Unbound Catalogue Spring 2022 by Unbound

Spring 2022

The Wild Swans / Jackie Morris 978-1-78352-888-2 / £16.99

The Incomplete Framley Examiner / The Editors 978-1-80018-082-6 / £16.99

Game On / Sue Anstiss 978-1-80018-062-8 / £20.00

Completely Staged / Simon Evans and Phin Glynn 978-1-80018-091-8 / £ 20.00

Damnable Tales / Richard Wells (ed.) 978-1-80018-060-4 / £25.00

Glittering a Turd / Kris Hallenga 978-1-80018-048-2 / £12.99

The 32 / Paul McVeigh (ed.) 978-1-80018-024-6 / £9.99

AUTUMN 2021 HIGHLIGHTS

Unbound c/o Runway East 20 St Thomas Street London SE1 9RS Tel. 020 3997 6790 www.unbound.com @unbounders Head of Sales Julian Mash julian@unbound.co.uk Head of Rights Ilona Chavasse ilona@unbound.co.uk Head of Communications Rina Gill rina@unbound.co.uk To order any of the books in this catalogue please contact your PGUK rep. If you’re unsure who that is, contact Julian Mash at julian@unbound.com

Dear Reader, Welcome to our spring catalogue featuring titles published between January and June 2022. As usual, we have devoted the first half to excerpts and interviews around the books published in this period, with the second half containing a full chronological list. All these titles are available to pre-order from GBS or through your PGUK sales rep. There is a lot to look forward to, not least Poguemahone, the astonishing new novel from Patrick McCabe; twice shortlisted for the Booker Prize, he is one of modern Ireland’s greatest writers. This wild, 600-page ballad is undoubtedly his most ambitious work to date: a free-verse monologue narrated by Dan Fogarty, an Irishman living in England, who is looking after his elderly sister Una, who is suffering from dementia. We are beyond excited to be publishing in April and you can read a revealing interview on pages 6–8 between Patrick and Unbound’s co-founder, John Mitchinson. We have a limited number of proofs available – let me know if you are interested in receiving one. April also sees the publication of Sunday Times bestselling author Tom Cox’s debut novel Villager. The manuscript has been eagerly passed around from desk to desk here at Unbound, and everyone who has read it agrees it is a masterpiece. Villager is made up of intertwined stories, some from the past, others from the future, all set in and around the same village in the south-west of England. These tales partly revolve around a Californian musician who recorded – and left behind – a demo tape which became the object of a fanatical cult following. In May, we publish the latest book from the unstoppable creative force that is Jackie Morris: Feather, Leaf, Bark and Stone (12 May) is a pillow book of poems, dreams and stories typed on sheets of gold leaf, by the Kate Greenaway Medal-winning co-author of The Lost Words. Jackie will be signing stock for independents along with limited-edition bookmarks for selected shops – do drop me a line if you are interested, and thanks for your phenomenal support of The Unwinding and The Silent Unwinding last autumn. Further highlights of our spring list include A Year in the Life: Adventures in British Subcultures, in which Lucy Leonelli leaves the corporate world behind in a quest to discover her most authentic self (20 January). Naked Nutrition, the very first LGBTQ+ guide to good health and diet, by

Harley Street nutritionist Daniel O’Shaughnessy, is also released on 20 January. February sees the release of The Diary of Losing Dad by actor and writer Emily Bevan, an intimate insight into what it is like to slowly, painfully lose someone you love. The paperback of Jonathan Meades’s Pedro and Ricky Come Again, the critically acclaimed collection of his writings spanning 1988–2020 (in all its 900-page glory), is released on 3 March. March also sees the publication of Wokelore: Boris Johnson’s Culture War and Other Stories. A collection of more than fifty essays and articles from the independent and fearless newspaper Byline Times, it transports you from 1970s Europe to Putin’s Russia, from the days of empire in Kenya to Brexit Britain, shedding light on America’s political crisis and exposing the UK’s confused handling of COVID-19 along the way. In May, we publish Haramacy, another in the series of important and groundbreaking Unbound anthologies, which gathers essays that amplify under-represented voices from the Middle Eastern and South Asian diaspora. On 23 June, we release OneTrackMinds: based on the popular live storytelling series, it is a collection of twenty-five compelling answers to the question, ‘What was the song that changed your life?’ Featuring the likes of Peter Tatchell on Nina Simone, Joe Dunthorne on Aphex Twin and Inua Ellams on Musiq Soulchild, it will have you compiling a Spotify playlist in a heartbeat. These are just some of the highlights from our spring list. If you are interested in hosting events – both real and virtual – or learning more about any of these books, do drop us a line. We love to hear from you. Until next time, happy reading. Julian Mash, Head of Sales

CONTENTS An Interview with Patrick McCabe

Author of The Butcher Boy on his new novel Poguemahone

Searching for answers among the UK’s subcultural communities

An extract from a powerful new anthology

Ten top health tips we should all follow daily

Sunday Times bestselling author Tom Cox on the year of the pandemic

Rhik Samadder on the meaning of Joni Mitchell’s ‘Amelia’

In conversation with Unbound’s publisher John Mitchinson

Five top recycling tips from sustainability expert James Piper

A Year in the Life

Dangerous Women Naked Nutrition 2020: A Review

OneTrackMinds

An Interview with Jackie Morris The Rubbish Book

Underdogs: Acceleration

A sneak peek at the third instalment of the groundbreaking Underdogs series 34

The Diary of Losing Dad

A selection of poems and journal entries from Emily Bevan’s heartfelt memoir

Haramacy

Middle Eastern and South Asian writers on finding culture and community

Field Notes

Maxim Peter Griffin’s strange and stunning images of a Lincolnshire landscape 43

The Pyjama Myth

Freelance writer Sian Meades-Williams on the art of pitching

The best of the Byline Times, from the upcoming Wokelore 54

One of fifteen folk tales retold to be cherished in the present and future

100 women tell the stories of how they found their voice

Matt Brown and Eloise Williams explain the importance of the Mabinogion 66

January to June 2022

The Story of Brexit Is the Story of Empire Lost & Found 100 Voices The Mab

New Titles: Spring

AN INTERVIEW WITH PATRICK McCABE Poguemahone is an astonishing new novel by Patrick McCabe, the Irish novelist twice Booker shortlisted for The Butcher Boy and Breakfast on Pluto. Set in London, it tells the story of Dan and Una Fogarty, the children of a family who have been forced to emigrate to England from rural Ireland in the 1950s. The action switches between the psychedelic excesses of a squat in Kilburn in the early seventies and a contemporary care home in Margate, where Una’s mind is beginning to unravel. It is a novel that overflows with energy, and is crammed with unforgettable characters, all of it narrated from within the troubled – and troubling – mind of Dan Fogarty. Patrick is in conversation with Unbound’s publisher, John Mitchinson. John Mitchinson: Can you tell us where the story of the Fogartys – the brother and sister – who form the spine of the novel came from? Patrick McCabe: From many different places. I had always wanted to write about the Irish in England and had over the years gathered lots of bits and pieces of story, but none of it really gelled. I’ve spent many years in London and love the city, but I’ve learned to be patient. Edna O’Brien once said that writing is the process of lying in wait for yourself, and that was the case with this book. When it arrived, I felt like I’d found a home for all kinds of things I’d come into contact with, orally and visually. The first thing a reader will notice is the richness of the language – it’s written in a kind of freewheeling prose that seems closer to beat poetry at times. Well, it owes something to the spirit of the Beats – and approaching it as a kind of Gaelic version of Ginsberg’s Howl isn’t a bad place to start. But the form took me a long time to find. It’s very different from my other books – looser, less to do with social realism, liberated from the tyranny of fact – but flexible enough to be able to record the whole range of a person’s consciousness. 6

How did you know when you’d found the right style? The opening passage quotes lines from a traditional Irish song called ‘Killiburn Brae’. The rat-a-tat-tat rhythm of that song unlocked something. I knew then that the book was going to assume the shape of a traditional ballad – a sort of mischievous epic poem. I’d written thousands of handwritten pages over the years and some bits became the rockabilly poetry of Heartland and others became a wistful sequel to The Butcher Boy, but when the Poguemahone voice took hold, I knew I’d found something that would allow me to mesh together writing about London and the Irish in London in a way I’d never managed before. You make it sound like a form of demonic possession! I think writing – well, my writing – is like that. I was raised a Catholic, so I’m very comfortable with the supernatural. Despite its original style, the book isn’t at all hard to read and it does have a compelling plot. I was reminded of David Lynch at various points. Well, that’s the highest form of praise for me. And the story is important – you need it to keep people paying attention. That’s something David Lynch understands, for sure. Yes and – without giving too much away – the novel’s ending is worthy of a horror novel. I’m glad you thought so. You never quite know where a book will take you – I don’t think I’d be able to write a novel if I did know that in advance. You don’t write solely to communicate. Did you find writing about London rather than small-town Ireland liberating? I did, although the London I write about is a small town that just happens to have 10 million people in it. And the London in my mind is another place entirely, much more colourful and exotic, a place of miracles, like a Powell & Pressburger movie. Think of the Catholic 7

psychedelia of Pressburger’s film Miracle in Soho – that was the atmosphere I was plugging into as I wrote. What about literary inspirations? You’ve often mentioned Ian McEwan as a writer you admire. There’s a particular story of his that has haunted me for decades and which influenced my treatment of the character of Una in the book. It’s ‘Last Day of Summer’ from his first collection, set in a squat and featuring an overweight young woman who is mocked and bullied. It’s an astonishingly wise and unnerving story, and all the more amazing when you think he was only in his early twenties when he wrote it. As we’ve mentioned, the book moves between the natural and the supernatural very easily – it’s almost as if the characters live in English but think and feel in Irish. I’ve always felt the two cultures are much closer than most people think. Certainly in terms of popular culture: music, radio and TV shows and the like. But the stuff we carry round inside us is older and stranger than any national culture. And being faithful to that deep irrational stuff is important. I think and hope I’ve done that better in Poguemahone than any of my previous novels. Why is that important to you? Well, I think art should be about more than being uplifting or offering consolation. You can buy fridge magnets for that. The world is a strange, dark, mysterious place. And a novel is a way of communicating that in all its enduring perplexity. So, novels still have things to teach us? I think so. I mean, we’re still trying to figure out the great novels. I’ve always thought of my books as being in the tradition of ‘Come All Ye’ songs – you know… come in, sit down and let me tell you a tale. They’re driven by a yearning to share. Because I don’t understand the world either. But maybe by sharing stories we can work it out together. Engaging with a novel offers us the chance to decode some of the mysteries. 8

Find Poguemahone on page 84

A YEAR IN THE LIFE On the verge of burnout from her corporate headhunting job, Lucy Leonelli hung up her suit and set out on a year-long journey to uncover her most authentic self. Stepping out of her comfort zone and using the alphabet as a guide, she would live for two weeks each with twenty-six of the UK’s little-understood subcultures. A Year in the Life is a fascinating, heartfelt and often hilarious account of Lucy’s adventure as she went in search of answers about herself. Read on for a snapshot of some of these seldom seen communities… B is for… Battle Re-Enacting Here I am in full battle regalia, dressed as a musket fighter in Sir Marmaduke Rawdons Regiment of Foote, a Royalist Regiment founded in 1973 by Wilf Emberton, who was one of the original founding members of the Sealed Knot Society. All dressed up and ready for a re-enactment of the English Civil War’s Battle of Cheriton, I was about to spend the next two hours experiencing a heady combination of self-consciousness, terror and joy as the dummy shots fired around me and we charged manically at each other with the butts of our muskets. D is for… Dog Showing After learning the ropes and helping to steward at a qualifying dog show, I attended the epitome of the annual dog showing calendar: Crufts. Here I am displaying a friend’s dog, William, for a picture in front of the judges’ table in one of the show rings. Somewhat rare in the upper echelons of dog showing society, William is first and foremost a pet – unlike many of the other dogs on show at this event, who live in separate quarters of their owners’ houses where they are often waited on hand and paw by a team of ‘kennel maids’. 9

H is for… Hill Bagging If you don’t know what hill bagging is, you are really missing out. Those who partake in hill bagging, a quintessentially British hobby, have a burning desire to ‘collect’ (reach the summit of) all of the hills on a given list, of which there are many. Here I am with a couple of friendly baggers at the top of Peel Fell, an English Marilyn (hills with a relative height of more than 150 metres) in the wilds of Northumberland. Shortly after this picture was taken, cake, whisky and plastic cups appeared from a backpack to mark the occasion and we managed to drink an entire bottle between six of us, keeping us warm on the blustery top as the rain tried and failed to dampen our spirits. I is for… Intentional Community Known locally as ‘that mad bunch of hippies on the hill’, the Findhorn Foundation is a self-sustaining intentional community just a short train journey from Inverness, Scotland. This is a picture of me during an Experience Week, where I had the immense pleasure of immersing myself into the rituals and customs of this warm community. Group sing-alongs around the bonfire were a nightly occurrence, as were daily meditations, sacred dancing, tuning in ceremonies and, of course, a daily dose of tree hugging. My week in this world offered me a holiday from my cynicism, my black-and-white view of the world and a new-found – but short-lived – love of holding hands with strangers. 10

L is for… LARPing Have you ever watched a fantasy film, like Lord of the Rings, and thought to yourself, I wonder what it would be like to actually live in that world? Well, live-action role play (LARP) gives you that opportunity. Affectionately referred to as ‘crosscountry pantomime’, it is pretty much Dungeons & Dragons acted out in the real world, complete with foam weapons and elaborate costumes. I’m pictured here dressed as an ogre, about to chase the Lions faction around the camp while dry ice was pumped from machines at the edges of the path and spooky sounds were played through speakers hidden high in the trees. It might sound like an activity reserved only for the super geek, but I can honestly say that this weekend of ‘adult play’ was one of the most memorable and enjoyable weekends of my entire life. M is for… Morris Dancing Having spent the previous weeks being taught a series of skips, hops and leaps – known as a ‘hay on the side’, a ‘tree tops’ and a ‘half jip’, as well as how to wave my hanky ‘with conviction’, here I am at my first ‘dance out’ with Dacre Morris at the Rochester Sweeps Festival. In Victorian times the chimney sweeps of Rochester would take to the streets and dance to make ends meet during the summer months. Begging was illegal at the time, so they would cover their faces in soot to avoid recognition from the authorities. The tradition outlived the open fireplaces, and over the years the sweeps were replaced with Morris dancers. The festival slowly evolved into what it is today, attracting over fifty Morris sides, who travel from as far afield as Nottingham and Stockport to represent the various traditions within the Morris family. 11

T is for… Train Spotting And not just spotting but riding on, photographing and even meeting the Guinness World Record Holder for the ‘Tube Challenge’ – the fastest time travelled through all 270 stations of the London Underground (16 hours, 20 minutes, 27 seconds). Here I am at Manchester Piccadilly Station, halfway through a full day of spotting with Peter Mugridge. An avid trainspotter and Coronation Street fan, Peter has collected almost all of the numbers in the UK and carries around a leather wallet containing details of the remaining few, divided across three separate ‘hit lists’: Spotted, Photographed and Haulage (ridden on). By this point in the day, I had already written down 390 134, 57 011, 57 018, 57 304 and 77 002 in my pad… that’s why I am looking so smug.

