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Portobello Books January – June 2019
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Contents Recently Published 19 Call Them by Their Mama’s Last Hug Elisabeth’s Lists 20 True Names 2 White Houses 21 Notes from the Fog 3 Convenience Store Woman 22 Kind of Blue 4 The Last Children of Tokyo 24 ‘Exterminate All the Brutes’ 4 Choked 25 Portraits Without Frames 5 Island Song 26 My Enemy’s Cherry Tree 28 Natural Causes 29 January–June 2019 Painter to the King 30 The Cow Book 32 The Recovering 33 The Earlie King and the Certain American States 33 Kid in Yellow 6 Dark Blue 34 Not Working 7 West 35 Jokes for the Gunmen 8 The Heavens 36 Census 9 Rules for Visiting 38 Daphne 9 The Ten Loves of Mr Nishino 39 Jellyfish 10 The Way to the Sea 40 Childless Voices 11 Days of Awe 42 When the Rivers Run Dry 12 Four Soldiers 43 Fallout 13 Ghost Wall 44 Asymmetry 14 Granta 146: The Politics I Will Never See the World Again 16 of Feeling 45 Hiking with Nietzsche 17 Granta 147: Fortieth Hark 18 Birthday Special 45
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September
Call Them by Their True Names American Crises (and Essays) ORIGINAL
October
Rebecca Solnit An essential new collection of essays from the bestselling phenomenon Rebecca Solnit.
I November
n this book, Rebecca Solnit calls for reflection and context to find radical, heartfelt engagement with a world that lurches into a new crisis every week. Beginning with the election of Donald Trump (‘The Loneliest Man in the World’) and expanding into American history, surveillance, violence against the individual, the denormalizing of misogyny and the rehumanizing of public space, she unpicks some of the most urgent issues affecting us today.
December
The ultimate focus of the book is the climate and feminist activism, bringing Solnit’s trademark deep analysis to bear on a range of contemporary crises. And again, and spectacularly, she shows us how to hope. ‘Solnit is both a stylist and a fighter, distinguished by her rare combination of grit and grace’ Robert Macfarlane, New Statesman
January
non-fiction £12.99 September 2018 B format 198 × 129mm HB 192pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: AU Agent: Roam Agency 978 1 78378 497 4 (HB) 978 1 78378 498 1 (Ebook)
‘There’s a new feminist revolution brewing right now and Solnit is one of its most powerful, not to mention beguiling, voices’ Barbara Ehrenreich the mother of all questions hb £12.99 978 1 78378 355 7
men explain things to me hb £12.99 978 1 78378 079 2
rebecca solnit is the author of, among other books, The Mother of All Questions, Men Explain Things to Me, Wanderlust and A Field Guide to Getting Lost. A Harper’s contributing editor, she writes regularly for the London Review of Books and the Los Angeles Times. She lives in San Francisco.
February
© Adrian Mendoza
September
Notes from the Fog ORIGINAL
Ben Marcus October
Lethally good short stories from a peerless craftsman.
M
aster-stylist Ben Marcus returns with a wonder-cabinet of brain-rearranging stories. From the horrifyingly strange to the deeply touching, each story is a literary masterclass unlikely to leave the reader unchanged. Nobember
From parent–child relationships thrown agonizingly off kilter to intensely moving scenarios of dependence and emotional crisis; from left-alone bodies to new scientific frontiers, Ben Marcus is the great chronicler of the contemporary uncanny and the peculiar future. Notes from the Fog is the medicine for the surprising and deadly ailment we suffer from: being human. Praise for Ben Marcus:
December
‘Marcus is a genius, one of the most daring, funny, morally engaged and brilliant writers, someone whose work truly makes a difference in the world’ George Saunders ‘One of the most stunningly original and profoundly unsettling writers of his generation’ Guardian
© Gunter Gluecklich-laif-Reduz
leaving the sea pb £9.99 978 1 84708 636 5
January
ben marcus is the author of The Age of Wire and String, Notable American Women, The Flame Alphabet and Leaving the Sea. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, Granta, Harper’s and the Paris Review. Marcus has received a Whiting Writers’ Award, a Berlin Prize and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
fiction £12.99 September 2018 Demy 216 × 135mm TPB 288pp Selling territories: NCR Rights: AU Agent: Greene & Heaton 978 1 78378 282 6 (TPB) 978 1 78378 283 3 (Ebook)
the flame alphabet pb £8.99 978 1 84708 624 2
February
September
Kind of Blue Miles Davis and the Making of a Masterpiece PAPERBACK
Ashley Kahn ‘The bestselling, most influential jazz record ever, put under the microscope in a beautifully written volume’ Observer October
I
n the early spring of 1959, in New York City’s 30th Street Studio, legendary trumpeter Miles Davis assembled one of the most celebrated jazz line-ups in history. Two sessions later, they had recorded the greatest jazz album of all time. ‘Incredible… One of the most inspirational volumes on music’ The Times
978 1 78378 473 8 (PB) 978 1 78378 474 5 (Ebook) previously published: October 2002 220 × 165mm Illustrated PB £12.99 978 1 86207 541 2
ashley kahn is a music historian, journalist and producer, and a frequent talking head on all matters jazz. He is currently a visiting professor at NYU, in the Department of Recorded Music. His journalism has appeared in the New York Times, Rolling Stone, Mojo and the New Statesman. In 2014, he coauthored Santana’s autobiography, The Universal Tone.
‘Exterminate All the Brutes’
December
November
‘Essential reading’ Jazz Rag music £9.99 October 2018 B format 198 × 129mm PB 368pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL, AU Agent: Persens Books LLC
Sven Lindqvist
PAPERBACK
A GRANTA EDITION A classic work of travelogue and deep historical investigation, which reveals the true horror of Europe’s racist colonial past in Africa. January
‘This book is important... we, our rulers, and their stooges should read it... it contains a message for our future’ Nicolas Lezard, Guardian
February
sven lindqvist was born in Stockholm in 1932 and is the author of several works of non-fiction, including Terra Nullius. non-fiction £10.00 October 2018 B format 198 × 129mm PB w/flaps 192pp Selling Territories: NCR
Rights: SL Agent: The New Press 978 1 84708 198 8 previously published: April 2002 198 × 129mm PB 978 1 86207 508 5
all the devils are here PB £10 978 1 78378 433 2
texaco PB £12 978 1 78378 434 9
September
Portraits Without Frames
ORIGINAL
Lev Ozerov Edited by Robert Chandler and Boris Dralyuk
October
Translated from the Russian by Maria Bloshteyn, Robert Chandler, Boris Dralyuk and Irina Mashinski
A classic work of Russian verse.
L
Nobember
ev Ozerov’s finest book comprises fifty intimate, skilfully crafted accounts of meetings with important figures, ranging from fellow poets Anna Akhmatova and Boris Pasternak, to prose writers Isaac Babel and Andrey Platonov, to artists and composers Vladimir Tatlin and Dmitry Shostakovich. It is both a testament to an extraordinary life and a perceptive miniencyclopedia of Soviet culture. Composed in delicate, rhythmic free verse, Ozerov’s portraits are like nothing else in Russian literature.
December
lev ozerov (1914–1996), born Lev Goldberg, was a poet and literary critic of Jewish Ukrainian origin, and a prominent name in Soviet literature in his day. He is justly celebrated for his efforts to preserve the creative heritage of poets of his own generation who perished in the years of Stalinist repressions. maria bloshteyn, a scholar of Russian and American literature, is the translator of The Prank: The Best of Young Chekhov. © Anya Ozerova
poetry £14.99 November 2018 Demy 216 × 135mm TPB 272pp Selling Territories: NCR Agent: New York Review of Books
boris dralyuk’s most recent translations include Isaac Babel’s Red Cavalry and Odessa Stories. He is the Executive Editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books.
