Liberating Ideas - Autumn 2018 by Unbound

RECENT BESTSELLERS The Almanac Lia Leendertz 9781783524044 £9.99 The Good Immigrant Nikesh Shukla, ed 9781783523955 £8.99 So Here It Is Dave Hill 9781783524204 £20.00 21st-Century Yokel Tom Cox 9781783524563 £16.99 How to Be a Craftivist Sarah Corbett 9781783524075 £12.99 The Plagiarist in the Kitchen Jonathan Meades 9781783522408 £20.00 The Broken Mirror Jonathan Coe 9781783524174 £9.99

Unbound Unit 18 Waterside 44â&#x20AC;&#x201C;48 Wharf Road London N1 7UX For a full list of contacts visit www.unbound.com Trade Sales & Marketing Manager julian@unbound.com Online Accounts Manager Brian Martin brian@unbound.com Head of Rights Ilona Chavasse ilona@unbound.com Head of Publicity Amy Winchester amy@unbound.com Boundless Arifa Akbar arifa@unbound.com To order any of the books in this catalogue published between July 1st and August 31st please get in contact with your Penguin Random House Rep. For titles published from September 1st onwards please contact your PGUK Rep. If you are unsure who that is then contact julian@unbound.com

DEAR READER, Welcome to the second Unbound catalogue. At the risk of showing off, this is beginning to look like our best autumn ever. Starting with fiction, we have Matt Cain’s big-hearted The Madonna of Bolton, described by Kate Mosse as ‘charming, funny, touching, a lovely coming-of-age novel – a celebration of music, Madonna and being true to yourself’. And we’re delighted to announce Alice Jolly’s return to fiction with Mary Ann Sate, Imbecile, an epic novel of rural life in mid-nineteenth-century Gloucestershire, which she discusses with editor Imogen Denny. Another exciting return is the first novel in twelve years from Gautam Malkani, author of the internationally acclaimed Londonstani. His new book, Distortion, is the beautiful and moving tale of a young student caring for his dying mother while trying to maintain his multiple digital identities. There’s some great non-fiction, too: the comic genius of Fry and Laurie is celebrated in their first-ever official history, Soupy Twists! by Jem Roberts. Laura Thompson, acclaimed biographer of the Mitford sisters and Agatha Christie, pays homage to the English pub in The Last Landlady through the remarkable story of her grandmother, the first woman in England to be given a publican’s licence in her own name. And the first title from our new graphic novels list hits the trade in October. Grafity’s Wall by Ram V is a story of growing up, expression, rebellion, ambition and acceptance painted against the backdrop of Mumbai’s street culture. Finally, we’re very excited to be publishing The Black Prince, an unpublished Anthony Burgess film script adapted into a novel by Adam Roberts. But Unbound is now more than just books. As well as our successful books podcast Backlisted (which now has its own website: www.backlisted.fm), we have a new online magazine, Boundless, which has been publishing intelligent and incisive long-form articles every day since December. We’ve included an essay on silence here by the magazine’s editor, Arifa Akbar, to give you a flavour. These are just the headlines – there are over fifty new books featured in the following pages, all available online or from your favourite local bookshop. And do keep an eye out for Unbound events near you: our authors are a busy bunch who love connecting with readers. Julian Mash, Trade Sales & Marketing Manager

CONTENTS

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FROM THE SHOP FLOOR The Golden Hare, Edinburgh MARY ANN SATE, IMBECILE An interview with Alice Jolly THE MADONNA OF BOLTON Matt Cain’s musical inspiration WHERE EPICS FAIL A selection of aphorisms SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT Michael Smith on the linocut process NERVE ENDINGS Selected lyrics from Kristin Hersh FOUR FEET UNDER On homelessness in London GRAFITY’S WALL A graphic novel extract SILENCE PLEASE On a quest for quietness SPARKS Stories of street photography

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THE LAST LANDLADY Laura Thompson on her publican grandmother THE SURFBOARD Dan Kieran on crowdfunding his new book A LONG AND MESSY BUSINESS A taste of Rowley Leigh’s new cookbook COMPLETING THE BLACK PRINCE An interview with Adam Roberts A COUNTRY TO CALL HOME Flash fiction from Kit de Waal 24 STORIES A short story extract SEX DRIVE Stephanie Theobald on sexual self-discovery CROWDFUNDING: WHAT IT TAKES Top tips from Unbound’s head of crowdfunding NEW TITLES July–December 2018 SHELFIE A peek at Laura Barton’s bookshelf MEET THE UNBOUNDER Caitlin Harvey, Unbound’s Community Manager

FROM THE SHOP FLOOR

THE GOLDEN HARE 68 ST STEPHEN STREET, EDINBURGH EH3 5AQ OPENING HOURS: 10AM TO 6PM, 7 DAYS A WEEK The Golden Hare, located in St Stephen Street in the beautiful Stockbridge area of Edinburgh, opened its doors five years ago. Staffed by a team of four, and founded by former V&A Director Mark Jones, they offer a curated selection of fiction, non-fiction, graphic novels and children’s books.

You’ll find themed displays, handwritten recommendations from booksellers and unusual books you’re unlikely to have seen elsewhere. Senior Bookseller Alice Tarbuck explains that they have an emphasis on ‘face-out display, so you can really see, and fall in love with, our books’. The shop has become a community hub. ‘We are so lucky to have an amazing street full of other supportive independent shops. Our customers are from all demographics – anyone who loves good books!’ They run an extensive events programme, Alice explains, with ‘regular events such as Book Group, Short Story Club, Golden Hare Writers Group and our Reader’s Salon. We have lots of one-off events too, with people such as Susie Orbach, and writers like Eley Williams and Imogen Hermes 6

Gowar’. The shop sits alongside other notable Edinburgh independent bookshops like Lighthouse with its fantastic programme of radical events, and The Edinburgh Bookshop, with its wonderful children’s section. Here’s to the next five years of continued success.

ALICE TARBUCK Senior Bookseller

How long have you worked at The Golden Hare? I’ve been here for just over a year. What book are you currently reading? I’ve just finished The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock, which I really enjoyed, and I’m also reading Ocean Vuong’s Night Sky with Exit Wounds, which is challenging and brilliant. What is the strangest thing a customer has asked you? A favourite one recently was someone asking me to list for them every edition of Ovid’s Metamorphoses ever published – a topic surely worthy of a PhD! Where is your favourite spot in the shop? I love the beautiful, cosy back room with the children’s books – a perfect spot to get cosy, and you often find parents reading to their children there. What has been your most successful event in the shop? A hard one to call – we have had sell-out events for Frank Quitely, and our new short story club keeps selling out! We also really adore our workshops with paper artist Rachel Hazell, and they are always hugely popular. How and why are bookshops important? What a great question! You can get to the world through bookshops. They are vital places for community, for literacy, for access to the written word, and they are so important in reminding us of the primacy of the book as material object.

MARY ANN SATE, IMBECILE

In an interview with editor Imogen Denny, novelist Alice Jolly, winner of the PEN Ackerley Prize and V. S. Pritchett Memorial Prize, discusses the inspiration behind her new novel, published in June. ID

Could you start by giving us an overview of what inspired you to write this novel?

One day I was in the cemetery near where I live in Gloucestershire, and I’ve always known there are many, many unmarked graves there. There was a workhouse right next door and it’s well known that all the people from there were just shovelled into graves without a headstone or anything. As I was walking it was almost as though I heard a voice, which sounds mad, but the voice came alive for me and I thought: I want to resurrect one of these people; I want to write down one of their stories. They’re missing from history, we just don’t know anything about them and it seems such a tragedy. They contributed, they worked in the mills, they had roles in life and their lives were probably interesting and amazing in all sorts of ways we don’t know. So it was born of a desire to allow readers to hear a voice that is missing from the history books.

So how much of Mary Ann’s story is based on the history books?

Many of the events in the book really happened, the places are real and the issues of the time and the things that are going on at the mills are heavily based on fact, but she herself didn’t exist. So it’s a mix of fact and fiction. I had historical facts as a sort of skeleton but as a writer, you’re sort of thrilled when you realise there’s so much missing as that space is what you need to embroider.

The style of the book is clearly very unique – both in style and in form, there’s no real grammar to speak of, and a lot of the speech is spelled out phonetically. Can you talk me through why you did that?

Mary Ann is a strange mix. On the one hand, she’s very poor and her life is very limited, but through strange circumstances she does learn to read and write; and in her voice there is a mix of a Gloucestershire dialect and somebody who has heard and read quite a bit. But also when Mary Ann writes her manuscript – which becomes the essence of Mary Ann Sate, Imbecile in itself – she’s really old, tired and in poor health. She just wants to write what she wants. She doesn’t want to sit down and consider what’s correct.

This is very untypical of ‘working-class autobiographies’, which are the first books written by very poor people, generally in extremely formal English. These are people who will have gone to great trouble to learn correct English and so they want to demonstrate it. Those books tend to be very stilted because in order to write a book at that time you had to lose your tongue and get another one: speaking in dialect wasn’t acceptable. But because Mary Ann’s so old and she doesn’t think anyone’s going to read it, she just writes it as she wants to. ID

Her friend Lucetta is a novel character because despite her low beginnings she’s clearly very well read and strong-minded. How did you come up with her?

She is a woman who is outside her own time. Yes, she has ideas that are strangely modern, but I was also interested in what happened to someone who was poor and very clever as well as very attractive at that time. Basically, it was a recipe for disaster! In a sense Lucetta is an amazing friend for Mary Ann but actually she’s also a destructive influence. I never write about conventional romantic love, it’s not a subject that interests me, but I’m very interested in other kinds of love. And here it is love as a force for destruction, because if not for Lucetta, Mary Ann’s life could have been entirely different.

The other character who I found fascinating is Harland Cottrell. I think that he’s supposed to be based on a follower of Dr Edward Jenner, can you tell me more?

By the time I’m writing about, Jenner was dead but his influence was fast spreading. The whole idea of vaccinations was very slow to take off; it was treated with huge suspicion, and interestingly that debate is still going on today. And if you read about Jenner himself, he was pursuing all sorts of very mad stuff that was clearly going nowhere and yet he hit on the vaccination thing. Harland Cottrell is a strange character in that there are things that he does and things he believes in that are really quite mad; but there’s something about inventors, or people who make a huge discovery – they have to be pursuing a lot of stuff that is mad and is going nowhere in order to hit on that one thing that is going to change the world. Jenner was a Gloucestershire country doctor and he changed the world. And Harland Cottrell has that mix.

Mary Ann Sate, Imbecile has been compared to A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler, which I think is an interesting comparison. Are there any particular contemporary fiction writers who you felt influenced you?

I looked around to see if there are other books written in this kind of voice, but I didn’t find anything. I’ve always loved Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood, and that is a completely different book in that the main character is sort of missing, and everybody talks about what we see and feel about her. Everything is projected onto her and a lot of assumptions are made so you don’t really ever know her. I suppose, in a way, this is like a mirror image of Alias Grace because here the woman really does get to talk.

You live in the house where she’s writing – how is that? Can you picture her in the halls, can you see her in your mind’s eye?

I must say when I first started the book I did think I was going a bit mad because I started writing it in this tower room, which is her room, and actually the first draft of the book was written with a dipping pen. It was incredibly slow but I wanted to know how difficult it would be to write it, because we’ve all got terribly used to writing quickly, just knocking it out on a computer, but I had to write quite carefully and laboriously, so I had to think more about each word.

And the other character writing – Sarah Jane Moffat, who finds Mary Ann’s manuscript and who has notes bookending the text – is she based on reality?

No, she isn’t. But I wanted people to understand that this is not very long ago – Mary Ann died in 1887, and so Sarah Jane would have lived through to the 1930s. It’s all within touching distance; it’s easy to think this happened in the far distant past, but it didn’t really, it’s all pretty close. Something quite significant about Sarah Jane is that she’s a woman who finds a woman’s book, and she says that she sat down to set about improving it, which of course happened to people. John Clare was a huge influence behind this book, and his poetry was always improved and given proper punctuation. But Sarah Jane somehow knows not to change it, just to leave it, and you think: Yes, well done, you! Let her say what she wants to say.

It is quite a feminist book, there are lots of strong women.

Yes, I think that’s right. People talk about feminist reworkings of certain stories and you think, does that mean lying to give women a role that they didn’t have? But the more I look at things, particularly in terms of what I’m writing now which is set in the 1930s, women did have a big role; you don’t have to make that up, but somehow when history is written they get written out of it. You don’t have to lie or give women bigger roles than they had. If you dig around you start thinking, maybe they did have interesting, significant lives, they just didn’t get recorded.

INSPIRATION BEHIND THE MADONNA OF BOLTON Matt Cain, editor-in-chief of Attitude magazine and Channel 4 News’s first-ever culture editor, reveals his favourite Madonna songs and discusses how they inspired his new novel, The Madonna of Bolton. LIKE A VIRGIN I was nine when this song was in the charts and had no idea what the lyrics were about. Now that I’ve been around the block a few times, I find it lyrically ingenious – and surprisingly moving. OPEN YOUR HEART The video for this song features Madonna playing a stripper, challenging our ideas of what it means to be a ‘good’ woman. When I first saw her play live in 1987, it was the opening number. It left me feeling inspired to be as brilliant as I could. LIKE A PRAYER This is the song that people who aren’t hardcore Madonna fans always say is their favourite. In the lyrics she draws a parallel between godly devotion and romantic love, and the video sees her confront stereotypes about race, a message which was lost when the song was released. Maybe her sexy dancing in front of burning crosses proved a bit of a distraction. EXPRESS YOURSELF When Madonna performed her anthem to female empowerment on the Blond Ambition tour, she wore the shield-like corset that arguably became her most iconic look. This metaphorical armour worn by a woman protecting herself from a world that had hurt her inspired me to erect my own shield and pursue my own ambitions. VOGUE Madonna has always been a huge defender of the gay community, even at the start of her career, when the AIDS crisis was turning the world against us. ‘Vogue’ was directly inspired by gay culture, specifically the dance performed by drag queens on the Harlem ‘house ball’ circuit. I’ll never forget her support at a time when the gay community had precious few allies. EROTICA Before the term ‘slut-shaming’ was even invented, Madonna was pilloried in the press for celebrating her sexuality on her Erotica album and in her SEX book. As a gay man, is it any wonder I felt such an 12

affinity with a woman cast onto the fringes of society for a sexuality it deemed unacceptable? DON’T TELL ME Once she’d weathered the storm of public disapproval, Madonna won back her audience with songs like this – about her refusal to give up, pipe down or slip away quietly. I listen to it whenever I need to reawaken the fighter within me. HUNG UP I was thrilled when my childhood idol made a comeback with this disco banger. It was accompanied by one of her most memorable looks ever – the pink leotard – and a barrage of criticism from critics telling her to ‘act her age’. I, for one, hope she never does.