All photos in this article © Lucy Leonelli

Find A Year in the Life on page 70

DANGEROUS WOMEN What does it mean for the Sun to call Shami Chakrabarti ‘the most dangerous woman in Britain’ or the Daily Mail to label Nicola Sturgeon ‘the most dangerous wee woman in the world’? What, really, does it mean to be a dangerous woman? In this powerful anthology, fifty poets, playwrights, artists, academics, journalists, historians, performers and opinion-formers reflect on what it means to be a dangerous woman. They reclaim the right to be dangerous and give agency to any woman dismissed for her power, talent or success, trivialised as a threat or condemned for challenging the status quo. ‘A Dangerous Woman Speaks of Her Bewilderment…’ by Jo Clifford Jo Clifford is a playwright, performer, proud father and grandmother who lives in Edinburgh. She is the author of over a hundred plays, many of which have been performed all over the world. Her Great Expectations makes her the first openly transgendered woman playwright to have had a play in London’s West End. Somebody has made a film about me on YouTube. The man is filming himself sitting in his car outside the church in which I am performing. He tells the camera that what I am doing is against the canon law of the Church of England and he holds up a much-thumbed book to prove it. The book is the canon law of the Church of England, apparently, and it looks like it’s the poor man’s only line of defence against a disturbing and dangerous world. A world that is disturbing and dangerous because I am in it. He says he’s been invited in to talk about it, but he can’t go in. He has to go and preach the word of the Lord. And besides it’s perishing cold. And he starts his engine and he drives away. And as I watch him, I think: Is this really about me? Am I obviously so dangerous? Apparently, I’m worse. There’s another film just next to his which talks of me with the greatest scorn and derision. But which at the same time warns its listeners that I am one of the ungodly men spoken about in the book of Jude (1:4). 13

That I’m bringing the grace of God into lasciviousness and immorality. Worse even than that: what I am saying is blasphemous, damnable heresy. It is a sign, apparently, a sign of the Last Days and the imminent coming of the end of the world. And my picture comes up on the screen and the voice says: ‘Here is the demon playing Jesus.’ And that’s me. Why am I a demon? Demons are dangerous, aren’t they? I thought I was a human being. A human being with a woman’s passport and a birth certificate to tell the world I am female. So why am I a danger? What have I done? After years of trying to hide the truth from myself and from the world, I have begun to live as a woman. And I find, for the first time in my life, that I feel comfortable in my own skin. Is that so very dangerous? And I have written, and performed, a play which imagines Jesus coming back to earth in the present day as a trans woman. A play in which she reminds her audience that the most important thing in the Gospel is that we learn to love each other and that we do not pass judgement. Is that so dangerous? It seemed like such an obvious thing to me, and I still can’t really understand why it enraged so many people so much that they demonstrated in the street outside the theatre where I first performed it. Or why an archbishop should take the trouble to denounce me. As a dangerous affront to the Christian faith. Am I so strong? Or the Christian faith so weak? And why did hundreds and thousands of people feel it necessary to express their online anger and rage against me? Is their sense of identity so fragile? Or the whole structure of gender in our world so weak? Is it because women are dangerous? Or because when in my play Jesus tells us to love our neighbour, it is the truth? Is the truth so dangerous? I don’t really understand. I don’t want to be dangerous. I want to be able to love my family, write my plays, enjoy beautiful music, cook delicious meals and enjoy the sensation of being true to my own dear self. 14

But perhaps these, too, are dangerous. Perhaps to try to live a decent life in indecent times is dangerous: a clear and present danger in so dangerous a world.

Find Dangerous Women on page 78

NAKED NUTRITION Ever feel stuck around the subject of nutrition? These days it’s hard to know what’s healthy and what’s not due to the ever changing and conflicting information out there. You may also feel you need to be on a full, strict programme to be able to feel better, live longer and even perhaps lose some weight. These programmes can be effective but very structured and tend to be hard to follow, so often the rules go out of the window at the weekend and before you know it, you’re back to square one. Most of the time, keeping things simple is the best practice for long-lasting results so below are ten daily tips to live by. They should be easy to implement, but take them at your own pace, perhaps just make two changes a week until you’re feeling secure that you’ve mastered them. Ten top tips we should all follow daily Chewing Most of us don’t chew properly. If you’re someone who finishes your meal in five minutes, then you need to work on this. The more you chew, the less your digestion has to work to break down the food which can help keep you bloat-free, have less gas and have regular healthy stools. A simple test is to close your eyes when you eat a mouthful. See how long it takes you to chew and you should notice that it’s much slower than chewing with your eyes open. Some people chew faster as they’re distracted at mealtimes by the TV or their phone. Try being more present and mindful of the food you are eating. Morning stretching You need to give your body signals to wake up. This doesn’t mean making a beeline for the coffee machine on rising but some slow gentle stretches which can help wake you up naturally – perhaps then you won’t need a coffee. It can just take five minutes, and if you’re not sure of what exercises to do, then there are plenty of tutorials on YouTube. Eight portions of fruit and vegetables Fruit and vegetables are the foundation to a healthy diet as they contain fibre and micronutrients which support everything such as skin health, metabolism and energy, cardiovascular health, immune health and more, including the prevention of many diseases. Some people don’t even get 16

five portions but in fact it’s better to try to get six portions of vegetables and two pieces of fruit. If you have vegetables at each meal, then it shouldn’t be a problem to fit this in. Eat colour In addition to hitting your fruit and vegetable targets, it’s important to eat different types of fruit and vegetables, particularly those which are different colours. Adopting an ‘eat a rainbow’ principle to your eating (adding in colourful fruit and vegetables) means you’re going to get extra compounds which help your health, also supporting the diversity of your gut bacteria. So, if you usually pick a green salad then you could be missing out on this benefit. Make your salad colourful with foods like beetroot, red and yellow peppers, carrots, etc. Sun exposure We should not be afraid of the sun and keep out of it at all costs. Sun exposure is needed for vitamin D and is far superior to any food source of vitamin D. This doesn’t mean spending hours in the sun without protection but can be something as simple as going for a short walk or having your morning coffee outdoors. Limit phone use We’re a population of phone addicts. You probably can’t remember the last time you felt bored because every time you feel bored, you pick up your phone. This also happens to a lot of us when we go to bed: we get out our phone and browse until we feel like sleeping. The problem with this is that the blue light emitted from the phone impacts our ability to sleep, as well as keeping the mind active from the surge of dopamine you get from scrolling on Instagram. Try to limit screen use an hour or two before bed. Some people also use blue-light blocking glasses in the evening so it doesn’t impact their sleep and natural melatonin (the sleep hormone) production. Having trouble with this? Start by charging your phone outside the bedroom because it’s just as bad to reach for your phone first thing when you wake up. Water Drinking water is the simplest of recommendations but many still don’t do this. As a rule of thumb you should drink 35ml of water per kg of body weight per day, which is approximately 2 litres per day for someone weighing 80kg. Try flavouring water with lemons, limes and mint if you don’t like plain water. 17

Protein When a nutritionist reviews a food diary, the number one observation is that it lacks protein. Protein is needed for energy, repair and to help balance blood sugar which keeps you full for longer. Therefore you have fewer cravings for sweet foods which can help weight loss. If you are vegan, you need to be mindful of your protein intake as vegan foods and meat substitutes tend to be low in protein. Try to have a piece of protein with each main meal and snack. Sources include meat, fish, dairy, tofu, nuts and seeds. Some people use a protein powder to help hit their protein needs for the day. Exercise within limits Getting some movement every day is vital to staying fit and healthy. This can be daunting for some but it doesn’t mean you have to go and throw dumbbells around a gym. Simply, you just need to find exercise you enjoy and do that. This can be a daily walk, tennis or even a yoga class. Aim for thirty minutes of activity five times per week. Sleep Sleep has three main factors: getting to sleep, staying asleep and waking up refreshed. Sleep is when we repair and recharge and you need on average seven hours of quality sleep per night. Good sleep is dependent on how stressed you are, your bedtime routine, what you eat during the day, caffeine intake and the amount of exercise you do. Try paying attention to what could be impacting your sleep and work on that. There are also wearables to track the quality of your sleep and you can see how to improve it. For most, limiting technology two hours before bed will improve sleep dramatically but consider the other factors that may impact you. Some also benefit from drinking a valerian tea before bed to help them fall asleep.

Find Naked Nutrition on page 69

2020: A REVIEW Tom Cox reflects on the previous year, and how the pandemic has affected his writing, his relationships and his surroundings. Written to the soundtrack of a Californian folk musician and watched over by his local hills, Cox’s first full-length novel, Villager, will be published in April 2021. I called Alan Benson last week. ‘Tom! Are you in the prison?’ said Alan. It was a very Alan way of starting a conversation. I said I wasn’t in the prison. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Keep being good and you won’t be.’ Alan will be ninety in less than two years. I know this because I started caddying for him in 1988, for 50p per round, and that autumn I asked him how old he was and he said fifty-six. I am just about that good at maths but no better. Alan is far better at maths and would, when ferrying me and my unlikely golfing mates to tournaments when we were in our teens, often inform people how long a journey took on average, to the nearest half minute. Last time I saw Alan was in Coventry. He was with his son, Pete. ‘How much do you think he spent on fish yesterday?’ Pete asked me, pointing at Alan. ‘I don’t know. Thirty pounds?’ I said. ‘One hundred and eighty pounds!’ said Pete. ‘Can you bloody believe it?’ I was just about to do a talk in a bookshop, where Alan would arrive on stage and sabotage it, telling the audience that what I write in my books is a big pack of lies, which – even though he knows it isn’t – he thought would be a pretty funny thing to do, which it was. I thought of Alan lots recently, particularly during the first week of this month, when the long-serving golf commentator Peter Alliss died. Not that Alan is really anything like Alliss, but because Alliss was a similar age and I conflate Alan a little with Alliss due to the fact both were rebellious authority figures in my life during my anomalous period as an out-of-place struggler with the psychology and etiquette of golf. I only met Alliss a few times, but he was nice enough to read my two books on golf, which weren’t really aimed at him, or even at any really golfy people, and gave me some biscuits to take home when I visited his house. But I saw Alan for an average of three days of every week between the ages of thirteen and sixteen. He looked out for and defended me and my mates in a provincial golf universe most of us were not built for, trip-wired with nonsense social codes and disappointed men striving to rescue their lives with tiny hits of power. He also sacrificed endless amounts of his free time to support our dreams of sporting success, even though he 19

probably knew how deluded some of those dreams were. Then, when we’d grown out of it, he did the same for the next generation, and the next, and the next. I had been meaning to return his half yearly phone call for a long time, and been feeling pretty bad about not doing so, because he’s utterly adorable and means a lot to me, and because I am very aware – especially in this year, of all years – that he won’t be around for ever. But something was stopping me, not just all the time moving house and illness had sucked from my life, and the nonexistent phone reception where I live, but a need to be able to tell him positive facts, to be able to tell him I was healthy and settled. Because I know how much Alan has always liked to know his lads – whether, like me, they’re now a long, long way from golf, or still right in the thick of it – are doing OK, and how important it is to him. I don’t think the phone call lasted more than eleven and a half minutes, which it never does, with Alan, in all his business-like-ness, but I have not made another this year that’s felt nearly as important.

IF YOU’RE GOING TO THINK I’M WEIRD AND WRONG FOR WANTING TO SAY HELLO TO SHEEP ON COUNTRY WALKS, YOU’RE NOT THE PERSON FOR ME There seems to have been a notably large amount of great music coming out of the pandemic, but that might be an illusion, since most of what has been coming out in the last few months was created before the pandemic hit. Taylor Swift’s Folklore and Evermore albums were actually recorded quickly in enforced isolation. The remarkable ‘Punisher’ LP by the twenty-six-year-old Phoebe Bridgers – memorably described by one fan as ‘Taylor Swift for girls who have crumbs in their bed’ – is different in that it was written and recorded in pre-COVID days, but seems to predict 2020, both in lyrics and mood. ‘Punisher’ is full – most notably in the enormous, spine-tickling outro ‘I Know the End’ – of images of desolation and societal decay, and repeatedly addresses ideas of hiding and escaping, tapping into a feeling that is very prevalent this year: that hiding is no longer about the physical, however much your instinct tells you it should be. You can drop out and go somewhere nobody knows you, but you’ve not really dropped out, because you’re still plugged in. It’s a quietly brilliant, candid record, made by a take-no-shit angel, for a time when noise and solitude seem to rise at the same exponential rate and be inextricably connected to one another. 20

I remember, years ago, a girl who was auditioning me – in a virtual way – for a date, looked my work up online and said, ‘I don’t think you’re right for me. You seem like someone who likes animals more than people.’ It bothered me a bit at the time. But now? I accept she was 100 per cent correct, and I’m extremely OK with that. If you’re going to think I’m weird and wrong for wanting to say hello to sheep on country walks, you’re not the person for me. Also, if you think that just because somebody likes animals more than people, it means they have no capacity to also think people can be wonderful and lovely and inspiring and genuinely good, you are a short-sighted fool. It’s easy to think we don’t change much after the age of thirty but looking back at that incident I am aware of little ways in which I have changed, how much more comfortable and confident I am in my skin. I felt, from the damning way her judgement was conveyed, like I was being told I was an antisocial being, lurking on the shadow margins of the civilised and correct world. Whereas now I just think, ‘Well, yeah, of course I fucking like animals more. Doesn’t any rational person who has considered the facts?’ This is also part of why – despite many years of making great real-life friends via social media, and retaining a very positive view of that – I don’t want to do online dating. I want to talk to someone in person, as what I truly am, to not be ‘virtually auditioned’ and/or have them pondskim across the internet then take an idea in their head about who I am and run with it in a careening, flappy-armed way. That’s not the basis for anything real. You can Google the date a record came out, what a word means, the name of a wildflower or someone who started a war. You can’t Google a person’s soul. As you go longer without what was your normal life, you look where you can for social interaction, and more and more that becomes via the screen in front of you. I’m not happy about it, personally, but I’m giving myself a free pass, until the world – hopefully – remembers what it was. In my case, screens help your career survive, and you can’t afford to forget that, no matter how much you yearn to stay away from them completely or recognise the good it would do to your mind. I didn’t sell as many books in shops this year as I’d have liked to, but I physically sold, signed and posted a lot myself, and that – while cutting into my writing time – helped me feel less worried about the future. But selling books myself meant putting in more hours on social media, and permitting myself to share a bit more of my life there, which meant a lot of the difficult aspects of social media were exacerbated: the people who respond to the words and image that accompanied the 21

link to your piece but not to your piece, the people who tell you your own joke, the people giving you advice on something you didn’t ask for advice on (actually, I wonder if unsolicited advice has actually taken over from opinion as the thing on the internet that there is too much of), the people who are so addicted to social media they think that it is the sole narrative of the planet, the people who tell you to smile more or that you look sad or solemn or haunted or tired, the people who tell you because you are smiling for once you have definitely had a good day with no problems in your life, the people who think because you happened to mention you were single you are desperate to not be alone rather than quite enjoying being single but not averse to meeting another person at some point when it’s right. But at the same time, so many good things about what social media can create and lead to were heightened. The comments from people who do take the time to read properly, and do get it. The people who have so much to say and do know what they’re talking about. I have never felt like more readers are truly connecting with my books. I have never received more touching and powerful – and, often, brilliantly fucking written – responses to them. I have never appreciated, more, the freedom an online following, sharing my work, gives me to totally ignore conventional media and be separate to any writing ‘scene’. Of course, none of this really equates to sales, and I have learned not to expect it to, and I don’t judge my worth as a writer that way. Yet, if I’m honest, one of my strongest feelings as this year comes to a close – especially when I look at the facts of my sales figures – is that my books aren’t good enough. Yet that comes along with a concomitant feeling that this is totally the way it needs to be. I don’t want to be ‘good enough’. I want to keep trying to improve, and learn, forever. I mean, to feel ‘I’ve got it now. That’s it. No more reading. No more expanding your mind by talking to fascinating, wise people. No more growth. No more hungry feeling in your heart.’ How terrible would that be? I want to maintain the hunger, but perhaps with just a little bit less of the fear. That – plus spending a bit more time writing and listening and a bit less time pushing and chatting on screens – would be a satisfactory way to spend next year.

