links to the capital than Allen. Perhaps what we’re doing will become a pub crawl one day.’ Up Front was published yesterday by De Coubertin.

James Baldwin (1924-1987) was an African-American writer who changed the face of Western politics and culture. As a lifelong anti-imperialist, black queer advocate, and feminist, he was a passionate chronicler of the rise of the Civil Rights Movement, the U.S. war against Vietnam, Palestinian liberation struggle, and the rise of LGBTQ rights. In a brilliant new biography James Baldwin: Living in Fire (hb, £20, 978 0745338545) from Pluto, Bill V. Mullen explores how Baldwin's life and work channel the long history of African-American freedom struggles, and explains how he both predicted and has become a symbol of the global Black Lives Matter movement. This is the first major biography of Baldwin in more than a decade and there was a great review of it in the Herald, calling it ‘persuasive and illuminating’ you can read that here.

Exciting news this week that The Comma Press Podcast has been shortlisted for Podcast of the Year by the FutureBook Awards 2019! It’s one of seven shortlisted, alongside podcasts from Penguin, Waterstones and Sara Pascoe. Series One of the podcast focused on the Comma anthology Protest: Stories of Resistance (£12.99, pb, 978 1910974438) with author historians and activists gathered in the studio for engaging and in-depth discussions around the stories and acts of defiance they reimagined. You can read more about that and see all of the shortlists in the Bookseller here here.

This is something I’d like to see a lot more of, an author who dresses up as their own book! This is a moquette-clad Andrew Martin, at last week's sell-out event for Safe Haven’s bestselling new title Seats of London (£12.99, pb, 978-1916045316) at Stanfords in Covent Garden. There was a great feature in the weekend's Observer on the book which you can read here and reviews are also coming in Buses magazine, the magazine of the Twentieth-Century Society, and a feature in It's Nice That.

Congratulations to author Jemma Neville who won the City Award in the 2019 Creative Edinburgh Awards for her exploration of the city's physical, political and social environment in her new book Constitution Street (£12.99, pb, 978 1912489206). You can see all the winners on the Creative Edinburgh website here.  Part memoir, part social history and a call to action, Constitution Street is an antidote to an age of personal and political anxiety. Here, the real-life stories on one street, shared with Jemma Neville and framed by her own, reveal the courage, perseverance and capacity for love within us all. It’s published by 404Ink.

Have you ever wondered if there is a formula for being happy? Would you like to gain control of your life and feel more confident? How can you set about achieving your goals? Amanda Brown’s quest to find answers to these questions has taken her across continents on a personal journey of study and practice as a successful life coach and speaker. She shares her knowledge, insights and success stories in The Lipstick Principles (£12.99, pb, 978 1788601368), which is coming from Practical Inspiration on 21 November. Helen Cornwell Lee said of it ‘Every now and then a book comes along that unlocks and changes the way you see the world in a way that means you want to share it with everyone you care about – this is such a book.’

Ahead of this year’s Forward Prizes for Poetry the Telegraph is publishing the five nominees for the Best Single Poem award which includes Forty Names by Parwana Fayyaz, which was published in PN Review 241 (978 1784101527, £6.99) which Simon Armitage has called ‘the most engaged, challenging and serious-minded of all the UK’s poetry magazines’ and John Ashbery, ‘the most informative and entertaining poetry journal in the English-speaking world.’ Fayyaz's shortlisted poem retells ‘a story told by my father or mother when I was a child about forty women jumping off a cliff to preserve their honour’ and draws inspiration both narrative and lyrical from medieval Persian traditions. You can read the whole poem on the Forward Prizes website here.

Pluto are getting lots of great publicity for their new Outspoken series, and Behind Closed Doors: Sex Education Transformed which you see here looking mighty fine in Foyles. You can listen to its author Natalie Fiennes, talking with Lydia Hughes, a trade union organiser,

and Bryony Walker, a social justice activist involved in the Level Up campaign to change the UK curriculum around consent; talking on the Pluto podcast Radicals in Conversation here.  

There’s a great promotion for Amber’s Visual Explorer Guide: Egypt (pb, £9.99, 978 1782748731) by Trevor Naylor on the MailOnline Travel section which you can see here.  From ancient pyramids and temples to bustling cities and luxury beach resorts these incredible pictures show Egypt in all its glory – have a look!

And in this week’s Hot Topics, here is Times cartoonist Morten Morland’s take on Boris’s Brexit deal, here's Mr Broccoli (who went viral when he shouted 'give peas a chance' during his arrest at the Extinction Rebellion protests) being interviewed by Piers and Susannah and  here's  the new Katy Perry song, Harleys in Hawaii. 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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As Halloween approaches, can I draw your attention to Tales of the Troubled Dead: Ghost Stories in Cultural History (£14.99, pb 978 1474417372) which has just been published by Edinburgh University Press. Why do ghosts, even in the age of science, still haunt our storytelling? Catherine Belsey's fascinating answer to this question traces Gothic writing and tales of the uncanny from the ancient past of Homer and the Icelandic sagas, through to the present. Taking the Ghost in Hamlet as a turning point in the history of the genre, she uncovers a ghostly trail vividly charted through accredited records of apparitions and fiction by such writers as Ann Radcliffe, Washington Irving, Emily Bronte, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry James, M. R. James and Susan Hill right through to recent blockbusting movies. The Financial Times have just reviewed it and said it was ‘an engaging examination of the persistence of these tales in the western canon.’

And if anyone fancies a bit of a frightening Friday, then have a look at these top ten legendary ghosts!

