July
Independence An Argument for Home Rule Alasdair Gray £10.99 A polemic on the case for Scottish independence by the writer, artist, thinker and cultural icon, Alasdair Gray Description Gray argues that a truly independent Scotland will only ever exist when people in every home, school, croft, farm, workshop, factory, island, glen, town and city feel that they too are at the centre of the world. Independence asks whether widespread social welfare is more possible in small nations such as Norway and New Zealand than in big ones like Britain and the U.S.A. It describes the many differences between Scotland and England. It examines the people who choose to live north of the border. It shows Scotland’s relevance to the rest of the world. It attempts to conjure a vision of how a Scots parliament might benefit the people of this small but dynamic nation. And it tells how democracy will only truly succeed when every person believes that their vote will make a difference.
Reviews ‘A necessary genius’ ALI SMITH ‘One of the most gifted writers to have put pen to paper in the English language’ IRVINE WELSH ‘Superb’ INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY ‘A great writer, perhaps the greatest writer living in Britain today’ WILL SELF
The Author Since 1981, when Alasdair Gray’s first novel (Lanark: A Life in Four Books) was published by Canongate, he has published twenty books, most of them novels and short stories. In his own words, ‘Alasdair Gray is a fat, spectacled, balding, increasingly old Glaswegian pedestrian who has mainly lived by writing and designing books, most of them fiction.’
Publication Details Book Category: Non Fiction Format: Demy Trade Paperback ISBN: 9781782111696 Ebook: 9781782111733 Rights Held: W
July
The Last Banquet Jonathan Grimwood £7.99 A story of revolution, obsession and one man’s hunger Description Starting life in the gutter, Jean-Marie d’Aumout rises through the ranks of eighteenth-century French society propelled by his wits and an obsession with finding the perfect taste. But beyond the palace walls, revolution is in the air and the country is clamouring with a hunger of a different kind.
The Author
‘Brilliantly imagined . . . Romance and adventure drip off every page’ THE TIMES
Jonathan Grimwood has written for the Guardian, The Times, the Telegraph and the Independent . He is married to the journalist and novelist Sam Baker. They divide their time between Winchester and Paris.
‘Astonishing’ INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY
Publication Details
Reviews ‘A feast for the senses. I loved it’ JOJO MOYES
‘Wonderfully enjoyable. Captures the colour, the decadence and tawdry glamour of Versailles beautifully’ CAROL BIRCH, author of Jamrach’s Menagerie
Book Category: Non Fiction Format: B Format Paperback ISBN: 9780857868817 Ebook: 9780857868824 Rights Held: WxEinUS
July
Blackbird Tom Wright £12.99 A little knowledge is a dangerous thing
TOM
WRIGHT
BLACKBIRD ‘Hypnotic, menacing and powerful’ MARK BILLINGHAM
Description Dr. Deborah Gold died on the cross sometime during a night of freezing rain in late October of my last year at Three. It probably wasn’t the worst thing that happened to her that day, but it had been over two decades in the making . . .’ The day after a terrible storm, electricity still crackling in air, a woman is found dead on the outskirts of a Texan town. She has been brutally attacked and nailed to a cross. The victim is Dr Deborah Gold, a psychologist who has taken a lot of people’s secrets to her grave. Which means a lot of suspects for Detective Jim Beaudry to investigate. And lately he could use a little psychological help himself . . .
Praise for Tom Wright’s debut What Dies in Summer:
A JIM BONHAM CASE
The Author Tom Wright lives in Texarkana, Texas and is a practicing clinical psychotherapist. Blackbird is his second novel. His first novel, What Dies in Summer, also published by Canongate, was shortlisted for the CWA Silver Dagger in 2012
SHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA SILVER DAGGER ‘Terrific’ IAN RANKIN ‘Superb, practically flawless’ SUNDAY TIMES ‘Suffused with chilling dread . . . I loved it’ SJ WATSON ‘Heralds the arrival of a major new writer’ DAILY MAIL
Publication Details Book Category: Fiction Format: Royal Hardback ISBN: 9781782113249 Trade Paperback: 9781782113553, £14.99 Ebook: 9781782113263 Rights Held: W
July
To the Letter A Journey Through a Vanishing World Simon Garfield £9.99 The paperback outing of this engaging history of letter-writing, from the bestselling author of Just My Type and On the Map Description In this thrilling journey through the world of correspondence, Simon Garfield uncovers a host of stories that illuminate our past and capture the magic of letter-writing. Stories that delight – from Oscar Wilde’s quirky method of sending letters, to cycling enthusiast Reginald Bray’s quest to post himself. Stories that show how little our letters have changed over the millennia – from Roman birthday party invitations to the modern writing style of Pliny the Younger. Stories of letters as historical vaults – from Napoleon’s needy pleas to his Josephine to Anne Boleyn’s letter to Henry VIII from the London dungeon. Stories of great loves – from Abelard and Heloise to Anaïs Nin and Henry Miller, and stories of literary correspondence – of Keats and Kerouac, Hemingway and Hughes. And as the book unfolds, so does the story of a moving wartime correspondence that shows how letters can change the course of a life.
