Unbound Catalogue Spring 2023

Unbound c/o Runway East 20 St Thomas Street London SE1 9RS Tel. 020 3997 6790

www.unbound.com @unbounders

Head of Sales Julian Mash julian@unbound.com

Head of Rights Ilona Chavasse ilona@unbound.com

Head of Communications Rina Gill rina@unbound.com

To order any of the books in this catalogue please contact your PGUK rep. If you’re unsure who that is, contact Julian Mash at julian@unbound.com

Dear Reader,

Welcome to our spring 2023 catalogue highlighting titles published between January and June. As usual, you will find features and interviews with authors at the front, followed by a full list of titles including ISBNs and publication dates at the back.

What an exciting line-up of books we have in store for you this season. You will have noticed the beautiful Fox and Otter adorning the cover of this catalogue, the first in a new series of Accordion Books from the magical mind of Jackie Morris. An Accordion Book doesn’t open, it unfolds. One side is filled with beautiful watercolour images of an animal: sometimes in motion, sometimes at rest. The other is filled with text – poems, descriptions, invocations – inspired by the same animal. Together they work as spells to summon the animal’s spirit. Jackie has painted them using antique watercolours, some from boxes which hadn’t been opened for over 150 years, woken from their slumber with a single drop of water. Published in April, Fox and Otter are the first two Accordions in a series that will go on to include Hare, Owl, Hound and Cat among many others.

February sees the publication of Bardskull, the record of three journeys made by Martin Shaw, the celebrated storyteller and interpreter of myth, in the year before he turned fifty. It is unlike anything he has written before. This is not a book about myth or narrative: rather, it is a sequence of incantations, a series of battles.

In March we have Sophie Pierce’s The Green Hill in which she recounts how her life changed forever when her twenty-year-old son Felix died suddenly and unexpectedly. Thrown into an unimaginable new reality, she had to find a way to survive. By writing letters to Felix – composed during walks and swims taken close to his burial place by the River Dart – Sophie gradually learned how to live in the landscape of sudden loss, navigating the weather and tides of grief.

The extraordinary story of Doro Ģoumãňęh, a Gambian refugee fleeing violence, as told to Brendan Woodhouse, is released in June. Doro was once a relatively prosperous fisherman, but in 2014, when the country’s fishing rights were stolen and secret police began arresting Gambian fishermen, Doro left home, fleeing for his life. From Senegal to Libya to Algeria and back to Libya, Doro fell victim to the horrific cycle of abuse

targeted at refugees. He endured shipwreck, torture and being left for dead in a mass grave. Miraculously, he survived. Told through both Doro’s and Brendan’s perspectives, Doro touches on questions of policy and politics, brutality and bravery, survival and belonging – issues that confront refugees everywhere. But ultimately it is one man’s incredible story – that of Doro: refugee, hero, champion, survivor and friend.

Spring also sees the publication of the first two novels in our new Unbound Firsts imprint for debut writers of colour. Last Dance at the Discotheque for Deviants by Paul David Gould, a gripping mystery following young Kostya’s coming out in the underground gay scene of 1990s Moscow, and Yeseni and the Daughter of Peace by Solange Burrell, a powerful debut that combines historical fiction with fantasy and explores themes of slavery and empire.

Not forgetting a beautiful new edition of I Could Read the Sky released in June – a collaboration, in the shape of a lyrical novel, between writer Timothy O’Grady and photographer Steve Pyke, a classic that won the Encore Award for best second novel in 1997, featuring a preface by John Berger.

All of these titles and more are available to order from GBS or via your PGUK rep.

If you would like to put on an event or get a hold of a reading copy, please do drop me a line on julian@unbound.com and I will be happy to help.

Until next time, happy reading!

Julian Mash, Head of Sales

Bardskull: An Interview with Martin Shaw

The celebrated storyteller and interpreter of myth discusses what inspired his latest book 6 Accordion Books: Fox and Otter

An exclusive look at the first two books in an exciting new series from The Kate Greenaway Medal-winning author and artist Jackie Morris 9 Doro

The extraordinary true story of Doro Ģoumãňęh: a Gambian fisherman; a refugee fleeing violence; a survivor on a small boat; a friend and a hero 14

The VOCAL+ Fiction Awards Anthology: The Not-Deer

An extract from one short story included in a new collection of writing from twenty-five rising voices in fiction 17