FIND THE MADONNA OF BOLTON ON PAGE 63

WHERE EPICS FAIL Long before Twitter, Yahia Lababidi began writing aphorisms as a teenager in Egypt, more than twenty years ago. Since then, Lababidiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s aphorisms have gone viral online, been translated internationally and used in classrooms. He is a master of the art of the aphorism: each concise but containing a universal and identifiable truth. Here he shares some favourites from his latest collection, Where Epics Fail. *

Aphorisms respect the wisdom of silence by disturbing it, briefly.

The air is dense with stray spirits, swarming for soul.

Of all that is spoken, trust best what silence whispers.

Poem: an especially fine net for catching elusive states.

* 14

* A poem arrives like a hand in the dark. A poem should be flesh-warm, scented spirit. Poems are like bodies; a fraction of their power resides in their skin. The rest belongs to the spirit that swims through them.

Words seldom stand alone; like us, they are encircled by the spirits of ancestors.

The only real borders are those of our compassion.

We can lend ideas our breath, but ideals require our entire lives.

All who are tormented by an ideal must learn to make an ally of failure.

The hungry and sated regard food and temptation differently. * FIND WHERE EPICS FAIL ON PAGE 91

ILLUSTRATING SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT Michael Smith explains the process of illustrating his new translation of the medieval poem through linocut designs.

I studied printmaking at the Curwen Print Study Centre, near Cambridge. Their certification process resembles an apprenticeship whereby you come to specialise in the techniques you most enjoy. In my case, I chose relief printing (in particular, linocut). In this process, printing blocks made of lino are cut away, leaving a raised area that is inked up and printed. This differs from intaglio printing, like etching and dry point, where the image is cut into a plate and it is the cut-away parts which hold the ink. While the bulk of the work in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is printed in black and white, most of my commercial printmaking uses multiple colours. For example, to create the image of the green knight on the back cover of my book, I produced three plates, one for each colour (yellow, green and dark red) â&#x20AC;&#x201C; but if you look carefully youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll see there are more than three colours, due to the main colours mixing! 16

Although linocuts may appear simple, the work is complex. First, the image is researched; for Sir Gawain I used fourteenth-century illuminated manuscripts, and it is then drawn onto the block before it is cut. The cutting process takes time; the green knight took over eighty hours. Most of the prints in the book took between twenty and thirty hours each. There are sixteen main images, nine illuminated letters and the back cover image – that’s a lot of work! Next, it is important to remove any ‘high spots’ in the areas that have been cut away; the press is unforgiving in showing where mistakes lie. Now the block(s) must be inked up and – using a registration sheet to ensure the correct location of the block on the final printed work – placed on the plate of the press for ‘pulling’. I use a Victorian cast iron Albion printing press. The registration sheet is critical for any multicoloured prints. Each block needs to be in exactly the same place; it only takes one plate to ‘move’ and the print is ruined. Often, the first time a plate is used, the ink won’t ‘take’, so a printer can produce test pressings to deal with this before the main run. Finally, most prints – unless they’re one-offs – are produced in an ‘edition’. I tend to produce an edition of ten or fewer (a print will show its place in the edition on the bottom left). A printmaker will also produce an A/P – an artist’s proof. I keep each A/P for myself; these I consider to be the best of an entire edition, though each printmaker varies.

FIND SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT ON PAGE 66

NERVE ENDINGS American singer-songwriter Kristin Hersh is a founder member of seminal alternative rock band Throwing Muses. She is also an author and has released ten solo albums to date.

bright yellow gun with your bright yellow gun you own the sun and i think i need a little poison to keep me tame keep me awake i have nothing to offer but confusion and the circus in my head in the middle of the bed in the middle of the night with your bright silver frown you own the town and i think i need a little poison i have no secrets i have no lies i have nothing to offer but the middle of the night and i think you need a little poison

your ghost if i walk down this hallway tonight it’s too quiet so i pad through the dark and call you on the phone push your old numbers and let your house ring ’til i wake your ghost let him walk down your hallway it’s not this quiet slide down your receiver sprint across the wire follow my number slide into my hand it’s the blaze across my nightgown it’s the phone’s ring i think last night you were driving circles around me i can’t drink this coffee ’til i put you in my closet let him shoot me down let him call me off i take it from his whisper you’re not that tough

FIND NERVE ENDINGS ON PAGE 65

FOUR FEET UNDER Tamsen Courtenay considers her eye-opening experience of meeting homeless people in London: she interviewed thirty of them to tell their stories in this moving and revelatory book. My heart broke a little when, a year after I wrote Four Feet Under, I was back in London. On the other side of Shaftesbury Avenue I saw someone who had let me record the story of his life for my book, a kind, gentle young man who had great plans to put homelessness behind him and make a fresh start. But it hadn’t happened. He was still there. Nothing had changed. In fact, the new draconian laws and initiatives – aimed at concealing the homeless – have made things worse. Not just for him but for all the tens of thousands of other people with no home who fill our city streets. I had wanted so much to run across the road and share a hug with him but instead I froze on the spot, turned and walked away. It would have humiliated him to know I’d seen him exactly where he had been twelve months earlier. Back then, when I set off with my camera and recorder to meet, listen to and ask questions of London’s homeless, I’d had no idea what to expect. I had even less idea that by the time Four Feet Under was actually a book, homelessness and all its horrors would be an even greater problem than it was when I started my journey through the They have things shadows, doorways and pavements of London.

to say that will surprise, shock and delight, and they live four feet under the rest of us

I knew from my first day on the streets that the stories I was being told – first-hand – were something really special and that people of all ages and backgrounds would be as staggered to hear them as I was.

I began to feel a bit like an archaeologist, dusting off dirt and grime, carefully removing tough carapaces to discover bright, funny and kind people underneath. I wanted everyone to get to know them, but more to the point they wanted people to see them more clearly and to understand why they had ended up where they are. Not just the broad strokes of their lives and what tragedies had befallen some of them, but also the fascinating details of how they survive now, what they think about and dream of becoming. The men and women, from teenagers to OAPs, who gave up their time and their stories for the book are remarkable individuals. I grew terribly fond of them as they enveloped me in their world. A world of tremendous physical hardship, mental illness and violence (being urinated on, set alight, robbed and raped are not particularly unusual) but one that they 20

manage with a quite incredible degree of humour, empathy for others and self-deprecation. What I saw in my time with them affected me deeply. I didn’t pretend that I was homeless but over the course of my brief spell on the streets, as I became tired, poorly and scruffy, I certainly got an unpleasant taste of what they are forced to swallow daily: contempt and suspicion at best, torment and violence at worst. On really bad days no one actually chooses to see them at all. It seems not to be enough that they are vilified and dehumanised, now they are also criminalised. Recent laws, anti-social behaviour orders and other nasty bits of legislation mean they are forced to be constantly on the move. Some councils have even decided to fine them huge amounts for being homeless. A final injustice. I believe it is a cynical move to convince the public that these extraordinary, talented and loving humans are nothing but a blight on our streets and our consciences and that we have no obligation to care. That they aren’t ‘you and me’; they are something ‘other’ and the sooner we are rid of them, the better. The stories in Four Feet Under have turned out to be an antidote to this poisonous propaganda, revealing the characters and courage of some very special people. The person you might see shambling around, dirty and utterly miserable, is not a monster or a lazy druggie on the scrounge – it is a human being barely hanging on.

The existences they endure are a perpetual headache of managing the logistics of daily life. Sick, lonely, exhausted, hungry and despised, they’ll now be fined for leaving their meagre worldly goods and sleeping bags when they go off to find a loo, for example. Their paltry possessions have even been described by one council as ‘detritus’. It is these people who tell their tales in the book and it is these people who have become my heroes. They have things to say that will surprise, shock and delight, and they live four feet under the rest of us, on pavements and in shop doorways. Right under our noses. I always knew that these chronicles would be gripping, tender and often brutal but not that they would become even more relevant today. The stories are inspiring and uplifting, but that this book is still a contemporary comment on our times is what really breaks my heart.

FIND FOUR FEET UNDER ON PAGE 70

GRAFITY’S WALL Lizzie Kaye, commissioning editor specialising in comics and graphic novels, on the beauty and power of the medium. The first conversation writer Ram V and I had about Grafity’s Wall is one I’ll remember for the rest of my life. True to form for a person immersed every day in visual storytelling, I can recall most clearly the way the orange light shone onto the wet, rain-soaked road and our breath as it puffed out in front of us into the cold air. I don’t remember the actual words we said. It was about one in the morning, and a group of us were heading back to hotels and hostels after a party at ThoughtBubble comic convention. As Ram outlined his idea for this remarkable book, and described the style of artist Anand Radhakrishnan, I watched my feet on the tarmac and thought, Yes. This is the one. Graphic novels require an intensely collaborative process, calling on all involved to pour their hearts and minds into bringing to life a collective vision, and then inviting the reader to join them in the world they have created. As a medium, it remains unsurpassed in its ability to transport the reader into stories across innumerable continents, time periods, galaxies… and to actually show them the unlimited scope of human imagination once they get there. Some are raw, visceral experiences that challenge and shock as you absorb them. Others are gentle contemplations, unfolding softly, revealing quiet moments full of empathy and stirring the glow of recognition. All are a distillation of pure creativity, poured onto the page. Here is an extract from Grafity’s Wall by Ram V, published in October.

FIND GRAFITYâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S WALL ON PAGE 81

SILENCE PLEASE: ON A QUEST FOR QUIETNESS Mystics have always looked to silence for spiritual enlightenment, but what do we seek from it today? In this extract, Boundless editor Arifa Akbar reflects on what lies beneath sound and how the modern-day epiphany might be achieved. This is an edited extract of an essay by Arifa Akbar, editor of Boundless, an editorially independent online literary magazine for long-form writing, created by Unbound. The site can be viewed on www.unbound.com/boundless/ and all content is free. @BoundlessLit I am standing in a room that is sealed up to sound. It is girded with foam and fortified with steel and iron springs to resist the vibrations of the outside world: the rumbling of the underground network, the whirring of central heating systems, all of London’s unceasing thrum. The room, an ‘anechoic’ chamber, is a stone’s throw from the thunder of Elephant and Castle roundabout, and its silence is measured in decibels. It comes in at minus two decibels, which sounds like a freezing over of sound. This is where Royal Opera House singers have come to hear their notes with crystal clarity. Where art students have lain in darkness to study the sound of a mushroom I might begin to tune in being peeled. Where sound cannot be smothered, only unspooled, so that if a group to more unnerving inner of people spoke all at once, every overlapping machinery; the sound of sentence would be unravelled and heard as a bones and brain separate thread. If I stand still enough, maybe I’ll hear the molecules in the air stirring. Or more likely, I’ll bang on the sealed door and demand to be let out after fifteen minutes, which is the time it takes for a human body to start reacting – and I’m told, panicking – to pure silence. I might hallucinate or feel the walls closing in as others have done. Or worse, hear the pulsations and blood flow of my body that are said to make themselves heard in this unnatural quiet. I might begin to tune in to more unnerving inner machinery; the sound of bones and brain. I have read the risk assessment forms and steeled myself to the prospect of all these outcomes. This is not the silence we refer to when we talk about being either bored in it or finding headspace through it. This is fearsome and fraught and 30

it swarms the room. It seems opposite to the beatific spiritual silence written about by mystics, and beneficial silence described in well-being books that connects us to ourselves, the kind we find on retreats and meditation courses that bears the promise of serenity and self-knowledge. It also proves that there is no uniformity in silence. The longer it is considered, the more multiple it seems. When we begin to theorise, we can quickly fall into the quicksand of its paradoxes. ‘We romanticise silence on the one hand and on the other feel that it is terrifying,dangerous to our mental health, a threat to our liberties and something to be avoided at all costs,’ says Sara Maitland in A Book of Silence. So which is it to be? Is silence where we find spiritual enlightenment or is it an encounter with the void, and loneliness, and intimations of death? It is apparently both the making of us and the unravelling – the nothingness that King Lear raves about on the desolate heath, and also the repository for a universal wisdom. Originally, silence was where mystics went to commune with God. That was the reason that the monastic order of the Desert Fathers pitched homes in the sand dunes of the Scetes desert in the third century; why Buddha walked for forty years in the mountains and Christ for forty days in the wilderness. Seven centuries after him, Muhammad’s revelation came in the cave of Hira, where the archangel Jibreel commanded him – a shepherd and an illiterate – to ‘read’ and he could, the silence of his cave furnishing him with instant literacy. Today, the secular ambition is to find peace in silence without the interventions of God. But the more sound we make in the West, the more we speak of silence as elsewhere, apart from modernity, as free as it is sacred in the middle of the Nevada desert or the Buddhist

monasteries of Nepal and Dharamsala. And just as a quest to these places has traditionally held the promise of spiritual enlightenment, so the well-being industry’s silence suggests that we will find – stripped back and cleansed – our hitherto hidden and truer selves beneath the everyday noise. The appetite for mindfulness and meditation keeps growing, the busier and noisier we get. For the more committed there is Vipassana, a silent practice with its roots in Buddhism, often referred to as ‘emotional cleansing’ in secular circles. It is a ten-day retreat which is monastic in spirit: men and women tend to be segregated, they rise at dawn, meditate for most of the day and there is strictly no speaking, books, music or eye contact allowed. Many who have done it speak of being broken down emotionally and then transformed. Rachel O’Neill, thirty-four, who works in finance, went on a Vipassana retreat six years ago. ‘I live in London, which feels really hectic. I had been in a very tumultuous relationship with my boyfriend at the time so I was looking to find some “me” time. I thought about how I had got my entire life ahead of me and that I’d never sit quietly for ten days in it.’ She was visiting a friend in Kathmandu and found the nearest course in Calcutta. ‘We meditated for ten hours a day. For the rest of the time we ate and slept and washed our clothes. There were signs everywhere which said, “Please respect the noble silence.”’ And Rachel tried to until a wall of boredom descended. On the second night, she had a tentative exchange with her roommate which opened the floodgates. ‘For every single night after that, we had a great chat about our respective lives. She was an English teacher from Calcutta. The talking was lovely. I needed to talk about things like my boyfriend. She told me about her husband and past relationships. I processed so much from chatting to her, and it helped me to the point of realising that this boyfriend wasn’t good for me.’