Reviews ‘Delightful’ DAILY MAIL ‘A shining success’ THE SUNDAY TIMES ‘Superb’ INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY ‘A wonderfully elegant history’ OBSERVER ‘Garfield’s book is stuffed with marvellous anecdotes, fascinating historical tidbits and excerpts from epistolary masters’ NEW YORK TIMES
The Author Simon Garfield is the author of fourteen acclaimed books of non-fiction including On the Map, Just My Type and The Wrestling. His edited diaries from the Mass Observation Archive, Our Hidden Lives, We Are At War and Private Battles, were bestsellers, and his study of AIDS in Britain, The End of Innocence, won the Somerset Maugham prize. He lives in London and St Ives, Cornwall.
Publication Details Book Category: Non Fiction Format: B Format Paperback ISBN: 9780857868619 Ebook: 9780857868602 Rights Held: WxEinUS,C
Aug
Every Short Story by Alasdair Gray, 1951-2012 Alasdair Gray £19.99 An authoritative collection of Alasdair Gray’s stories gathered over the last sixty-two years Description The first sixteen tales in this collection were published by Canongate in 1983 with the title Unlikely Stories, Mostly. This collection also has fiftyseven tales from later books, plus sixteen new ones published together for the first time. This last section, Tales Droll and Plausible, shows that Gray’s recent twenty-first-century fiction is as uncomfortably funny and up to date as his earliest.
Reviews ‘A typically compendious, inspiring, infuriating gallimaufry of [Gray’s] short form prose . . . he is indeed a National Treasure’ SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY ‘Consistently entertaining. This book is exhaustive, but never exhausting’ SUNDAY TELEGRAPH ‘Gray is a genius, a born storyteller’ GUARDIAN ‘One of the most gifted writers to have put pen to paper in the English language’ IRVINE WELSH
The Author Since 1981, when Alasdair Gray’s first novel (Lanark: A Life in Four Books) was published by Canongate, he has published twenty books, most of them novels and short stories. In his own words, ‘Alasdair Gray is a fat, spectacled, balding, increasingly old Glaswegian pedestrian who has mainly lived by writing and designing books, most of them fiction.’
Publication Details Book Category: Fiction Format: Demy Trade Paperback ISBN: 9780857865618 Ebook: 9780857865625 Rights Held: W
Aug
Twilight of the Eastern Gods Ismail Kadare £16.99
The first novel from Man Booker International Prize-winner Ismail Kadare, in English for the first time Description In 1958 Ismail Kadare was selected to pursue his writing as a graduate student at the prestigious Gorky Institute for World Literature in Moscow. Twilight of the Eastern Gods is Kadare’s fictionalised recreation of his time spent at this strange ‘factory of the intellect’ set up to produce a new generation of socialist poets, novelists and playwrights. During his time in Moscow Kadare was caught up in the controversy over Boris Pasternak’s Nobel Prize win, with campaigners, radio, television and newspapers across the Soviet Union demanding that Pasternak refuse the foreign bourgeois award or be sentenced to exile. His time at the Gorky institute, with its drunken nights, corrupt professors, privileged yet servile students and its enforced Soviet Realism brought Kadare to the brink of abandoning writing altogether. Twilight of the Eastern Gods is a portrait of a city and a captured moment in time, it is a story of youth, of disenchantment and of the incredible importance of the written word.