February
irina mashinski is the co-editor of The Penguin Book of Russian Poetry. She has received several Russian literary awards and, with Boris Dralyuk, First Prize in the 2012 Joseph Brodsky/Stephen Spender Translation Prize competition.
978 1 78378 471 4 (TPB) 978 1 78378 472 1 (Ebook)
January
robert chandler’s translations include Soul and The Foundation Pit by Andrey Platonov, and Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman.
September
The Earlie King and the Kid in Yellow PAPERBACK
October
Danny Denton A noir thriller, a lyric romance and a dystopian saga in one fearless novel ‘Absolutely marvellous’ Cillian Murphy
November
‘This book will blow your mind. Written in a hurl of playful poetry and whip-smart prose, Ireland is sinking into flood waters but a reporter is sifting (literally) through a legend to tell the story of city gangster Earlie King, a baby’s disappearance and the elusive Kid in Yellow who once loved King’s daughter. Utterly extraordinary, it’s best you read it. Right now’ Emerald Street
December
‘Denton’s captivating debut novel, which imagines a grim dystopian Ireland that is all too believable [is] highly original... Mashing ancient myth with a miserable future, Denton’s fierce and distinctive debut should set the books world alight’ Irish Times ‘A dystopian baroque, postmodern fairy tale, with gangsters, eternal rain and a contested baby… The world that Denton creates is thrillingly realised’ Financial Times
January
fiction £8.99 January B format 198 × 129mm PB 368pp Selling Territories: ALL Rights: US, SL, AU Agent: Aitken Alexander Associates
978 1 78378 366 3 (PB) 978 1 78378 367 0 (Ebook) previously published: January 2018 216 × 135mm TPB £12.99 978 1 78378 365 6
© Rachel Bradbury
February
danny denton is a writer from Cork, Ireland. He is writer-in-residence for Cork County Libraries. This is his first novel.
January
Not Working Why We Have to Stop
ORIGINAL
Josh Cohen February
An exploration of inactivity – a necessary and creative condition for a life worth living.
W
e live in a culture that demonizes idleness. Work and connectivity are the cultural norms, and a permanent busyness pervades our quietest moments. The art of doing nothing is disappearing. March April
In Not Working, psychoanalyst Josh Cohen explores the paradoxical pleasures of inactivity, and considers four of its faces – the burnout, the slob, the daydreamer and the slacker – along with the lives of four creative figures associated with these forms of idleness: Andy Warhol, Orson Welles, Emily Dickinson and David Foster Wallace. Drawing, too, on his personal experiences and stories from his consulting room, Cohen asks: how might we live a different and more fulfilled existence? ‘Josh Cohen knows a great deal about the forces that drive and sometimes overpower us. In this compelling new book, he explores writers and artists, brings himself and what he has learned from his patients into the mix, to make a passionate argument for the benefits of floating free from the chains of work. Scintillating’ Lisa Appignanesi
© Charlotte Speechley
how to read freud PB £6.99 978 186207 763 8
June
josh cohen is a psychoanalyst and Professor of Modern Literary Theory at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is the author of The Private Life: Why We Remain in the Dark (Granta, 2013) and How to Read Freud (Granta, 2005).
the private life PB £9.99 978 184708 530 6
May
non-fiction £16.99 January Demy 216 × 135mm HB 304pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent: United Agents 978 1 78378 205 5 (HB) 978 1 78378 207 9 (Ebook)
January
Jokes for the Gunmen
ORIGINAL
Mazen Maarouf February
Translated from the Arabic by Jonathan Wright
An award-winning blast of literary brilliance from a major new voice in world literature. ‘I ’m the man who can kill people with a joke.’
T March
old from a child’s pure but sometimes vengeful or muddled perspective, these are stories of life in a war zone, life peppered by surreal mistakes, tragic accidents and painful encounters. In the vein of Roald Dahl, Etgar Keret and Amy Hempel, these tales are of of fantasist matadors, lost limbs and voyeuristic dwarfs – a collection about sex, death and the allimportant skill of making life into a joke.
April
The story ‘Jokes for the Gunmen’ won the inaugural Al-Multaqa prize for best Arabic short story in 2016. ‘A powerful reminder that only through imagination can we make sense of the brute senselessness of reality’ Sjón ‘I really loved this book. It deepens our sense of who we are to each other’ David Hayden, author of Darker With the Lights On
May
fiction £12.99 January Demy 198 × 129mm TPB 176pp Selling Territories: ALL Rights: US, AU Agent: The Susijn Agency
978 1 84627 667 5 (HB) 978 1 84627 669 9 (Ebook)
mazen maarouf was born in Beirut in 1978. He is a Palestinian-Icelandic writer, poet, translator and journalist. He has published three books of poetry and two short story collections. He currently lives between Reykjavik and Beirut.
© Jens Bjerregaard
June
jonathan wright is a British journalist and literary translator.
January
Census PAPERBACK
Jesse Ball
February
‘Census is a vital testament to selfless love; a psalm to commonplace miracles; and a mysterious evolving metaphor. So kind, it aches’ David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas. ‘A strange and wonderful novel which follows a dying man’s cross-country trip as a census taker to find someone to care for his disabled son’ Lithub ‘A detailed and moving portrait of a kind of radical innocence… powerful, unusual [and] impressive’ James Lasdun, Guardian ‘Uniquely memorable and utterly profound’ Financial Times
978 1 78378 377 9 (PB) 978 1 78378 376 2 (Ebook)
fiction £8.99 January B format 198 × 129mm PB 256pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL, AU Agent: A. M. Heath 978 1 78378 151 5 (PB)
978 1 78378 150 8 (Ebook)
previously published: April 2018 B format 198 × 129mm HB £14.99 978 1 78378 375 5
March
jesse ball is the award-winning author of over ten books of prose, poetry, drawings and essays. He lives in Chicago.
fiction £8.99 January B format 198 × 129mm PB 256pp Selling Territories: NCR, NANZ Rights: SL, AU Agent: Sterling Lord Literistic
Daphne April
PAPERBACK
Will Boast A provocative and surprising modern myth about selfdetermination, emotional baggage and the perpetual fight between love and safety. ‘Sleek and artful… touching’ Literary Review
May
‘Wry and witty, tender and weird... [It] expands beyond easy romance into a political exploration of the necessity of empathy, and the toll empathy can take… at once a fable and a beautifully engaged reflection on love’ Irish Times
epilogue PB £8.99 978 1 84708 821 5
previously published: February 2018 Demy 216 × 135mm TPB £12.99 978 1 84708 835 2
June
will boast is the author of a short story collection, Power Ballads, which won the 2011 Iowa Short Fiction Award, and a bestselling memoir, Epilogue (Granta, 2015).
January
Jellyfish PAPERBACK
February
Janice Galloway A powerful short story collection by one of the foremost British writers of her generation.
I March
n sixteen razor-sharp stories, Janice Galloway takes on David Lodge’s assertion that ‘literature is mostly about having sex and not much about having children; life’s the other way round’. Her multi-layered tales explore not only sex and sexuality, but parenthood, relationships, the connections between generations, death, ambition and loss. Here is visceral and exhilarating writing about the raw and poignant stuff of life, from one of Scotland’s best loved and most acclaimed authors. ‘With this electrifying volume Galloway proves herself a truly powerful writer who deserves to be much better known’ Independent
April
‘Sometimes beautiful, sometimes startling... a gift for the unforeseen and illuminating phrase’ Scotsman ‘Thoughtful, accurate, sorrowful, dark, infinitely tender, angry, memorable’ Herald
May
fiction £8.99 February B format 198 × 129mm PB 240pp Selling Territories: ALL Rights: US, SL Agent: Blake Friedmann 978 1 84708 667 9 (PB) 978 1 84708 669 3 (Ebook)
all made up PB £8.99 978184708 327 2
this is not about me PB £8.99 978 1 84708 099 8
janice galloway is the prize-winning author of three novels, two short story collections, two memoirs, a handful of collaborative books of short fiction and poetry, libretti, poems and one play. Her most recent book, All Made Up (Granta, 2011), won the 2012 Scottish Book of the Year award. She lives and works in Glasgow.