The well-being industry’s silence suggests that we will find – stripped back and cleansed – our hitherto hidden and truer selves beneath the everyday noise

The talking clarified her view on ‘finding oneself in silence’ too. ‘I thought that I would discover something extraordinary about myself or wipe out the noise and find the hidden me. But what I found was that I was just fine with the noise and that I was happier with my life than I had given it credit for.’

In Silence in the Age of Noise, Erling Kagge writes of silence as a means to ‘uncovering answers to the intriguing puzzle that is yourself, and for helping to gain new perspectives on whatever is hiding beyond the horizon’. But what if we look and listen and find nothing hidden at all? Does it mean we have failed at self-discovery or that, in fact, the hidden 32

self is a fallacy? Even if it is not, is silence necessarily the prerequisite condition that takes us closer towards it? Psychoanalysis also speaks of the hidden self as the ‘unconscious mind’ and suggests that we live our conscious lives on a sliding scale of awareness, denial and delusion. The endeavour is the same, to access the hidden/unconscious self. Could it be the case that silence and talking are two possible routes to the same destination? The study of silence is simultaneously a study of sound, and the cultural split between the two seems like a false dichotomy. Just as silence is so often deified, sound is demonised. Silence is the endangered species that must be saved from the 24/7 cacophony of our modern age. Sound, when we cannot control it, is called by its more diminishing name: noise. We speak of the latter in relation to the baser aspects of ourselves and our cities, whirring in perpetual motion and distraction. We are living louder than our forefathers so we are becoming ever more base, presumably, like the Morlocks in H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine. It can even harm us: the 150-decibel sounds emitted from a rocket launch, up close, can rupture blood vessels and cause our eardrum to burst. Sound is often conflated with modernity too – an iCulture of distraction and overwork – while silence seems never to age. The assumption is that if we peel away the grub of modern-day existence, a fortifying silence will be found beneath that will work its timeless healing on us. Yet, isn’t sound just as healing, joyous and spiritual? Through music, chanting, physical vibration. The thumping beat in nightclubs – Western pop music sounds at 120 beats per minute – vibrates into our bodies, which release endorphins as a result. So even pop music brings a euphoria that might be considered transformative. Perhaps silence is only ever just quieter noise, and the striving for it a case of unpeeling layers of sound that are like an infinite series of Russian dolls. Zero decibels is officially the sound of silence. It is measured in the movement of an eardrum by the width of a hydrogen 33

atom, but perfect silence only comes to us in death, once our body has switched off. Only in the rarest cases of deafness can total silence be experienced but we would need to have no eardrum, no bones in the middle ear, no receptors in the cochlea and no auditory nerves. Even if we go to the quietest place in nature â&#x20AC;&#x201C; say, a wintry forest in North Sweden â&#x20AC;&#x201C; add a layer of snow which absorbs sound, take away any hint of wind, there will be decibels carried in our bodies, because breathing sounds twenty decibels and a heartbeat sounds ten. Even in the anechoic chamber, I am spoiling the silence by being alive. The anechoic chamber at London South Bank University was built in 1964 and is one of eleven in the UK. It is studded with foam cones around the walls and has a mesh floor. It has been insulated to such a degree that when a balloon bursts inside it, its sound falls flat. I have taken in my notebook, a banana and house keys. A video recorder is stationed inside, a chair opposite it along with foam blocks if I want to sleep. I lie down. It feels as if I have taken a sedative. I fall asleep and then get up, feeling energised. It takes the brain half an hour to fully adjust to this silence, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been told, but time passes and nothing happens. My hearing is not sharpened, and when I shake my keys, tap my foot, these sounds are still muffled. I wait to hear my blood roar in my ears. I wonder when the room will turn against me. I stare at the walls and I am almost disappointed when I realise they are not closing in on me. But the chamber works on me in other ways. It calms the hyperactivity for which I have sought so many remedies over the years. I feel 34

like the room is meditating for me. I am doing nothing but I feel no restlessness or boredom. My heart rate has slowed down and my head is exceptionally clear of whatever I have to do next. Here I feel like I am encountering my physical, finite self, over anything infinite or godlike. The room seems to be pinning me to the present moment, though time feels accelerated. Minutes whistle past so that twenty minutes feel like five. I have agreed for the lights to be turned off at the end, but when the door is opened and the noise and light are let back in, I am sad that it is over so soon, although I have been in there for well over an hour. I could easily spend the day there, I think. They say that people either love it or hate it, that the chamber tends to amplify your state of mind. So if fear lurks there, you see monsters. The wisdom of the room’s silence has taught me that I am not the fearful type. The sedative effect lingers well after I leave the chamber. I begin to wonder what the longterm effects of such silence might be, but it perplexes me that even when the door was closed and all sound had been pushed out, I thought I could hear a faint hiss, like air travelling through the empty radiator pipes on a quiet evening. Was this sound actual or imagined? Was the noise, in fact, something inside me, rather than without? Kagge defines inner silence ‘not as a permanent state but as an in-between state. Dip in and out. Silence within, noise within, silence without, noise without.’ It is a state of mind ill-suited to those seeking any permanence or certainty. Silence, inner and outer, seems too poetic for that. Perfect silence can contain sound. Sound can contain silence. It is a conflation of many ideas and mythologies that don’t seem, in the end, to be about silence or sound in themselves but about how we listen, and what we choose to hear. * To read the full version of this article visit www.unbound.com/ boundless/2017/12/20/silence-please-is-there-wisdom-in-quietness/

SPARKS Award-winning screenwriter and film director Stephen Leslie began taking photographs as an antidote to the protracted and often frustrating world of British film-making. This rapidly became an obsession. He can no longer leave the house without a camera, and photographs on his Flickr have attracted over two and a half million views. Sparks is his unique ode to street photography, featuring photographs interwoven with the short stories. This is an extract from the book.

There comes a point in every man’s life when he thinks, ‘Bloody hell, what am I going to do with all these photographs?’ After twenty years of obsessively snapping almost anything that crossed my path, I decided to make a book to fill in the backstory and provide context for some of my favourite images. The only problem was that I didn’t know most of the backstories. I usually take photographs very quickly, almost on instinct, and hardly ever stop to chat with the subjects. In fact, that’s one of the supposed rules of ‘street photography’: it has to be candid, you can’t interact or interfere with the scene. In order to get around this hurdle, I decided to make stuff up. I started lying. Matching fake stories and invented contexts to real, un-staged photographs. The result is Sparks, a book of photographs and lies, with a dash of truth.

‘No, I thought you had the keys...?’ 37

She has lived in the house her whole life and has no intention of ever moving. Each afternoon, weather permitting, she carries a chair out onto the terrace and settles down to look. The view of the coastline is stunning and she knows it by heart – the mountains and treecovered islands like vertebrae in the mist… This is why she now chooses a smaller chair and is careful to position it close enough to the wall so that she can’t see over. She still wants to take the air but has no desire to look at that fucking view ever again. Instead, she focuses on the tiles and takes pleasure in what she finds there. The quality of the workmanship, all done by her father. She can stare at the lattice of cement straight lines for hours imagining each tile holds a different memory from her past. Though she’s just as content to switch focus and concentrate on the tiles themselves, follow the passage of drops of condensation or the gradual spread of mould and lichen, a spider doing battle with a fly or a parade of ants as they carry their spoils back home. All of it unfolds right in front of her, an entire myopic world. She has no further use for the more conventional view. She has seen it so often that it bores her to tears. If just one more person tells her how lucky she is or mentions the tree-covered islands and how they look like vertebrae in the mist again, she is going to stab them repeatedly in the face with a blunt chopstick, she’s not joking. She doesn’t care anymore.

FIND SPARKS ON PAGE 71

Laura Thompson, awardwinning author of Take Six Girls, Life in a Cold Climate, and The Dogs, on her publican grandmother, the institution of the great English pub and her ideal pub playlist.

This book is a homage to my grandmother Violet, who was a pub landlady and a remarkable personality. She was a feminist before feminism, the first woman to own a pub licence in her own right. I spent a lot of my childhood in her intimate little pub, which was imprinted with her earthy glamour and impersonal warmth. It was her life’s work, a magical creation. My memories of the place are intense – the smell of ash and beer in the dank mornings, the tumultuous hum of evening noise split with thunder cracks of laughter – but the book is also a homage to the institution of the pub, which my grandmother was born into in London, a century ago now. Of course, the proper pub – with its brisk compassion, its implicit standards and refusal to judge, its acceptance of human nature and offer of sanctuary – is disappearing. The world has changed around it, as my grandmother understood. But she was never nostalgic, and neither is this book. Rather it is a celebration of what was, which I feel lucky to have known, and an exploration of what precisely is meant by those simple words, Public House: the home that is not quite home. I had a pub playlist that I listened to when I wrote The Last Landlady. Nothing on it that one would hear in a pub today! It was the music that my grandmother played on her big old gramophone, either at parties or after closing to her friends.

THE LAST LANDLANDY

LAURA’S PUB PLAYLIST Timi Yuro Hurt Bill Bailey Won’t You Come Home Bill Bailey Jose Feliciano Nature Boy Dinah Washington It’s a Mean Old Man’s World Peggy Lee Is That All There Is Bing Crosby Brother, Can You Spare a Dime Bessie Smith Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out And the one that she would have rushed to save:

Brenda Lee Lazy River

FIND THE LAST LANDLADY ON PAGE 72

THE SURFBOARD Dan Kieran – author and co-founder and CEO of Unbound – on the impetus behind Unbound, crowdfunding his first book, and the unexpected power that accompanies vulnerability.

Unbound started as a book I wanted to write. Fed up with the traditional publishing industry’s failure to embrace technology, and as there was no platform that would allow me to access and capture data about my readers, I decided to do it myself. I would build a website, tell people about the book I wanted to write in a video and ask them for money. If enough people gave me money, I would write the book, get it edited by an editor I had worked with on a previous book and send everyone a copy. Simple. I mentioned this to two friends – John Mitchinson and Justin Pollard (both writers themselves) – in the pub and they thought it was a great idea. But they saw a much bigger opportunity than I envisaged.

They thought all authors deserved to have the chance of being published in this way and still have access to bookshops where the most avid readers congregated. As the pints flowed we decided to go for it. We would build a crowdfunding publishing platform for voices who were not being listened to. John and Justin suggested I become CEO and we launched Unbound in May 2011. My book soon slipped out of my mind as the daily realities of starting and running a company took hold. Seven years on, I have finally put a book on Unbound. I’m thrilled to say (at the time of writing) it has just hit 100%.

I’ve learned first-hand how It is not quite the same book as the one I envisaged writing in 2011, but it turns out much courage it takes to running Unbound helped me write the book I try and fund a book you’ve now realise that original idea was supposed written that you believe in to become. It tells the story of the week I spent building a wooden surfboard… even completely though I can’t surf. And the story of how I’ve run a business when I had no intention of ever starting one. It’s about language too, and changing the perception you have of who and what you can be. Crucially for me, though, it has also given me the chance to be a customer of my own company. I’ve learned first-hand how much courage it takes to try and fund a book you’ve written that you believe in completely. That is something all our books have in common, by the way. We don’t, we can’t, do cash-ins. You can’t fake authenticity and determination, which is what successfully crowdfunding a book requires. It has also taught me how powerful being prepared to make yourself vulnerable in this way can be. It turns out there is a prize hiding behind that risk of failure. A kind of karmic reward for your bravery. Every time I get a pledge I feel a sense of warmth and validation I have never felt before in my decade and a half of writing books. Pledging is not a simple consumer transaction. Something deeper is happening. My family supported me, bless them, and lots of friends. Along with authors I admire hugely, one of my all-time heroes and the English teacher who sent me off on the path of wanting to write books at all. This is the real power of Unbound and what we do. Creating the space where ideas and stories find the people who most want and, in some cases, need to read them. Without the self-appointed gatekeepers second-guessing what is and should be made available. We want to ignite a revolution of ideas. A new age in the annals of publishing.

FIND THE SURFBOARD ON PAGE 78

A LONG AND MESSY BUSINESS Rowley Leigh, one of the UK’s greatest food writers, gives us a taste of his new cookbook and shares what it means to him to be one of the ‘godfathers’ of modern British cuisine. Is cooking important? I only find myself asking the question when faced with the barrage of indifferent food on TV, the sight of endless poorly taken photographs of food on social media, the seemingly infinite proliferation of restaurants and the huge growth in ready-cooked meals and home deliveries. It seems that we are more passive in our attitude to what exists to nourish us. And as one of the so-called ‘godfathers’ of modern British cuisine, I feel responsible for helping to launch this tsunami of mediocrity in which food is not respected but just another addition to what we situationists used to call the ‘spectacle of the commodity’. And yet, food does matter. We need it to live and to celebrate life with family and friends. To respect it, we should be able to look at a dead rabbit, head and all, without being repelled. We should look at a whole head of a beautiful lettuce and not buy a bag of ‘mixed leaves’. Even if we can’t rear our own pigs, catch our own fish, bake our own bread or grow our own vegetables, we should accept that food is real, that these things have to be killed or torn out of the earth, and not just be passive receivers of the next new offering. And if it takes a little time to learn how to treat these things properly, perhaps that is what time is for. It is, in short, A Long and Messy Business. But fun.

WITHOUT RESORTING TO HYPERBOLE:

POULET ANTIBOISE RECIPE FOR THREE TO FOUR Were I teleported back to a terrace in Antibes sometime in the 1930s and this put in front of me, I would not be unhappy. INGREDIENTS - 1 kg (2 lb 4 oz) onions, peeled and sliced - 150 ml (5 fl oz) olive oil - 6 sprigs of thyme - 1 pinch of cayenne pepper - 1 whole chicken, cleaned - 20 black olives - salt and black pepper METHOD Preheat the oven to 170°C (325°F, Gas Mark 3). Place the onions in a deep casserole dish with the olive oil, the thyme, a little salt and the cayenne pepper. Sit the cleaned chicken on top of the onions, season with salt and pepper. Cover the casserole and cook very gently in the oven for about 1 ½ hours. The onions must not brown, but melt gradually almost to a purée, as in pissaladière. Add a little more oil during cooking if necessary. When the chicken is tender, lift it out of the onion mix and carve it into pieces. Tip the onions into a colander and drain off some of the olive oil – the quantity prescribed is perfect to cook the onions but a bit too authentic for modern tastes – and place them in a large serving dish. Place the chicken pieces on top and scatter the olives – stoned or unstoned – over the top.