Reviews ‘One of the most compelling novelists now writing in any language’ WALL STREET JOURNAL ‘His fiction offers invaluable insights into life under tyranny - his historical allegories point both to the grand themes and small details that make up life in a restrictive environment. He is a great writer, by any nation’s standards’ FINANCIAL TIMES ‘Ismail Kadare is this generation’s Kafka’ INDEPENDENT ‘There are very few writers alive today with the depth, power and resonance of this remarkable novelist’ HERALD
The Author
Born in 1936, Ismail Kadare is Albania’s best-known poet and novelist. Translations of his novels have appeared in more than forty countries. In 2005 he was awarded the first Man Booker International Prize for ‘a body of work written by an author who has had a truly global impact’. He is the recipient of the highly prestigious 2009 Principe de Asturias de las Letras in Spain. David Bellos, Director of the Program in Translation at Princeton University, is also the translator of Georges Perec’s Life A User’s Manual and a winner of the Goncourt Prize for biography. He has translated seven of Ismail Kadare’s novels, and in 2005 was awarded the Man Booker International Prize for his translations of Kadare’s work.
Publication Details Book Category: Fiction Format: Demy Hardback ISBN: 9780857860101 Ebook: 9780857868909 Rights Held: W/ExUS,C
Aug
The Awakening Kate Chopin £7.99 ‘Incisive, brilliant and haunting’ Maggie O’Farrell Description First published in 1899, The Awakening is widely regarded as one of the forerunners of feminist literature alongside Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina and Flaubert’s Madame Bovary. Over one long, languid summer Edna Pontellier, fettered by marriage and motherhood gradually awakens to her individuality and sexuality and experiences love outside of her passionless marriage. But as she discovers emotional freedom so she comes to realise the true extent of her psychological and social confinement and its terrible consequences for her future. This tender, brilliant, seductive and devastating novel is as beautifully written as it is politically engaging and in a world where fourth-wave feminism sees us hotly debating the inclusion of women on any banknotes The Awakening is as relevant today as when it was first published two centuries ago.
The Author Kate Chopin, born Katherine O’Flaherty in 1850, was one of the most individual and adventurous of nineteenth-century American writers, whose fiction explored new and often startling territory. She is the author of two novels, The Awakening and My Fault, and several short stories.
Reviews ‘A Creole Bovary is this little novel of Miss Chopin’s’ WILLA CATHER ‘Chopin’s slight, brittle and fierce novel became a classic and a cult, shocking readers with its candid and unsentimental portrait of marital infidelity . . . it remains delicately bitter and acidly angry’ OBSERVER
Publication Details Book Category: Fiction Format: A Format Paperback ISBN: 9781782114291 Ebook: 9781782114307 Rights Held: W
Sept
Welcome to Just a Minute!
W E LC O M E T O 12
The Official Companion to Britain's Best-Loved Radio Comedy
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Description The much-loved Radio 4 quiz show Just A Minute has been delighting listeners for over forty-six years. According to BBC figures, 2.51 million listeners tune in every week – 15.6% of the radio audience. The show’s chairman, Nicholas Parsons, has featured in every single episode since it was first broadcast in December 1967. In this first and only official Just A Minute book, endorsed by the BBC, Nicholas will guide us through the highs and lows of Britain’s longest-running radio comedy, reliving the funniest moments, re-introducing us to the exceptional panellists, old and new, genial and combative and marvelling at the linguistic contortions that have held a captive audience for so long.
Publication Details Book Category: Non Fiction Format: Royal Hardback ISBN: 9781782112471 Ebook: 9781782112488, £14.99 Rights Held: W/E
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The very first Just a Minute book, written by the show’s long-standing and much adored chairman
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The Author Nicholas Parsons was born in Grantham, Lincolnshire, in 1923. One of Britain’s bestloved entertainers, as well as presenting Just A Minute he has presented his comedy chat show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for the past thirteen years. He was awarded an OBE for his services to Drama and Broadcasting in 2003. He has also been voted Radio Personality of the Year in 1967 for his satirical radio show Listen to This Space, and in 2012 he received The Sony Radio Award for Lifetime Achievement. He first came to prominence in the late 50s in the comedy partnership with the late Arthur Haynes, which ran for a record ten years. He was then three years working with Benny Hill. He hosted the quiz show Sale of the Century, which ran for a record fourteen years. He has starred in a number of comedies and musicals in the West End and in the 90s appeared as the Narrator in six different productions of The Rocky Horror Show, two of which were in the West End. He has guested in a series of Dr Who and in the 50s appeared in many British comedy films, which keep returning to our television screens. He was awarded a CBE for his charitable work in 2014.