June
© Kirsty Anderson
January
Childless Voices Stories of Longing, Loss, Resistance and Choice
Lorna Gibb
ORIGINAL
February
A heartfelt, globe-crossing investigation into an issue that affects millions of people.
F
March
rom the playgrounds of Glasgow to the villages of Bangladesh; from religious rites to ancient superstitions; from the world’s richest people to its powerless and enslaved, Lorna Gibb’s masterful Childless Voices paints a global portrait of people without children. Grouped by thematic commonality – those who long, those who were denied, those who choose – Childless Voices is a testament to the power of listening, and the power of sharing stories. It is an essential, moving and surprising book that gives generously and offers comfort. Praise for A Ghost’s Story: ‘Compelling… rich and strange’ Sunday Express
April
© Alan Wesselson
‘Gibb deftly weaves fact with fiction so that each page shimmers ectoplasmically with uncertainty’ Mail on Sunday
non-fiction £14.99 February Demy 216 × 135mm TPB 288pp Selling Territories: ALL Rights: SL, AU Agent: Rogers, Coleridge and White
‘A playful paean to the mystery and unknowability of the creative imagination’ Independent
978 1 78378 262 8 (TPB) 978 1 78378 263 5 (Ebook)
a ghost’s story PB £8.99 978 1 78378 036 5
May June
dr lorna gibb is the author of biographies of Rebecca West and Lady Hester Stanhope as well as the author of the novel A Ghost’s Story (Granta, 2015). She is a senior lecturer at Middlesex University.
January
When the Rivers Run Dry The Global Water Crisis and How to Solve It PAPERBACK
Fred Pearce
February
Why the world is running out of water – and what we can do to stop it.
W
e cannot live without water. But with 7.5 billion people competing for this single unevenly distributed resource, the planet is drying up.
March
Fred Pearce, the environmental consultant to the New Scientist, explores the growing world water crisis, from Kent to Kenya, taking us to places where waterways are turning to sand before they reach the ocean; where fields are parched and crops no longer grow; where wars are fought over access to water. But he offers us hope for the future, if we can radically revolutionize the way we treat water, and take personal responsibility for what we use. This landmark work is necessary reading for a future on this still-blue planet.
April
‘If ever a book has been written that demands to be read it is this one… a journey through a hugely important and complex subject in the company of a natural storyteller’ Tim Smit, The Eden Project
non-fiction £9.99 February B-format 198 × 129mm PB 320pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL, AU Agent: David Higham Associates
978 1 84627 648 4 (PB) 978 1 84627 649 1 (Ebook)
fred pearce is the long-standing environmental consultant of New Scientist magazine and a contributor to the Guardian and the New York Times, among many other publications. His research has taken him to 87 countries. He has written 14 books on environmental and development issues, including Fallout (Portobello, 2018).
June
May
‘Accomplished… All too convincing’ Guardian
January
Fallout A Journey Through the Nuclear Age, from the Atom Bomb to Radioactive Waste PAPERBACK
Fred Pearce
February
An eye-opening journey through the history and future of nuclear power, by the awardwinning science journalist who broke the true story of the Sellafield disaster. ‘By turns thoughtful and hair-raising, this is a vivid, immediate travelogue of places most people dare not enter’ Walt Patterson, author of Electricity Vs Fire
March
‘An extraordinary and necessary investigation of humanity’s brief but alarming relationship with atomic power… an illuminating tale which raises profound questions about our post-carbon energy future’ Gaia Vince, author of Adventures in the Anthropocene
April
978 1 84627 626 2 (PB) 978 1 84627 627 9 (Ebook)
previously publishied June 2018 Royal 234 × 153Mm Tpb £14.99 978 1 84627 625 5
May
environment £9.99 February B format 198 × 129mm PB 268pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL, AU Agent: David Higham Associates
June
Asymmetry
PAPERBACK
Lisa Halliday
A dazzling, provocative novel of asymmetrical parts, from a rare and extraordinary talent: ‘A literary phenomenon’ NewYorker.
I
n New York, Alice, a young editor, begins an affair with Ezra Blazer, a world-famous, much older writer. At Heathrow airport, Amar, an economist en route to Kurdistan, is detained by immigration. Somehow their lives are connected, in this unconventional love story which has things to say about all of contemporary life. ‘A sharp examination of the unequal power dynamic between men and women, innocence and experience, fame and aspiration… asks a dizzying number of questions, many to thrilling effect’ Guardian ‘Exceptional… Halliday’s structure shows exquisite control of leitmotif and patterning; each half gradually intensifies in emotion to reach a devastating climax’ Financial Times ‘Scorchingly intelligent’ New York Times ‘Brilliant’ Scotsman fiction £8.99 February B format 198 × 129mm PB 288pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL, AU Agent: Abner Stein 978 1 78378 362 5 (PB) 978 1 78378 361 8 (Ebook)
previously published: March 2018 Demy 216 × 135mm HB £14.99 978 1 78378 360 1 Demy 216 × 135mm Export TPB £12.99 978 1 78378 396 0
© Vittore Buzzi
lisa halliday lives in Milan with her husband and daughter. She won a Whiting Award for Fiction in 2017. Asymmetry is her first novel.
‘Elegant, funny, ingenious, profound and wildly enjoyable. I loved, admired and envied this novel. It’s a wonder’ Zadie Smith
‘Mary-Alice,’ he said tenderly, a moment later. ‘I know what you’re up to.’ ‘What?’ ‘I know what you do when you’re alone.’ ‘What?’ ‘You’re writing. Aren’t you?’ Alice shrugged. ‘A little.’ ‘Do you write about this? About us?’ ‘No.’ ‘Is that true?’ Alice shook her head hopelessly. ‘It’s impossible.’ He nodded. ‘Then what do you write about?’ ‘Other people. People more interesting than I am.’ She laughed softly, lifting her chin toward the street. ‘Muslim hot dog sellers.’
January
I Will Never See the World Again ORIGINAL
Ahmet Altan Translated from the Turkish by Yasemin Çongar
February
From the confines of his prison cell in Istanbul, Ahmet Altan, one of Turkey's greatest living novelists, reflects upon hope, despair and the light literature can bring to even the darkest places
March
The destiny I put down in my novel has become mine. I am now under arrest like the hero I created years ago. I await the decision that will determine my future, just as he awaited his. Like a cursed oracle, I foresaw my future years ago not knowing that it was my own.
C April
onfined in a cell four metres long, imprisoned on Kafkaesque charges, novelist Ahmet Altan is one of many writers persecuted by Erdoğan’s oppressive regime. In this extraordinary memoir, Altan reflects upon his sentence and on the joys of language and literature, which can transform even a cage into a place of infinite beauty.
Selling Territories: ALL Rights: SL, US, AU Agent: Clementina Liuzzi Literary Agency
978 1 78378 515 5 (PB) 978 1 78378 516 2 (Ebook)
May
memoir £9.99 March B format 198 × 129mm PB w/flaps 112pp TBC
‘A remarkable memoir by a remarkable writer… it is something special to visit Ahmet Altan in his prison, and to leave with an unexpected feeling of elation, motivated by the sheer, towering greatness of the human spirit’ Philippe Sands, author of East West Street
June
Born in 1950, ahmet altan is a celebrated Turkish novelist. He has been awarded the Grand Prix from the Akademi Publishing House, the prestigious Freedom and Future of the Media Prize from the Media Foundation of Sparkasse Leipzig and the International Hrant Dink Award. In September 2016, he was arrested and later sentenced to life imprisonment by the Turkish state.