I HAVE NEVER FELT LIKE MORE READERS ARE TRULY CONNECTING WITH MY BOOKS As someone who always takes an interest in ruins and derelict buildings and other structural remnants on walks, I have taken a 22

bigger interest than ever in ruins and derelict buildings and other structural remnants on walks this year. The idea that nature is rebelling, punishing us for what we’ve done, could well be behind it, plus the housing crisis, the fear that every spare convertible building, every last bit of land, is in danger of being snapped up and exploited. I crawl inside collapsed bothies and sheds and think about a depopulated world, where every building is a ruin, and what it might look like, and what would survive longest. I also look at stone barns that have not been sold as ‘projects’ and celebrate their ivy-strangled magnificence. And then, as someone who now rents one of them, converted in the final part of the last century, I check myself for hypocrisy. I would like to stay for as long as I possibly can in this shelter where cows and sheep once huddled in incessant rainy winters like the current one: it feels like the culmination of something, the end of a long, expensive and tiring journey. It’s where I want to be. It feels like it’s where I’ve always wanted to be. I am fiercely, protectively, in love with it, and have already poured my soul into its layout. And hopefully it will stand up, physically, to any coming tests. If nature is going to change – or heal – I suspect I’ll be hyper aware of it here. As I write these words, the rain has not stopped for days and the river directly outside my kitchen window is filling up again. I put my trust in what I know of the stone bridge just a little farther up the hill. It’s been there for centuries, and remains in one piece. But late last week, after one particularly insane day of bucketing sky water, the river reached a new level of rage. It was hurling itself through the gap under that bridge, shrieking blue murder, as if the sea, fifteen miles away, had killed its entire family and it could think of nothing but revenge. I went to sleep with its white noise all over me. At 2 a.m., my cat Roscoe woke me up, asking to go out, but when I went downstairs and opened the back door, she reversed back into the house, terrified. She probably thought a monster was outside, and she was, in a way, correct. I stood on the balcony above the water. The writhing white shapes below looked like livid swimming ghosts. In the even louder bar of howling sound, I could hear the boulders beneath the surface grinding, forced against one another, again and again, by the current. The water would need to have risen another three feet or more to reach the balcony, and I’m told it’s never got that high, but I have never felt more expendable. The force and fury of those ghosts could have obliterated anything in their path. I no longer thought Roscoe was being a wimp. I did not want her out here. It was a dark and special magic to stand above those ghosts, but very frightening. Next summer, when I sit out there with a book, 23

with trickles and burbles and babbles below me, I will not be able to remember how it felt, just as we can never properly remember how we felt at any time in the past, how the vagaries of weather, seasons, landscapes, buildings, people, misfortunes, years, energies, shaped us at that exact moment, before the moment stretched out, blurred and was gone. All we can do is maybe write it down and try to get somewhere close.

Courtesy of Tom Cox

Find Villager on page 86

ONETRACKMINDS Based on the hugely popular live storytelling shows, OneTrackMinds is a collection of compelling answers to the question, ‘What was the song that changed your life?’ Taken together, they form a poignant and entertaining musical guide to the best of what makes us human. In this extract, journalist and author Rhik Samadder considers the meaning of Joni Mitchell’s ‘Amelia’. ‘The greatest mystery is not that we’ve been flung at random between this profusion of matter and the stars. But that from this prison, we can draw from ourselves images powerful enough to deny our nothingness.’ The words of Geri Halliwell, on leaving the Spice Girls. She knew she would be disappointing a great many people. I’d like to write about disappointment as my theme for this story, and I can only apologise for that. I know disappointment is not one of the big themes. It’s not the thrill of first love or finding your calling. Disappointment is not like that. Disappointment is what happens when life refuses to cast you in a story you have written for yourself. I was looking for a story when I was fourteen. Picture a sort of never-been-kissed twiglet of a thing, who, more than stories, in fact, was looking for friendship. I was alone. I was lonely. And I thought that music could help me find what I was looking for. I remember I went up to the most popular boy in our year – Aiden, his name was – and I asked him to make me a mixtape of cool music that cool people liked that would make me cool and popular. And to his credit, he came back a few days later and he had this cassette tape. And it had an acid smiley face on it, with the words ‘Happy Hardcore’ written across it in felt tip. I listened to ninety minutes of what I can only describe as psychopathically intense dance music. And I had three thoughts. I thought to myself: 1) This is what popular music is. 2) I hate it. 3) I will have to pretend to like this for the rest of my life. Luckily, of course, that didn’t happen. In fact, my dream came true – I was befriended, sometime after all this, by two older boys in my school. And they were kind of amazing. They were older. They were a lot taller. One of them – Martin – was six foot seven, which was a whole foot taller than me. We’d walk around looking like Prince and his bodyguards. 25

I loved hanging out with them and they introduced me to so many things. They introduced me to writers like André Malraux, who I quoted at the top of this piece (that was not Geri Halliwell, that was a lie), but they also introduced me to a lot of music. Martin would make me these mixtapes, but these ones had beautiful liner notes with very small neat handwriting about all the songs. That was the sort of currency of boys back then. The mixtapes were amazing. They had Gang of Four, Miles Davis, Dylan, Jimi. But there was one song by Joni Mitchell which changed everything for me. It’s a song called ‘Amelia’, and not many people know it. Even Joni Mitchell fans. Basically, it’s about Joni driving across this desert following a failed love affair. And she’s having this imaginary dialogue with Amelia Earhart, the great aviator who disappeared over the Pacific, as if lost to the air itself. And it’s about the cost of ambition, especially for women. It’s about the limits of love. It’s about that lonely place within us all that we can never outrun. And it’s about disappointment. The closest it comes to a chorus is Joni repeatedly consoling Amelia – or, I guess, herself – that everything she’s experienced to that point has been a series of false alarms. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard. I could feel my brain expanding – physically feel that, as if it was trying to get a grasp on this strange new thing. It was so beautiful. But it was not only beautiful – it taught me something about beauty. It seemed to suggest that because beauty that sublime could come from loss, from things that didn’t work out, that was itself a source of beauty. And that’s a strange idea. It doesn’t make much sense, really, on the surface. But then I realised that if that’s true, then maybe beauty is not located in the stories that we want to tell, it’s somewhere else. Maybe it begins once we stop talking. It also suggested that André Malraux was wrong. I think beauty is in those powerful images. But they don’t help us deny our nothingness: they help to accept it and keep living. And this song has really done that for me throughout my life.

Find OneTrackMinds on page 98

AN INTERVIEW WITH JACKIE MORRIS In May 2022, Unbound will publish Feather, Leaf, Bark and Stone, a book of Jackie Morris’s poems and meditations, most typed onto small squares of gold leaf but some typed directly on leaves, bark and feathers. It is a small jewel of a book and a new departure for Jackie as a writer and artist. She talks to John Mitchinson, Unbound’s publisher, about how the book came about. John Mitchinson: You are best known for your paintings of the natural world, so how did you come to start working with typewriters? Jackie Morris: When I was growing up, my dad was a policeman and he used to type his reports on a typewriter that my mum had bought him for their first wedding anniversary. I was fascinated by the sound and smell of it and the feel of the keys as you hit them. Also, it still seems magical how they put each letter right next to each other on the paper. So, you’ve always enjoyed the physical act of typing? I have, but there’s another thing about typewriters which sets them apart from computers. You need to concentrate to avoid making mistakes – you need to be very present as you type, not just for each word but for each letter. That’s very true with this book – because each typed piece has been photographed, they had to be mistake free! Each square of a gold transfer leaf acted as a limit for my words – they pushed me to choose the right words and to fill the space in a way that was pleasing. Because words are images. Every piece of writing is made from images called letters, which when put in a certain order on paper create other images and stories in our minds. It’s alchemy at its most pure.

So, the formal constraints of typing on the squares of gold leaf and then leaves and feathers dictated the form of each piece? Yes, it made me hone back my language and forced me to be precise – although having worked in picture books all my life I’m quite good at fitting a big story into a small number of pages. Each piece in this book captures a moment in time. Some are prayers, some are dreams, some link together to tell a story. The book wasn’t always called Feather, Leaf, Bark & Stone? No, originally it was called The Space Between, inspired by 間 (ma), the beautiful Japanese symbol for the space between the notes in a piece of music – that space or silence being as important as the notes themselves. As it developed, I started to type on feathers, bark and leaves in the same spirit of curiosity, so the title changed. I love the idea that the book contains typing on gold leaf and on gold leaves: it appeals to my strange sense of humour. The book emerged from a difficult time in your life. Yes, my father died shortly before lockdown, so my mum was able to be with him, which was something. But it was a time of great grief, and these pieces reflect that. They emerged in the spaces between paintings, in the moments when I couldn’t deal with my life. As well as the poems, there are labyrinths threaded through the book. I have always stencilled beach pebbles with gold leaf. I like the idea of pieces of art made in deep time. I leave them in places: some where I know they’ll be found; some where I know the tide will reclaim them first; some in woods as way markers. So, threaded through the book you’ll find a series of stencils with the map co-ordinates of the stones they were used to decorate. Why labyrinths? It’s an important symbol for me – unlike a maze, there’s only one way in and out of a labyrinth. And the original labyrinth has always appealed: the minotaur wasn’t a monster but the people who imprisoned him were. A labyrinth is a map, an attempt to navigate and that’s what writing and 28

painting have always been for me. So, if pushed, I’d say this book is a navigation: the record of movements through time and feeling, a way of understanding place. How do you envisage people will read it? That’s entirely up to them – you can skim through it, read it in order or dip in. The pieces don’t appear in the order they were written in, but they’ve fallen into an order that seems to flow. Each piece appears on the right-hand page – this gives each piece space to rest in, but also means readers can add their own drawings and writings. I love it when that happens – I used to think books were so precious I couldn’t even turn down a corner but now I like to see books that have been really loved. It’s such an original way of presenting written pieces: did you have any books that acted as models? I read a lot of poetry in lockdown – The Mabinogi by Mathew Francis was a favourite and I think the shortness of the pieces and the space they float in owes something to the work of the wonderful Scottish poet, Thomas A. Clark. It’s a Jackie Morris book with no bears! There are no bears and no dragons but there are plenty of birds and foxes. And I’m still painting, only this time using words to create pictures directly in the reader’s mind. I’m aiming for a kind of synaesthesia – I want the words and the book to disappear so readers can navigate to places that exist in their own imagination. Does that feel liberating? And a little frightening. But you can’t write or paint only what people expect, you must do what makes your own soul sing. This is the book I’ve felt most fearful about putting out into the world because everything is stripped away. It’s me in these pages: I can’t hide behind the paintings.

Find Feather, Leaf, Bark and Stone on page 89

THE RUBBISH BOOK Plastic bottles, cardboard boxes, aluminium cans… we all get through a lot of rubbish, but do you really know what happens after you put it in the bin? Do you even know which bin it goes in? Recycling has never been more important – but it has also never been more complicated. The Rubbish Book answers all your questions and more, providing you with all the information you need to become a true recycling expert, so you can help protect the planet with confidence. Written by an awardwinning sustainability professional, it includes an A–Z of waste items and whether they can be recycled, a break-down of what the recycling symbols on our packaging actually mean, and an insight into the future of recycling and the new materials that will change how we look at rubbish for ever. Five top recycling tips: 1. Always put caps back on the bottles before throwing them in the bin It is almost impossible for something smaller than a tennis ball to be sorted and recycled correctly. Small items get lost on conveyor belts and drop off machinery, so to give your metal or plastic lids the best chance of getting recycled, put them back on the bottle, where they can be separated by the plastic or glass recycler and sent on for recycling.

2. Do not squash bottles when out and about We all do it, and this is fine some of the time (and can be helpful as it reduces transport costs) but in a mixed bin, you will make it very difficult for packaging to be sorted correctly. Most sorting machines use size and composition to decide what something is. If you squash a bottle, you increase the chances of a sorting machine thinking the bottle is paper, and mis-sorting it. This is only true of a mixed collection that needs sorting – if you are at home and the bottle is going into a plastic bin, feel free to squash!

3. Carrier bag recycling points can recycle a lot more! In most large supermarkets there is a carrier bag recycling point. Carrier bags are made of low-density Polyethylene (LDPE), and the carrier bag recycling point can accept any film made of LDPE for recycling. To find out if something is LDPE, just look for the number 4 on the piece of plastic. This category of plastics includes things like bread bags, fruit and vegetable wrapping and amazingly, bubble wrap!

4. The scrunch test is the easiest way to test recyclability Sometimes plastic is coated in metal – think of chocolate bar wrappers or crisp packets. It can be hard to distinguish whether this is metal foil, which is recyclable, or plastic. There is a simple test to tell you whether something is recyclable: the scrunch test. Just scrunch the wrapping into a ball, and, if it holds its shape, it can be recycled; if it opens out again, it contains plastic and cannot be recycled. This is particularly useful with wrapping paper, which often looks like metal or paper but can be lined with plastic.

5. Black plastic cannot be seen There has been a fair amount of news explaining that black plastic cannot be recycled. This is nothing to do with its chemical makeup, just its colour. It is the sorting that poses a problem not the plastic itself. Plastic is sorted using near infrared scanners which shine a light on the plastic. The plastic reflects a unique signature, depending on its chemical make-up. Black plastic usually contains a pigment called ‘carbon black’. Unfortunately, the pigment does not reflect this light so the scanners cannot tell what the plastic is.

Find The Rubbish Book on page 75

UNDERDOGS: ACCELERATION Hot on the heels of Not the Booker Prize finalist Tooth and Nail, Acceleration is the third instalment in the groundbreaking Underdogs series, which follows a band of neurodivergent teenagers in their attempt to liberate a dystopian Britain from its evil ruler. In this latest book, the Underdogs’ fight takes a darker and more desperate turn… Ewan scanned the wreckage. None of the helicopters remained intact. He and Jack would have to jump. Ewan found himself slowing down the closer he got to the edge of the airship. The view across the countryside was so much more frightening with the wind around his face. He had long acclimatised to the tilt towards the back of the ship, but it became uncomfortable once again when he saw how the decline led directly into thin air. ‘Still can’t do it,’ said Jack from too far behind him. ‘Come here, Jack. I’m not leaving you alone, and I’m not dying here either.’ As Jack approached, Ewan looked over the edge. He thought it would be better to get the shock out of the way early, but instead he was struck with a devastating sense of vertigo at the sheer nothing that appeared beneath the platform he stood on. ‘I can’t jump…’ Jack said. ‘You’re at least putting it on.’ Ewan demonstrated how to put on his parachute, and prayed to whoever was up there that he was doing it right. He was high enough in the sky for his prayers to be heard louder, and close enough to Raj for the lad to put in a good word for him. Once the straps were tightened and the backpack was fastened the best way he knew how, he checked Jack’s too. He was taking longer, nowhere close to overcoming his struggles with hand-eye coordination. With Ewan’s help his parachute was fixed in place, but Grant’s missiles must have soared miles closer in the time it had taken them. When Ewan turned back to the exit, his toe nudged a small cylindrical piece of metal – most likely a chunk of dead helicopter. It rolled towards the edge for half a metre before it fell into the sky and instantaneously vanished from view. No dramatic tumbling through the air, and no sound whatsoever: it just disappeared, never to be seen again. A shiver ran through Ewan’s spine at the merciless nature of physics, which he and Jack were soon to entrust themselves to. 34