THE VERY FLAVOUR OF ROME:

SPAGHETTI CACIO E PEPE RECIPE FOR FOUR Back when I wrote this, spaghetti cacio e pepe was a little-known dish. It isn’t now. It is on many menus these days but rarely in this simple and elemental form. This dish is the very flavour of Rome. INGREDIENTS - 1 tbsp black peppercorns - 100 g (3 ½ oz) Pecorino Romano cheese - 300 g (10 ½ oz) spaghetti - olive oil, to serve (optional) - salt METHOD Using a mortar and pestle, pound the peppercorns to what the French call a mignonette, in which every peppercorn is crushed but not pounded to a fine consistency. Finely grate all the cheese. Bring a large pot of water to the boil with a small handful of salt. Add the spaghetti, stir with tongs or a long fork and bring back to the boil for just 5 minutes. Using tongs, lift the spaghetti out into a large saucepan or wok. Add a ladleful of the cooking water and continue to cook the spaghetti, stirring with the tongs. After a minute add a handful of the cheese and a spoonful of the pepper and more cooking water: the idea is to produce a creamy emulsion of cheese, pepper, water and the starch from the pasta around each strand of spaghetti. Continue for 2–3 minutes, alternately adding cheese, pepper and cooking water until the cheese and pepper are used up and the spaghetti still has that authentic ‘bite’. Serve the pasta immediately. Some Romans allow a little good olive oil to be trickled over the spaghetti before serving.

FIND A LONG AND MESSY BUSINESS ON PAGE 82

COMPLETING THE BLACK PRINCE October sees the publication of The Black Prince, a novel adapted from an unfinished Anthony Burgess script from the 1970s about The Hundred Years’ War, written in the style of John Dos Passos and recently completed by author and academic Adam Roberts. Unbound’s sales and marketing manager Julian Mash caught up with Adam to discuss the book and learn more about how it came about. JM

Tell me about how you first heard about The Black Prince.

I happened upon an interview Burgess gave to the Paris Review in 1972, just after he published the perversely wonderful M/F (1971). It is as varied and interesting and entertaining as you’d expect, and towards the end the interviewer asked what he was working on at the moment. He replied: I’m working on a novel intended to express the feel of England in Edward III’s time, using Dos Passos’s devices. I believe there’s great scope in the historical novel . . . The novel I have in mind, and for which I’ve done a ninety-page plan, is about the Black Prince. I thought it might be amusing to steal the Camera Eye and the Newsreel devices from Dos Passos just to see how they might work, especially with the Black Death and Crécy and the Spanish campaign. The effect might be of the fourteenth century going on in another galaxy where language and literature had somehow got themselves into the twentieth century. The technique might make the historical characters look remote and rather comic – which is what I want. Obviously, he never completed this project (his next published novel was 1974’s Napoleon Symphony), but reading about it, I thought: Well, that sounds just brilliant. And it made me think: I’d sure love to read those ninety pages.

When did the idea of turning it into a book come about?

It’s such a cool idea for a historical novel – I mean, as a way of approaching the business of writing historical fiction – that it stuck in my head. I went from ‘what a shame Burgess never completed that project’ to ‘I wonder how much he did complete?’ and from there it was a short hop, skip and jump to ‘I wonder what it would be like to complete it myself?’

JM Have you long been an admirer and fan of Burgess’s work? AR Oh, a long-term fan, but then I grew up in the 1970s and early 1980s, and back then Burgess was everywhere – he always seemed to have a new novel out. I’d read a couple of his novels as a young teenager, but one thing I remember very clearly is the 1980 Booker Prize, the shortlist for which devolved quickly into a battle between Burgess’s masterly Earthly Powers and William Golding’s Rites of Passage. I was fifteen. You couldn’t remain neutral; it was like Oasis vs Blur. Golding eventually won, of course, but I remember a particularly impassioned advocate for Burgess on Radio 4, whose name I have forgotten, insisting that Earthly Powers was nothing short of a masterpiece and hoping it won every prize going. So, I read it and discovered they were right. It’s a towering, wonderful novel and vastly superior to the Golding. JM Tell us a little bit about what was happening in Burgess’s life when he wrote this. AR He was finding his second wind as a novelist. His first wife Lynne, whom he loved but who, really, made him miserable, had died in 1968. He’d remarried, and it’s clear he was much happier in this second marriage. Also, he was elevated to a new level of global fame, something he disliked as much as he enjoyed, following the controversy of Kubrick’s notorious movie adaptation of his 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange. Kubrick’s film came out in 1971 and was almost immediately withdrawn from UK distribution following copycat violence. It continued to be shown in other parts of the world, and became a cause célèbre. Burgess was much in demand to debate questions of freedom of speech, original sin, the moral duty of the artist and so on. And he had a real gift for those sorts of debates – polylingual, eloquent, opinionated and passionate. JM Tell us a little bit about the style that Burgess used to write the screenplay (using Dos Passos’s ‘Newsreel’ and ‘Camera Eye’ devices) and why you think he did that. AR It’s a counterintuitive thing to do because Dos Passos was so completely of his time, a Modernist avant-garde prose artist fascinated by the new technologies of mass media, cinema, radio, mass-circulation newspapers and the like, as well as the technologies of travel and the architectures of the new cities. His USA trilogy adopts an experimental style designed to capture the sensibility of this new technologically mass-mediated world: an experimental technique, narrative prose sections telling the life-stories of a dozen fictional characters mixed in with ‘Newsreel’ sections, collage-like 49

sections made from newspaper clippings and song lyrics, individually labelled mini-biographies of historical figures and stream-ofconsciousness sections called ‘Camera Eye’. It’s nicely deracinating, and expertly captures the fragmentation of modern urban living. You can see how it’s a style that would work in a high-tech urbanised science fiction setting. But to apply it to a pre-industrial, pre-urban, medieval world… that’s bold. That’s a stroke of Burgessional genius. JM

How did you prepare for this? Did you try and emulate his style?

The task was not just to write a convincing imitation of Burgess, it was to write a convincing imitation of Burgess writing a convincing imitation of Dos Passos. That was the challenge – that’s what made it so exciting, and also (a little bit) terrifying. So, I re-read Dos Passos’s USA, and then I sat down and read the whole run of Burgess’s fiction, from his first published novel Time for a Tiger (1956) right through to his last novel A Dead Man in Deptford (1993). And it was really a wonderful process. I recommend it, actually: it opened my eyes to just how varied, as well as how powerful and vivid and scintillant, a writer Burgess was. With the whole corpus swirling around in my head I sat down and began to block out The Black Prince, breaking the screenplay into nine sections and tackling each in turn.

Did the writing come easily?

With the whole of Burgess soaked into the sponge of my brain, the writing did flow quite easily, actually – more so than I expected. At any rate, writing the first draft was fairly easy. Revising it was harder: going over it again, working out which bits hit the right Burgessian tone and which didn’t. Oddly (or perhaps not), although my initial plan was to keep all the original Burgess dialogue from the screenplay – since it was, you know, actually written by Burgess – the final revision saw a large proportion of it jettisoned. It just didn’t sound right, in this new setting. Writing dialogue for the screen is very different to writing dialogue for the pages of a novel, as Burgess himself knew very well. I think if he had gotten round to actually writing this novel himself he would have recast the dialogue too.

Now that it’s finished and poised for publication, have you thought about what Burgess might have made of it?

I would hope he’d be pleased, as a tribute to him as a writer, but also as a novel in its own right. There’s a YouTube video of Burgess being interviewed for a French TV arts show back in the 1970s. The interviewer spends long minutes showering him with praise, as the greatest writer of his generation, a true internationalist in literature, 50

a genius and so on; and Burgess sits there, smoking a cheroot and meeting the interviewer’s eye with a wry look, until the fellow stops with, ‘What do you think about all this?’ and Burgess takes the cheroot out of his mouth and says drily: ‘Oui – je l’accepte.’ I hope he’d greet this novel with words similar. JM

What did writing the book teach you about Burgess that you didn’t already know or weren’t aware of?

Oh, an immense amount – it’s given me a whole new perspective on Burgess. A much deeper admiration and respect, for one thing. People think he was a rapid, slapdash author because he was so prolific; but when you break the novels down to see how they work, when you study them closely, you realise that he was an immensely scrupulous, meticulous writer. I am in awe of his dialogue, his ear for idiom, for the rhythms and cadences of speech – I’m not sure there’s a better writer of the way people speak in the British novel of the twentieth century, with the exception (an exception upon which Burgess himself would have insisted) of Joyce. I am in awe of his fertile versatility, his extraordinary structural and formal command of the mode (because writing a novel is *clears throat* really hard: like trying to walk upstairs clutching 110 pounds of jelly to your chest without dropping any); his wit, his wisdom.

Are there any other unfinished works in the Burgess archive?

There are! He was prodigiously prolific of ideas and sketches and proposals, and often pitched ideas to publishers which were not taken up. One unfinished novel in particular intrigues me. He talks about it in the second volume of his autobiography, You’ve Had Your Time (1990). The book was to be called It Is the Miller’s Daughter. There are bits and pieces of it, some of it in verse. It might be interesting to have a stab at that one, actually…

FIND THE BLACK PRINCE ON PAGE 80

A COUNTRY TO CALL HOME Compiled and edited by Lucy Popescu, A Country to Call Home is an anthology on the experiences of young refugees and asylum seekers. A follow-up to 2016’s A Country of Refuge, this collection features contributions from Simon Armitage, Eoin Colfer, Fiona Dunbar, Michael Morpurgo, S. F. Said and many more, as well as original illustrations by Chris Riddell. The following is Kit de Waal’s evocative flash fiction, ‘Did You See Me?’ ‘Did You See Me?’ by Kit de Waal For Alan Kurdi, the boy on the shore Did you see me in Kobane, running through the square? Did you hear my father’s shout? We were laughing, my brother and I, and my father came lumbering after us, his arms outstretched. ‘You’re too far away! I cannot catch you!’ And did you hear my mother’s laugh, see her hands clasped together and the something in her eyes she kept only for us? Did you see us at the end of the day, lying in the shade with our bellies full, did you see me dreaming? If you had touched me then, I would have been warm and damp, soft under your hand. My father brought home a puppy only weeks before. It ran into the street and under a car and our tears, my brother’s and mine, made salty tracks on my face. ‘It was quick,’ my mother said. ‘He is sleeping now.’ But I wanted him to stay, wanted his yellow fur and his black eyes, his rough tongue, his need of me. You didn’t see when the bricks fell and crushed my mother’s skull. But we watched my father rub the dust into his hair, his beard, tear his clothes, raise his arms to heaven. He dressed us in our warmest clothes, took bread for the journey and we had to run to keep up. We waited in the camp, sat at midnight on the hard stones of the beach. Waited again while my father tore crusts for our supper.

On the boat, I felt his arms outstretched around me, mile after mile, even when the sea was angry, mile after mile. Did you see me when the waves bounced me up and away? Did you hear me shout? Did you see me running in the water? ‘I cannot catch you!’ he wept. And when you touched me on the beach, I was cold and wet under your hand, the sand in my mouth, the salty sea in my belly. You only saw me then.

24 STORIES 24 Stories, edited by Kathy Burke, is a collection of stories of hope, in support of the survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire. It was compiled in response to the fire on 14 June 2017, and will be published on the first anniversary of that tragic event. It includes pieces from Nina Stibbe, Irvine Welsh, John Niven, A. L. Kennedy, Murray Lachlan Young and more. The following is an extract from Meera Syal’s poignant contribution, ‘The Dish with the Dancing Cows’.

Extract from ‘The Dish with the Dancing Cows’ by Meera Syal It started with a leak. A crack in the guttering between our two flats. So every time it rained, which was a lot lately – ‘Global warming, see?’ my mum had said, always the voice of doom when a rain shower suddenly became the end of the world – we’d hear it. Drip drip drip. Right outside our kitchen window. Especially loud when we would sit in silence at our tiny table, just big enough for me, Mum and Taz, my little bro, and the noise of the dripping water became as loud as a drum. A sad, watery drum, thumping away like a reluctant heartbeat, marking each moment that Dad was missing, reminding us how much we were missing him. ‘Like bloomin’ Chinese water torture,’ Mum had grumbled as she mopped up the little pool of water that would collect just outside our front door after a particularly heavy downfall. ‘That’s racist!’ Taz shouted, looking up from his library book. Yep, he reads books. He actually prefers them to iPads. Not that he had one, but if he had one, he’d still have his head in a Harry Potter or a Malorie Blackman. Weird kid, I know. Doesn’t say much, but when he does it’s usually shouty and to the point. ‘Don’t be daft!’ Mum said back. ‘I’m a half-Hindu, halfCatholic Mancunian. I married an African Muslim and I gave away most of my bingo wins to Comic Relief last time. One thing I’m not is racist.’ 54

And then, especially loudly by the open kitchen window, she boomed, ‘Yup, I think you’ll find I’m not the Racist One Around Here!’ And she smiled contentedly when, in response, she heard the loud bang next door of exactly the same kitchen window being slammed shut. So the puddle of water outside our front door never quite went. Because Mum would only ever clean up half the puddle. Her half. The other half was next door’s problem. In fact, the leak itself was next door’s problem. Mum proved it one day by getting out an actual tape measure and marching us both out to the balcony, where she proceeded to mark a straight line with the ribbon of wobbly steel from the leaky gutter to the floor, marking where it landed with a piece of chalk she’d nicked from Taz’s craft box. ‘See!’ she crowed triumphantly. ‘It’s on her side. She’s got to fix it. Let her spend three hours on the phone to the council. No skin off my banana, innit?’ Taz winced at Mum’s attempt at down-with-the-kidz street talk. I was wincing for entirely different reasons. The chalk line didn’t prove anything: how could you tell exactly where the crack was? What mattered was where the water fell, and it fell outside both our front doors. I also wondered how we looked, the three of us, standing outside our flat. Rows of front doors just like ours on every balcony, twelve floors, each balcony facing the centre so we could all see everyone’s comings and goings from our kitchen windows. Probably the architect who designed this place reckoned this would be a good thing, it would encourage neighbourly feelings, people waving hello at each other across the divides, calling each other in for a cuppa and a natter. It also meant everyone in the block could see the angry woman in her faded dressing gown shouting at a gutter, the small bespectacled boy next to her humming tunelessly to himself to block out the shouting and the awkward, lanky teenage girl between them, wishing to God she was somewhere else, hoping that whoever saw them might know what had happened to us, and see that her mum wasn’t mad, just very, very sad…

SEX DRIVE: ON THE ROAD TO A PLEASURE REVOLUTION Writer, journalist and novelist Stephanie Theobald on her journey to sexual self-discovery, and healing through self-pleasure. Question: wouldn’t it be a relief to be able to be honest about your desire? It was a question that gnawed away at me and ultimately landed me at a ‘masturbation masterclass’ thrown by 85-year-old 1970s rock and roll feminist Betty Dodson. The year was 2015 and I’d arrived in New York with a broken body and a breaking relationship. By the end of an incredible weekend I’d learned that self-pleasure is not a secondrate activity but the foundation of female sexuality.