Sept
Instrumental James Rhodes £18.99 ‘The unforgettable story of an unforgettable and remarkable man’ Stephen Fry Description James Rhodes has had an astonishing life. Told through a searingly honest narrative, he recalls the physical and sexual abuse he suffered as a child, his ensuing struggle with drugs and alcohol, and the nervous breakdown that led him to being sectioned. But there is a bright, broad beam of light piercing through the darkness, and it is James’ passion for classical music – a passion that enabled him to get through his tumultuous upbringing, to resign from his mindnumbing City job, and to become a renowned classical pianist. It is an extraordinary achievement that, after years of self-harming, suicide attempts and lots of therapy, James has got to where he is now thanks to sheer determination, countless hours of piano playing and a chance encounter with a stranger: fragile, scarred, but performing sold-out concerts around the world and becoming one of Channel 4’s key presenters. James is now an established presenter and commentator. His music, writing and social media savvy have won him a diverse loyal fanbase. A passionate tribute to the therapeutic powers of music, Instrumental also weaves in fascinating facts about how classical music works and the lives of some of the great composers. The result is a stunning, raw and inspirational memoir that will provoke, enlighten and inspire.
Reviews ‘James Rhodes has become my latest addiction. As a pianist, entertaining but always passionate and in the best sense serious about music, his wit on stage and concentration on the keyboard have earned him a new audience for whom classical music had always appeared stuffy and elitist. As for his life and personality - they transcend the imagination of the most vivid novelist. His story is one filled with unimaginable terrors and unconquerable triumphs’ STEPHEN FRY ‘James’ book is every bit as brilliant and heartfelt as his playing’ DERREN BROWN
Photo Credit: Dave Brown
The Author James Rhodes was born in London in 1975. A keen piano player, he was offered a scholarship when he was 18 at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, but went to Edinburgh University instead. James stopped playing the piano entirely and dropped out after a year. After twelve months working at Burger King in Paris, he went to University College, London to read psychology. He then worked in the City for 5 years. His tragic past eventually caught up with him and he had a devastating mental breakdown that led him to being sectioned. He is now a professional and acclaimed concert pianist, writer and TV presenter.
Publication Details Book Category: Non Fiction Format: Demy Hardback ISBN: 9781782113379 Ebook: 9781782113386 Rights Held: W
Sept
Jerry Lee Lewis: His Own Story Jerry Lee Lewis £20.00 A landmark memoir from the godfather of Rock and Roll
Description Otherwise known as The Killer, Jerry Lee Lewis has lived an extraordinary life. As a young man he had a strict religious upbringing, before he became taken with the piano and became a pioneer of rock ‘n’ roll, and went on to write mega-hits such as ‘Great Balls of Fire’ and ‘Whole Lotta Shakin’. He recorded with Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley and rode high on teen euphoria before his career came crashing down on an ill-fated tour of the UK . . . Lewis has been a notoriously fiery personality for most of his life, and this deeply personal account promises to set the record straight. Burn and Rave reveals the truth behind the Last Man Standing of the rock ‘n’ roll era.
Publication Details Book Category: Non Fiction Format: Royal Hardback ISBN: 9780857861573 Trade Paperback: 9780857861580, £14.99 Ebook: 9780857861603 Rights Held: UKCWxC,neEU
The Author In 1986, Jerry Lee Lewis was the first person inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame. He has had 14 no.1 hits and 42 top 20 singles and 22 top 20 albums and has won a Lifetime Achievement Grammy. Lewis is the last surviving member of both the Million Dollar Quartet which included Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Elvis Presley. Rick Bragg is an American journalist. Joining the New York Times in 1994, he went on to cover the unrest in Haiti and the Oklahoma City bombing, and in 1996 won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing. Bragg is the author of five books: All Over but the Shoutin, Ava’s Man, The Prince of Frogtown, I Am a Soldier Too: The Jessica Lynch Story, and The Most They Ever Had. He is now a professor on the journalism program at the University of Alabama’s College of Communications and Information Sciences.
Sept
A Peanuts Guide to Life Charles M. Schulz
A brand new series of beautiful small-format themed gift books, featuring the much-loved Peanuts characters For the millions of faithful Charles Schulz fans this is the first in a new series to cherish that will see the beguiling Peanuts gang share their sentiments on everything from food to friendship.
The Genius of Charlie Brown ISBN: 9781782113096, £7.99 Ebook: 9781782113157 Our favourite lovable loser and owner of the world’s most beloved beagle, Snoopy, Charlie Brown shares his wisdom on life in this beautifully produced gift book for all generations.
Life Lessons from Lucy ISBN: 9781782113119, £7.99 Ebook: 9781782113140 Our favourite cartoon cynic shares her wisdom on life in this beautifully produced gift book for all generations.