From Far Around They Saw Us Burn: Keep Right on to Eternity Road

One of fifteen short stories to be included in the eagerly awaited collection by prize-winning author Alice Jolly 20 The Very F*cking Tired Mummy

An illustrated excerpt from a parody inspired by the story of a beloved caterpillar 25 Unbound Firsts

Unbound’s annual publishing opportunity for undiscovered debut writers of colour 32 The Green Hill

Sophie Pierce’s deeply moving account of love, loss and healing following the death of her twenty-year-old son 35 Legends of the Leaf: True Aloe

An extract from a vibrant new collection about houseplants which unearths the secrets that will help your plants thrive 39 The Low Road

Author Katharine Quarmby writes about the real figures and events that inspired her gripping novel 48

Au Revoir Now Darlint: An Interview with Laura Thompson

An insight into the intriguing life and death of a woman wrongly accused of murder 52 How To Be a Good Bboy: An Introduction to Bilbo

Human rights activist Ellen Murray explains what she and her feline friend can teach us about kindness in their accessible guide to understanding human rights 56 Mind the Inclusion Gap: Things you can do to be a better ally Tips for anyone who wants to dive into the complex task of supporting diversity 59 How Your Brain Is Wired

A preview of the most powerful biases covered in this fascinating book about how the brain really works 62 DARK

A sneak preview of the stunning design elements to be included in the A-to-Z guide of the cosmos 65

A Pleasant Illness: Thoughts from the desk of a vinyl nerd

Sunday Times-bestselling author Tom Cox considers his evolution as a music lover 72 The Brexit Tapes: You think you’ve heard it all?

An exclusive extract from the leaked transcripts recorded during Brexit negotiations compiled by leading Brextorian John Bull 75

When Grief Equals Love

Lizzie Pickering’s introduction to a personal and tender book about learning to live with grief 79

Do You Believe in the Power of Rock & Roll?

An extract from John Robb’s essential history of a personal quest to document the ever-changing soundtrack of the modern world 81 New Titles: Spring January to June 2023

BARDSKULL: AN INTERVIEW WITH MARTIN SHAW

Martin Shaw has built up a formidable reputation as a storyteller and interpreter of myth but Bardskull is unlike anything he has ever written before. This is not a book about myth or story. It is a sequence of incantations and a series of battles. It can be read as a fable, as a memoir, as autofiction, as an attempt to undomesticate myth. Ultimately it is a magnificent, unclassifiable work of the imagination.

Here Martin explains how his latest book came into being with Unbound’s publisher, John Mitchinson.

Martin Shaw: It’s the account of three extended walks I took onto Dartmoor. Mainly within an old growth forest. That’s the very simple take. I didn’t know what I was embarking on. The first sojourn was a week, then the next 101 days, the final a couple of weeks again. It finished

John Mitchinson: Can you describe what happens in Bardskull?

suddenly on St George’s Day. Despite how hallucinatory it may read, I really did go on these expeditions. It moves between recognisable human wonderings and then odd, bracing encounters I had no control of whatsoever. I just bore witness and kept scrawling. It’s a highly unruly ceremony. There’s no contrived narrative other than just tracking the unfolding.

This is a very different book to the interpretations of myth you are best known for. What led to this change in direction?

Some books are pastoral, some are prophetic. Some books are bridges, others are leaps. Bardskull is a leap. I’ve enjoyed writing commentaries and exegesis on many myths, but this was different. This was not to explicate their meanings but amplify the wyrd within them. I wanted to remove all handrails for both me and the reader. It’s written in-thefield and in-extremis. The words of these tales were etched on my breastplate. You scare stories away if you tell them what they mean too quickly. So mostly I let them announce themselves, it’s an issue of manners. This is the nearest thing to living in my head. It’s a shock for me every time I pick it up.

You have described the book as a series of battles – can you explain more what that means?

I had no way of understanding what I was letting myself in for. Halfway through I could barely tell what was inside or outside. Everything was the deep interior. A lot of the time I felt engaged in one kind of test or crisis after another, like some old-time knight set out on a quest. There was simply no off switch. Not everything was wishing me well out there.

The book contains the retelling of many different stories from many different cultures. What is it about the sense book’s form that offered you the freedom to do that?

These were the stories that arose quite organically from whatever situation I was in. My great uncle Hamer had journeyed through Eastern Europe and Siberia early in the twentieth century, and he became an odd sort of ancestral guide as I continued the walks. So some of the stories came from places I knew he travelled through. Others were from the Celtic and Arthurian tradition.