‘Right, Jack,’ he said, ‘listen carefully. I’m going to tell you what to do.’ ‘What… you’ve skydived before?’ ‘No. You’ve got to be eighteen before they let you do that. But my dad told me a bunch of stuff, and I watched a ton of YouTube afterwards.’ ‘Oh bloody hell…’ There was no condescension in Jack’s voice. Just fear. ‘Once you’re out there,’ Ewan began, ‘give yourself time to get used to freefall. It’ll feel different to anything you’ve felt before, but you’ve got loads of time. A minute, easily.’ ‘Where’s the cord?’ ‘Here. But don’t pull it right away. You need to freefall most of the distance. On the way down, spread your arms and legs wide. It’ll increase the wind resistance and slow you down a bit. You’ll have more time to think.’ ‘When do we pull it?’ Ewan bit his lip. He knew the numerical answer was two to four thousand feet, but he had no perception of how high that actually was. It would be guesswork. ‘Just after I do,’ he answered. ‘We’ll keep each other in sight and once I’ve pulled it, you do the same.’ ‘I’m scared, Ewan.’ Ewan could no longer hear Jack’s faded voice over the wind. But by the shape of his lips, that was probably what he was gasping. ‘Once your chute’s open,’ Ewan said, louder to make sure he was heard himself, ‘keep yourself vertical. Stand up straight. Some handles will deploy with the parachute and you can pull them left and right to navigate yourself. Go for a nice flat field, and whatever you do, pull your feet up when you land. If you hit the ground with your legs, you break them.’ Jack had his mouth half-open, as if trying to ask a question he couldn’t find the words for, but Ewan knew they didn’t have time. Jack had one of those brains that needed to know every single detail before taking any plunge, so that the plunge felt more like a gentle easing into a pool. But by the time he’d be done asking questions, the whole airship would have exploded around them. ‘And in answer to your final question,’ Ewan said, ‘they work almost one hundred per cent of the time. As long as you follow what I said. There’s an emergency cord too. Ready?’ An evil thought occurred in Ewan’s mind: one that he refused to recognise as his own. Pearce didn’t need to steal these parachutes. He just needed to sabotage them and wait for us to use them. ‘I’m not ready,’ said Jack, ‘but I’m doing it.’ Find Underdogs: Acceleration on page 72

THE DIARY OF LOSING DAD The months leading up to the untimely death of Emily Bevan’s father were surreal for many reasons, not least because she was playing a dying zombie in the BBC series, In the Flesh. This extract is taken from her funny, moving and inspiring memoir, pieced together from the poems, diary extracts and general scribblings that kept her busy through this painful time. First Sight 7 September 2013 I walk through the vast concrete maze of wings and signs at the John Radcliffe, eventually making it into a lift. It pings. Everything is in slow motion. I glide through each door (the Valium is kicking in). Time, seconds lengthen. Stretch. Drawn out by anticipation that is both desperate to see him and fearful of what or who I will find. I am completely lost. A kind man steers me to the right place. I sterilise my hands and pass a sea of curious eyes. And then at the end of the ward… You Lopsided But unmistakable. Oh, Dad. You cry floods. I have never seen you truly cry before. And I had not prepared myself for this. You are so happy to see me and squeeze my hand in the tightest grip. I kiss and stroke your head. Touch the cool skin of your left arm which lies lifeless on a little pillow. A layer has been taken off and I can see so much in your eyes. You are achingly vulnerable. Achingly loveable. For an Oxford man, it strikes me, for the first time, that your eyes are the wrong shade of blue. Pools of pale grey stare inquiringly at me. I ask what you’re looking at, and you say, ‘I’m looking at my beautiful daughter.’ A kindly nurse approaches and asks, ‘Is this your grandpa?’

Do Not Bend I’d like to wrap you up in bubble-wrap with all my dearest things. Put you in a square box. Muffled. Safe. Carefully fold the box around your form and Sellotape the edges. Snug. I’d look after you. (I’d cut a hole so you could breathe.) *** Dawn smooths the mind, like a brush through knotted hair 23 October 2013 My driving has always been a source of concern for my father. I’ll never forget how utterly astonished he was when I arrived home one day, jubilant after having successfully passed my driving test. The process of learning to drive had taken two tests, four instructors, as many years, and a little chunk out of the wall in Reading Station’s underground car park. My first test had been brought to a close prematurely after I drove the wrong way around a roundabout, leaving my poor examiner visibly shaken. By some miracle, in my second test, the driving gods were shining down on me and I got through unscathed, much to the amazement of my awaiting instructor, who practically dropped his flask of tea. As soon as I got home, I picked up the keys to my Peugeot 205 (small, but with the gravelly baritone of a tank) and lurched off down the road to Henley, where I was so pleased with myself that I forgot to pay and display and promptly got a £40 parking ticket. Years on, Dad is still anxious about my driving. I eventually manage to calm him down and we have a good chat, catching up on the days that I’ve missed. He loves hearing all about my job, and the people that I’m working with. He’s told all the nurses what I’m up to and is keen to introduce me to one of them, who is an In the Flesh fan. Dad is as curious as ever to know how it all works, particularly the geography of where we’ve been filming, so we spend a bit of time on Google Earth zooming in on a rural train station amongst other places. We had an amusing cameo this week from the playwright Jim Cartwright, writer of, 37

amongst other things, Little Voice. He does the odd acting job for a bit of fun and is hilariously patronising as the station officer who refuses to sell Kieran a ticket because he’s ‘partially deceased’. I’ve brought some of Dad’s art materials with me today and suggest that we do a bit of drawing. Dad really took to art in his retirement, and our house is full of his paintings. In the early days, he was less concerned with us liking his artwork, anxious to know that we simply recognised what it was. He once showed me a picture of what was quite obviously a welly boot and said, ‘What’s this?’ When I replied correctly he was absolutely delighted. Less successful was the very nice picture of a river, which wasn’t actually a river, but in fact the road outside our house. Today, I encourage Dad to try to draw his left hand. I imagine it might help his brain to connect to it, in a similar way to his daily mirrorbox therapy. Dad draws his hand, on my request, and then gets bored and starts to draw me instead. I can tell by the mischievous expression on his face that what he’s drawing is far from flattering. Out of revenge, I start to draw him too, and it is equally bad, though I enjoy studying his face. He has a sloping, skew-whiff smile. His face looks handsome, his cheekbones sticking out more because he’s so much thinner. Afterwards I chop up some Golden Russet apple that I picked from the garden and give it to him in little chunks. We agree that it’s like feeding a tortoise.

Emily and her father: courtesy of the author

Find The Diary of Losing Dad on page 74

HARAMACY Haramacy – an amalgamation of the Arabic word ‘haram’, meaning indecent or forbidden, and the English word ‘pharmacy’, implying a safe, trustworthy space – is a collection of essays prescribed by voices from the Middle East, South Asia and the diaspora as an antidote to ailments caused by intersectional, social issues. It is a collection of essays which amplifies under-represented voices. Tackling topics previously left unspoken, this anthology offers a space for writers to explore ideas that mainstream organisations overlook. Twelve Middle Eastern and South Asian writers explore visibility, invisibility, love, strength and race, painting a picture of what it means to feel fractured, and appreciating both heritage and adopted home to highlight the various shades that make up our society. The book features contributions by novelists, journalists, and artists including Aina J. Khan, Ammar Kalia, Cyrine Sinti, Joe Zadeh, Kieran Yates, Nasri Atallah, Nouf Alhimiary, Saleem Haddad and Sanjana Varghese, as well as essays by editors Dhruva Balram, Tara Joshi and Zahed Sultan. From the foreword by editor Zahed Sultan On Thursday 2 August 1990, I woke up early in the morning to the sound of water gushing from metal taps. Both the bathtub and sink were being filled to the brim in the bathroom of the room I shared with my younger brother. Confused, I drag myself downstairs with my brother to look for my father. I look outside, and in the courtyard, I see my mother’s oversized, ornamental pots also being topped up, this time with rice. Adding to my confusion, other essentials are being stockpiled in peculiar places. My father sees us and takes our hands to step outside to the front of the house. In the distance, we see military tanks in formation on the roundabout nearby. The cars usually circling it and diverting onto busy streets are at a standstill. This once agitated, early-morning commute is now a serene, octopus-like parking lot with tentacles of cars extending as far as the eye can see. This is my earliest memory of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. As confused as my brother and I were at the time, there was a silver lining. The night before, my father had taken us out to buy our first 39

Nintendo gaming console (Mario Kart included). What’s more, he had also retrieved two of his prized watches from the shop which had just finished maintaining them. I experienced about thirty days of the nine-month Iraqi occupation of Kuwait. Fragments from this time are still etched into my memory. My brother and I escaped the country one sandy afternoon through an unmarked desert path in a convoy of SUVs and family vans packed with distant relatives and elderly strangers. It took us four attempts on four separate occasions to escape Kuwait and cross the desert into Saudi Arabia. Each attempt had its complications, one of which involved being shot at by Iraqi soldiers. We had lunch on newspapers with the Saudi border guards the day we escaped and at night slept in an empty house on mattresses on the floor. The next morning, we continued our drive to Bahrain. Eventually my brother and I flew to London to be reunited with my mother and elder brother, who had been in Thailand and were making their way home, until they couldn’t. I never wanted to leave Kuwait, I wanted to stay with my father. But he insisted. Six months later, he too fled the country with my grandmother on a beat-up bus through Baghdad using false identities as expat Indians, as they were free to return home during the occupation. He soon joined us in Delhi, where my parents had bought a flat in a new building which was almost ready to move into. We were reunited with my father thanks to insulin, or a lack of it (he was a diabetic and ran out of his meds, urging him to escape). Although the Iraqi occupation lasted only nine months, we lived in Delhi for two years. My mother asserted we do because of the black smog that encapsulated Kuwait’s skies from the raging oil wells set ablaze by Saddam Hussein. Most of my childhood memories from before the occupation are happy ones. I had nurtured a close group of friends from kindergarten, did exceptionally well in school, and was enamoured for the first time, at a distance, by a new girl who had joined our sixth-grade class. Notwithstanding that, my memories are also riddled with irregularities. I remember this one instance on parent-teacher day where classmates nudged me to join them in laughing at a lady wearing an intricately laced sari with a pronounced bindi on her forehead. I stayed quiet. Or another instance, during an after-school sports match, when a classmate pointed to a peculiar-looking man with big, curly hair and a thick beard wearing a dishdasha (the national dress) sitting cross-legged on the tiered benches of the gym. I pretended I couldn’t see. 40

This lady and this man were my parents. I was born to an Indian mother and a Kuwaiti father. They were introduced to each other through mutual friends in Bombay (Mumbai). My late father’s fluency in speaking Hindi surpassed his ability to speak Arabic, mostly because the formative years of his upbringing were spent in India with his brothers and sisters. At the time, this was normal. It was even celebrated to have close ties with the Indian sub-continent among merchant families through trade and commerce. But somehow, post-oil, Kuwait’s relationship with India changed. Reduced to bringing in hordes of marginalised labour with substandard pay and limited rights to do the menial jobs Kuwait’s new elite thought beneath them. Still, despite the pronounced divisions, I was able to navigate my upbringing with relative confidence.

I HAVE SEEN FIRST-HAND HOW CROSS-CULTURAL INTERACTIONS CAN LEAD TO INGENUITY AND ACCEPTANCE Before the age of ten, I used to practice reading the Quran. I even won a gold medal in a government Quran reading competition for my tilawa (recitation) skills. I remember coming home that day from school, opening the front door to our house, and seeing a big banner of congratulations with balloons hovering mid-air. Loud applause and cheers of joy emanated from my parents and a new bicycle awaited me to reward my achievement. News of my win spread quickly through family circles (I have a fairly big one). I was praised as ‘the gifted one’ followed by showers of grace in Arabic mashallah! (god willing). Thereafter, during family gatherings and hospital visits to see elders, I was instructed on command to recite a soura (verse) from the Quran. Folding my arms and bowing my head in obedience, I did what was asked of me. Unbeknownst to me at the time, this is where my career as a performance artist began to take shape. This amalgamation of traditions and religious rituals melded together naturally at home. Sunday nights were always Chatt night growing up – typical, bite-sized street food from India. We sang ‘Om Jay Jagadish Shahare’ on Divali (the festival of light) and ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ under the family tree in the winter. Interestingly, neither Ramadan (the fasting month for Muslims) or Eid (the end of the fasting month) were observed. But I insisted on fasting, waking up at dawn to eat Suhour (breakfast) before the Fajr (dawn) prayer. To this day, I mostly fast during Ramadan. I can’t say I fully understand 41

why, whether it’s through force of habit or divine faith. What I can say is that murmurs of the word haram (forbidden) still echo in my mind from the days of deen (religion) class at school or the fear of being called Kalb Ramadan (the dog of Ramadan) by friends and cousins if you didn’t fast. Straddling two cultures comes naturally to me – I have basically done it my whole life. And, from what I experienced, it can be for others too. Exploring the often-overlooked heritage of two cultures while celebrating similarities can create a new, hybrid space that feels comfortable. Like home. I have seen first-hand how cross-cultural interactions can lead to ingenuity and acceptance. If we look at the world around us, especially today, it emphasises that overcoming injustice cannot be achieved by dividing communities according to their specific identities, but rather by coming together and unpacking the hidden threads that exist between different groups. So, we give you this book. A collection of essays prescribed by marginalised voices from South Asia, the Middle East, and the diaspora, unpacking their personal experiences as they learn(ed) to assimilate in a society that they have chosen (or not) to make their home. Tackling issues like visibility, invisibility, love, strength, resilience, race, friendship and relationships, this book highlights the various shades that make up who we are as a community. Can this collection of stories dismantle legacy structures? Probably not. But it can lead to understanding, and hopefully encourage empathy.

Find Haramacy on page 94

FIELD NOTES Maxim Peter Griffin’s Field Notes is the biography of a territory in full colour: it records a year spent in a Lincolnshire landscape through jagged text and vibrant artworks. It is about the act of taking a place and looking at it over and over again so that with each looking it becomes strange and new. Here is a selection of images from the book, introduced by an extract of Griffin’s writing about the landscape in October. Look – the shape of a landscape, the depth of it – the weight of low hills – the arc of the sun over the outer, Hanseatic east – over Triton Knoll, Doggerland, Skegness – afternoon wheels into evening – the mustering of geese toward the marshland winterings – skein after skein until night and after – 40,000 pink-footed – full Beefheart voice over the spirit levels. Look – the peak of autumn – leaning on a five-bar, sore, weary – Paul Nash prospect over the low sun – a black field, a back road, enhancing the landscape with mid-period Can – pathfunk – a panorama over the edge of the North Sea, the outer east and west where the sun ends – chalk and flint underearth – in the limb junction of the oak is a green triangle sign – on the map the triangle is red – there’s a church down the hill but hardly a village – the Shell Guide missed it. This is the territory – Doggerland and the Chinook-blasted ranges – intertidal marshland, psychic care homes, the Humber jaw and those places where the tumuli are. Look – B road spines the hills south to north – Scheduled Monument/ Ancient Track, shortcut, corpse road, border – they pulled most the radar station down and the tropospheric scatter dishes heard naught but the scamper of trespassers and field mice – just that big sky – a system of weathers comes up from the Wash – the late low shine hits the beams of the mast sideways. West to Trent – an atomic blush, the midlands out there – day wheels west/Sirius arrives – good. Look – a breath of rain from after the boundary – mixed thicket, mainly deciduous, black branches – old parish lines being followed – 43

demarcations blurred by weather – a church with no tower, no bell, Pevnser did not visit. A black dog huffing at the gate of a semi-detached – look – draw – repeat – just get it down, hit and run – remember seeing Hockney in a layby, remember Schwitters at Ambleside, remember Johnny Nice. Look – draw – repeat – crosses for crows, scribbling the canopy. The squall of it, the weight – In the geometry of the field, headlights pick up the crush of chalk on the surface – bigger lumps turned to the edge – stones brought here during the last invasion of the ice – granite pulled out from another place in another time from rivers in the north that have no names in memory. These pebbles are best for breaking flint.

Find Field Notes on page 93

THE PYJAMA MYTH As a professional freelance writer, Sian Meades-Williams knows better than anyone that every freelance writer is winging it. Sometimes – though not always – they’re even doing it while wearing pyjamas. In her new book The Pyjama Myth, Sian demystifies the industry, offering tips on finding ideas, writing winning pitches, networking, dealing with rejection, filing taxes and more. Inspiring, optimistic and – above all – real, it is an essential survival guide for established freelance writers, people embarking on their career, and everyone in between. In the following extract, Sian takes us through the art of pitching. The Biggest Pitching Myths To many freelance writers, pitching still feels like something mystical. There is no magic spell, unfortunately, but there are some myths around pitching that put fear into writers so much that it’s enough to stop them pitching completely. Myth one: Editors only commission published writers. It is easier to get commissioned when you’ve got the clips to back it up, which is something of a paradox, but editors are always looking for a fresh voice. Myth two: Your editor rejected your pitch; they’ll never commission you again. In almost all cases, editors reject ideas, not writers. And ideas and pitches can always be improved upon. ‘Keep pitching!’ says WIRED editor Vicki Turk. ‘If I don’t commission a few of your pitches, it’s nothing personal – and I genuinely do really want you to pitch again.’ Editors only ever say this when they want to hear more from you. Myth three: My editor is laughing about my pitch at their desk. Honestly, no one has the time for this.