Inspired, I set out on a road trip through the heart of countercultural America, hoping to meet more of these fantastic sex seers. And I did. There was 1970s porn-star-turned-ecosexual, Annie Sprinkle, and 27-year-old hotshot Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe. There was the high priestess of an alien pleasure cult, an Andy Warhol Superstar and the African-American former Surgeon General, Joycelyn Elders. Elders was fired by President Clinton in 1994 for daring to say that masturbation should be talked about in schools. During every night of my 3,497-mile journey, I would indulge in solosex ‘homework’. Yet as auto-eroticism started to bring me back to life, it spilled over into a desire for sex for two. And more. By the time I reached San Francisco, my motto had become: ‘Say Yes to Everything.’ 56

Still, in terms of a mid-life crisis, my US odyssey was way more useful than buying a Ferrari. Because sex is rarely just about sex. At its core, Sex Drive is about coming to terms with the loss of my partner, the death of a lover, my health. By the end of my journey it struck me that spirituality and sexuality are not necessarily different things. That if you spend enough time getting intimate with your own body, self-pleasure becomes a form of By the end of my journey meditation, a way of going back to the basics it struck me that of who you really are. I learned that you can spirituality and sexuality re-charge your life force, and that what Jean-Jacques Rousseau termed ‘the dangerous are not necessarily supplement’ can work as the ultimate different things self-care medicine. Of course, going back to London was never going to be easy. At parties back in 2015, I’d have to make snap decisions when people asked what my new book was about. If they looked enlightened, or if I was bored, I’d say, ‘Masturbation.’ Otherwise I’d just go, ‘It’s about female pleasure and desire,’ although even that seemed to make a lot of hands freeze over canapé trays And then the walls came tumbling down. Who knew, in October 2017, that a movie mogul who clearly knew very little about female desire would help trigger something that is starting to feel like a pleasure revolution. We are living in exciting times: following the wailing and gnashing of #metoo teeth, the feminist movement is slowly opening up to the final frontier – frank and honest discussion of sex. Because if you can’t access the power of your own body then you’re never going to experience true freedom, liberation or equality. Open-minded film stars like Emma Watson now talk publically about Californian orgasmcoaching sites (OMGyes.com) while the newly woke Jessica Biel has formed her own website to raise what she calls women’s ‘sexual health IQ’. She said, ‘I realised I just don’t know so many things about my own body. How do we not know these things? It’s crazy!’ She’s right. Until a couple of years ago, we knew more about the Dead Sea Scrolls than we did about the full dimensions of the clitoris. Luckily, this Second Sexual Revolution, unlike the first one, is going to be all about the women. You’re welcome to come along for the ride – it’s very good fun. But you don’t have to. I feel a bit like Michael J Fox in Back to the Future when he starts playing heavy metal at the 1950s Prom. ‘I guess you guys aren’t ready for that yet,’ he says. ‘But your kids are going to love it.’

FIND SEX DRIVE ON PAGE 85

CROWDFUNDING: WHAT IT TAKES Jimmy Leach, Head of Crowdfunding, offers some thoughtful advice and his top tips for how to successfully crowdfund a book. Writing a book is a very solitary experience. Crowdfunding it is a very sociable experience. The two things don’t always go well together. Some authors welcome the challenge of reaching new audiences in pursuit of their literary dream, while just as many dread it. All those people to speak to... Working (with the estimable Georgia Odd) on crowdfunding with Unbound for the past six years has given me a sense of the qualities needed to successfully crowdfund on the platform, which has, roughly, a 60 per cent success rate.

Readiness for the graft The crowdfunding campaigns you hear of are often the exceptions, the ones where projects got funded in hours. That (almost) never happens, and will (almost) certainly not happen for you. It’s likely to take a while (think of 1 per cent per day as ‘par’) and it’s likely to weigh quite heavily on you in that time as you return to the well time and again. There’ll be times when you hate it. So, if you’re thinking that crowdfunding is the easy way to get your book published, then look away now. Don’t believe the hype. On platforms from Kickstarter to Patreon, there are thousands of campaigns that lie on their deathbeds, killed by the fact that their owners thought that knocking off a couple of tweets would get the cash rolling in. Their books are now ‘file not found’, somewhere on their laptop. While crowdfunding can be hard work, it can also be enormously rewarding – not just in a cash sense, but also in the way it can invigorate your networks, rekindle friendships and get people involved in one of the most important projects of your life. The best crowdfunding is not about raising cash – it’s about gathering support in all sorts of ways. It can be advocacy, it can be crowd-sourcing information for your book, it can be about emotional support and creating shared experiences. If you think it’s just about the cash, you’re not getting the full value. But it’ll still wear you out.

An understanding of where your audience is Any book you’re crowdfunding has two audiences: People who like you. Research (actual boffin-based research) has shown that people are often backing the author (who exists) rather than a book which doesn’t (yet). People are likely to support an author because they like or admire them, because they know them or because they have a high regard for their skills. Many of these people will be in your own personal networks and want to back your dream, which happens to be a book. Bear that in mind when you talk to them. This is about your relationships as much as it is about your book. And about people who like you. Assuming they exist. People who like the topic. They like the topic you’re writing about. Obviously this works better for non-fiction than fiction (few people list ‘love and loss’ among their hobbies), but there are themes as well as specifics that you can tap into. The issue is how to find and enter those networks. People may well identify themselves as lovers of railways or romantic fiction and discuss them on Facebook pages or in forums. But with non-genre fictions, it’s harder, and with topics like politics, the bid for pledges can be deflected by reflexive arguments. However these networks are often bigger than those of an individual, so it’s worth battling on to find them, and understanding the best way to approach them. If you’re writing a book about serial killers of writers, then maybe just take the first approach.

Good networks As in ‘good’ networks, not ‘large’ networks. Many authors think that a large Twitter following suggests success, but it’s the engagement of the audience that counts. The ‘human’ contact of conversations has much more value that the vanity of broadcasting messages to unlistening hordes. So, if you’re going to be using social media, spend your time ahead of your crowdfunding launch reacting to people on Twitter and liking and commenting on Facebook. Don’t worry so much about building the numbers (that will come anyway), it’s more about the quality of the relationships. Just like in real life, funnily. And the same goes for organic (real) networks outside of social media – mail key people to tell them there’s an exciting project on the way. Make sure you have the contact details of people who you know will love what you’re doing. There’s no point knowing that someone would love this book and pledge big if you can’t tell them about it. Get sociable and get organised.

Plenty of patience Crowdfunding will never happen as quickly as you want. You will need to go back to people a number of times (use milestones to justify that – ‘I’m 50 per cent of the way, but I still need your help’) and you will be disappointed by some reactions, and delighted by others. And sometimes it will flatline and you won’t be able to work out why. So patience and a willingness to stick to a plan are key. The Unbound stats show that most books find the majority of their support through a direct url – the link that someone has sent them, almost always the author. So it’s not through Twitter or Facebook, but through one-on-one interaction. It takes time and patience to work through lists of people methodically and to talk to them as individuals, but it’s the least you can do if you want their money! Not least because they will also want to talk about other things (‘How are the kids?’) and you will have to resist the temptation to scream: ‘Give me your money and leave me alone.’

Chutzpah, and lots to say Unbound author Raz Shaw defined it as ‘finding my inner American’. The ability to sell your book to people you know well, as well as people you don’t know at all. To do so repeatedly. And then some more. And to post content and writing which says ‘please buy my book’ in any number of different (and entertaining) ways that show your skill, expertise, mastery of your story and your own unique qualification to write it. It’s a special book and you’re a special writer. Get out there and convince people… 60

autumn titles 2018

NEW TITLES

THE BACKSTREETS OF PURGATORY HELEN TAYLOR

Art, truth and madness come to blows when Caravaggio turns up in present-day Glasgow Finn Garvie’s destiny is to be Glasgow’s modern-day Caravaggio. Or so he reckons. But the sad truth is he spends his days fannying around his makeshift studio, chainsmoking roll-ups and wallowing in artist’s block. But Kassia will save him – breathtaking, heart-stirring au pair Kassia. He will paint her and she will be his masterpiece. Except he’s really not up to the challenge. At least not until the filthy degenerate who’s been hanging around and stinking the place out turns out to be none other than Caravaggio himself… Maybe he’ll be the kick in the arse Finn needs to get his life in order and complete his masterpiece. Or maybe not…

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THE BACKSTREETS OF PURGATORY HELEN TAYLOR 12/07/2018 HARDBACK 978-1-78352-555-3 £18.99 WORLD/AUDIO/TV & FILM

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Helen Taylor studied medicine in Glasgow and worked for a short time as a doctor in the city. She has a diploma and an MA in creative writing. The Backstreets of Purgatory is her first novel.

JULY

THE MADONNA OF BOLTON MATT CAIN

A boy growing up gay in Bolton adopts Madonna as a spirit guide for life; published to coincide with the pop icon’s sixtieth birthday Charlie Matthews’ love story begins in suburban Bolton. Remembering the Green Cross Code and getting out of football are the most important things in his life, until Auntie Jan gives him a gift that will last a lifetime: a seven-inch single called ‘Lucky Star’... TITLE: THE MADONNA OF BOLTON AUTHOR: MATT CAIN PUB DATE: 12/07/2018 FORMAT: HARDBACK ISBN: 978-1-78352-618-5 PRICE: £14.99 RIGHTS: WORLD/AUDIO

His Madonna obsession sees him through some tough times: being persecuted at school, fitting in at a posh university, a glamorous career in London, finding boyfriends, getting rid of boyfriends, and family heartbreak. Ultimately, though, he must let go of his idol and find his own voice. Charlie’s story is Billy Elliot meets Beautiful Thing wearing a conical bra – a story for anyone who ever sang their heart out, looked for love and dreamed of more…

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Matt Cain made arts and entertainment programmes for ITV before becoming Channel 4 News’ first ever culture editor in 2010. His first novel, Shot Through the Heart, was published in 2014 and his second, Nothing But Trouble, followed in 2015. He is currently Editor-in-Chief of Attitude magazine and its sister publication, Winq. In 2017 he was voted Diversity in Media’s Journalist of the Year. 63

NEW TITLES

ONE STEP AHEAD: NOTES FROM THE PROBLEM SOLVING UNIT STEVYN COLGAN

The intelligent art of solving problems before they arise Stevyn Colgan spent twelve years as part of the Metropolitan Police’s Problem Solving Unit, a special team with an extraordinary brief: to solve problems of crime and disorder that were unresponsive to traditional policing. They could try anything as long as it wasn’t illegal, wouldn’t bring the police into disrepute, and didn’t cost very much. The result is this extraordinary collection of innovative and imaginative approaches to crime prevention, showing us that any problem can be solved if we can just identify its underlying roots. One Step Ahead is an amusing, insightful and often surprising celebration of thinking that reaches beyond law enforcement and into our everyday lives.

TITLE: SUBTITLE: AUTHOR: PUB DATE: FORMAT: ISBN: PRICE: RIGHTS:

ONE STEP AHEAD NOTES FROM THE PROBLEM SOLVING UNIT STEVYN COLGAN 12/07/2018 PAPERBACK 978-1-78352-584-3 £9.99 WORLD/AUDIO/TV & FILM

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Stevyn Colgan was a police officer in London for thirty years. He is now a consultant for change agency Left/Field London and has given hundreds of lectures and talks across the UK and USA. He is also one of the ‘elves’ that research and write the popular BBC TV series QI and its sister show, The Museum of Curiosity.

JULY

NERVE ENDINGS: SELECTED LYRICS KRISTIN HERSH

A collection of lyrics by celebrated Throwing Muses songwriter Kristin Hersh, author of the widely acclaimed memoir Paradoxical Undressing Since forming the seminal art rock band Throwing Muses while still in her teens, Kristin Hersh has been at the forefront of alternative music, acclaimed for her raw, visceral and poetic songwriting.

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NERVE ENDINGS SELECTED LYRICS KRISTIN HERSH 26/07/2018 HARDBACK 978-1-78352-563-8 £12.99 WORLD/AUDIO

Here, collected for the first time, are the lyrics to 100 songs, curated by the woman who wrote them. With Throwing Muses classics like ‘Bright Yellow Gun’ to solo material such as ‘Your Ghost’ and her songs with 50 Foot Wave, Nerve Endings encapsulates one of the most fascinating and honest careers in modern rock music.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Kristin Hersh is a musician, author, mother of four and founder of the seminal art rock band Throwing Muses. Over three decades she has also performed as a solo artist and leader of 50 Foot Wave, released dozens of critically acclaimed albums, and written her memoirs, Paradoxical Undressing and Don’t Suck, Don’t Die. Kristin lives in California.

NEW TITLES

SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT MICHAEL SMITH

Michael Smith has both translated and illustrated a stunning new edition of this poem, the definitive masterpiece of medieval alliterative poetry Michael Smith’s translation of this magnificent Arthurian romance draws on his intimate experience of the north-west of England and his knowledge of medieval history, culture and architecture. He takes us back to the original poetic form of the manuscript and brings it alive for a modern audience, while revealing the poem’s historic and literary context. The book is beautifully illustrated throughout with detailed recreations of the illuminated lettering in the original manuscript and the author’s own linocut prints, each meticulously researched for contemporary accuracy. This is an exciting new edition that will appeal both to students of the Gawainpoet and the general reader alike.

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SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT AUTHOR: MICHAEL SMITH PUB DATE: 26/07/2018 FORMAT: HARDBACK ISBN: 978-1-78352-560-7 PRICE: £16.99 RIGHTS: WORLD/AUDIO/TV AND FILM

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Michael Smith is from Cheshire. He studied history at the University of York and printmaking at the Curwen Print Study Centre near Cambridge. This is his first book.