January
Hiking with Nietzsche Becoming Who You Are
John Kaag
ORIGINAL
February
At the midpoint of his life, a man goes in search of himself in the Swiss Alps, with the help of Friedrich Nietzsche.
H
iking with Nietzsche is a tale of two journeys – one made by John Kaag as a teenager, the other seventeen years later in radically different circumstances as a husband and father – both following the paths Nietzsche took up the Swiss Alps. March
Entertaining and intimate, Hiking with Nietzsche explores not only Nietzsche’s ideals but how his philosophy relates to us in the 21st century. As Kaag hikes, alone or with his family, but always with Nietzsche, he finds that even slipping can be instructive. It is in the process of climbing and the inevitable missteps that one has the chance, in Nietzsche’s words, to ‘become who you are’.
April
Praise for American Philosophy: ‘Accurate, engaging and scrupulous… and genuinely entertaining’ Mark Greif, New York Times ‘The most enthralling book of intellectual history I’ve read since Wittgenstein’s Poker’ Heller McAlpin, NPR
john kaag is a professor of philosophy at the University of Massachusetts. He is the author of American Philosophy: A Love Story, which was a New York Times Editors’ Choice. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Harper’s Magazine and the Christian Science Monitor, among other publications.
978 1 78378 494 3 (HB) 978 1 78378 496 7 (Ebook)
May
philosophy £14.99 March Demy 216 × 135mm HB 272pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL, AU Agent: FSG
© Jill Goldman
June
January
Hark
ORIGINAL
Sam Lipsyte
February
A laugh-out-loud, razor-sharp riot of a novel from the author of the bestselling The Ask.
I
n an America convulsed by political upheaval, cultural discord, and spiritual confusion, many folks are searching for peace, salvation, and – perhaps most immediately – just a little damn focus.
March
Enter Hark Morner, an unwitting guru whose ‘Mental Archery’ – a combination of mindfulness, mythology, yoga and, well, archery – is set to raise him to near-messiah status. But fame is a dangerous thing. As Hark’s message captivates the masses, he becomes a target for sinister factions and powerful fringe players, including a bow-hunting veteran of jungle drug wars, a social media tycoon with a declining empire and a mysteriously influential (but undeniably slimy) catfish.
April
‘Wonderfully moving and beautifully musical… a dastardly hysterical take on modern day rhetoric and the eternal ridiculousness of it all’ Paul Beatty, author of The Sellout ‘Madcap and full of love, laughter and unexpected beauty’ Gary Shteyngart, author of Super Sad True Love Story
May
fiction £12.99 March Demy 216 × 135mm TPB 240pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent: WME 978 1 78378 321 2 (TPB) 978 1 78378 322 9 (Ebook)
the fun parts PB £8.99 978 1 8470 8805 5
© Ceridwen Morris
June
Widely regarded as one of America’s greatest satirists, sam lipsyte is the author of The Ask, a New York Times bestseller, The Fun Parts (Granta, 2013), The Subject Steve, Home Land and Venus Drive. He teaches at Columbia University in New York.
January
Mama’s Last Hug Animal and Human Emotions
Frans de Waal
ORIGINAL
February
A groundbreaking exploration of the emotions of animals and humans, from the author of Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?
M
March
ama’s Last Hug opens with the moving farewell between Mama, a dying chimpanzee matriarch, and her human friend, a professor who inspired the author’s work. So begins Frans de Waal’s whirlwind tour of new ideas about animal emotions – which he distinguishes from feelings – based on his renowned studies of the social and emotional lives of primates.
April
De Waal explores facial expressions, animal sentience and consciousness, the emotional side of human politics, and the illusion of free will. Emphasizing the continuity between our own and other species, he makes the radical proposal that emotions are like organs: we haven’t a single organ that other animals don’t have, and the same is true for our emotions. Praise for Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?: ‘An important corrective to human exceptionalism… fascinating’ Sunday Times ‘If you are at all interested in what it is to be an animal… you should read this book’ Guardian ‘Fascinating... eye-opening’ Daily Mail
© Catherine Marin
our inner ape PB £9.99 978 1 86207 882 6
June
frans de waal is the author of the New York Times bestseller Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? (Granta, 2016). Named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People, he is the C. H. Candler Professor of Psychology at Emory University and director of the Living Links Center at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
are we smart enough to know how smart animals are? PB £9.99 978 1 78378 306 9
May
popular science £14.99 March Demy 216 × 135mm HB b/w integrated images 272pp TBC Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL, AU Agent: Hodgman Literary 978 1 78378 410 3 (HB) 978 1 78378 412 7 (Ebook)
January
Elisabeth’s Lists A Family History PAPERBACK
Lulah Ellender NEW COVER TO BE
A vivid and moving portrait of a lost era and a lost grandmother, pieced together from an inherited book of handwritten lists.
February
REVEALED
‘Tender… A moving, evocative read’ Sunday Express ‘A hauntingly beautiful meditation on life and death’ Guardian
March
‘Go to your “books to read” list and place Elisabeth’s Lists right at the top. It is charming without ever being whimsical and a vital voice as Elisabeth asserts her right to be more than simply an ambassador’s or a diplomat’s wife. A valuable historical record’ Damian Barr
April
‘A story of vulnerability, resilience and love, quietly and beautifully told… Ellender researches, uncovers, interprets, comments and responds to the life of her grandmother with uninhibited insight… poignant and original… As she perseveres with a story that travels between past, present and future, it is Ellender’s own courage at confronting and living through these painful truths that makes her book so powerful and enriching’ Juliet Nicolson, Spectator
May
memoir £9.99 March B format 198 × 129mm PB 336pp Selling Territories: ALL Rights: US, SL, AU Agent: DHH Literary Agency
‘Fascinating as well as moving… The lists are a riveting piece of social history in their own right… This book, as well as being a mediation on the solace of list-keeping, is also a meditation on the good and very bad things that run in families’ Ysenda Maxtone Graham, Daily Mail
978 1 78378 385 4 (PB) 978 1 78378 384 7 (Ebook) previously published: March 2018 A5 210 × 148mm HB £16.99 978 1 78378 383 0
© Sarah Weal
June
lulah ellender’s writing has appeared in the Guardian, YOU magazine, Easy Living and Green Parent, among other publications. She lives in Lewes, East Sussex, with her family.
January
White Houses PAPERBACK
Amy Bloom NEW COVER TO BE
Hidden love in the White House in 1930s and 1940s America, from a master storyteller at the height of her powers
REVEALED
February
‘Irresistibly readable, fascinating… a remarkably intimate and yet informative novel’ Joyce Carol Oates
March
‘Bloom gives us the grace and dignity of cleareyed, enduring, imperfect love… If White Houses isn’t an example of the great American novel then frankly, I don’t know what is’ Financial Times ‘Bloom’s lyrical novel, laced with her characteristic wit and wisdom, celebrates love’ New York Times ‘A tender, heart-warming exploration of a hidden but profound love’ Irish Times ‘What a novel…A joy to read’ Roddy Doyle
April
‘White Houses demonstrates that real people are far more fascinating than icons. But in the hands of a master storyteller, the combination is dazzling’ Lionel Shriver ‘A refreshingly open tale of love in later life’ TLS
© Elena Seibert
lucky us PB £7.99 978 1 84708 939 7
June
amy bloom is the highly acclaimed author of three collections of short stories, a collection of essays and three novels. She is the Shapiro-Silverberg Professor of Creative Writing at Wesleyan University.