Myth four: You made a typo; you can kiss your commission goodbye. In an ideal world you’d have never made that typo and your pitch would have been word perfect. If an editor is excited by your pitch, that won’t be reason enough not to commission you. They will, however, notice seven errors in five lines. Myth five: There’s a perfect time for pitching. The only way you’ll find out is by pitching and getting to know editors at the publications you want to write for. It’s different for everyone. Some editors read pitches when they have time, others commission daily and prefer pitches to land before 9 a.m. – there’s no doubt that the early bird catches the worm when it comes to opinion pieces. Some have a monthly editorial meeting and only go through pitches a couple of days before. Some pieces might be more time-sensitive, so all of the usual rules go out of the window. No one is going to reject a pitch because it landed on a Friday afternoon or at 3 a.m. on a Thursday. The Ten Most Basic Pitching Errors I have done literally all of the things on this list. 1. Getting someone’s name wrong. Or calling them sir/madam. Put some effort in. 2. Not following pitching guidelines on the publication website or ignoring what an editor asked for in their pitch call. 3. Cutting and pasting your pitch and keeping the reference to the previous publication in your email. 4. Pitching an idea, not a story. 5. Pitching a piece that has just been published by the website. 6. Pitching a piece that the magazine would never cover. 7. Pitching a story that the magazine covers every week in a regular column. 8. Asking what sort of pitches an editor would like. Just pitch! 9. Pitching your idea to another editor on the same desk when an editor rejects your pitch. 10. Not reading the publication. Not reading the publication. Not reading the publication. 50

Things That Are Not a Pitch Dear Sir/Madam, I really like your magazine. Are you accepting pitches at the moment? Thanks, Writer for hire *** @editoratmagazine Looking for pitches from freelance writers! All topics considered. Pay rate is depressingly in alignment with the rest of the industry. Email in bio! @writerforhire Hi @editoratmagazine I’m interested! Please email me more deets! *** Hi Sian, Love your site, I want to write about pizza for you! Thanks, Writer for hire Your pitch should always tell a story. It needs to be something that an editor can get excited about. You may have some instances where an editor contacts you with a specific commission, but they don’t do that to writers that they don’t know. All your one-line email about pizza tells them is that you aren’t willing to put the work in. Don’t go down this route, it’s a waste of everyone’s time. You’re unlikely to even get a reply. Make sure you serve up some real ideas. What a Successful Pitch Looks Like Here are some examples of winning pitches from freelance writers – all of these went on to be commissioned and published. 51

Norfolk’s Deep History Coast – new 25-mile coastal trail Stonehenge? Pah. The North Norfolk Coast claims to have the earliest evidence of mankind outside of the Great Rift Valley, and a new 25mile cliff trail, from Weybourne to Cart Gap, focuses on the area’s prehistory (as well as taking in several gusty seaside towns). There are 11 ‘Discovery Points’ en route, triggered by an app, showing how the area would have looked in the past. The final ‘Discovery Point’ is being put in place in October, but the rest of the trail can be completed already. I’d aim to visit in September, to show the benefits of heading to the area when the summer crowds have gone. As well as offering belting coastal scenery, highlights include Happisburgh, where footprints dating back 800,000 years have been found, and West Runton, where the UK’s biggest mammoth skeleton was unearthed (part of it is on display en route). This pitch by travel writer and children’s book author Ben Lerwill was for a national newspaper. ‘I’d been in touch with the relevant editor a few days earlier and knew she was open to UK ideas. The resulting research trip was fascinating, and a good lesson in treating each commission as an opportunity in its own right: I’ve since written about the trail for a couple of other publications, and have even begun writing a children’s book on the Stone Age. It’s sometimes very easy to treat features as one-off pieces of work, but it can be really valuable to view them as springboards for further ideas and opportunities.’ *** I tried making phone calls every time I needed to talk to someone – for a week As a millennial and an introvert, I don’t often use my phone for its primary intended purpose: the phone call. I obviously do not have a landline. I do not answer phone calls with no caller ID, my phone is always on silent and my voicemail message says, ‘You’d be better off texting me.’ How much am I missing out on this traditional form of communication? Is my life somehow emptier for the absence of a human voice at the end of the line? Would I find confidence in chit-chat and human interaction if I called people? To find out, I propose an experiment: I call people for a week. My friends, my interview subjects, my parents, my sister, my electricity company. Anything I’d usually do by text or email, I do by phone. I’ll answer all phone calls, too. Let’s see how that goes down and 52

if I can overcome the enormous surge of fear in my tummy every time my phone rings. Please understand this will be genuine suffering for my art. This pitch by Kate Leaver led to a commission at British Vogue. ‘I sent three pitches in one email. I’d only just started working with [my editor] at Vogue (I noticed they were publishing a few non-fashion related features and took a shot) and she commissioned two out of three, which was wonderful. I often go for a three-pitch email when I’m new to a particular editor because I feel like I can give them an idea of the range I cover, even if they don’t pick up every idea.’

Find The Pyjama Myth on page 82

THE STORY OF BREXIT IS THE STORY OF EMPIRE: WHY DID ASIAN IMMIGRANTS VOTE TO LEAVE THE EU? This piece is extracted from Wokelore, an upcoming collection of thought-provoking articles on issues that the mainstream media won’t cover. These essays were originally published in the Byline Times, an independent and fearless national daily news site where you are entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts. Hardeep Matharu, 8 April 2019 Why, in British public life, do we almost never speak about Empire? It was a question that struck me again recently as I was watching the news with my parents. Another day in Parliament with Theresa May embroiled in the continuing chaos around Brexit. My parents migrated to Britain from Kenya and India more than forty years ago, so I still find it perplexing that they both voted to leave the EU in the 2016 Referendum. Responding to their disillusionment on May’s attempts to deliver Brexit, I asked them whether they would still vote in the same way again, knowing what they do about all that was to follow. ‘Yes,’ they both said without hesitation. ‘It was still the right thing to do.’ That the Brexit vote was, in no small part, about Empire for Commonwealth immigrants, and their love-hate relationship with its legacy, has long needed discussion in British society. Although nonwhite groups were generally more pro-Remain than white British people, ‘ethnic minorities showed a non-negligible level of support for leave, which was twice as high amongst Indians as amongst other minority groups’, according to one report on the matter. The relationship of Britain’s longstanding immigrant communities with the Empire is a complex one. At once, British imperialism has created a patriotic allegiance in immigrants who see themselves as ‘British’ – more British than the British – rather than as migrants, while at the same time demanding reparation and recognition for all the damage Britain inflicted on countries such as India. 54

In many ways, the story of Brexit is the story of Empire. An unfinished, untold story on which the sun won’t set for a very long time. Swaraj, the first name of my father, means ‘self-rule’ and was a term used by Mahatma Gandhi to describe India’s quest for independence from hundreds of years of British rule. My grandfather gave him the name as he was born in August 1947, the month and year India finally achieved self-governance. Raised in Nairobi, Kenya, until he was eighteen, my dad spent two years in India, before coming to Britain in 1967 aged twenty. His family, Indian Punjabis, had originally migrated to Kenya to build the railways in the country for the British. While recognising the violence of colonisation, my father enjoyed growing up under British influence. ‘I liked the way of life when I was in Kenya under the British rule, everything was run properly, all the laws, the administration,’ he told me. ‘It was a very nice place to be and that’s how I’ve always had this loyalty to Britain and I always wanted to come to England and I wanted to be part of this country. I had no problems settling here.

BRITISH IMPERIALISM HAS CREATED A PATRIOTIC ALLEGIANCE IN IMMIGRANTS WHO SEE THEMSELVES AS ‘BRITISH’ – MORE BRITISH THAN THE BRITISH ‘I used to read magazines like Time magazine, Life magazine, Reader’s Digest and the old Daily Mirror papers, Eagle comics in Kenya. I learned to speak, read and write English at school because we had English teachers so I had no problem when I came over to Britain.’ What about racism? I asked him. ‘Racism was something I was used to in Kenya as well,’ he said. ‘I knew that it existed, over there they used to call it “colour bar”. There were certain hotels that were only meant for white people and there were certain parts of Nairobi where only white people could buy houses and live, Asians weren’t allowed. So I knew from a very young age that this went on. There was a lot of racism [when I came to Britain], but one had to learn to live with it.’ On voting for Brexit, my father admits harbouring ‘resentment’ at how Britain has changed, in his eyes, for the worse – something he feels is linked to being part of the EU. ‘My allegiance is to Britain, I don’t see myself as part of Europe, I don’t want to be,’ he said. ‘Europe is trying to impose its own rules, regulations and laws onto this country. Britain should have kept on its own. We were better off that way.’ 55

He believes that Britain was always renowned for its fairness and that it seems unfair that immigrants from Europe can come here relatively easily to work and make their lives. ‘It’s changed the whole culture of this country now,’ he added. The issue, however, is not that simple. My father often speaks about how wrong it was of a morally corrupt Britain to impose its rule on countries more prosperous than itself. Both my parents made a point of telling me, when I was younger, about the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre in Amritsar in 1919, in which Colonel Reginald Dyer brutally killed hundreds of non-violent Indian protestors. Upon visiting the site of the killings last year, I was shocked by how close it was to the Golden Temple, a place of profound peace and a site considered the most sacred for Sikhs. But, paradoxically, because of this brutal history, my father feels that Britain owes a loyalty to its former colonies over Europe. ‘They had a very good time in those countries and they benefited a lot from them and they built their own country as well during those years of the Empire,’ he told me. ‘This country was built on the Empire, they took a lot of money from India… They should have some allegiance to those countries as well. Whereas Europe? I don’t see what Europe has ever done for Britain.’ My mother Baljeet agrees. She left India for Britain aged twenty-six in 1975 to marry my father and sees herself as British, having worked hard to contribute to the country and assimilate into life here. She said she voted to leave the EU on grounds of British sovereignty because ‘we should have our own laws and policies to run the country’. We have had many a passionate discussion in which I have argued that Britain is sovereign, and that only a minority of laws emanate from the EU. My mother also feels that Britain does not need immigration from Europe. Speaking to other immigrants from former colonies, it is clear that – like my parents – the reasons why Asian communities voted to leave the EU are nuanced and difficult to presume. One second generation immigrant I spoke to said some Pakistani people campaigned for Brexit because they wanted to ‘control immigration in a way that was favourable to the Indian subcontinent’. ‘One of their arguments was that, if we leave, we’d be better able to accept people from the Indian subcontinent, professionals such as doctors, rather than taking them from Europe,’ he said. ‘There was that 56

strand that we’d lost control of immigration, that lots of people from eastern Europe were coming over, but, therefore, people from the Indian subcontinent weren’t getting a fair crack at the whip and it was that disparity. They felt the immigration system was unfair.’ While EU migrants generally benefit from freedom of movement, those from countries such as India and Pakistan are subject to visa and work restrictions – a distinction that was played on by Vote Leave’s Michael Gove during the referendum campaign when he suggested that Britain’s immigration system was ‘racist’. Another second generation immigrant, whose parents also migrated to Britain from Pakistan, told me he voted for Brexit because he had concerns about the EU ‘being an economic bloc to the detriment of the rest of the world’. ‘I had no animosity towards the eastern Europeans because, if I was in their position, I would do the same for economic reasons and my parents did the same when they came to Britain,’ he said. But, he now believes a second referendum should be held as Brexit is ‘fragmenting our society’ and fuelling far-right racism against the very immigrant communities that voted to leave the EU. ‘The day after I voted, there were people in white vans with Union Jacks driving around where I live and that shocked me,’ he said. ‘I didn’t vote for nationalistic reasons so to see the way the white racist community behaved on winning the vote gave me serious concerns about the dynamic in Britain.’

THE LONGER WE REFUSE TO HOLD A MIRROR UP TO BRITAIN’S PAST, THE LONGER WE WILL FAIL TO PROPERLY UNDERSTAND HOW WE HAVE ARRIVED AT THE PRESENT AND THE CONSEQUENCES OF THIS FOR THE FUTURE For him, notions of Empire played a role in immigrants voting to leave the EU. ‘People like me were born here, my parents migrated here,’ he said. ‘If it wasn’t for the British Empire and the rule of India we wouldn’t be here. My uncle fought in the Second World War in Burma and our ancestors have been entwined in the British Empire and Britain, but we have been given less rights in terms of migration into this country as compared to some eastern European countries who were actually fighting the British during the Second World War. So, what’s that about?’ Shahmir Sanni, who was born in Pakistan, worked for BeLeave – an offshoot of the Vote Leave campaign during the EU Referendum. He turned whistleblower last year, when he exposed electoral wrongdoing 57

at the organisation. Tasked with targeting and persuading black and ethnic minority people to vote to leave, Sanni said that many of the second generation immigrants he spoke to in areas such as London and Birmingham were already set on voting for Brexit. ‘They would say “we don’t need the EU, we were born here, we were bred here, we have worked here, we don’t need it, we have never associated with it so why would we focus on it?”’ he told me. ‘They would also say things like “it takes so long for my friends and cousins to get a visa”. There was a lining of xenophobia towards eastern Europeans among Asian and Afro-Caribbean communities. There was the perception that people from Europe have got a free pass to come here.’ He believes that such communities have ‘a huge feeling of being left behind’. ‘In the last twenty to thirty years they’ve seen greater integration with Europe and not with their own communities and they have seen the benefits the Europeans have gotten, particularly in terms of immigration and free rein to go back and forth. But, then there’s also a huge population of the South Asian community who have a very strong sense of patriotism, who are very proud to be living in the UK and, sure, they will criticise the British Government, but they are still very proud Britons and that’s where you can have the same sort of mentality among the majority of leave voters which is that Britain can be better on its own.’ According to Sanni, notions of the Empire and immigrants from former colonies feeling an allegiance to Britain had a huge part to play in why they voted to leave the EU. ‘Previous generations weren’t educated in the way that we were as young millennials who are hyper-aware of colonialism and imperialism and the effect it had on our ancestors,’ he said. ‘If you look at it from the frame of immigrants then who saw no opportunities back home and came here and were suddenly comfortable, and very comfortable, even if they were working class, the fact that they had a council house if they were working class was a blessing. It was huge. “The Government of this country gave me a home.”’ He said his work at BeLeave was designed to play on this allegiance to the Commonwealth over Europe. ‘It stirred this colonial mindset within non-EU immigrants that the Commonwealth and Britain have so much more in common than the EU,’ he said. ‘So there was this false idea that we would be back with the Commonwealth again. An older generation of non-EU immigrants do feel like Britain has a solid connection with places like India; that we have a relationship and a friendship with Britain – and that stems from colonised minds.’ 58

And why did he vote to leave the EU? ‘Because I didn’t like Europe as a white super-state,’ he told me. ‘Britain has a moral obligation to reconnect with the Commonwealth and I consider that a form of reparations. That, if we’re going to have free movement, it should be between Britain and India, Pakistan and countries like Nigeria, not with the EU. I also think it’s unfair that European migrants get privileges over non-EU migrants. You can argue that there are people of colour in Europe, but these countries have been desecrated by Britain and it has an obligation to cater to that.’ These will clearly be difficult conversations for some to hear. Politicians over a number of years have made a mistake in not challenging inaccurate narratives around immigration, as well as not engaging with the views of immigrant communities long settled in Britain and their thoughts about our relationship with Europe and the rest of the world. As the British-born child of parents who were raised in countries of the Empire, I was taught nothing about it at school. Even when I did learn about the slave trade and Britain’s Industrial Revolution, these were not set within the wider context of colonialism. It may be an uncomfortable and challenging area of our history to probe, but not doing so ignores the effect it still has on how many feel and think about Britain today. The longer we refuse to hold a mirror up to Britain’s past, the longer we will fail to properly understand how we have arrived at the present and the consequences of this for the future. In a post-Brexit world, this will be more vital than ever.