The Philosophy of Snoopy ISBN: 9781782111139, £7.99 Ebook: 9781782113133 The world’s most beloved beagle shares his wisdom on life in this beautifully produced gift book for all generations.
The Wisdom of Woodstock ISBN: 9781782113102, £7.99 Ebook: 9781782113126 Snoopy’s trusty side-kick Woodstock is the world’s most beloved bird. From his perch on top of Snoopy’s doghouse, Woodstock shares his wisdom on life in this beautifully produced gift book for all generations.
Richard Brautigan Backlist
Sept
Reissued in a new series style to mark the 30th anniversary of his death A Confederate General from Big Sur ISBN: 9781782113799 Ebook: 9781782113829 £9.99 Rights Held: UKCW,neEU,neH Jesse and Lee share a house owned by a very nice Chinese dentist, where it rains in the hall. They move to cabins on the cliffs at Big Sur where the deafening croaks of frogs can be temporarily silenced by the cry, ‘Campbell’s Soup’. Ultimately, we learn how the frogs are permanently silenced . . . and dreams disperse around a fire into 186,000 endings per second. In anticipating flower power and the ideals of the Sixties, Brautigan’s debut novel was at least at decade before its time and remains a weird and brilliant classic.
Revenge of the Lawn ISBN: 9781782113782 Ebook: 9781847676368 £9.99 Rights Held: UKCW,neEU,neH Revenge of the Lawn is Richard Brautigan in miniature and contains no fewer than 62 ultra-short stories set mainly in Tacoma, Washington (where the author grew up) and in the flower-powered San Francisco of the late fifties and early sixties. In their compacted form, which ranges from the murderously short ‘The Scarlatti Tilt’ to one-page wonders like the sexually poignant poetry of ‘An Unlimited Supply of 35 Millimetre Film’, Brautigan’s stories take us into a world where his fleeting glimpses of everyday strangeness leave stories and characters resonating in our heads long after they’re gone.
Trout Fishing in American ISBN: 9781782113805 Ebook: 9781782113812 £9.99 Rights Held: UKCW,neEU,neH Richard Brautigan’s wonderfully zany, hilarious episodic novel set amongst the rural waterways of America. Here’s a journey that begins at the foot of the Benjamin Franklin statue in San Francisco’s Washington Square, wanders through the wonders of America’s rural waterways and ends, inevitably, with mayonnaise. With pure inventiveness and free-wheeling energy, the counterpoint to all those angry Beatniks, Brautigan tells the story of rural America, and the hunt for a bit of trout fishing. Funny, wild and sweet, Trout Fishing in America is an incomparable guidebook to the delights of exploration – of a country and a mind. Sombrero Fallout ISBN: 9781782114130 Ebook: 9780857867629 £9.99 A heartbroken American writer starts a story about an ice-cold sombrero that falls inexplicably from the sky and lands in the centre of a small Southwest town. Devastated by the departure of his gorgeous Japanese girlfriend, he cannot concentrate on his writing and in frustration he throws away his beginning. But as the man searches through his apartment for strands of his lost love’s hair, the discarded story in the wastepaper basket – through some kind of elaborate origami – carries on without him. Arguments over the sombrero begin, one thing leads to another and before long all hell breaks loose in the normally sleep town. Brautigan’s fertile imagination twists and pulls at the ensuing chaos to come up with a tender, moving, surreal and incredibly funny tale that is told by a writer at the very peak of his creative powers.
Richard Brautigan was born in Tacoma, Washington where he spent much of his youth, before moving to San Francisco where he became involved with other writers in the Beat Movement. During the Sixties he became one of the most prolific and prominent members of the conter-cultural movement, and wrote some of his most famous novels including Trout Fishing in America, Sombrero Fallout and A Confederate General from Big Sur. He was found dead in 1984, aged 49, beside a bottle of alcohol and a .44 calibre gun. His daughter, Ianthe Brautigan, has written a biography of her father, You Can’t Catch Death. ‘He was an absolute original who found cause for celebration in the most unlikely places’ Guardian
Oct
Untitled Memoir Ray Winstone £20.00 From the fruit and veg stalls of Hackney to Hollywood’s red carpets – the first autobiography from the much-loved and admired British screen legend
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The Author Description Ray Winstone is a leading British actor who through his uncompromising and often haunting performances has established himself as the ultimate salt-of-the-earth diamond geezer. His astonishing talent for bringing out the humanity buried inside his most brutal hardmen characters – violent offender in Scum, wifebeater in Nil by Mouth, retired robber in Sexy Beast - has elevated him to the attention of Hollywood. Yet despite starring in films by Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg he has stayed in Essex all his life. Ray Winstone is a true British national treasure. Born in Hackney in 1957, Ray Winstone’s life story is a fascinating one, a rags-to-riches tale of a working class man who has literally fought his way to the top. Ray’s dad ran a fruit and veg stall, while his mum unloaded fruit machines. As a child, Ray would play on postBlitz bomb sites. His teen years were hallmarked by his success as an amateur boxer, while his weekly trips to the cinema with his father would prove just as formative. Like Michael Caine, Winstone is an East End boy with working class roots. This memoir is an inspiring and entertaining celebration of those roots.