previously published: May 2018 Demy 216 × 135mm HB £12.99 978 1 78378 492 9 Demy 216 × 135mm Export TPB £12.99 978 1 78378 172 0
away PB £7.99 978 1 84708 013 4
May
fiction £8.99 March 2019 (UK) November 2018 (Export) B format 198 × 129mm PB 224pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent: WME 978 1 78378 174 4 (PB) 978 1 78378 173 7 (Ebook)
Convenience Store Woman Sayaka Murata
PAPERBACK
Translated from the Japanese by Ginny Tapley Takemori
The surprise smash hit of the summer – Japan’s answer to Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
NEW COVER TO BE REVEALED
Meet Keiko. Keiko is 36 years old. She’s never had a boyfriend, and she’s been working in the same supermarket for eighteen years. Keiko’s family wishes she’d get a proper job. Her friends wonder why she won’t get married. But Keiko knows what makes her happy, and she’s not going to let anyone come between her and her convenience store… ‘Exhilaratingly weird and funny... Unsettling and totally unpredictable - my copy is now heavily underlined’ Sally Rooney, Guardian ‘Best Books of the Summer’ ‘I couldn't put it down… Haunting, dark, and often hilarious’ Elif Batuman, author, The Idiot ‘A sure-fire hit of the summer... quirky [and] profound’ Irish Times ‘Poignant, darkly comic and wonderfully uplifting’ Herald fiction £8.99 March B format 198 × 129mm PB 176pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL, AU Agent: Grove Atlantic, Inc.
978 1 84627 684 2 (PB) 978 1 84627 685 9 (Ebook) previously published: July 2018 Demy 216 × 135mm Flapped TPB £12.99 978 1 84627 683 5
sayaka murata is one of the most celebrated of the new generation of Japanese writers. She works part-time in a convenience store.
© Bungeishunju
ginny tapley takemori is an award-winning translator.
‘Absurd, comical, cute... audacious, and precise’ Hiromi Kawakami, author of Strange Weather in Tokyo
T
he time before I was a reborn as a convenience store worker is somewhat unclear in my memory. I was born into a normal family and lovingly brought up in a normal suburban residential area. But everyone thought I was a rather strange child.
January
The Last Children of Tokyo Yoko Tawada
PAPERBACK
Translated from the Japanese by Margaret Mitsutani February
In a near future where the old live almost for ever and the rest die young, an elderly man fights to keep his beloved greatgrandson alive. ‘Unsettling and enchanting… Tawada writes beautifully’ Sara Baume, author of A Line Made by Walking
March
‘A mini-epic of eco-terror, family drama and speculative fiction... a book unlike any other’ Guardian ‘An open-hearted fable... Tawada’s uberisolationist neo-Japan is much less cute than Wes Anderson’s. It’s also much, much funnier’ Financial Times
April
‘The Last Children of Tokyo has a recessive, lunar beauty... Arresting, with a flickering brilliance’ New York Times
May
fiction £7.99 April B format 198 × 129mm PB Selling Territories: All Rights: SL, AU Agent: New Directions 978 1 84627 672 9 (PB) 978 1 84627 671 2 (Ebook)
June
© Thomas Karston
memoirs of a polar bear PB £8.99 978 1 84627 632 3
yoko tawada has been awarded the most prestigious literary prizes in Germany and Japan, including the Goethe Medal. She is the author of Memoirs of a Polar Bear (Portobello, 2017).
previously published: June 2018 B format 198 × 129mm Flapped BPB £9.99 978 1 84627 670 5
margaret mitsutani has translated work by authors including Kenzaburo Oe, Mitsuyo Kakuta and Kyoko Hayashi.
January
Choked The Age of Air Pollution and the Fight for a Cleaner Future ORIGINAL
Beth Gardiner
February
The landmark book on air pollution: the biggest threat to the health and longevity of each and every one of us.
E
very year, air pollution prematurely kills seven million people around the world, in rich countries and poor ones. It is strongly linked to strokes, heart attacks, many kinds of cancer, premature birth and dementia, among other ailments. March April
In Choked, Beth Gardiner travels the world to meet the scientists who have transformed our understanding of pollution’s effects on the human body, and to trace the economic forces and political decisions that have allowed it to remain at lifethreatening levels. But she also focuses on realworld solutions, and on inspiring stories of people fighting for a healthier future. Choked is a vital contribution on one of the most important – but too often ignored – issues of our time.
beth gardiner’s work has been published in the New York Times, the Guardian, National Geographic and the Wall Street Journal, and she is a former longtime Associated Press reporter. She has appeared on the BBC, Sky News, ITV and LBC talk radio. Both the Pulitzer Centre on Crisis Reporting and the Society of Environmental Journalists supported Gardiner’s work on Choked.
978 1 84627 645 3 (HB) 978 1 84627 646 0 (Ebook)
May
environment £14.99 April Royal 234 x 153mm TPB 288pp TBC Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent: Abner Stein
© Tina Mass
June
Island Song ORIGINAL
Madeleine Bunting A spellbinding novel of love, families and hidden WWII secrets on the island of Guernsey.
I
n 1940, Helene, young, naive and recently married, waves goodbye to her husband, who has enlisted in the British army. Her home, Guernsey, is soon invaded by the Germans, leaving her exposed to the hardships of occupation. Forty years later, her daughter Roz begins a search for the truth about her father, and stumbles into the secret history of her mother’s life. Written with emotional acuity and passionate intensity, Island Song speaks of the moral complexities of war-time allegiances and the messy reality of human relationships in a tightly knit community. As Roz discovers, truth is hard to pin down, and so are the rights and wrongs of those struggling to survive in the most difficult of circumstances. Praise for Love of Country: ‘[Bunting’s] crisp and luminous prose is the ideal medium to capture the ambiguities and dichotomies of the landscape… splendid, precise and gracious’ Scotland on Sunday
© Simon Robey
fiction £12.99 April Demy 216 × 135mm HB 400pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent: The Wylie Agency
978 1 78378 461 5 (HB) 978 1 78378 462 2 (Ebook)
love of country PB £9.99 ISBN 978 1 84708 518 4
‘Moving and wonderful… readable and full of empathy’ Guardian
the plot PB £9.99 ISBN 978 1 84708 144 5
madeleine bunting is the author of several works of non-fiction, including Love of Country (Granta, 2016), which was shortlisted for the 2017 Wainwright Golden Beer Book Prize, and the acclaimed history The Model Occupation: The Channel Islands Under German Rule 1940–45. Island Song is her first novel.
F
or several hours after the bombing, Helene had not been able to get word home that she was safe. In Torteval, on the other side of the island, her father and old nanny had listened in horror to the bombing raid on St Peter Port. Thirty-three had been killed. Helene repeatedly saw in her mind the images of blood spreading over the granite cobbles. One body lying beside a bombed lorry had been twisted at an awkward angle. Scattered around him were carnations, their buds still tightly closed. Even worse was the memory of the boy playing in the waves. What kind of men were these Germans, who could strafe a child playing on a beach? It wasn’t only the bombing which had swallowed her words. She was choking on the disturbing feeling that the world was unsteady – that nothing was holding, and that the fragments seemed to presage the horror to come. Nanna stroked her hair as if she were a little girl again.
© Harald Biebel
January
My Enemy’s Cherry Tree
ORIGINAL
Wang Ting-Kuo
February
Translated from the Chinese by Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-chun
Haruki Murakami meets Indecent Proposal in this novel of love, money and betrayal.
H
ow long would you wait for her to come back?
March
A man who has come from nothing finds himself a dream wife. When she vanishes without a trace, he sets up a small cafe in her favourite spot on the edge of the South China Sea, hoping she’ll return.
fiction £12.99 April Demy 216 × 135mm TPB 240pp Selling Territories: All Rights: US, SL, AU Agent: Grayhawk Agency
978 1 84627 658 3 (TPB) 978 1 84627 660 6 (Ebook)
wang ting-kuo vanished from Taipei’s literary scene when his wealthy father-in-law gave him an ultimatum: give up writing or give up my daughter. My Enemy’s Cherry Tree, his first novel after more than two decades of silence, received all three of Taiwan’s major literary prizes and was hailed as the return of a master storyteller. howard goldblatt and sylvia li-chun have translated over a dozen novels, including those by Nobel Prize winner Mo Yan.