JULY

THE PAGODA TREE CLAIRE SCOBIE

Love, loss, fate, exile: a tale of two cultures colliding in eighteenth-century India Tanjore, 1765. Young Maya plays among the temples of this ancient city. She is destined to become a devadasi, a dancer for the temple. She is instructed in lovemaking and it is expected she will be chosen as a courtesan for the prince himself.

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THE PAGODA TREE CLAIRE SCOBIE 26/07/2018 PAPERBACK 978-1-78352-630-7 ÂŁ8.99 WORLD ENGLISH/AUDIO

But as Maya comes of age, India is on the cusp of change and British dominance has risen to new heights. Maya, forced to flee her ancestral home, heads to the port city of Madras, where East and West collide. Maya captivates all who watch her dance, including Thomas Pearce, an ambitious young Englishman who has travelled to India to make his fortune. But their love is forbidden and comes at enormous cost.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Claire Scobie is an award-winning British journalist and author. Her travel memoir, Last Seen in Lhasa, won the 2007 Dolman Best Travel Book Award. She has written for numerous publications, including the Daily Telegraph and the Observer. Through her consultancy, Wordstruck, Claire advises companies and leaders on how to harness the power of storytelling as a strategic business tool. 67

NEW TITLES

THE TRISTAN CHORD GLENN SKWERER

A haunting portrait of a future dictator as a young man, told from the viewpoint of Hitler’s best friend from adolescence In June 1945, Eugen Reczek, a middle-aged Austrian desk clerk, is interned by the American occupiers. The reason: he is der Hitlerjugendfreund – ‘The Friend of the Fuhrer’s Youth’. An upholstery apprentice by day and fledgling violist by night, he met the fifteen-year-old Hitler at the local opera in Linz, and for the next four years they saw each other almost daily. Eugen is captivated but also troubled by Hitler: his almost complete isolation, his morbid preoccupation with his dead father, and his obsession with a young woman to whom he has never said a word.

TITLE: THE TRISTAN CHORD AUTHOR: GLENN SKWERER PUB DATE: 09/08/2018 FORMAT: HARDBACK ISBN: 978-1-78352-574-4 PRICE: £16.99 RIGHTS: WORLD/AUDIO/TV AND FILM

Now, with the Third Reich in ashes, he tries to come to terms with the unfathomable criminality of his boyhood friend – his Hitler.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Glenn Skwerer is a psychiatrist who lives and practices near Boston, Massachusetts. The Tristan Chord is his first book.

AUGUST

BETTER

JOHN GRANT From beanbags to mindfulness; how wellbeing is making business more human-friendly We are in the midst of a wellbeing revolution. What started as a few HR reforms at companies like Google is now changing our view of what a business is, and what it is for.

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BETTER JOHN GRANT 23/08/2018 PAPERBACK 978-1-78352-568-3 £25.00 WORLD/AUDIO/TV & FILM

Business used to labour under the idea that companies are like mechanisms. But in the last few decades an alternative worldview moved in from the innovative fringes, one that sees business fundamentally as a living human system. We need fellowship and belonging, a stimulating environment and a sense of purpose. Better explores how this idea took hold in workplaces with humancentred architecture and processes, flexible working and mindfulness classes. And it looks at the evidence that these changes aren’t just nice, they produce better work.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY John Grant co-founded the legendary 1990s London creative agency St Luke’s, as famous for its free-range office, ethics and employee co-ownership as for its creative work for clients like Body Shop, IKEA and the BBC. He has published six previous business books and has advised companies such as Samsung, Unilever and Pepsi on how to be more human. 69

NEW TITLES

FOUR FEET UNDER TAMSEN COURTENAY

The first book of its kind to shed light on the untold lives of London’s homeless Tamsen Courtenay spent two months speaking to people who live on London’s streets – people who feel they are invisible. With a camera and a cheap audio recorder, Tamsen listened as they told the stories of their extraordinary lives, which are transcribed in this book along with intimate photographic portraits. A builder, a soldier, a transgender woman, a sex worker and an elderly couple are among those who describe the events that led to the life they live now. They speak of childhoods, careers and relationships; their dreams and regrets; all with humour and a startling honesty.

TITLE: FOUR FEET UNDER AUTHOR: TAMSEN COURTENAY PUB DATE: 23/08/2018 FORMAT: HARDBACK ISBN: 978-1-78352-572-0 PRICE: £20.00 RIGHTS: WORLD/AUDIO/TV AND FILM

You don’t have to go far to find these homegrown exiles: they’re at the bottom of your road. Have you ever wondered how they got there?

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Tamsen Courtenay worked as an investigative journalist for the BBC’s Panorama and Channel 4’s Dispatches. She lives in central Italy and wrote a blog called Land of the Forgotten Earthquakes about the seismic destruction of her region.

AUGUST

SPARKS

STEPHEN LESLIE A unique ode to street photography that matches short fictions with the original photographs that inspired them A family is brought close to ruin by a pet python; an Icelandic advertising agency has a problem with a campaign involving a dead seagull; a chiropodist desperately wants to stop examining people’s feet and dreams of becoming a pirate... TITLE: AUTHOR: PUB DATE: FORMAT: ISBN: PRICE: RIGHTS:

SPARKS STEPHEN LESLIE 23/08/2018 HARDBACK 978-1-78352-489-1 £20.00 WORLD/AUDIO/TV & FILM

Stephen Leslie has always tried to capture images that hint at wider, hidden narratives – suggestive moments rather than decisive ones – and Sparks is a book that imagines the weird and wonderful stories behind his original street photographs. It is a love-letter to photography, pairing eighty beautiful colour images – shot on film – with these stories, as well as the author’s recollections of twenty years spent looking through the lens.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Stephen Leslie is a writer and photographer from London. He has worked for the BBC, Channel 4, the BFI and Working Title, writing many original screenplays. Sparks is his first book.

NEW TITLES

THE LAST LANDLADY: AN ENGLISH MEMOIR LAURA THOMPSON

A homage to the English pub through the story of the author’s grandmother Laura Thompson’s grandmother Violet was one of the great landladies. Born in a pub, she became the first woman to be given a publican’s licence in her own name and, just as pubs defined her life, she seemed in many ways to embody their essence. Laura spent part of her childhood in Violet’s Home Counties establishment, mesmerised by her gift for cultivating the mix of cosiness and glamour that defined the pub’s atmosphere. Through her memories of that time, Laura traces the story of the English pub, asking why it has occupied such a treasured position in our culture, while also considering its precarious future. The Last Landlady pays tribute to an extraordinary woman and the world she epitomised.

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THE LAST LANDLADY AN ENGLISH MEMOIR LAURA THOMPSON 06/09/2018 HARDBACK 978-1-78352-502-7 £16.99

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Laura Thompson won the Somerset Maugham Award with her first book, The Dogs. Her biographical study of Nancy Mitford, Life in a Cold Climate, appeared in 2003 and was followed by a major biography of Agatha Christie. Take Six Girls: The Lives of the Mitford Sisters (2015) was recently sold to television.

SEPTEMBER

DISTORTION

GAUTAM MALKANI The internationally acclaimed author of Londonstani returns with this propulsive tale of identity crisis in the digital age Meet Dillon, a high-functioning fuck-up who’s been keeping some big secrets from his girlfriend Ramona. Also, meet Dhilan, a young carer for his dying mother. Then there’s Dylan – the less said about him the better.

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DISTORTION GAUTAM MALKANI 06/09/2018 HARDBACK 978-1-78352-527-0 £18.99

These three identities for the same young man have been growing dangerously more hardcore and hardwired, online and off. When two creepy dudes threaten to expose him, he must unravel a gut-wrenching mystery he’d rather leave well alone. Set in a greyscape between the digital world and the messy realm of the body, Distortion explores what happens when our digital data and search histories don’t just filter our view of the world, but also our view of ourselves.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Gautam Malkani’s first novel, Londonstani, was released to critical acclaim in 2006. He lives in London.

NEW TITLES

TAKE PRIDE: HOW TO BUILD ORGANISATIONAL SUCCESS THROUGH YOUR PEOPLE SHEILA PARRY

A highly experienced strategic consultant lays out her fresh approach to organisations that aims to make work better for all Building pride at work delivers higher performance, builds brand reputation and achieves customer loyalty. It also increases innovation, quality, productivity and profit. And those who are more fulfilled at work tend to achieve more and lead happier, healthier lives. Yet, in the UK, only one in three employees say they love their jobs. Sheila Parry, strategic consultant to the likes of Adidas and Siemens, aims to change that with her PRIDE model, a methodology based around five key motivators: Purpose, Reputation, Integrity, Direction and Energy.

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TAKE PRIDE HOW TO BUILD ORGANISATIONAL SUCCESS THROUGH YOUR PEOPLE AUTHOR: SHEILA PARRY PUB DATE: 06/09/2018 FORMAT: HARDBACK ISBN: 978-1-78352-634-5 PRICE: £18.99 RIGHTS: WORLD/AUDIO/TV & FILM

Take PRIDE is for leaders and influencers who have the imagination to think differently about work.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Sheila Parry has worked in business for forty years. In 2001, she founded theblueballroom.com, a strategic and creative consultancy that has championed the power of employee engagement in building successful businesses. She has consistently delivered to some of the world’s largest employers – from Adidas to the Deutsche Post DHL Group, Mars Drinks and Siemens. 74

SEPTEMBER

SOUPY TWISTS!: THE FULL OFFICIAL STORY OF THE SOPHISTICATED SILLINESS OF FRY & LAURIE JEM ROBERTS

The first-ever official biography of Fry & Laurie, with neverbefore-seen archive material

TITLE: SUBTITLE:

SOUPY TWISTS! THE FULL OFFICIAL STORY OF THE SOPHISTICATED SILLINESS OF FRY & LAURIE AUTHOR: JEM ROBERTS PUB DATE: 06/09/2018 FORMAT: HARDBACK ISBN: 978-1-78352-451-8 PRICE: £16.99 RIGHTS: WORLD/AUDIO/TV & FILM

Jem Roberts, acclaimed chronicler of Blackadder and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, takes us on the journey of Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, from insecure Footlighters to international comedy heroes. The A Bit of Fry & Laurie archive has been opened up, revealing a host of tantalising titbits for fans. Beyond this, the trials and tribulations of their subsequent career paths, from QI to House, will be entertainingly explored for the very first time.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Jem Roberts is the author of The Clue Bible, The True History of the Black Adder and The Frood: The Authorised and Very Official History of Douglas Adams. He has written for the Independent, the Telegraph and Total Film, among others, and is a trustee of the Bath Comedy Festival.

NEW TITLES

LADDERS TO HEAVEN MIKE SHANAHAN

A fascinating cultural history of the fig tree They are trees of life and trees of knowledge. They are wish-fulfillers, rainforest royalty, more precious than gold. They are the fig trees, and they have affected humanity in profound but little-known ways. Ladders to Heaven tells their amazing story. Fig trees fed our pre-human ancestors, influenced diverse cultures and played key roles in the dawn of civilisation. They feature in every major religion; they intrigued Aristotle and amazed Alexander the Great. They were instrumental in Kenya’s struggle for independence and helped restore life after Krakatoa’s catastrophic eruption. In a time of falling trees and rising temperatures, their story offers hope. Ultimately, it’s a story about humanity’s relationship with nature, as relevant to our future as it is to our past.

TITLE: AUTHOR: PUB DATE: FORMAT: ISBN: PRICE: RIGHTS:

LADDERS TO HEAVEN MIKE SHANAHAN 06/09/2018 PAPERBACK 978-1-78352-580-5 £8.99 WORLD/TV & FILM

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Mike Shanahan is a freelance writer with a doctorate in rainforest ecology. His work has been featured in The Economist, Nature, The Ecologist and Ensia, among others.

SEPTEMBER

DEAR MR POP STAR

DEREK AND DAVE PHILPOTT A collection of hilarious letters to and from pop stars of yesteryear: Eurythmics, Judas Priest, Chesney Hawkes and many, many more... For more than a decade, Derek Philpott and his son, Dave, have been writing to pop stars from the 1970s and 80s, to take issue with the lyrics of some of their bestknown songs. But then, to their great surprise, the pop stars started writing back…

TITLE: DEAR MR POP STAR AUTHOR: DEREK AND DAVE PHILPOTT PUB DATE: 20/09/2018 FORMAT: HARDBACK ISBN: 978-1-78352-598-0 PRICE: £16.99 RIGHTS: WORLD/AUDIO/TV & FILM

Dear Mr Pop Star contains 100 of Derek and Dave’s greatest hits, including correspondence with Katrina and the Waves, Tears for Fears, Squeeze, The Housemartins, Suzi Quatro, Devo, Fairground Attraction, Nik Kershaw, T’Pau, Human League, Eurythmics, Wang Chung, Judas Priest, EMF, Mott the Hoople, Heaven 17, Jesus Jones, Johnny Hates Jazz, Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine and Chesney Hawkes.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Derek and Dave Philpott are the noms de plume of two ordinary members of the public, working with help from a small family and, crucially, a worldwide social networking community.

NEW TITLES

THE SURFBOARD: HOW USING MY HANDS HELPED UNLOCK MY MIND DAN KIERAN

A finely crafted mediation on the importance of making things and pushing beyond our perceived limitations The Surfboard is Dan Kieran’s account of a week he spent in Cornwall building a seven-foot surfboard, even though he had never surfed in his life. Interspersed with the story of making the board – the intricate craft he had to learn, and the clarity of mind that came with that challenge – are reflections on the last six years; the obstacles, rewards and realisations he encountered while starting and then running a successful company. He went to Cornwall at a time when he felt he had reached the limit of his development as a person: he had to find a way to push beyond his preconception of what he could do.

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THE SURFBOARD HOW USING MY HANDS HELPED UNLOCK MY MIND DAN KIERAN 20/09/2018 HARDBACK 978-1-78352-638-3 £9.99 WORLD/AUDIO/TV & FILM

This startlingly honest book is an indispensable guide to exceeding your own limitations and making great things for their own sake, out of love.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Dan Kieran is co-founder and CEO of Unbound. Before that he was a Sunday Times bestselling author, with books including Crap Towns, The Idle Traveller and Three Men in a Float. He has given talks and workshops on entrepreneurship and creativity at the Do Lectures, Cambridge University and the European Parliament. 78

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085

NARCISSISM FOR BEGINNERS MARTINE McDONAGH

An original coming-of-age novel about a boy unravelling his family secrets as he journeys 6,000 miles into his past

Sonny doesn’t remember his mother because his father, Guru Bim, kidnapped him at the age of five and took him from his home in Scotland to a commune in Brazil. Since the age of eleven he has lived in Redondo Beach, California, with his guardian, Thomas, who, on his twenty-first birthday throws his world wildly off course.