Ray Winstone was born in February 1957, in Hackney Hospital. He moved to Enfield, at age seven, where his father and mother had a fruit and vegetable business. He started boxing at the age of twelve at the famous Repton Amateur Boxing Club, was three times London Schoolboy Champion and fought twice for England, UK. In ten years of boxing, he won over 80 medals and trophies. Ray studied acting at the Corona School and went on to star in award-winning films such as Scum (1979), Nil by Mouth (1997) and The Proposition (2005). He lives in London.
Publication Details Book Category: Non Fiction Format: Royal Hardback ISBN: 9781782112426 Trade Paperback: 9781782112433, £14.99 Ebook: 9781782112440, £12.99 Rights Held: W
Oct
The World According to Gogglebox Gogglebox £18.99 The official tie-in of the compulsive TV phenomenon Gogglebox Description Channel 4’s show Gogglebox has become a true TV phenomenon. In its third series, it has struck a chord across the nation. Millions of people are now addicted to watching the much-loved cast’s surprising and hilarious commentary on the week in television – and the entertaining and heart-warming insight into their lives and relationships. Gogglebox is not just about TV. It’s about what it means to be human, and what it means to be British. Whether it’s Leon and June you love, or Stephen and Chris you root for, or the Woerdenwebers or Sandy and Sandra who make you laugh the most, we all have a favourite family – and you can now read their views about everything from Jeremy Clarkson to the death of Baroness Thatcher, and from the best TV snacks to the most potent cocktails. The World According to Gogglebox tells you everything you’ve always wondered about the characters and more.
Publication Details Book Category: Non Fiction Format: Squat Royal Hardback ISBN: 9781782114895 Ebook: 9781782114918 Rights Held: UKCW,neEU
Oct
Lists of Note Shaun Usher £30.00 The follow-up to the Sunday Times bestselling Letters of Note – this time editor Shaun Usher turns his hand to lists
Description Humans have been making lists for even longer than they’ve been writing letters. In fact, there’s no human activity that can’t be expressed as a list: things to do, buy or store; things to hope for and aspire towards; things we like about ourselves or others; things we want to improve; things that make us laugh or cry; our favourite songs, books, paintings; things we remember from our childhood; things we want to do before we die. That’s what this book is full of – like Letters of Note, it is an anthology of all the different things that make us human. In its pages you’ll find 125 lists with facsimiles or illustrations, including: • The 19 year-old Isaac Newton’s list of the 57 sins he had already committed • Charles Darwin’s list of the pros and cons of getting married • Michelangelo’s illustrated shopping list from 1518 • Robert Heinlein’s 1949 list of predictions about the future • Advertising guru David Ogilvy’s list of rules for effective writing • The 16th century list of the ‘Eight Kindes of Drunkenesse’ • Galileo’s list of parts needed to build his telescope from 1609 • Walt Disney’s list of 47 possible names for the seven dwarfs • Anne Frank’s handwritten list of pseudonyms used to protect her family
Reviews ‘This stupendous compendium of letters ancient and modern is my book of the year. You will never tire of it’ STEPHEN FRY ‘A gloriously presented compilation’ FINANCIAL TIMES
The Author Shaun Usher was born in St. Albans in 1978 and currently lives in Wilmslow with his wife and two sons. He is the sole custodian of the popular blog, Letters of Note, a book of which was published in October 2013.
Publication Details Book Category: Non Fiction Format: Other ISBN: 9781782114529 Ebook: 9781782114536 Rights Held: W
Nov
The Book of Strange New Things Michel Faber £20.00 From the author of Under the Skin and The Crimson Petal and the White Description Peter Leigh is a husband, a Christian, and now a missionary. As The Book of Strange New Things opens, he is set to embark on a journey that will be the biggest test of his faith yet. From the moment he says goodbye to his wife, Bea, and boards his flight, he begins a quest that will challenge his religious beliefs, his love and his understanding of the limits of the human body. This momentous novel is Faber at his expectation-defying best. It is a brilliantly compelling book about love in the face of death, and the search for meaning in an unfathomable universe.