Find Wokelore on page 83

LOST & FOUND Drawing from traditional stories of the past, the fifteen treasured folk tales in this stunning illustrated collection have been reimagined by Elizabeth Garner to be preserved and cherished in the present and future. True to tradition while speaking directly to the modern world, these stories share a common thread: the heroes and heroines who stray from the safer paths in life and find themselves in unknown worlds; the mysterious object whose purpose is revealed when true magic is most needed; the truth of the inner self that is found when all hope and love seem to be lost… Read on for one of the folk tales from Lost & Found. ‘The Riddles of the Crossroads’ by Elizabeth Garner Jack was sitting on the back step of his Old Mother’s cottage staring out at the far horizon, waiting for his Fate to come over the hill to claim him. He had dreamed it out in many directions, the way his story might unfold. He could do a favour for a passing tinker and he’d get a purse brimming with silver coins for his trouble. A magic purse, no less, that would never run empty. Or he would save the honour of a wandering princess. Then she’d fall in love with him and take him back to her father’s castle and they’d be wed. Or perhaps a club-footed, iron-toothed troll, all hair and fists, would come hurtling out of the hillside and rampage through the valley. Jack would defeat the fierce invader and he’d be a Hero of the Land. The more days that passed without incident or opportunity, the more restless Jack got. So one morning he took his Old Mother’s freshly baked loaf from the top of the stove and he went to see the Henwife. They broke bread together and he told her of his plight. ‘There’s a tale of a man who finds gold in his own backyard,’ she said. ‘But his name is not Jack.’ Jack thought of how wide the world was, and how little of it he knew. ‘I’ve no fear of adventure,’ he said. ‘But I’m in sore need of advice and direction.’ ‘Fate waits for us all at the same spot,’ said the Henwife. ‘Where North, South, East and West meet.’ Jack kissed his Old Mother farewell and set out on the long roads. He walked and he walked, sleeping in hedges and ditches, sharing food and fire with the tinkers, the merchants and the men who were 60

down on their luck. They all traded their tales between them, to ease the long journey. Each time Jack asked his question he was given the same reply. The man who sets out on the promise of a Henwife’s riddle is as foolish as he is innocent. Jack should go back the way he came and be content with the life he’s got. Better that than to waste his years searching for a place that’s not to be found on any map of this world. Still, Jack walked on. Until one day he came to a crossroads with a signpost set in the centre, cutting up the clouds like a compass. Leaning against it was a tall, thin gentleman, dressed in a long dark coat. He had a fiddle tucked under his arm and a black hat upon his head that put Jack in mind of the stovepipe in his Old Mother’s kitchen. ‘Kind sir,’ Jack said, ‘may I trouble you with a question?’ ‘Certainly,’ said the gentleman. ‘Is it a great question or a lesser one?’ Jack thought of all the folk that he had met upon his travels and how not one of them had been able to offer him an answer. ‘I suppose it must be a great question,’ said Jack. ‘The rest of my life depends upon it.’ ‘Then I would be happy to assist you,’ said the gentleman. ‘All I ask in return for a true answer is that you pay me back in kind. Nine lesser questions of my own, set against the singular greatness of yours.’ They shook upon the agreement. The gentleman had a firm grip. His nails were long and filed to a point. ‘Then tell me true,’ said Jack, ‘where is the place that North, South, East and West meet?’ The gentleman took the bow of his fiddle and drew a perfect circle in the dirt around where Jack stood. ‘Simple, my friend. Where else but beneath your own feet?’ Jack laughed, and then he stopped. He was stuck fast, frozen inside that circle. Then he understood the nature of the Fate that he had met, and his blood ran cold. The gentleman turned and whispered in Jack’s ear: ‘Now as you did swear to me, answer my questions, three times three. If you cannot tell true these nine, then your very soul be mine.’ 61

Then he tucked his fiddle beneath his chin, struck up a tune and sang: ‘What is taller than the tree? And what is deeper than the sea? What is sharper than the thorn? And what is louder than the horn? What is greener than the grass? And what is smoother than the glass? What is longer than the winding way? And what is colder than earth’s clay? And what is there, seen, told or heard, more dreadful than the witch’s words?’ Jack looked into the gentleman’s eyes. They were as black as pitch. And there he saw the world unfold accordingly. There was a forest, set beside a deep blue sea. The floor of that forest was tangled with thornbushes. There came a king on a noble steed, blowing upon a hunting horn as he vaulted the brambles. Then the king and his huntsmen were returning victorious, dragging a black boar across the verdant lawns of the castle grounds. A fine feast followed, with toasts raised in crystal goblets. Into the hall there came a woman. She cursed the king and his company for the slaying of the most beloved of all her companion creatures. Instantly, all the people of the court became statues of clay that crumbled before the king’s eyes. The castle followed, rent to rubble at his feet. His kingdom beyond the tumbled walls was now a barren desert. There was nothing but the road ahead, twisting like a serpent across the land. Jack could feel the ground beneath his feet opening up as the gentleman played his tune, faster and faster. Jack shut his eyes and sharpened his wits. He thought of all the tales of the long roads. The tales of this world, and of the hidden places above and below it. Jack took his thoughts, and he set them to the gentleman’s tune. ‘Heaven is taller than the tree and Hell is deeper than the sea. The hunger of a jealous mind 62

pricks sharper than the thorn so fine. The shame of the beloved’s scorn cries louder than the hunter’s horn. The envy that stews deep in the blood runs greener than the field or wood. The flattery that does honest truth surpass is smoother than the shining glass. Colder than the clay of any land is the touch of Death’s sure hand. But love is longer, in both the finding and the keeping, than any winding way of fortune-seeking. Dreadful though the witch’s words may be the Devil is worse. And you, fine sir, are none but he.’ The fiddle stilled its tune. Jack gathered all his courage and looked directly at the gentleman as he sang out his final verse. ‘Your riddles thus solved, the wager is won. With your true name I command thee – Devil, be gone!’ Two handsome horns came twisting out of the sides of that stovepipe hat. Hands and feet became claws and hooves. There was a terrible tearing as the long coat was rent asunder by steel-scaled wings sprouting from a buckled back and a tufted tail unravelled beneath. Savage Satan let out a great roar which shook both land and sky as he departed in a flash of fire. Jack scuffed away the circle that had held him. Then and there, he vowed he would not fall foul of the self-made snares of jealousy, shame, flattery or envy. Nor would he risk the trading of his own heart for that of another. Neither would he set his gaze upon a far horizon and dream away his days until Death laid its hand upon his shoulder. Instead, Jack pledged that he would set his mind only to whatever unfolded directly before him. Step by sure and steady step, he would be the constant master of his own Fate. Then he took a penny from his pocket, set it spinning beside the signpost, and the road that it fell upon was the road that he took. Find Lost & Found on page 90

100 VOICES When Miranda Roszkowski came up with the idea of asking 100 women to tell the stories of how they found their voice, their personal triumphs and successes, she had no idea how rich and varied these tales would be. From making lemon curd, to moving halfway across the world, learning to cartwheel or becoming a political campaigner aged seventy, 100 Voices is a celebration of the funny, the profound and the everyday achievements of women. ‘Crossing the Line’ by Sophie Haydock Perhaps you’ve dreamed of running a marathon? It’s possible that some of you, like me, have crossed that particular finish line. If not, maybe running 26.2 miles is on your bucket list? Whether you’re a runner or not, it might surprise you to know that, for a very, very long time, women were banned from taking part in long-distance running. Experts deemed the activity ‘damaging to health and femininity’. Some seriously thought the repetitive motion of running so far would make a woman’s uterus fall out. Let’s take a moment to let that sink in. (Just as an aside, I once interviewed an incredible American woman, Amber Miller, for the Guardian. She ran the Chicago Marathon in 2011 when she was nine months pregnant – and gave birth to a healthy baby girl later the very same day.) In 1967 Kathrine Switzer became one of the first women ever to run an official marathon. The then-twenty year old had registered for the race using her initials, K.V. Switzer. Two miles in, Boston officials noticed, and she was physically pulled from the course. It didn’t stop her, and she battled her way to the finish line that day, making history in the process. Later, she was disqualified from the race and received hate mail. What did she do? She kept on running, won a marathon, set up her own club – and inspired millions of women worldwide to follow in her footsteps. Forty-nine years later, I sweated for five hours in order to make it across the finish line of my first major running event – the New York City Marathon, in November 2016. It took place days before Donald Trump was elected President. Two million people lined the streets to cheer the race, which started on Staten Island and stretched through the city’s five boroughs. Those crowds cheered me and more than 50,000 other runners on as we stomped through Brooklyn, Manhattan, 64

the Bronx and up First Avenue. It’s a testament to the rulebreakers of the past that 41.77 per cent (or 21,465) of those who finished that day were women. The final stretch of that 26.2-mile course, through Central Park, with the autumn leaves glowing a special kind of gold in the dying light of that Sunday afternoon, with people cheering my name like my life depended on it – I’d carefully painted ‘Sophie from the UK’ on the back of my running top – is a moment I’ll never forget.

SMALL STEPS CAN ADD UP TO SOMETHING INCREDIBLE As I burned into the last of my energy and gave it everything I had, the last 0.2 miles deliriously, agonisingly, tormentingly long, I thought about the women who never made it across that line, the ones who were denied their part in the race or told they weren’t up to it, and the ones who broke the rules and didn’t take no for an answer, who made it possible for me to run my heart out, cross the line, and accept a heavy medal for my efforts. I still have the medal hanging in pride of place in my home. I look at it to remind myself that small steps can add up to something incredible. Since that day, I’ve added two new ones: I completed the Berlin Marathon in 2017, and set a personal best at the London Marathon, of 04:11:48. I’m grateful to all those who made it possible. With every step, pounding the streets of Hackney, or wherever I find myself – it could be a snowy trail in Scotland or barefoot on a beach in Mexico, Switzer’s words have always rung in my ears: ‘Take the first step. And if you take the first step, you can then take three steps. And then you can take ten. And someday maybe you can run a marathon. And if you can run a marathon, you can do anything.’

Find 100 Voices on page 77

THE MAB Editors Matt Brown and Eloise Williams explain the importance of The Mab, the first complete translation of the Mabinogion for children, a collection that is widely considered to comprise the earliest ever British prose stories. First things first, what is the Mabinogi? Matt: The Mabinogion (or Mabinogi as it should be called) are the oldest British prose stories. They were first collected in Welsh in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries from earlier oral traditions. They are stories of adventure and honour, and courage and love. They are crammed full of magic and giants and cauldrons that can bring the dead back to life. King Arthur and his knights make their first appearance in the Mabinogi. The stories speak of a time when the doorway between our world and the Otherworld was occasionally left open and sometimes, it was possible to travel between the two. Why have you decided to put together this new version of the stories? Matt: It sounds crazy but The Mab will be the first complete Mabinogi, in English, for kids. There is such a wealth of talent in children’s writing in Wales at the moment that it seemed like the perfect opportunity. The writers that we have assembled for The Mab are incredible. It was also really important that this version of the stories looked different from all the others. Max Low’s illustrations have created something original and visually breathtaking. Eloise: We wanted to create a comprehensible collection of the stories which are a pleasure to read for all ages. A fun, quirky, loveable version of the tales which will enthral readers young and old. The stories are told in different styles, some funny, some poignant, some downright weird, and there’s something to suit every taste. This accessible new version will be an important part of keeping the stories alive and being told afresh in new voices into the future. How important are these epic tales? Matt: These stories are part of our culture and heritage but almost no one outside of Welsh-speaking Wales has heard about them. The Mab will 66

change all that. It’s about time that kids of all ages knew about the love of Pwyll and Rhiannon, and about the magician that made a woman out of flowers, and the giant Bran the Blessed and his cauldron of rebirth, and Ysbaddaden, the wicked Giant-King, who won’t let his daughter fall in love, and all the other incredible characters that fill every story. Eloise: These stories are a key to our landscape, culture, history and the art and craft of storytelling. In our version they are told in different voices, as they would have been originally. These stories belong to everyone, and we want to ensure that young people feel an integral part of their ongoing journey. Do we need to understand Welsh to read the book? Matt: Not at all, each story has a Welsh translation, beautifully crafted by Bethan Gwanas, but the idea was to retell these stories in English because such an edition didn’t already exist. Eloise: Welsh is a beautiful language and it will be a fantastic opportunity for learners and those who are curious to know more about it to have the Welsh versions within the same collection. There are wonderful retellings of the tales in both languages but to have them combined is, I think, truly special. Do you have a favourite story? Matt: I know it sounds corny but I love them all. Each author has brought their different skills and takes on life to their story. Each retelling is unique and beautiful and full of new life. Eloise: I have a different favourite every time I read them. It’s the perfect collection to dip in and out of. If I want a magical, eerie story, it’s there waiting. If I’m in the mood for a belly laugh, there are stories for that too. There is something new to find in every reading and that makes them joyous and the kind of collection which will be treasured for a lifetime. Find The Mab on page 97

Spring Titles

January to June 2022

January

NAKED NUTRITION

An LGBTQ+ guide to diet and lifestyle DANIEL O’SHAUGHNESSY

The very first LGBTQ+ guide to good health and diet, from Harley Street nutritionist Daniel O’Shaughnessy

Naked Nutrition seeks to change that. It is the first LGBTQ+ guide to diet and wellbeing, giving detailed practical advice on matters including weight loss and muscle gain, addiction, sex, fertility, managing chronic conditions, balancing hormones while transitioning, and mitigating against the party lifestyle.

Design by Mecob

As a gay man living in London and working as a nutritionist, Daniel O’Shaughnessy knows that the LGBTQ+ community has specific dietary and health needs. Yet while there is huge demand for this kind of information in his private practice, there is very little reliable public information for the community to access.

Title: Pub date: Format: Price: ISBN: Rights:

Naked Nutrition 20/01/2022 Paperback £9.99 978-1-80018-046-8 World/Audio/TV & Film

NON-FICTION Daniel O’Shaughnessy is an award-winning nutritionist and certified functional medicine practitioner who has helped over a thousand clients find better health. He discovered his path to nutrition through suffering his own health issues. Through research, Daniel was able to come to understand the factors which helped alleviate his symptoms, giving him a full understanding of how his body and mind are meant to function. Insta: @thenakednutritionist 69

January

A YEAR IN THE LIFE

Adventures in British subcultures LUCY LEONELLI

1 year, 26 weird and wonderful British subcultures: Lucy Leonelli leaves the corporate world behind to discover her most authentic self Design by Mecob

In her late twenties and already a partner in her headhunting firm, Lucy Leonelli was seemingly on top of the world, but she couldn’t shake the feeling she was missing out on life out there. So she hung up her suit and set out on a yearlong journey to uncover her most authentic self. Lucy turned to twenty-six littleunderstood UK subcultures: for two weeks each, she lived with battle re-enactors, circus performers, Morris dancers, naturists, trainspotters, yogis and more, experiencing first-hand their rituals and customs. A Year in the Life tells of how when we open the door to others, we might just learn something about ourselves.

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A Year in the Life 20/01/2022 Paperback £9.99 978-1-80018-050-5 US, UK & Comm. ex. Canada

NON-FICTION Featured in Stylist magazine’s ‘25 Most Ambitious, Strong and Adventurous Women under 30’, Lucy Leonelli is a self-proclaimed social tourist with an unquenchable thirst for exploring, experiencing and understanding the world’s most colourful subcultures and communities. Born in Bristol, she now runs executive recruitment for a technology firm in Silicon Valley, California. @lucyleonelli 70

February

BOTTLED

A picture book to help children share their feelings TOM BRASSINGTON AND JOE BRASSINGTON

A picture book by two primary school teachers that aims to help children express their emotions

Written and illustrated by the Brassington brothers, two primary school teachers, it is also an invaluable tool which parents, guardians and teachers can use to navigate these conversations and create emotionally honest spaces for children in their care.