Meet Sonny Anderson: budding author, ex-meth-head, neurotic and Shaun of the Dead obsessive, about to tip headlong into adulthood. From the author of I Have Waited, Armed with five mysterious letters and a list of names and addresses of people to visit, Sonny musters up the courage to leave his troubled past behind and return to the UK to finally learn the truth about his childhood. But is it a truth he really wants?

and You Have Come and After Phoenix, Narcissism for Beginners is a fresh and unsentimental take on the universal struggle of growing up.

Sonny doesn’t remember his mother because his father, Guru Bim, kidnapped him at the age of five and took him from his home in Scotland to a commune in Brazil. Since the age of eleven he has lived in Redondo Beach, California, with his guardian, Thomas, who on his twenty-first birthday throws his world wildly off course. £14.99

TITLE: NARCISSISM FOR BEGINNERS AUTHOR: MARTINE McDONAGH PUB DATE: 20/09/2018 FORMAT: PAPERBACK ISBN: 978-1-78352-559-1 PRICE: £8.99 RIGHTS: WORLD/AUDIO/TV AND FILM

Armed with five mysterious letters and a list of names and addresses, Sonny musters up the courage to return to the UK to finally learn the truth about his childhood. But is it a truth he really wants?

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Narcissism for Beginners is Martine McDonagh’s third novel. Martine worked for thirty years as an artist manager in the music industry and is currently programme leader on the Creative Writing & Publishing MA at West Dean College in Sussex.

NEW TITLES

THE BLACK PRINCE ADAM ROBERTS

Award-winning novelist Adam Roberts adapts a screenplay by Anthony Burgess into a historical novel like nothing you’ve read before The story of Edward, the Black Prince’s campaigns in fourteenthcentury France is brought to vivid life by acclaimed author Adam Roberts. Based on a completed screenplay and the notes for an unfinished novel by Anthony Burgess, and using a variety of narrative styles – including ‘camera eye’ sections and reports of events as if delivered by contemporary news teams – The Black Prince is a brutal historical novel of chivalry, religious belief, obsession, siege and bloody warfare. From disorientating depictions of medieval battles to court intrigues and betrayals, Roberts reveals himself as an author in complete control of the novel as a way of making us look at history with fresh eyes.

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THE BLACK PRINCE ADAM ROBERTS 04/10/2018 HARDBACK 978-1-78352-647-5 £20.00 WORLD/AUDIO/TV & FILM

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Adam Roberts is the award-winning author of more than sixteen acclaimed science-fiction novels. He is also a professor of Nineteenth-Century Literature at London University. He has published books on Victorian poetry and the history of science fiction.

OCTOBER

GRAFITY’S WALL RAM V

A coming-of-age graphic novel about expression, rebellion and acceptance painted against the backdrop of Mumbai’s everchanging street culture

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GRAFITY’S WALL RAM V 04/10/2018 HARDBACK 978-1-78352-684-0 £14.99 WORLD/AUDIO/TV & FILM

When an aspiring street artist by the name of Grafity watches the tenements outside his home being razed, he finds an unlikely canvas in the one wall left standing. He begins a mural to chronicle the lives of his friends: A low-level fixer named Jay who harbours dreams of being a rapper. An awkward, brilliant boy named Chasma who writes love letters in between shifts waiting tables at a local ‘Chinese’ restaurant. And Saira, an aspiring actress with ambitions so fierce that they threaten to consume her and all those around her. As the mural progresses, the story gives us glimpses into these incandescent lives, the hopes and dreams inspired and impeded by the impossible city that they call home.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Ram V is a UK-based, Mumbai-born writer with a number of successful comics and graphic novels to his name. He is regarded as an exciting new voice in sequential story-telling, creating literary works that feature nuanced, well-drawn characters and compelling original perspectives.

NEW TITLES

A LONG AND MESSY BUSINESS ROWLEY LEIGH

The definitive collection of recipes from one of our greatest food writers Whether he is making an omelette or a soufflé, a Caesar salad or a sea bream with chermoula, these recipes and essays, first published in the Financial Times, are a distillation of Rowley Leigh’s forty years as both a professional chef and a home cook. They detail with precision and wit how to cook and enjoy both unusual and familiar ingredients through the seasons. Unlike most cookbooks, all the food has been prepared for Andy Sewell’s photographs by Leigh himself. With Leigh’s succinct wine recommendations and over 120 recipes, this is both a book to overuse in the kitchen and pore over in an armchair with a glass of the author’s beloved Riesling close to hand.

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A LONG AND MESSY BUSINESS ROWLEY LEIGH 04/10/2018 HARDBACK 978-1-78352-519-5 £25.00 WORLD/AUDIO/TV & FILM

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Rowley Leigh became head chef at the Roux Brothers’ Le Poulbot in 1984, winning The Times’ Restaurant of the Year award in 1986. He opened the pioneering Kensington Place in 1987. He has won three Glenfiddich awards for his writing in the Guardian, the Telegraph and the Financial Times. His first book, No Place Like Home, was published in 2000.

OCTOBER

MERRY MIDWINTER GILLIAN MONKS

A guide to reclaiming the winter season from consumerism through ancient festivals, simple recipes and traditional celebrations Merry Midwinter is the perfect guide to help you turn away from the consumerism of Christmas and rediscover its authentic meaning; it shows us that the season doesn’t need to be about what you spend, but can instead be about your attitude to life. TITLE: AUTHOR: PUB DATE: FORMAT: ISBN: PRICE: RIGHTS:

MERRY MIDWINTER GILLIAN MONKS 04/10/2018 HARDBACK 978-1-78352-707-6 £9.99 WORLD/AUDIO/TV & FILM

It is a cornucopia of ideas for decorations, games and alternative gifts, alongside the origins and evolution of our best-loved Christmas customs. There are personal reminiscences from the author’s own childhood and simple, seasonal recipes from her mother’s handwritten cookbook. Midwinter has always been a time for people to set aside their differences and come together with a sense of community, and this book shows us how to bring that positivity into our lives.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Gillian Monks is a teacher and Theosophist who describes her spirituality as a cross between Quakerism and Celtic Druidry. She lives with her husband and son in the heart of Snowdonia and is currently developing a spiritual retreat on a five-acre field where she also leads workshops in self-development. She blogs at www.merrymidwinter.com.

NEW TITLES

A SMALL FICTION

JAMES AND JEFFERSON MILLER A Small Fiction is an illustrated collection of 150 tiny stories, each told in 140 characters or less A Small Fiction is what happens when a writer wants to tell a hundred stories but doesn’t have the time to write a hundred books. Instead, he writes the seeds of them and casts them to the wind. What started as an exercise in creativity on social media has grown to become a wonderful compendium of thoughts on humanity, storytelling and finding the absurd in the everyday. Every story in the collection is distinct, and while some play on common themes, each story stands on its own. Through the genre lenses of science fiction, fantasy, contemporary fiction, folklore and humour, each of these small fictions is a peep-hole that reveals a bigger story.

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A SMALL FICTION JAMES AND JEFFERSON MILLER 18/10/2018 HARDBACK 978-1-78352-687-1 £14.99 WORLD/AUDIO/TV & FILM

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY James Miller is a writer living in California. He co-created the company Embros Creative with his brother Jefferson. A Small Fiction is his first book. Jefferson Miller is an artist and a graphic designer, also living in California. He’s the artist for the comic Dear Toadington. 84

OCTOBER © CIRCE HAMILTON

SEX DRIVE: ON THE ROAD TO A PLEASURE REVOLUTION

STEPHANIE THEOBALD One woman’s road trip across America in search of her lost libido

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SEX DRIVE ON THE ROAD TO A PLEASURE REVOLUTION STEPHANIE THEOBALD 18/10/2018 HARDBACK 978-1-78352-681-9 £16.99 WORLD ENGLISH

Stephanie Theobald set off on a 3,497-mile road trip across America to re-build her orgasm from the ground up. What started as a quest for the ultimate auto-erotic experience became a fantastic voyage into her own body. This is her account of that journey. It’s a memoir about desire and pleasure, merging sexuality and spirituality, eighteenthcentury porn and enlightenment philosophy. Women have put up with so many anti-climaxes from books and films that promise to explore female sexuality in an honest way. But actually all they get are sniggers, coy giggles or men’s desire reflected back at them. The good news is that a new Sexual Revolution has begun – and this time round, it’s all about the women.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Stephanie Theobald is a British journalist, novelist, public speaker and broadcaster, known for her playful and thoughtful work around sexuality and alternative feminism. She writes regularly for the Guardian, the Sunday Times and Elle UK. She is the author of four novels.

NEW TITLES

SO HERE IT IS: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY DAVE HILL

Heartwarming, humorous and revealing memoir from 70s rock icon, Dave Hill With six consecutive number-one singles and the smash hit ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’, Slade were unstoppable. Now, the man whose outlandish costumes, glittering make-up and unmistakable hairstyle made Slade one of the definitive acts of the Glam Rock era tells his story. Dave’s journey from a Wolverhampton council house to rock royalty follows a classic arc, but it’s not all rock ‘n’ roll and good times. If you’ve ever wondered what it feels like to be a working-class lad from the Midlands suddenly confronted by unimaginable fame and wealth, So Here It Is is the definitive account, served with great heart and humour and filled with Dave’s own collection of never-before-seen photos.

TITLE: SUBTITLE: AUTHOR: PUB DATE: FORMAT: ISBN: PRICE: RIGHTS:

SO HERE IT IS THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY DAVE HILL 18/10/2018 PAPERBACK 978-1-78352-579-9 £8.99 WORLD/AUDIO/TV & FILM

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Dave Hill was born in a castle in Devon and moved with his parents to Wolverhampton when he was a year old. He taught himself to play guitar and in 1966 formed the band Slade. After the break-up of the original band, Dave eventually re-formed Slade, and they still play regularly to hundreds of thousands of fans around the world.

NOVEMBER

THE GLORIOUS DEAD TIM ATKINSON

At the end of the Great War some soldiers chose to stay behind… Late 1918. The war is over but Lance Corporal Jack Patterson is still knee-deep in mud in the trenches of Ypres. He is part of a battalion of soldiers who dig through the abandoned battlefields in search of the dead so that they can be reburied in one of the military cemeteries being created across Europe.

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THE GLORIOUS DEAD TIM ATKINSON 01/11/2018 HARDBACK 978-1-78352-589-8 £16.99 WORLD/AUDIO/TV & FILM

But duty isn’t the only thing keeping Jack from going home. There is something else, a buried secret that he hopes isn’t about to be dug up. The Glorious Dead examines an aspect of the Great War that has rarely been explored in fiction – the fate of the men, living and dead, who were left behind.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Tim Atkinson is the author of five previous books. He has a strong online and media presence both as an award-winning blogger (www.bringingupcharlie.co.uk) and through numerous TV and radio appearances. The Glorious Dead is his second novel, following Writing Therapy which was nominated for the 2008 Young Minds Fiction Award.

NEW TITLES

HELP THE WITCH TOM COX

A collection of ghost stories from the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Good, The Bad and The Furry Inspired by our native landscapes and structures, saturated by the shadows beneath trees and behind doors, listening to the run of water and half-heard voices, Tom Coxâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first collection of short stories is a series of evocative and unsettling trips into worlds previously visited by the likes of M. R. James and Robert Aickman. Railway tunnels, the lanes and hills of the Peak District, family homes, old stones, shreds fluttering on barbed wire, night drawing in, something that might be an animal shifting on the other side of a hedge: Tom has drawn on his lifelong love of weird fiction, folklore and every corner of nature, however unregarded, to write a collection of stories that will delight lovers of nature and the uncanny, and leave fans old and new very uneasy about turning the reading lamp off.

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HELP THE WITCH TOM COX 01/11/2018 HARDBACK 978-1-78352-669-7 ÂŁ14.99

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Tom Cox lives in Devon with his cats. A one time music journalist 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.

NOVEMBER

SOME OLD BLOKE ROBERT LLEWELLYN

A warm and witty memoir from the comedian, TV presenter and Red Dwarf actor For the past several years, actor and comedian Robert Llewellyn has been gathering notes, old diaries, pictures and ideas for a lighthearted but occasionally philosophical book on his life.

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SOME OLD BLOKE ROBERT LLEWELLYN 01/11/2018 HARDBACK 978-1-78352-602-4 £16.99 WORLD/AUDIO/TV & FILM

A couple of years ago, after Christmas dinner, his son scrawled a drawing of him which he titled ‘Some Old Bloke’. That drawing proved the spark for this interesting, challenging, funny, revealing and insightful autobiography. Robert has never sailed around the world singlehanded, climbed Everest for charity or had a massive drug problem. But he has done quite a lot of odd things around the world, been to amazing places, seen incredible things, and sometimes even learned from his mistakes.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Robert Llewellyn is an actor, novelist, screenwriter, comedian and TV presenter, best known for Red Dwarf and Scrapheap Challenge. He lives in Gloucestershire.

NEW TITLES

THE LITTLE GIRL WHO GAVE ZERO FUCKS AMY KEAN & JESS MILTON

A fairy tale of everyday bravery and a beautifully illustrated feminist handbook for the modern day This is the story of a brave young girl, Elodie-Rose, who one day decides to change the world and keep all her fucks in her basket. Wait a minute. You’re confused. What are fucks, you ask? It’s quite simple, really. Fucks are her self-esteem; all her happy, sad and wonderful thoughts that sit in her basket. That sit in every girl’s basket! And every girl must give these fucks away every time someone asks.