Reviews ‘Wildly entertaining’ NEW YORK TIMES ‘This is a man who could give Conrad a run at writing the perfect sentence’ GUARDIAN ‘Extremely sophisticated’ DAILY TELEGRAPH ‘You are unlikely to regret a single hour/day/month spent in Faber’s diverting, exuberant and intelligent company’ FINANCIAL TIMES
The Author Michel Faber has written eight books. In addition to the Whitbread-shortlisted Under the Skin, he is the author of the highly acclaimed The Crimson Petal and the White, The Fire Gospel and The Fahrenheit Twins. He has also written two novellas, The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps and The Courage Consort, and has won several short-story awards, including the Neil Gunn, Ian St James and Macallan. Born in Holland, brought up in Australia, he now lives in the Scottish Highlands.
Publication Details Book Category: Fiction Format: Royal Hardback ISBN: 9781782114062 Royal Trade Paperback: 9781782114079, £14.99 Ebook: 9781782114093, £14.99 Rights Held: WxEinUS,C
Nov
Weak Messages \ Create Bad Situations: A Manifesto David Shrigley £30.00 A manifesto from the Turner Prize-nominated artist with over 400 new works Description A personal message from the author: WEAK MESSAGES CREATE BAD SITUATIONS STRONG MESSAGES CREATE GOOD SITUATIONS We are in a bad situation and weak messages are to blame. Lots of individuals in society today are feeble-minded. They don’t know what the HELL is going on. Unfortunately many of these people are responsible for running THE COUNTRY. They don’t know the difference between a PRECIOUS JEWEL and piece of animal turd. Their ideas are MEANINGLESS, illustrated using RUBBISH imagery (often made by a computer). The stupid words they write are always in BAD FONTS. Yet still people HEED this nonsense. Maybe YOU are one of these people? It’s alright. I am here to HELP you. I have a FULLY-COMPOSED WORLD VIEW. I have STRONG opinions about EVERYTHING. And my ideas are HAND-ILLUSTRATED and use REAL HANDWRITING that you can trust. I know exactly what’s going on and am WILLING to share my thoughts with you. If you LISTEN to what I say then things will quickly improve. No more weak messages. No more bad situations. Shall we proceed?
The Author David Shrigley was born in Macclesfield in 1968 and studied at Glasgow School of Art. His work has been exhibited at the Tate Modern in London, at the MoMA in New York, and in Paris, Berlin, Melbourne and beyond. He has published over twenty books, and has animated a music video for Blur and produced another for Bonny Prince Billy. His work has also been profiled in a documentary for Channel 4. He was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2013. He lives and works in Glasgow.
Publication Details Book Category: Non Fiction Format: Other ISBN: 9781782114031 Ebook: 9781782114048 Rights Held: W
Nov
Academy Street Mary Costello £12.99 The heart-breaking and filmic debut novel by critically acclaimed Irish writer, Mary Costello Description Academy Street follows Tess from her childhood in rural Ireland in the 1940s to old age in modern day New York. Played out against the backdrop of American life over four decades, Academy Street resonates with the rhythms of memory and of home, as well as those of America’s greatest city. It tells an intimate story about love, loss and longing, and the perpetual ache for a home that is more than physical. Joyous and heart-breaking, sparse and sweeping, this is a novel which spans four decades without ever wasting a word. In Academy Street, Mary Costello takes the reader on a journey that shows us just how random, cruel and incredible life can be.
Reviews ‘Mary Costello’s writing has the kind of urgency that the great problems demand – call them themes; they are the kind of problems that make a writer. With a bit of luck, they could keep her at the desk for the rest of her life’ ANNE ENRIGHT
The Author Mary Costello, originally from Galway, lives in Dublin. Her early stories were published in New Irish Writing and she was short listed for a Hennessy Award. Her first book, a collection of short stories entitled The China Factory, was published in 2012 by Stinging Fly Press. The collection was nominated for the Guardian First Book Award (UK) and short listed for the Irish Book Awards. Her stories have been broadcast by BBC and RTE (Ireland) radio. In June 2014 she will take up a three-month residency in Paris as part of an award made to her by the Irish Cultural Centre.