Great review here of the The BBC National Short Story Award 2019 anthology (£7.99, pb, 978 1912697229) on Storgy.com which says ‘A short story has the ability to move, intrigue and seduce in ways that are specific to the form. Of the five short stories included in The BBC National Short Story Award 2019, each bring those merits and more to the forefront.’

I’m getting very excited indeed about the forthcoming series of War of the Worlds from the BBC – trailer here. Don’t forget that Legend Classics have a handsome edition of War of the Worlds (£8.99, pb, 978 1789550634) which is available now! ‘Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us…’

Burning Up: A Global History of Fossil Fuel Consumption (£18.99, pb, 978 0745335612) by Simon Pirani is a a major contribution to understanding the greatest crisis of our time. It recounts the history of fossil fuels' relentless rise since the mid twentieth century; of all the fossil fuels ever consumed, more than half were burned in the last 50 years. Dispelling explanations foregrounding Western consumerism, and arguments that population growth is the main problem, Pirani shows how fossil fuels are consumed through technological, social and economic systems, and that these systems must change. It was mentioned in the New Statesman this week and you can read that piece here. It’s published by Pluto

The six-week publicity campaign for First Aid for Your Child’s Mind (pb, £12.99, 9781788601177) gets underway with The Book Publicist this week, so you can expect lots of coverage in the run up to its publication by Practical Inspiration on 24th October. This title has just been loaded to Netgalley and can be viewed here.  The number of children suffering from anxiety is on the rise and most parents will readily admit that they feel ill prepared when it comes to supporting their child’s emotional wellbeing. Alicia Eaton is a Harley Street practitioner with over fifteen years’ experience of helping children to feel more confident. Whether your child has a fear of dogs, spiders, dentists or injections, struggles with school, performing on stage or sleeping at night, this book will teach you the simple solutions that every parent needs to know.

An excellent signing session at the Royal Academy Bookshop last weekend, with John Hockney talking about and signing lots of copies of The Hockneys: Never Worry What the Neighbours Think (£25, hb, 978 1789550733). This title is shaping up to be a big bestseller for Legend this Christmas!  

We were delighted to see Hassan Blasim's Iraqi Christ named in Literary Hub's '10 Best Short Story Collections of the Decade' you can see that  here. In 2014 it bagged the Iraqi author Blasim and his translator Jonathan Wright the Independent Foreign Fiction prize, now the International Booker. (It was first published by Comma, and is now published in the US by Penguin as The Corpse Exhibition, which is what it’s listed as here.)

Some great PR for Red Door's Mindfulness at Work and Home focussing on Mental Health Day this week, there were pieces in Forbes Online (10 Oct) and BA Up to Speed (11 Oct) and there’s a feature tomorrow in the Daily Telegraph Weekend (12 Oct). There will also be articles in the December issues of Northern Woman and Flight Time. Its author Gillian Higgins has been practicing as a war crimes barrister for the past 20 years. Juggling life at the bar and bringing up her daughter led her to mindfulness, as she wanted to be more present, feel less reactive, sleep better and improve her ability to respond to the challenges that a career and parenting can bring. She has pioneered work in the field of mindfulness amongst her fellow professionals and is building her reputation as a leader in this field. You can find out lots more about the book on Gillian’s excellent website www.practicalmeditation.co.uk

A truly terrific review for Patrick Kidd's The Weak Are A Long Time in Politics (£9.99, hb 978 1785905339) in the Times last weekend, which said ‘Kidd’s language is as joyously absurdist as Wodehouse's … I predict his masterly volume will be considered vastly more enjoyable, and insightful, than any of the dour official chronicles of our era.’ They also gave a big thumbs up to Peter Brookes' brilliant new collection of acerbic sketches of contemporary political life, Critical Times (£20, hb, 978 1785905209), featuring several cartoons from this master of satire and multiple winner of the Cartoonist of the Year. Both have just been published by Biteback.

Bookshop Day on 5th October was a big hit again this year following Super Thursday on 3 Oct (which saw 426 hardbacks hit the shelves) seems to have driven footfall to the independent bookshops over the weekend, according to the Bookseller. Booksellers have hailed Philip Pullman and Bill Bryson as the highlights of this year with a bumper weekend of events taking place up and down the country. Many indie booksellers think 2019 is shaping up to be a stellar year for publishing. Hungerford Books owner Alex Milne-White said he was optimistic for booksellers in the run up to the festive period, enthusing he couldn't remember there being as many highly anticipated titles this time last year. Hazel Broadfoot of Village Books in Dulwich said ‘I feel quite optimistic for my bookshop because there are loads of really good books out there. It’s a really exciting season, there are stacks of good things.’ Richard Drake of Drake the Bookshop in Stockton said ‘What is really exciting is the number of signed copies that are around, meaning the indies have a slightly different offer to give to our loyal (and new) customers.’ Blackwell's head of marketing and publicity Zool Verjee said ‘the excitement builds towards a very promising Christmas’ while Julie Danskin, manager at Golden Hare Books in Edinburgh, said ‘Indie bookshops all do their own thing so it's nice when there is a national campaign like this. We each put our own spin on it and chat throughout the day. It's always really successful.’ I hear Golden Hare Books were giving away free cakes, which sounds like my sort of books promotion! Here’s hoping all bookshops large and small have an awesome autumn, and a fantastic festive season!

And for this week’s Hot Topics, I don’t think there’s any topic much hotter than the ongoing spat between Rebekah #Wagamama Vardy and Coleen #WagathaChristie Rooney! Here's a summary of the story, here are the best memes so far and here's the brilliant Marina Hyde’s summary in the Guardian!

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