Design by Mecob

It is important to share our feelings rather than bottling them up inside. Bottled is a rhyming picture book to help children of all ages understand why and how they should express their emotions in a healthy way, and a starting point for early, crucial conversations surrounding mental health.

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Bottled 03/02/2022 Hardback £10.99 978-1-80018-105-2 World/Audio/TV & Film

NON-FICTION Tom and Joe Brassington are brothers based in the Midlands. Both are primary school teachers who are passionate about mental health in education and creating emotionally honest spaces. anemotionallyhonestspace.co.uk / @BottledBook 71

February

UNDERDOGS Acceleration

CHRIS BONNELLO The third instalment in the groundbreaking Underdogs series, which follows a band of neurodivergent teenagers in their attempt to liberate a dystopian Britain

Meanwhile, Oliver Roth has been offered a promotion that would make him the second most powerful person in Britain. But it’s conditional on the success of his next mission: the discovery and annihilation of Spitfire’s Rise… ‘Serves real purpose . . . written with furious energy’ Guardian

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The Underdogs of Spitfire’s Rise are falling apart. In the series’ penultimate novel, the remnants of Britain’s last army are called into battle again – this time to avert the violent deaths of tens of thousands of prisoners. The neurodiverse skills and defiant bravery of the Underdogs are pitched against the might of military science and the terrifying Acceleration project.

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Underdogs 03/02/2022 Paperback £9.99 978-1-80018-088-8 World/Audio/TV & Film

FICTION Chris Bonnello is an autistic author, speaker and special education teacher based in Nottingham. Since 2015 he has been an autism advocate through his website, Autistic Not Weird (autisticnotweird.com), winning multiple awards for his work and delivering speeches as far away as India and the Sydney Opera House. Insta: @autisticnotweird / Twitter: @autisticnw 72

February

CROW COURT ANDY CHARMAN

Longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize, this novel conjures a kaleidoscope of lives that circle around the mysterious suicide of a choirboy in Victorian Dorset

So begins the chronicle of Crow Court, unravelling over fourteen delicately interwoven episodes, the town of Wimborne their backdrop. And all the while, justice waits… ‘Debut novels shouldn’t be this perfectly formed’ Benjamin Myers ‘Clever, elegantly constructed, utterly convincing’ Daily Mail

Design by Leo Nickolls

Spring, 1840. In the Dorset market town of Wimborne Minster, a young choirboy drowns himself. Soon after, the choirmaster – a belligerent man with a vicious reputation – is found murdered, in a discovery tainted as much by relief as it is by suspicion. The gaze of the magistrates falls on four local men, whose decisions will reverberate through the community for years to come.

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Crow Court 03/02/2022 Paperback £9.99 978-1-80018-090-1 World/Audio/TV & Film

FICTION Andy Charman has a BA in Philosophy and Literature from the University of Warwick and works as a business analyst and consultant. His short stories have appeared in Every Day Fiction, The Battered Suitcase, Cadenza, Ballista and other periodicals and websites. Born and raised in Dorset, he now lives in Surrey with his wife and daughter. @AndyCWriter 73

February

THE DIARY OF LOSING DAD EMILY BEVAN

This memoir by actor Emily Bevan is a bittersweet journey through grief, pieced together with diary entries and poems

Actor and writer Emily Bevan recalls the surreal months leading up to her father’s untimely death, during which she was filming a zombie series for television. Interspersed with this account are diary entries and poems in which she renders scenes of hospital life – both devastating and life-affirming – together with anecdotes of her family rallying around this much-loved man, and poignant memories of his constant and enduring presence.

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The Diary of Losing Dad is the true story of a heartbroken woman trying to keep it together, and an intimate insight into what it is like to slowly, painfully lose someone you love.

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The Diary of Losing Dad 17/02/2022 Hardback £16.99 978-1-80018-080-2 World/Audio/TV & Film

NON-FICTION Emily Bevan is an actor and writer living in east London. She is best known for her role as zombie Amy Dyer in BBC 3’s BAFTA-winning series In the Flesh. Other TV leading roles include Grantchester, Doc Martin, The Casual Vacancy and The Ark. Her film credits include Breathe, Williams, The Carer, Crow, The Last Sparks of Sundown and St Trinian’s. @EmilyGraceBevan 74

February

THE RUBBISH BOOK A complete guide to recycling JAMES PIPER

A comprehensive, practical guide to recycling in your home, written by a leading sustainability expert

The Rubbish Book provides you with all the information you need to become a true recycling expert and protect the planet with confidence, including an A–Z of waste items and whether they can be recycled, and a breakdown of what the recycling symbols on our packaging actually mean.

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Plastic bottles, cardboard boxes, aluminium cans… we all get through a lot of rubbish, but do you really know what happens after you put it in the bin? Do you even know which bin it goes in? Recycling has never been more important – but it has also never been more complicated.

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The Rubbish Book 17/02/2022 Paperback £9.99 978-1-80018-086-4 World/Audio/TV & Film

NON-FICTION James Piper is a leading sustainability professional whose career has focused on packaging, electricals and batteries. He is the CEO of a successful environmental consultancy based in Bristol and has won numerous awards for his work supporting brands and retailers to achieve their environmental goals. @therubbishgeek 75

February

THIS PARTY’S DEAD

Grief, joy and spilled rum at the world’s death festivals ERICA BUIST

Journalist Erica Buist travels to seven death festivals around the world in search of better attitudes towards mortality

With Mexico’s Day of the Dead festivities as a starting point, she decided to confront death headon by visiting seven death festivals around the world. This Party’s Dead is the account of her journey to understand how other cultures deal with mortal terror, how they move past the knowledge that they’re going to die in order to live happily day-to-day, and how they celebrate rather than shy away from the topic of death. ‘Poignant and often hilarious’ Publishers Weekly

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By the time Erica Buist’s father-inlaw Chris was discovered, upstairs in his bed, he had been dead for over a week. Erica searched for answers, reasoned with herself and eventually landed on an inevitable, uncomfortable truth: everybody dies.

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This Party’s Dead 17/02/2022 Paperback £10.99 978-1-80018-139-7 World English

NON-FICTION Erica Buist is a writer, journalist and author living in London. She writes mostly for the Guardian but can also be found on the BBC, Medium, Newsweek and in various literary magazines and anthologies. Erica is currently working on a collection of short stories based in London. @ericabuist 76

March

100 VOICES

Female writers share their stories of achievement MIRANDA ROSZKOWSKI (ED.)

To celebrate the centenary of women first winning the right to vote, 100 female writers share stories about finding their voice Featuring a foreword by Deborah Frances-White 100 Voices is an anthology of writing by women from across the country on what achievement means for them, and how they have come to find their own voice. Featuring poetry, fiction and memoir, the pieces range from notes on making lemon curd, to tales of marathon running and riding motorbikes, to accounts of a refugee eating English food for the first time, a newlywed learning her mother tongue and a woman rebuilding her life after an abusive relationship. This poignant, funny and inspiring collection of stories builds a picture of what it’s really like to be a woman in the UK today.

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100 Voices 03/03/2022 Paperback £10.99 978-1-80018-102-1 World/Audio/TV & Film

NON-FICTION Miranda Roszkowski is a writer and civil servant who has worked with the National Theatre Wales and Royal Court playwright programmes, and published fiction both in print and online. She is the host and curator of the spoken-word night There Goes the Neighbourhood in Hackney and is currently working on her first novel. @Miranda_Roszko 77

March

DANGEROUS WOMEN

Fifty reflections on women, power and identity

JO SHAW, BEN FLETCHER-WATSON AND ABRISHAM AHMADZADEH (EDS.) This anthology invites fifty writers, artists, academics and opinionformers to reflect on and reclaim the idea of the ‘dangerous woman’

Bringing together voices from a variety of backgrounds, ethnicities, age groups and cultures, Dangerous Women reflects on the long-standing and ubiquitous idea that women, individually or collectively, constitute a threat. In doing so, it aims to celebrate and give agency to the women who have been dismissed or trivialised for their power, talent and success, or who have been condemned for challenging the status quo.

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What does it mean to be a dangerous woman? This powerful anthology collects fifty answers to that question from an outstanding range of writers, artists, academics and politicians – including Nicola Sturgeon, Jo Clifford, Irenosen Okojie and Bidisha, among many others.

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Dangerous Women 03/03/2022 Paperback £10.99 978-1-80018-064-2 World/Audio/TV & Film

NON-FICTION Jo Shaw is a legal scholar and has held the Salvesen Chair of European Institutions in the School of Law at the University of Edinburgh since 2005. Ben Fletcher-Watson manages the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh. Abrisham Ahmadzadeh studied at the University of Edinburgh, specialising in the sexual agency of goddesses in antiquity. 78

March

THE ETHICAL STRIPPER

Sex, work and labour rights in the night-time economy STACEY CLARE

How can a feminist also be a stripper? Can sex work be ethical? And, most importantly, who is looking after sex workers?

Forget everything you think you know about strippers: The Ethical Stripper rejects notions of victimhood, challenges stigma and shame, and unpacks decades of confusion and contradictions.

Design by Mecob

In this powerful book, Stacey Clare, a stripper with over a decade of experience, takes a detailed look at the sex industry – the reality of the work as well as the history of licensing and regulation, and feminist themes surrounding sex work. Bringing her personal knowledge of the industry to bear, she offers an unapologetic critique and searing indictment of exploitation, and raises the rights of sex workers to the top of the agenda.

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The Ethical Stripper 03/03/2022 Paperback £10.99 978-1-78965-133-1 World/Audio/TV & Film

NON-FICTION Stacey Clare is a stripper, performance artist, writer, activist and care worker. She co-founded the East London Strippers Collective to unite dancers around common grievances about their own industry, including the poor representation of strippers in the media. She lives in London. @ethicalstripper 79

March

NOTEBOOK TOM COX

A selection of writing by Sunday Times bestselling author Tom Cox on footpaths, wood pigeons, mixtapes and much more Design by Mecob

When a rucksack containing Tom Cox’s notebook was stolen at a Bristol pub in 2018, the author realised just how much notebookkeeping means to him: the act of putting pen to paper has always led him to write with an unvarnished, spur-of-the-moment honesty that he wouldn’t achieve on-screen. Here, Tom has assembled his favourite stories, fragments, moments and ideas from those notebooks. The result is a book redolent of the real stuff of life, shot through with Cox’s trademark warmth and wit. ‘One of the most reliably readable and enchanting writers around’ Stephen Fry ‘Brings magic to the most mundane of subjects’ Marian Keyes

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Notebook 03/03/2022 Paperback £9.99 978-1-80018-140-3 UK & Comm. ex. Can

NON-FICTION Tom Cox lives in Devon. He is the author of the Sunday Times bestselling The Good, the Bad and the Furry and the William Hill Sports Book longlisted Bring Me the Head of Sergio Garcia. 21st-Century Yokel was longlisted for the Wainwright Prize, and the titular story of Help the Witch won a Shirley Jackson Award. @cox_tom 80

March

PEDRO AND RICKY COME AGAIN Selected writing 1988–2020 JONATHAN MEADES

The best of three decades of Jonathan Meades

Pedro and Ricky Come Again is every bit as rich and catholic as its predecessor. It is bigger, darker, funnier and just as impervious to taste and manners. The work assembled here demonstrates Meades’s unparalleled range and erudition, with pieces on cities, artists, sex, England, France, concrete, faith, politics, food, history and much, much more. ‘We don’t deserve Meades, a man who apparently has never composed a dull paragraph’ Steven Poole, Guardian

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Thirty years ago Jonathan Meades published a hefty collection of reportorial journalism, essays, criticism, squibs and fictions called Peter Knows What Dick Likes. The critic James Woods was moved to write: ‘When journalism is like this, journalism and literature become one.’

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Pedro and Ricky Come Again 03/03/2022 Paperback £18.99 978-1-80018-142-7 World/Audio/TV & Film

‘Ought to become a classic’ Roger Lewis, The Times

NON-FICTION Jonathan Meades is a writer, journalist, essayist and film-maker. His many books include Filthy English, Peter Knows What Dick Likes, The Fowler Family Business, Museum Without Walls and Pompey. In 2014, he published the first volume of his autobiography, An Encyclopaedia of Myself. He has written and produced over sixty television films for the BBC, most recently Franco Building. 81

March

THE PYJAMA MYTH

The freelance writer’s survival guide SIAN MEADES-WILLIAMS

From pitching your ideas to filing your tax return, this is an indispensable guide to life as a freelance writer Design by Mecob

For thousands of writers and journalists, freelancing is becoming a more appealing – and sometimes necessary – career option. The Pyjama Myth guides you through each stage of getting yourself started as a freelance writer: from how to find ideas and pitch them, to what to do if you haven’t been paid, and practical tips on how to stay focused, how to network and how to cope with rejection. With advice and interviews from dozens of journalists, MeadesWilliams taps into proven wisdom to help writers find a path that will lead them to success and happiness.

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The Pyjama Myth 17/03/2022 Paperback £12.99 978-1-80018-096-3 World/Audio/TV & Film

NON-FICTION Sian Meades-Williams is a freelance writer and editor. She has written for The Times, Style and the New York Times as well as features for a variety of magazines, websites and books. In 2018 she launched the popular – and FSB Award-nominated – media industry newsletter Freelance Writing Jobs, read by tens of thousands of writers each week. @SianySianySiany 82

March

WOKELORE

The Johnson culture wars and other stories HARDEEP MATHARU (ED.)

Thirty essays by contributors to the Byline Times that uncover the truths nobody else wants to tell Design by Steve Leard

You are entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts. Wokelore is a thought-provoking collection of articles, essays and stories you won’t find anywhere else in the mainstream media. From the new independent and fearless newspaper Byline Times, it transports you from 1970s Europe to Putin’s Russia, from the days of empire in Kenya to Brexit Britain, shedding light on America’s political crisis and exposing the UK’s disastrous handling of COVID-19. The work collected here covers race, identity, populism, disinformation, the state of journalism, threats to our democracy and more – each piece offering a fresh take and new ideas.

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Wokelore 17/03/2022 Paperback £12.99 978-1-80018-125-0 World/Audio/TV & Film

NON-FICTION Hardeep Matharu is a journalist and editor of Byline Times. Having learned her craft at a local newspaper after completing journalism school, she has extensive experience across local, national and independent media. As a trainee reporter, she was named the National Council for the Training of Journalists’ feature writer of the year for her ‘forward-thinking attitude’. @Hardeep_Matharu 83

April

POGUEMAHONE PATRICK McCABE

The groundbreaking new novel from one of modern Ireland’s greatest writers Design by Mecob

Poguemahone is a wild, 600-page ballad, a free verse monologue narrated by Dan Fogarty, an Irishman living in England, who is looking after his sister Una, now 70 and suffering from dementia in a care home in Margate. Structured like a piece of music, it’s a book that asks the reader to look and listen, to follow it as it swirls and riffs across the page. It’s a huge, shape-shifting epic of the Irish in England, steeped in music and folklore, crammed with characters, both real and imagined, on a scale McCabe has never attempted before. Poguemahone is audacious; a magnificent work of art.

Title: Poguemahone Pub date: 14/04/2022 Format: Hardback Price: £18.99 ISBN: 978-1-80018-111-3 Rights: UK & Comm. ex. Can, Audio, Translation

FICTION Since astonishing the world with The Butcher Boy in 1992, Patrick McCabe has established himself as one of modern Ireland’s greatest writers, with fourteen novels, two Booker Prize nominations and a host of awards to his name. He lives in Dublin.