Publication Details Book Category: Fiction Format: Demy Hardback ISBN: 9781782114185 Ebook: 9781782114192 Rights Held: UKCWxC,AN,neEU,neH
Nov
The Complete Peanuts Charles M. Schulz £16.99 The latest in Canongate’s highly collectible and highly praised series, with introductions by Al Roker and Lynn Johnston Description 1979-1980
The Author
This volume of The Complete Peanuts features the long, surprisingly dramatic sequence in which a grievously ill Charlie Brown checks himself into a hospital while his friends worry. But the rest of the stories in this, the final volume from the 1970s, are far less sombre, as Snoopy launches his ‘bird scout’ treks, Peppermint Patty gets leaked on at school and sues – plus one of the great forgotten romances in Peanuts history!
Charles M. Schulz was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1922 and grew up in Saint Paul. He gained a reputation worldwide as a cartoonist for his work on Peanuts. He died in 2000.
1981-1982 The Complete Peanuts marches into the 1980s as Snoopy’s brother Spike is drafted into the Infantry and a second brother, ‘Marbles,’ takes his bow. Also in this volume, Peppermint Patty witnesses the ‘butterfly miracle,’ Sally gets fat, Charlie Brown’s team loses its baseball field, Linus is still not Sally’s ‘Sweet Babboo,’ more Beagle Scout adventures with Snoopy, and Molly Volley and ‘Crybaby’ Boobie return for a rematch.
Al Roker is best known as being the weather anchor on NBC’s The Today Show. He is also an actor and author. Lynn Johnston is a Canadian cartoonist, well known for her comic strip For Better or for Worse. She was the first woman and first Canadian to win the National Cartoonist Society’s Reuben Award.
Reviews Publication Details ‘It’s impossible to think of another popular art form that reaches across generations the way the daily comic strip does . . . at the pinnacle of that long tradition, there was Charles Schulz’ SEATTLE TIMES ‘Charles Schulz was an American treasure - an artist, philosopher, and keen observer of human life’ BILL CLINTON ‘The world of Peanuts is a microcosm, a little human comedy for the innocent reader and for the sophisticated’ UMBERTO ECO
Book Category: Fiction Format: Other 1979-1980 ISBN: 9781782111016 1981-1982 ISBN: 9781782111023 Rights Held: UK,Ire,AN,SA
Nov
Russell Brand's Trickster Tales: The Pied Piper of Hamelin Russell Brand £12.99 The inimitable Russell Brand brings his trademark humour to the classic children’s tale, in this beautiful edition fully illustrated by Chris Riddell Description ‘Once upon a time, long ago, in a time that seemed, to those present, exactly like now except teeth weren’t so clean and more things were wooden, there was a town called Hamelin...’ Welcome to Russell Brand’s Hamelin. A pompous and ugly town, where the grown-ups are all stuck up their own backsides and their greedy, bum-scratching offspring are usually squirrelling up their own noses. When a badass band of anarchic rats descends on this bombastic bunch, wreaking havoc all over Hamelin, there’s only one man for the job: the wise and wily Pied Piper. In this first in a series of Trickster Tales, the inimitable Russell Brand brings his hilarious, riotous wit to The Pied Piper of Hamelin. There will be burps, bum-custard and lots and lots of rats...
Publication Details Book Category: Fiction Format: Other ISBN: 9781782114567 Ebook: 9781782114574 Rights Held: WxEinUS,C
The Author An actor, comedian, radio host and writer, Russell Brand is an international phenomenon. As well as starring in movies such as Get Me to the Greek, Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Despicable Me, he is also the author of four books including the Sunday Times bestselling memoir My Booky Wook. In 2011 Brand was awarded the Outstanding Contribution to Comedy Award at the British Comedy Awards. He toured his most recent stand-up show The Messiah Complex worldwide. He regularly writes for the Guardian and recently guest-edited an issue of the New Statesman. Illustrator Chris Riddell has worked as a political cartoonist for the Economist, the Independent and the Observer and has achieved international success through his collaboration with Paul Stewart (The Edge Chronicles). He has illustrated an exceptional range of books and is winner of many illustration awards, including the UNESCO Prize and the Greenaway Medal and also writes and creates his own books, such as the highly-acclaimed Ottoline and the Costa prize winning Goth Girl.
The Paris Review
Issue 207, Winter 2013 9781782110422 £12.99 Issue 208, Spring 2014 9781782113270 £12.99 Issue 209, Summer 2014 9781782113287 £12.99 Issue 210, Autumn 2014 9781782113294 £12.99
THE INTERVIEWS £14.99
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