June
May
April
Instead, he is confronted by the man he suspects may be responsible for everything he has suffered: Luo Yiming, a prominent businessman and philanthropist who holds the small town in his sway. In the few moments the two men spend together, their troubled history will drive one of them mad...
January
Natural Causes PAPERBACK
Barbara Ehrenreich
REVEALED
March
‘Anarchic, funny and fizzling with the joy of living’ Sunday Herald ‘The wit and fighting spirit of this book will delight Ehrenreich's many admirers’ Sunday Times ‘Informative, provocative and entertaining’ The Times
February
NEW COVER TO BE
The seminal thinker and iconoclast offers a new understanding of our bodies and our selves, and our powerlessness in controlling either.
‘Joyous… [Ehrenreich] has a surgically precise way with words... A much-needed tonic’ Observer
April
‘Ehrenreich’s capacity to consider the complexities, contradictions and paradoxes inherent in the human condition is significant and humbling… Natural Causes [is] a fine contribution to the essential civilising dialogue concerning what it means to be human’ Irish Times
© Peter Azbug
Demy 216 × 135mm Export TPB £12.99 978 1 78378 491 2 smile or die PB £8.99 978 1 84708 173 5
June
barbara ehrenreich is the author of fifteen books. She has written for Time, Harper’s, the New York Times magazine and various British newspapers including The Times and the Guardian.
previously published: April 2018 Demy 216 × 135mm HB £16.99 978 1 78378 241 3
May
fiction £9.99 April B format 198 × 128mm PB 256pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent: Curtis Brown 978 1 78378 242 0 (PB) 978 1 78378 243 7 (Ebook)
Painter to the King PAPERBACK
Amy Sackville A novel of sheer imaginative brilliance and style, about the painter Velázquez and his royal subject and benefactor, King Philip IV of Spain.
T
his is a portrait of Diego Velázquez, from his arrival at the court of Spain to his death 38 years and scores of paintings later. It is the portrait of a relationship that is not quite friendship, between an artist and his subject, King Philip IV. It is a portrait of a ruler, burdened by a life of public expectation and repeated private grief. And it is a portrait of a court collapsing under the weight of its own excess. ‘The finest novel of its kind that I have ever read… For her skill and daring, her grasp of both subject and form, and her masterly chiaroscuro of human failure and endeavour, she is as distinct among her peers as Velázquez was among his’ Sarah Perry, Guardian ‘Through Velázquez’s eyes, we are shown the splendours and the miseries of Philip’s life and court… Sackville’s prose summons up the Spanish past in rich and appropriately visual detail’ Sunday Times
fiction £8.99 April B format 198 × 129mm PB Selling Territories: NCR Rights: N/A Agent: Rogers, Coleridge and White 978 1 78378 392 2 (PB) 978 1 78378 391 5 (Ebook) © Sarah Clark
‘Sackville writes beautifully…Her summoning of time and place is exquisitely done’ Spectator
the still point PB £7.99 978 1 84627 230 1
‘Superb’ The Times
orkney PB £8.99 978 1 84708 665 5
previously published: April 2018 Demy 216 × 135mm HB £14.99 978 1 78378 390 8
amy sackville is the author of The Still Point, which was longlisted for the Orange Prize and won the 2010 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and Orkney, which won a 2014 Somerset Maugham Award.
he painter is, at once, embedded and removed, in his new black suit, paid for on credit; standing apart at the distance of a long-handled brush. The Sevillian, they call him, and he makes no effort to drop his accent; the son of a merchant with the name of an aristocrat; a palace official, discreet, obedient, with access to any secret that can be observed by a keen observer of fingers and faces, of mouths and their corners, of eyes and where and how and on what they focus, of solid objects and the hands that hold them. He paints for private rooms, for private posterity, small commissions, without statecraft or symbols. His colleagues in their dark garb, sneering— Another portrait! The man can only paint faces. That’s all there is to him—likenesses—portraits and peasants. How little this artist’s intellect comes between the canvas and the world. He does not invent, he transcribes. He observes.
January
The Cow Book PAPERBACK
February
John Connell INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
An intimate account of a year on an Irish farm, and a keyhole history of man’s relationship with the cow.
March
‘A book of beauty, warmth and empathy that is a memorable guide not only to life on a small Irish farm, but also on how to live life itself’ RTÉ Guide ‘The strength and originality of this book lies in Connell’s searingly honest account of rebuilding his life… a brooding, powerful memoir’ Guardian ‘Vivid and sharply observed… a fascinating portrait’ Colm Tóibín
April
‘I usually view rural Ireland from a train or car window but reading this gripping, fascinating book I felt I was becoming a cattle farmer’ Roddy Doyle ‘An honest, vivid reckoning of what it’s like to simultaneously belong and not belong… a meditation on the real meaning of home and place’ Irish Times
May
non-fiction £9.99 April B format 198 × 129mm PB 256pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent: WME
previously published: March 2018 Demy 216 × 135mm HB £15.99 978 1 78378 416 5 Demy 216 × 135mm export TPB £12.99 978 1 78378 417 2
john connell is an award-winning journalist, writer and farmer. His work has been published in Granta magazine’s New Irish Writing issue. He lives on his family farm, Birchview, in County Longford.
June
© Eamonn Doyle
978 1 78378 418 9 (PB) 978 1 78378 419 6 (Ebook)
January
The Recovering Intoxication and its Aftermath PAPERBACK
Leslie Jamison A magisterial account of addiction, recovery and creative lives. February
‘Jamison has written an honest and important book, vivid writing and required reading’ Stephen King ‘Painstakingly and honestly delineated, with flashes of humour and wry wit that leaven the sense of waste... a brave, honest and surprisingly generous account of intoxication and its consequences’ John Burnside, Literary Review
non-fiction £9.99 January B format 198 × 129mm PB 544pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent: Wylie Agency
978 1 78378 153 9 (PB) 978 1 78378 154 6 (Ebook)
fiction £8.99 May B format 198 × 129mm PB 208pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent:Wylie Agency 978 1 78378 221 5 (PB)
978 1 78378 376 2 (Ebook)
previously published: May 2018 Royal 234 × 153mm HB £20.00 978 1 78378 152 2
March
leslie jamison is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Empathy Exams, as well as a novel, The Gin Closet. She directs the graduate non-fiction program at Columbia University.
the empathy exams PB £8.99 978 1 84708 842 0
Certain American States April
PAPERBACK
Catherine Lacey Twelve stories – each a masterful and compassionate guide to the fluctuations of the human heart – from one of Granta magazine’s Best of Young American Novelists. Praise for Catherine Lacey:
May
‘Incantatory, cool, startlingly observant’ ‘Best Books of the Year’, New Yorker on Nobody is Ever Missing ‘Sharp and funny... beautifully sad’ Financial Times ‘Lacey has a poet’s eye, and pays minute attention to every sentence, every word’ Irish Times nobody is ever missing PB £7.99 978 1 78378 089 1
the answers PB £8.99 978 1 78378 218 5
previously published: September 2018 Demy 216 × 135mm Flapped TPB £12.99 978 1 78378 220 8
June
catherine lacey is the author of The Answers and Nobody Is Ever Missing. Her books have been translated into French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch and German.
January
Dark Blue A Detective’s Fight Against the Police Force
Kevin Maxwell
ORIGINAL
February
An explosive insider’s account of racism, homophobia and wrongdoing in today’s police force, and his fight for change.
K
evin Maxwell was a dream candidate for the police force – a young man with a long-held desire to serve his community and a clear aptitude for both the strategic and practical aspects of policing.