April

THE LIGHT IN SUBURBIA A year of lockdown paintings IAN BECK

A collection of sixty eerily beautiful suburban scenes painted by one of the UK’s best-loved author–illustrators

The Light in Suburbia collects sixty of Ian’s paintings from this period, a remarkable record of his year spent trying to capture the beauty of the unprepossessing everyday.

Design by Laurence Beck

At the start of the March 2020 lockdown, Ian Beck would walk with his greyhound through the early-morning streets of Isleworth in west London, revelling in the light and the silence that the restrictions had brought. The familiar became charged with new meaning, inspiring Ian to paint the scenes around him: whether a deserted street or a moonlit interior, each is transformed in the quiet intensity of Ian’s vision.

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The Light in Suburbia 14/04/2022 Paperback £25.00 978-1-80018-153-3 World/Audio

NON-FICTION Ian Beck is one of the UK’s most celebrated author–illustrators. He has illustrated over 140 books, mostly for children, and published seven of his own novels, including the bestselling Tom Trueheart trilogy. @ianarchiebeck

April

VILLAGER TOM COX

The first full-length novel from Sunday Times bestselling author Tom Cox

It is also a novel about the encroachment of human society on nature, sometimes narrated by an omniscient hill with a crabby disdain for modern life. The book synthesises Cox’s core concerns – music, landscape and folklore – into a new form that is bolder and more mysterious than anything he’s written before.

Design by Mecob

Villager is made up of intertwined stories, some from the past, others from the future, all set in and around the same village in the south-west of England. These tales partly revolve around a Californian musician who recorded – and left behind – a demo tape in the area, which became the object of a cult following.

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Villager 28/04/2022 Hardback £14.99 978-1-80018-134-2 UK & Comm. ex. Can

FICTION Tom Cox lives in Devon. He is the author of the Sunday Times bestselling The Good, the Bad and the Furry and the William Hill Sports Book longlisted Bring Me the Head of Sergio Garcia. 21st-Century Yokel was longlisted for the Wainwright Prize, and the titular story of Help the Witch won a Shirley Jackson Award. @cox_tom 86

April

ALL THE COFFEE CUPS A collection of caffeinated comics

A full-colour collection of illustrated coffee cups by @yoyoha, of Twitter and Instagram fame One morning, Josh Hara found himself staring at the blank white side of the empty coffee cup he held. In his other hand was a pen. He brought the two together, and the first of hundreds of doodledon and decorated coffee cups shortly found its way onto the internet. Years later, the coffee cups had taken on a life of their own, with jokes, seasonal greetings and social commentary being shared around the world. All the Coffee Cups preserves a particular moment in history – one where pop culture and caffeine came together to create art.

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All the Coffee Cups 28/04/2022 Hardback £14.99 978-1-80018-068-0 World/Audio

NON-FICTION Josh Hara is a US-based creator working in advertising, with a background in graphic design. His Twitter has over 75k followers, and his Instagram over 115k. @yoyoha

Design by Mecob

JOSH HARA

April

GOLDEN SCALES

A lost summer on the banks CHRIS YATES

The legendary angler’s 1981 account of the summer he spent trying to catch a mythical fish

But from the King itself, it was the idea of such a leviathan that hooked Chris in the summer of 1981, playing him along the banks for one final season. Unearthed after being lost for more than two decades, this book is a magical record of freshly discovered waters, meetings with new friends and unexpected encounters with creatures other than fish and with presences that are not quite human. ‘A piscatorial Proust’ Observer

Design by Mecob

In June 1980, when he had just caught what was then the largest carp captured in Britain, Chris Yates wondered whether he could now dream of taking on Redmire Pool’s real monster, the King.

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Golden Scales 28/04/2022 Paperback £9.99 978-1-78352-960-5 World/Audio/TV & Film

NON-FICTION Chris Yates is an author, photographer and, most famously, a fisherman. In 1981, he captured what was then the biggest fish ever caught in Britain. He went on to record his experiences in books, in his own magazine, in radio programmes and in the BBC2 series A Passion for Angling. He lives in south Wiltshire. 88

May

FEATHER, LEAF, BARK AND STONE JACKIE MORRIS

A pillow book of poems, dreams and stories typed on sheets of gold leaf, by the Kate Greenaway Medal-winning co-author of The Lost Words

Small, to fit in the hand with ease or be carried in a bag or a pocket, it is a natural successor to Morris’s The Unwinding. Here, words revert to their natural form, becoming images, ink on gold, in their islands of leaf. Each sheet is a breathing space, a catalyst for dreaming, a focus of vision or a small prayer to the wild.

Feather, Leaf, Bark and Stone is a quiet creature of a book that grew in the silence of lockdown from a desire to play, to see what happens if you type with a typewriter on to gold transfer leaf.

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Feather, Leaf, Bark and Stone 12/05/2022 Hardback £20.00 978-1-80018-155-7 UK & Comm. ex. ANZ

‘Jackie Morris does more than tell a story; she conjures glorious landscapes of the heart’ Meg Rosoff

FICTION Jackie Morris is an author and illustrator. She studied illustration at Hereford College of Art and Bath Academy and has illustrated many books, and written some. The Lost Words, co-authored with Robert Macfarlane, won the Kate Greenaway Medal 2019, and she was nominated again for The Unwinding in 2021. She lives in Pembrokeshire. @JackieMorrisArt 89

May

LOST & FOUND An illustrated treasure trove of fifteen folk tales, retold by Elizabeth Garner Folk tales take us beyond our own boundaries into unknown lands. Yet within these adventures, riddles and enchantments we find our common ground. Lost & Found is Elizabeth Garner’s own retelling of fifteen treasured folk tales that have nurtured, sustained, terrified and enthralled her in equal measure. Some of the stories are taken from the books of her childhood, some are remembered, and others she has discovered in her reading over the years. This illustrated collection is another link in the chain between storyteller, listener and our shared ancestors: tales from the past, told to enrich the present and to be carried forward into the future.

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Lost & Found 12/05/2022 Hardback £16.99 978-1-80018-123-6 World English

FICTION Elizabeth Garner is the author of two novels, Nightdancing and The Ingenious Edgar Jones, both of which were influenced by traditional folk tale narratives and motifs. Lost & Found is her first collection of rewritten stories.

ELIZABETH GARNER

May

YOU’RE THINKING ABOUT TOMATOES MICHAEL ROSEN AND COLE HENLEY

A graphic novel adaptation of Michael Rosen’s fan-favourite story about colonial history Frank and the class are going on a school trip to a stately home. But once they arrive, Frank finds the exhibits start to come alive. A young girl steps out of a painting, an Egyptian mummy climbs out of his sarcophagus, an irritating dog acts as a tourist guide. Bit by bit, the characters tell the story of how this stately home came to be quite so stately – and it’s not a pretty tale. Laughter, sadness, tragedy, hope and a belief in the collective strength of the underdog combine with a sense of history in this graphic novel adaptation of the classic story by Michael Rosen.

Title: You’re Thinking About Tomatoes Pub date: 12/05/2022 Format: Hardback Price: £14.99 ISBN: 978-1-80018-144-1 Rights: World/Audio/TV & Film

FICTION Michael Rosen has been writing books for children since the early 1970s. His most famous collaboration, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, has sold over 8 million copies worldwide. From 2007 to 2009 he was the British Children’s Laureate. @MichaelRosenYes Cole Henley is an illustrator, recovering archaeologist and maker of websites based in Somerset. @cole007 91

May

WOMEN ON NATURE KATHARINE NORBURY (ED.)

This scintillating anthology provides a timely and polemical new perspective on women’s writing about the natural world

This landmark anthology brings together the work of over a hundred women, from the fourteenth century to the present day, who have written about the natural world in Britain, Ireland and the outlying islands of our archipelago. Alongside the traditional forms of the travelogue – the walking guide, observations of birds, plants and wildlife – Women on Nature embraces alternative modes of seeing and recording that turn the genre on its head.

There has in recent years been an explosion of writing about place, landscape and the natural world. But within this blossoming of interest, women’s voices have remained very much in the minority.

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Women on Nature 12/05/2022 Paperback £12.99 978-1-80018-141-0 World/Audio/TV & Film

‘A fine, rare and landmark collection’ Deborah Warner, The Times

NON-FICTION Katharine Norbury is the author of The Fish Ladder, which was shortlisted for the 2016 Wainwright Prize, longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and was a Book of the Year in the Guardian, Telegraph and Observer newspapers. She has contributed to the Observer, the Guardian, the Telegraph, The Washington Post and Lonely Planet magazine. @kjnorbury 92

May

FIELD NOTES

MAXIM PETER GRIFFIN The stunning record of a year spent in a Lincolnshire landscape, told through text and artworks

It is about topography and time. Chalk and flint and marsh. The coming and going of the sea, Neolithic farmers and the razzledazzle of weary coastal towns. It is as much about the ghost of a mammoth as it is the scream of a jet fighter, heading east. It is about movement: the strike of a brush, the pan of a camera, flames in the woods. Each drawing is a still from a film – a film that is under constant production inside Griffin’s skull. ‘A strange, playful, stubborn kind of vision – in the best tradition of Stanley Spencer or Eric Ravilious’ Tom Jeffreys, author of Signal Failure

Design by Mecob

Field Notes is the biography of a territory in full colour: a book of pictures and words that record a year spent in a Lincolnshire landscape.

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Field Notes 26/05/2022 Hardback £12.99 978-1-80018-118-2 World/Audio/TV & Film

NON-FICTION Maxim Peter Griffin is an artist, illustrator and writer based in Lincolnshire. The first phase of his Field Notes was a regular feature on Caught by the River and he writes monthly articles on his looking for Lincolnshire Life magazine. He has collaborated with writer Gary Budden on two books about the Kentish landscape. @maximpetergriff 93

May

HARAMACY

ZAHED SULTAN, DHRUVA BALRAM AND TARA JOSHI (EDS.) A collection of true stories prescribed by voices from the Middle East, South Asia and the diaspora Journalism in the UK is 94 per cent white and 55 per cent male, while only 0.4 per cent of journalists are Muslim and 0.2 per cent are Black. The publishing industry’s statistics are equally dire. Haramacy amplifies these underrepresented voices. Tackling topics previously left unspoken, this anthology offers a space for writers to explore ideas that mainstream media organisations overlook. Focusing on the experiences of twelve Middle Eastern and South Asian writers, the essays explore visibility, invisibility, love, strength and race, painting a picture of what it means to feel fractured – both in the UK and back home.

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Haramacy 26/05/2022 Paperback £9.99 978-1-80018-132-8 World/Audio/TV & Film

NON-FICTION Zahed Sultan is an award-winning multimedia artist and social entrepreneur who seeks to further the idea of community through social impact programmes and collaborative cultural projects. His audio-visual dance performances have been presented internationally. In 2019, he launched an arts programme in London called Haramacy to act as a catalyst for cross-cultural engagement. @ZahedSultan 94

June

A LITTLE PIECE OF MIND GILES PALEY-PHILLIPS

A neo-noir psychological novel written in verse, from award-winning author Giles Paley-Phillips

As he journeys deeper into the dark underbelly of his idyllic suburban hometown he starts to lose his grip on reality, not knowing what’s real, what isn’t, and above all if there is anyone left he can trust…

A Little Piece of Mind tells the story of Hobs, a young adult who is trying to fathom the mystery surrounding the sudden disappearance of Jenni, the girl he’s fallen in love with, and her associations with Mike Bilk, a local businessman who is running for office.

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A Little Piece of Mind 09/06/2022 Hardback £12.99 978-1-80018-130-4 UK & Comm.

FICTION Giles Paley-Phillips’s children’s book, The Fearsome Beastie, has sold over 70,000 copies and won numerous awards. His debut adult novel, One Hundred and Fifty-Two Days, was published in 2020 to critical acclaim. Giles is co-host and producer of the iTunes top-ten and awardnominated podcast BLANK, as well as A Little Bit of Positive alongside Julia Bradbury. @eliistender10 95

June

SHINE ON ME TIM WELLS

In the sequel to Moonstomp, it’s London, 1980, and Joe the skinhead werewolf has returned… Joe Bovshover had chosen the park. He knew that this full moon he’d become wolf. He knew the deer in the park would make easy prey. The deer lived simply and were soft, there was no wildness to these city animals, but there was in Joe… It’s now 1980, and Joe, the skinhead werewolf, once again stalks London. Lights in the night, burning red and white; amidst aggro, proper shmatta, and mod witches. Tim Wells brings us another short, sharp instalment of his pulp skinhead-punk-horror series. ‘I love Tim Wells’s authentically pastiched werewolf-skinhead novels’ Stewart Lee

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Shine on Me 09/06/2022 Paperback £8.99 978-1-80018-156-4 World/Audio/TV & Film

‘Beautiful. Brutal … It’s got the lot! Phill Jupitus

FICTION English poet Tim Wells is the founding editor of the poetry magazine Rising. His recent books include Keep the Faith, Rougher Yet and Boys’ Night Out in the Afternoon, which was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. He lives in London.

June

THE MAB

Eleven epic tales from the Mabinogion

MATT BROWN AND ELOISE WILLIAMS (EDS.) Stories from the Welsh classic retold by contemporary authors, in a beautifully illustrated dual-language edition Design by Mecob

The Mab is a collection of eleven epic Welsh stories from the Mabinogion, which might be the oldest ever written down in the history of Britain. Here they are retold for young people by an incredible team of award-winning authors, and beautifully illustrated in a dual-language edition. As well as being really old, the stories in The Mab are strange and funny and thrilling. They speak of a time when the gates between the Real World and the Otherworld were occasionally left open. And sometimes, just sometimes, it was possible to step through. Title: Pub date: Format: Price: ISBN: Rights:

The Mab 09/06/2022 Hardback £16.99 978-1-80018-115-1 World/Audio/TV & Film

FICTION Matt Brown is an author, broadcaster and TV presenter. He has written two children’s book series: Compton Valance and Dreary Inkling School. @mattbrownauthor Eloise Williams is the inaugural Children’s Laureate Wales 2019–2021 and author of Elen’s Island, Gaslight, Seaglass and Wilde. @Eloisejwilliams 97

June

ONETRACKMINDS

True stories about life-changing songs

KRISTIAN BRODIE AND ADAM SHAKINOVSKY (EDS.) Twenty-five writers on the songs that changed their lives

Based on the popular series of live storytelling shows, the book features contributions from the likes of Peter Tatchell, Joe Dunthorne, Inua Ellams, Cash Carraway, Patrick Gale, Jemima Foxtrot and Andy Nyman as well as some of the UK’s most exciting new voices. The result is an entertaining, enlightening musical guide to the best of what makes us human.

Design by Mecob

Music can inspire our greatest creations, salve our deepest wounds, make us fall in – or out of – love. It can also be a window into another’s soul. OneTrackMinds is a collection of twenty-five compelling answers to the question: ‘What was the song that changed your life?’

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OneTrackMinds 23/06/2022 Paperback £9.99 978-1-80018-100-7 World/Audio/TV & Film

NON-FICTION Kristian Brodie is a film producer, script editor and writer. He has produced two award-winning feature films: the documentary Next Goal Wins and the thriller Beast. Adam Shakinovsky has worked with groups and individuals in the entertainment, commercial, governmental and charity sectors to help them find and tell their stories. @One_TrackMinds 98

GIVING NEW LIFE TO OLD BOOKS

Backlisted.fm

96 Cross reference

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Featuring: Poguemahone A wild and groundbreaking free-verse novel from Patrick McCabe, one of modern Ireland’s greatest writers. Villager The first full-length novel from Sunday Times bestselling author Tom Cox. A Year in the Life Goths, naturists and trainspotters: adventures in twenty-six British subcultures. Haramacy Twelve Middle Eastern and South Asian writers on visibility, invisibility, love, strength, race and what it means to feel fractured – both in the UK and back home. Feather, Leaf, Bark and Stone A successor to The Unwinding from Kate Greenaway Medal winner Jackie Morris: a pillow book of poems, dreams and stories. Women on Nature The paperback outing of this landmark anthology, illuminating the writing of women on place, landscape and the natural world.