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THE LITTLE GIRL WHO GAVE ZERO FUCKS AMY KEAN AND JESS MILTON 01/11/2018 HARDBACK 978-1-78352-645-1 £9.99 WORLD/AUDIO/TV & FILM

One day Elodie-Rose decides to break rank and find out what happens if those fucks stay where they are… We’re living in very strange times, and this book provides a welcome antidote to all the hate and resistance to positive change.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Amy Kean is a sociologist, writer and marketer. She’s worked for the BBC, Sony Music and Nando’s, among others. Jess Milton is an illustrator who has created short comics for small presses such as One Beat Zines and Comic Book Slumber Party. Her ongoing project is a webcomic called The Flying Ship. 90

NOVEMBER

WHERE EPICS FAIL: MEDITATIONS TO LIVE BY YAHIA LABABIDI

Over 800 new meditations from our greatest living aphorist Nearly ten years in the making, Yahia Lababidi returns with a new book of his latest concise meditations. Aimed at general readers and lovers of language, his aphorisms resonate with those who appreciate wit and wisdom: inspiration or spiritual sustenance in a sentence. The author defines an aphorism as ‘what is worth quoting from the soul’s dialogue with itself’. TITLE: SUBTITLE: AUTHOR: PUB DATE: FORMAT: ISBN: PRICE: RIGHTS:

WHERE EPICS FAIL MEDITATIONS TO LIVE BY YAHIA LABABIDI 15/11/2018 HARDBACK 978-1-78352-582-9 £10.99 WORLD/AUDIO/TV & FILM

But, as an immigrant, Muslim and writer living in Trump’s alarming America, Lababidi also views his work as more than a series of personal reflections. In that sense, this collection is a kind of peace offering, addressing our shared humanity, and an attempt, through art, to gently alleviate the mounting fear and loathing in the world.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Yahia Lababidi’s work has appeared in anthologies such as Geary’s Guide to the World’s Great Aphorists, where he is featured alongside the likes of Voltaire, Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson. His most recent book, Balancing Acts: New & Selected Poems, debuted at #1 on Amazon US’s Hot New Releases, and his writing has been translated into various languages.

NEW TITLES

LIFELINES: NOTES ON LIFE AND LOVE, FAITH AND DOUBT MALCOLM DONEY AND MARTIN WROE

A collection of modern wisdom about what the good life looks like, and how to live it Our time on earth raises questions so vast that we can’t get our minds around them. Humans have always tried to find ways to respond to those questions. Some of this was bottled in religion. That’s all right for some, but many of us don’t want to be told what to believe. We still live with the questions though. Like how the big moments – the birth of a child or the death of a friend – can leave us wondering about how to live in the small moments. The authors have drawn from poets and songwriters, activists and artists, from people with faith and people without to compile a book of clues and pointers, rather than terms and conditions.

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LIFELINES NOTES ON LIFE AND LOVE, FAITH AND DOUBT MALCOLM DONEY AND MARTIN WROE 29/11/2018 PAPERBACK 978-1-78352-627-7 £18.99 WORLD/AUDIO/TV & FILM

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Malcolm Doney works in journalism, advertising and broadcasting. He has written ten books and is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 2’s Pause for Thought, and Radio 4’s Something Understood. Martin Wroe is a staff writer for the Independent and the Observer. He won a Sony Gold Radio Award for Radio 1’s The Big Holy One. He is a volunteer vicar in his local parish and a contributor to Thought for the Day on Radio 4.

DECEMBER

BAIT, GRIST AND SECURITY MIKE HODGES

Three noir novellas from the director of Get Carter and Flash Gordon In ‘Bait’, a slippery PR man, Mark Miles, is unaware he’s being manipulated and dangled as bait by an investigative reporter until he’s swallowed by a sadistic mindexpanding cultish course from America. TITLE: AUTHOR: PUB DATE: FORMAT: ISBN: PRICE: RIGHTS:

BAIT, GRIST AND SECURITY MIKE HODGES 13/12/2018 HARDBACK 978-1-78352-656-7 £16.99 WORLD/AUDIO

In ‘Grist’, the bestselling American writer Maxwell Grist ruthlessly uses real people as fodder for his crime novels before finding himself living up to his name and becoming grist for his own murder. In ‘Security’, an American star, unhappy with the movie he’s currently filming, refuses to leave his five-star hotel for the studios, while in the corridor outside his luxury suite, mayhem and murder take over.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Mike Hodges is best known as a filmmaker (Get Carter, Pulp, The Terminal Man) but he has also written and directed for BBC Radio (Shooting Stars and Other Heavenly Pursuits, King Trash) and the theatre (Soft Shoe Shuffle). His lighter contributions to the cinema include Flash Gordon.

UNBOUND

NEW TITLES: TRADE ORIGINALS The following titles are newly available as paperbacks from our Trade Originals list. Please order directly from Gardners Books on 01323 521 555 // www.gardners.com

For any aspiring martial artist, having a real-life, hard-drinking version of Mr Miyagi turn up on your doorstep offering to teach the secrets of the Samurai would be a dream come true. But life as a modern-day Samurai proves even more challenging than becoming the real ‘Karate Kid’.

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PAPER TIGERS TOBY HOWDEN 9781911586074 £10.99

The Happy Hero reveals the secret of enjoying a better life and sets out the principles of how to feel good by doing good. Sounds simple, but where do you start? There is a simple solution: stop worrying about the future and start making it better.

TITLE: AUTHOR: ISBN: PRICE: 94

THE HAPPY HERO SOLITAIRE TOWNSEND 9781911586395 £8.99

NEW TITLES : TRADE ORIGINALS

A thriller based on a true story of courage, complicity and murder. Private Detective Harry Kaplan investigates an old missing persons case, only to turn up much more than he was expecting.

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EBOLOWA SIMON MILLER 9781911586425 £11.99

The worlds of arms dealing, espionage and TV cookery collide in a fast-moving comedy caper.

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THE MEAL OF FORTUNE PHILIP BRADY 9781911586401 £11.99

Anna’s life is stifled by heartache; it is only through acts of love writing obituaries for strangers that she allows herself an emotional connection to the world. Can Anna free herself from the bondage of grief and find a connection to her daughter once more?

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TWICE THE SPEED OF DARK LULU ALLISON 9781911586449 £9.99 95

UNBOUND

In the early nineties, newlywed Ruth Flint arrives at Echo Hall to find an unhappy house full of mysteries that its occupants won’t discuss. As Ruth discovers the secrets of the old house and her own family history, will she be able to bring peace to the Flint family and, in doing so, discover what she really needs and wants?

TITLE: AUTHOR: ISBN: PRICE:

ECHO HALL VIRGINIA MOFFATT 9781911586869 £11.99

It’s the morning after the Olympic Games in London. The city is delighted at how spectacularly it has hosted the uplifting event. But it will be rudely and brutally awoken from its self-congratulation by a shocking atrocity. How could it happen? Why did it happen? Is it political? Or is it personal? TITLE: AUTHOR: ISBN: PRICE:

THE OUTER CIRCLE IAN RIDLEY 9781911586623 £10.99

Three young couples doing their best to keep the magic alive amid the nappies, bills and dirty dishes in recession-hit Dublin. When each of these husbands decides that he deserves a man cave, simmering tensions come to the boil. A heartfelt comic novel about the trials of modern marriage. TITLE: AUTHOR: ISBN: PRICE: 96

MARRIED TO A CAVE MAN DAMIEN OWENS 9781911586845 £10.99

NEW TITLES : TRADE ORIGINALS

When Penny is abandoned and left for dead in the forest, she is forced to navigate the terrifying labyrinth in order to return home to her son and take revenge on the woman who tried to kill her.

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THE LOG HOUSE BAYLEA HART 9781911586463 £10.99

When a vulnerable young woman goes missing, her girlfriend discovers how little she knows of life, love and London.

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THE HOPE AND ANCHOR JULIA KITE 9781911586968 £10.99

Two beautiful time-travelling aliens arrive on Earth, drawn by a powerful need to search for the meaning of human creativity, to discover the truth behind the words, music and changing faces of David Bowie, whose music has reached their world and sparked something new in them.

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THE SPEED OF LIFE RICHARD JOBSON 9781911586821 £9.99

UNBOUND

Bob wants it all – who doesn’t? But it’s dog-eat-dog in this world, and when it’s not, well, hell, it’s just the other way around.

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SIMPLE ACTS OF KINDNESS RICHARD TODD 9781911586760 £10.99

Peg, a Midwestern fish out of water in Key West must grow a pair… of legs to confront hoodoo, haints and a hurricane in order to save her dog and herself in this farcical story of perseverance.

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ISLAND LIFE SENTENCE CARRIE JO HOWE 9781911586524 £10.99

Two stories, separated by forty-five years and connected by a classic film, are set on a collision course – on the surface of Loch Ness, under the shadow of a castle – by the reappearance of the continuity girl herself: April Bloom.

TITLE: AUTHOR: ISBN: PRICE: 98

THE CONTINUITY GIRL PATRICK KINCAID 9781911586982 £10.99

NEW TITLES : TRADE ORIGINALS

A gripping literary thriller set in posttsunami Japan, where a missing child continues to haunt his parents long after the waves have receded.

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FUKUSHIMA DREAMS ZELDA RHIANDO 9781911586883 £10.99

A relentless portrait of a family on the brink of chaos as they struggle to care for each other under the weight of fear.

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MONSTERS RAPHAELA WEISSMAN 9781911586746 £10.99

1588. Abel de Santiago is forced to join the Spanish Armada and must flee fatal capture in sixteenth-century Ireland.

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THE SHERIFF’S CATCH JAMES VELLA-BARDON 9781912618569 £11.99

UNBOUND

Pimple is the tale of a new app – an Uber for the sex trade – and of the disruption that its rise to prominence causes to the lives of London’s sex workers.

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PIMPLE RYAN WEEKS 9781911586807 £10.99

The Troy of myth was a real city. This is its story… A breathless gallop through an ancient world carved out by tradition, stained with blood and immortalised in the lives of heroes and villains.

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BREAKING THE FOALS MAXIMILIAN HAWKER 9781911586722 £10.99

Foreigners, drifters and eccentrics reach out to strangers in their desire to be witnessed, to be connected and to find safety in a sea of anonymity.

TITLE: AUTHOR: ISBN: PRICE: 100

LOVE BITES ELENA KAUFMAN 9781911586586 £9.99

NEW TITLES : TRADE ORIGINALS

The tale of a large Northern family whose eldest son is hell-bent on destroying the lives of his siblings.

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THE WRONG’UN CATHERINE EVANS 9781911586548 £11.99

An adventure story set in a prison for children, where the characters are busy fighting their emotional demons when a real one turns up.

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IN SECURE ANDREW PACK 9781911586944 £10.99

Find your purpose. But don’t lose your mind. The Intrapreneur is a call to action for a new breed of social activist working within, about to join or completely disillusioned by today’s business world.

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THE INTRAPRENEUR GIB BULLOCH 9781912618408 PRICE: £10.99

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LAURA BARTON’S SHELFIE

Laura Barton is a writer and broadcaster, covering music and other matters for the Guardian, Radio 4, the New York Times, Q magazine and Intelligent Life. Her first novel, TwentyOne Locks, was published in 2010. Her collaboration with photographer Sarah Lee, West of West, is currently funding at Unbound.com Can you remember the first book you bought? The Haunted House by Jan Pieńkowski – it’s the very best kind of pop-up book and I still have it. I love how the books we loved best as children still seem to make sense to our adult selves.

How big is your library now? Big enough for me to be in denial about its size. Shelves, packing boxes, piles. You know the drill.

How do you arrange your books? There is a logic to it but I couldn’t really explain it to you. Clusters of books that for whatever reason I associate with one another.

Favourite reading spot in your house? Sitting on my bed. I also like writing sitting on my bed. This is probably terrible for both posture and sleep hygiene.

Do you have a regular purge? I find it very hard to part with books and records and knitwear. Though I took a lot of belongings out of storage a year or so ago and sifted a little then.

Favourite bookshop, new or secondhand? I once spent a very happy summer in Portland, Oregon, where they have Powell’s, which is still my bookshop of dreams. It sits right in the heart of the city, and is well-loved and well-used, One of the best and most full of new titles and secondhand, and big liberating realisations you enough to lose yourself. It’s the perfect can have about life is that it’s example of a vital, vibrant bookshop.

gloriously messy – don’t live it preciously

What’s on your ‘to-read’ pile? I’ve been reading endless music books as I’m a judge on the Penderyn Music Book Prize this year, and because I’m helming the Talking Shop stage at Green Man festival. So I’m looking forward to finally reading a novel again – Immigrant, Montana by Amitava Kumar is top of the heap.

What is your favourite edition that you own and why? A few years ago a friend gave me a first edition of Gerard Manley Hopkins’s poetry. He’s my favourite poet, and really shaped how I see and hear language, so it was the most stunning and unexpected gift.

To break the spine or keep it as immaculate as possible? Oh God, always break the spine. One of the best and most liberating realisations you can have about life is that it’s gloriously messy – don’t live it preciously. Do you lend books? I prefer to give them. Do you like to get books signed by the author? I do. I like the things I own to have layers of meaning.

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MEET THE UNBOUNDER, CAITLIN HARVEY How long have you been with Unbound? Just over six years now.

That’s a long time! How has Unbound changed/ evolved since you’ve joined? So much! There wasn’t even an office when I joined, and I’d meet up once a week with the three founders and two other members of staff. I spent so much of my time explaining to people what crowdfunding was. Now there are about fifty employees, we’ve published nearly 150 books with many more in the pipeline, and crowdfunding is a much more accepted activity.

What is your role now? I’m Unbound’s Community Manager, heading up our (small but dedicated) customer service and pledge-fulfilment team. I describe myself as ‘the last piece in the Unbound puzzle’ as I manage our distribution and make sure supporters receive what they pledged for.

What does a week in the life of Caitlin look like? It’s pretty varied. I arrange author signings, organise pledge events, source items for pledge rewards, answer customer queries and work with the tech team on improving the site for our users.

What’s the best part of your week? I really enjoy being with an author when they sign their books. It’s a great moment to be part of and it’s often the first time they’ve seen such a huge pile of books with their name on. Knowing that the books are all going to people who helped them to get to that point can be pretty inspiring.

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And your favourite Unbound event you’ve ever been to? There have been lots of good ones but I met Sir David Attenborough, one of my absolute heroes, at the launch party for Kicking the Bar a couple of years ago. That’s pretty hard to top. He’d written the book’s foreword but I didn’t expect him to come to the party and I was so excited to see him there. It took a lot of resolve for me to keep my cool and not turn into the biggest fangirl.

What are you currently reading? I’m actually reading an Unbound book, The Pagoda Tree by Claire Scobie, as well as A Buzz in the Meadow by Dave Goulson.

What’s the most frequently asked question by Unbound customers or authors? Can we make the overseas postage cheaper? To which I say, we’re looking into it guys, bear with us!

What’s one thing you’d love everyone to know about Unbound? That we publish awesome books, obviously.

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GIVING NEW LIFE TO OLD BOOKS

Backlisted.fm 106

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