March
But, being both black and gay, he found himself coming up against entrenched prejudice, open racism and homophobia. After years of keeping his head down, he finally began to speak out, little realising the consequences.
memoir £14.99 May Royal 234 × 153mm TPB 304pp TBC Selling Territories: ALL Rights: SL, US, TN, AU
Agent: Rogers, Coleridge and White 978 1 84627 680 4 (TPB) 978 1 84627 682 8 (Ebook)
May
April
Dark Blue paints a sobering portrait of an institution whose prejudice is informing the cases they chose to investigate and the way they investigate them. But it is also a message of hope, encouraging belief in a better, fairer future.
June
kevin maxwell served as a detective in both the Greater Manchester and London’s Metropolitan Police forces. He now writes and advocates for social justice and equality. He has written for newspapers and magazines including the Independent and the Guardian, and has appeared on television and radio for the BBC and Sky News.
January
West PAPERBACK
Carys Davies
February
The highly acclaimed and exquisite debut novel of wonder and loss on the American Frontier.
O
n the American frontier in the early 1800s, a widower sets off in search of ancient giant creatures, leaving his daughter
behind.
March
‘The best book I’ve read this year – Carys Davies’s miraculous little debut novel, a tale of a man wandering the 19th-century American wilds… so crisply and concisely written, and so warm and human in its economy, that it shames the behemoths sitting beside it on the nation’s bookshop shelves’ Andrew Holgate, Sunday Times ‘The scope and resonance of an epic…a bravura performance’ Daily Mail
April
‘Not a word is wasted; the canvas is as wide as her brush is fine’ Guardian ‘A haunting, beautifully weighted tale’ Evening Standard ‘Exquisite…Tense, captivating and whittled to perfection’ Metro
978 1 78378 423 3 (PB) 978 1 78378 424 0 (Ebook) previously published: May 2018 B format 198 × 129mm HB £12.99 978 1 78378 422 6
May
fiction £8.99 April B format 198 × 129mm PB 160pp Selling Territories: NCR, NANZ Rights: SL Agent: United Agents
© Jonathan Bean
June
carys davies is a Welsh short story writer and novelist and the winner of the 2015 Frank O’Connor Award.
January
The Heavens ORIGINAL
Sandra Newman The year’s most mind-expanding love story. February
N
ew York, 2000. Kate and Ben meet at a party and fall instantly, irrevocably in love. Around them, the city glows. It is the first year without a war anywhere. A woman is president, and an air of camaraderie permeates the streets of Manhattan. Kate falls asleep, knowing she is loved.
March
London, 1593. Kate wakes as Emilia – the mistress of a nobleman – and finds the plague at her door. Afflicted by premonitions of a burnt and lifeless city, she sets out to save the world. Each decision she makes will change her life with Ben for ever. Praise for Sandra Newman:
April
‘I can’t remember when I last read something so original or sophisticated or emotionally engaging or so breathtakingly ambitious… An astonishing achievement’ Kate Atkinson, author of Life After Life ‘Extraordinary ... As the momentum builds ... raw, addictive lyricism develops’ Guardian ‘Haunting and heartbreaking... Epic’ Vanity Fair
May
fiction £12.99 May (UK) February (export) 216 × 135mm Demy HB 272pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL, AU Agent: A. M. Heath
978 1 78378 484 4 (HB) 978 1 78378 485 1 (Ebook)
sandra newman’s previous novel, The Country of Ice Cream Star, was longlisted for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction. She is also the author of a memoir, The Changeling, and the novels Cake and The Only Good Thing Anyone Has Ever Done, shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award.
June
© George Baier
‘What a wonderful, strange, terrifying, brilliant novel this is’ Kamila Shamsie, author of Home Fire
T
hey were silent for a minute. Ben was wondering what the parameters of no sex were. He was thinking about the Butterfly Effect in the case of falling for people; the small differences between one girl and another creating a cascade of results that changed your life. He looked at the grasses and decided he shouldn’t tell Kate this. Then Kate said, sounding nervous for the first time, ‘Do you remember your dreams?
January
Rules for Visiting Jessica Francis Kane
ORIGINAL
February
From the acclaimed author of The Report, a smart, funny novel about friendship, trees and the art of being a good house guest.
M March
ay is at a crossroads. Although her career as a gardener for the university is flourishing, the rest of her life has narrowed to a fixed routine. Her father is elderly, her brother estranged, and she keeps her neighbours at arm’s length. The missing element, she realises, might be friendship. As May sets off on a journey to visit four neglected friends one by one, she holds herself (and them) to humorously high standards, while at home she begins to confront the pain of her past and imagine for herself a different kind of future. May’s quest becomes an exploration of the power, and perhaps limits, of modern friendship.
April
‘An elegant and deeply moving meditation on friendship, family, and life on earth. Rules for Visiting is a wonderful novel’ Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven ‘An engaging and compassionate portrait’ Madeline Miller, author of Circe
May
fiction £12.99 June Demy 216 × 135mm TPB Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL, AU Agent: Janklow and Nesbit 978 1 78378 464 6 (TPB) 978 1 78378 466 0 (Ebook)
the report PB £7.99 978 1 84627 280 6
© L&M Brockett
June
jessica francis kane’s first novel, The Report, was chosen as one of the Best Reads of 2012 for the Channel 4 TV Book Club. She is also the author of two story collections, Bending Heaven and This Close. She lives in New York City with her family.
January
The Ten Loves of Mr Nishino
ORIGINAL
Hiromi Kawakami Translated from the Japanese by Allison Markin Powell February
From the bestselling author of Strange Weather in Tokyo and The Nakano Thrift Shop, an irresistible new novel about an elusive ladies’ man and the women who have loved him.
W
March
ho loves Mr Nishino? Minami is the daughter of Mr Nishino’s true love. Bereaved Shiori is tempted by his unscrupulous advances. His colleague Manami should know better. His conquest Reiko treasures her independence above all else. Friends Tama and Subaru find themselves playing Nishino’s game, but Eriko loves her cat more. Sayuri is older, Aichan is much younger, and Misono has her own conquests to make. For each of them, an encounter with elusive Mr Nishino will bring torments, desires and delights. Praise for Hiromi Kawakami:
April
‘Enchanting, moving, and funny in equal measure’ Stylist ‘Ever-readable, ebulliently imaginative’ Monocle ‘Delicate and haunting’ Independent
hiromi kawakami is one of Japan’s most popular contemporary novelists. Strange Weather in Tokyo won the Tanizaki Prize in 2001 and was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.
978 1 84627 697 2 (TPB) 978 1 84627 702 3 (Ebook)
strange weather in tokyo PB £7.99 978 1 84627 510 4
May
fiction £12.99 June Demy 216 × 135mm TPB 176pp TBC Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL, AU Agent: The Wylie Agency
the nakano thrift shop PB £7.99 978 1 84627 602 6
June
allison markin powell is a literary translator and editor. She was the guest editor for the first Japan issue of Words Without Borders.
The Way to the Sea
The Forgotten Histories of the Thames Estuary ORIGINAL
Caroline Crampton From a writer who grew up on the estuary, a fresh take on the Thames, from source to sea.
O
ver the centuries, the Thames estuary has played a vital role in Britain’s industrial, military and commercial development, yet today it is valued so little that half-rotten boats are left to sink into its mud. Born on its banks, Caroline Crampton, an avid sailor, navigates the waters of the estuary from its source in a small village in Gloucestershire to the North Sea. Along the way she seeks out its stories, from the archaeological Anglo-Saxon treasures of its riverbanks to the vast Victorian pumping stations that carry the capital’s waste. Digging into the histories of its empty warehouses and shipwrecks still inhabited by the ghosts of the drowned, she reminds us of the estuary’s significance – and of its enduring appeal.
history / travel writing £14.99 June Demy 216 × 135mm HB Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent: Conville and Walsh
978 1 78378 413 4 (HB) 978 1 78378 415 8 (Ebook)
caroline crampton is a former editor at the New Statesman, for which she still reviews. She also writes for the Guardian, the Mail on Sunday and the New Humanist and has appeared as a broadcaster on Newsnight, Sky News and BBC Radio 4. This is her first book.
T
his river, unlike most other British waterways, has a peculiarly timeless sensibility; a particular way of sliding memories and stories together, so that they overlay each other in a palimpsest of experiences within the landscape. It has a historical and literary character all of its own, distinct from the country through which it flows. The Thames can be at once T.S. Eliot’s strong brown god, William Blake’s visionary waters of Sion, the sweetly medieval Tamesis of Hilaire Belloc’s imagination – and also the watery backdrop to a thousand tourists’ selfies.
January
Days of Awe
PAPERBACK
A.M. Homes NEW
From the winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction, thirteen fearless and visionary short stories that expose the heart of 21stcentury America.
COVER TO BE
February
REVEALED
Praise for A.M. Homes: ‘A.M. Homes can’t really be compared to any other writer; no one else is quite as dark and funny and elegant all at the same time’ Observer March
‘This prose has teeth. You cannot shake a Homes story off your mind’ Zadie Smith ‘These defiantly comic stories are like postcards from contemporary America’ Mail on Sunday ‘A complex, unsettling writer of real power’ Sunday Times
April
‘Breathtakingly accurate satire and laser-cut portraits of American life from a seriously heavyweight author whose snapshots remain etched on the retinas’ Evening Standard
May
fiction £7.99 June B format 198 × 129mm PB 304pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL, AU Agent: Wylie Agency 978 1 84708 326 5 (PB) 978 1 84708 763 8 (Ebook) previously published: July 2018 216 × 135mm HB £14.99 978 1 84708 325 8
this book will save your life PB £8.99 978 1 86207 933 5
a.m. homes is the author of the novels May We Be Forgiven, which won the 2013 Women’s Prize and This Book Will Save Your Life, a 2007 Richard and Judy pick, among many others.
June
© Marion Ettlinger
may we be forgiven PB £8.99 978 1 84708 323 4
January
Four Soldiers
PAPERBACK
Hubert Mingarelli NEW COVER TO BE
From the author of A Meal in Winter, a resonant story of war and friendship.
REVEALED
February
‘I am astonished by Four Soldiers. I have never read anything like it... Short and deceptively simple, it reads like a message from the unheard, news from unwitnessed lives, building letter by letter to its crushing final page. A small miracle of a book, perfectly imagined and perfectly achieved’ Hilary Mantel
1
March
919. The Russian Civil War. It is the harsh dead of winter, as four soldiers set up camp in a forest somewhere near the Romanian front line. There is a lull in the fighting so their days are filled with precious hours of freedom, enjoying the tranquillity of a nearby pond and trying to forget their terrifying nightmares, all the while talking, smoking and waiting. Waiting for spring to come, waiting for their battalion to move on, waiting for the inevitable resumption of the violence.
April
‘Oblique in his facts, spare in his prose, understated and delicate in his emotions, Mingarelli has once again delivered fiction of the highest order… Four Soldiers resonates like a bell in a winter forest. It is a beautifully sustained work of art’ Caroline Brothers, author of The Memory Stones
a meal in winter PB £7.99 978 1 84627 536 4
May
fiction £8.99 June B format 198 × 129mm PB 160pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: US, SL, AU Agent: Editions du Seuil 978 1 84627 651 4 (PB) 978 1 84627 652 1 (Ebook) © Francesca Mantovani
hubert mingarelli is the author of numerous novels, short story collections and fiction for young adults.
previously published: October 2018 B format 198 × 129mm HB £12.99 978 1 84627 650 7
June
sam taylor is a translator, novelist and journalist.
January
Ghost Wall
PAPERBACK
Sarah Moss NEW
A masterclass in the art of the short, unnerving novel, from one of Britain’s best novelists.
COVER TO BE
February
REVEALED
T
March
eenage Silvie and her parents are living in a hut in Northumberland as an exercise in experimental archaeology. Her father is a difficult man, obsessed with imagining and enacting the harshness of Iron Age life. Haunting Silvie’s narrative is the story of a bog girl, a young woman sacrificed by those closest to her, and the landscape both keeps and reveals the secrets of past violence and ritual as the summer builds to its harrowing climax. Ghost Wall is the most powerful novel yet by one of Britain’s most intelligent and acclaimed writers.
May
April
‘I love this book. Ghost Wall requires you to put your life on hold while you finish it. It draws you into its unusual world and, with quiet power and menace, keeps you there until the very last page. Silvie’s story isn’t one you will ever forget' Maggie O’Farrell
the tidal zone PB £8.99 978 1 78378 308 3
978 1 78378 446 2 (PB) 978 1 78378 447 9 (Ebook)
night waking PB £8.99 978 1 84708 270 1
previously published: September 2018 £12.99 978 1 78378 445 5
sarah moss is the author of five other novels. She has been shortlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize 2013 and three times shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize.
June
© Sophie Davidson
fiction £7.99 June B format 198 × 129mm PB 160pp Selling Territories: NCR Rights: SL Agent: United Agents
I
Granta 146: The Politics of Feeling
n 1979, Bill Buford, a student at Cambridge University, noticed that ‘some of the most challenging, diversified, and adventurous writing’ remained largely unread in Britain: contemporary American fiction. To address this cultural gap, he relaunched the university’s 1889 student periodical into the international literary quarterly it is now. Forty years later, Granta magazine publishes many of the world’s finest writers and photographers as they tackle some of the most important subjects. From Nobel laureates to debut novelists – from travel writing to translated fiction, investigative journalism and memoir – each themed issue of Granta reminds us of the power and urgency of the story.
Guest-edited Appignanesi
by
Devorah
Baum
and
Josh
When people predicate their politics only on what they feel, and when they are no longer swayed by expertise, reason or facts, a most unfeeling sort of politics result. In this special issue, we look at the ways we feel politically, with new work from Adam Phillips, Roxane Gay, Pankaj Mishra, Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, Olga Tokarczuk, Hanif Kureishi and others. granta 146 £12.99 February Demy 210 × 145 mm PB/Ebook
224 pp TBC Colour illustrations Colour photo section Selling Territories: ALL Rights: Granta
978 1 90988 921 7 (PB) 978 1 90988 924 8 (Ebook)
Granta 147: Fortieth Birthday Special Edited by Sigrid Rausing 144 the magazine of new writing | the magazine of new writing | 142 A celebratory issue featuring a collection of
the best essays and fiction from the magazine’s lauded history.
142 144
sigrid rausing is Editor and Publisher of Granta magazine and Publisher of Granta and Portobello Books. She is the author of History, Memory and Identity in Post-Soviet Estonia: The End of a Collective Farm and the memoirs Everything is Wonderful and Mayhem.
der
granta 147 £12.99 May Demy 210 × 145 mm PB/Ebook 224 pp TBC
978 1 90988 922 4 (PB) 978 1 90988 923 1 (Ebook)
B E S T O F YO U N G B R I T I S H N OV E L I S T S 4
spring
112 123
Animalia
Mcm illan) urata )
Colour illustrations Colour photo section Selling Territories: ALL Rights: Granta
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ngs
autumn 2017
Granta and Portobello bestsellers
straw dogs 978 1 86207 596 2 £9.99
the wild places 978 1 78378 449 3 £9.99
the luminaries 978 1 84708 432 3 £9.99
the vegetarian 978 1 84627 603 3 £8.99
do not say we have nothing 978 1 78378 267 3 £8.99
to be a machine 978 1 78378 198 0 £9.99
train dreams 978 1 84708 662 4 £8.99
nothing to envy 978 1 84708 141 4 £9.99
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