What is it about these stories that continues to engage and stimulate you?

Most have no literary precedent which means they have more of the oral tradition about them, they are less self-conscious. They are disarming and filled with protein. It’s less about being able to dissect allegory from beginning to end and more about being eternally freshened by the images. They just do something to me.

How have these three journeys changed you?

I didn’t realise it was a kind of Grail quest I was on. I really didn’t. I encountered a field of meaning that was almost unbearable. The journeys were both dangerous and redemptive in their way and led me in midlife to a kind of recognisable spiritual practice. I got far more than I bargained for. In my way, I fell into the green mind of God. I feel like I have been having a protracted soul-audit ever since. Like being swept up by a hawk.

I saw behind some kind of curtain. I’m not saying it made me wise, but I saw something and I’m happy to report back as best I can what it was.

Do you feel the creative release Bardskull offered will continue – are you planning to write more in this vein?

Absolutely. It was quite a price I paid for this kind of breakthrough, so I feel I have no choice but to continue. Anything else would be fraudulent or an act of cowardice.

You have expressed frustration with the current state of oral storytelling in this country. Why is that? Is it still relevant in the age of social media?

Oral storytelling will always be relevant. The bare-bones of it causes the listener’s imagination to work much harder than a movie or play. It’s a very active, participatory experience. In modern storytelling I see lots of skill but not always depth. It often seems a more urban, witty, self-conscious experience than a telling so strange it can speak-acrossspecies, which is the old Bardic ideal. There are always exceptions. It’s a matter of taste I suppose but I love the challenge of the ancient ambition.

ACCORDION BOOKS: FOX AND OTTER

An Accordion Book doesn’t open, it unfolds. One side is filled with beautiful watercolour images of an animal: sometimes in motion, sometimes at rest. The other is filled with text – poems, descriptions, invocations – inspired by the same animal. Jackie Morris has teamed up again with Alison O’Toole, designer of The Lost Words and The Unwinding, to create stunning objects that double as spells to summon the animals’ spirits. Over the following pages, you can feast your eyes on the first two books in this exciting new series: Fox and Otter.

‘Small, to be carried in the pocket as a talisman, the Accordions are part book, part art object, part meditation, perhaps part prayer. Each one unfolds from its form as a book to become a frieze that can stand on a shelf, window ledge or mantelpiece, or live in a frame. The first two, Fox and Otter, celebrate these wild creatures in image and word.’

Jackie Morris

DORO

Doro is the extraordinary story of refugee Doro Ģoumãňęh, as told to Brendan Woodhouse, one of the Sea-Watch volunteers who rescued him from a small boat in the Mediterranean in 2019. Doro fled persecution in The Gambia in 2014, travelling through Senegal, Libya and Algeria, enduring shipwreck, torture and being left for dead in a mass grave. Miraculously, he survived. While waiting out a two-week standoff – floating off the coast of Sicily, as political leaders accused Sea-Watch, a German organisation that helps migrants, of facilitating illegal entry to Europe – a great friendship formed, and Doro entrusted Brendan with his story. Told through both Doro’s and Brendan’s perspectives, Doro touches on questions of policy and politics, brutality and bravery, survival and belonging – issues that confront refugees everywhere.

This is Doro and he is beautiful.

Believe me when I say it. He is beautiful. His inner strength is humbling, and it shines through anything that your eyes may see. He is kind, generous, thoughtful and gentle, but his story should chill us to our bones because Doro has suffered for his dreams more than I could possibly describe. When I hear people say ‘send them back’, I think of Doro and others like him. This gentle man, who is now a dear friend of mine. They’re talking about him.

I said to him, when he asked me to help him write his story, that not everyone will be kind. That people will make hateful comments. I said I’m sorry that some people will say that he is not welcome. ‘Don’t blame them,’ he said, ‘they have never suffered like this.’ His human understanding and forgiveness are deeply affecting to witness. If only they knew. If only they could spend time with Doro, then some of his empathy might rub off on them.

I was one of the people who helped rescue Doro, from a small, blue rubber dinghy, trying to escape from Libya and make it to Europe. It was an encounter that will stay in my mind for ever. I didn’t know that we’d become friends. I didn’t know what had happened to him. And I didn’t know that a year later I’d be helping him to write his incredible story. All I knew was that there was a boat. A small boat, moving slowly through the waves. That people were on it, and unless they were helped, then, in all likelihood, they would drown. And nobody – nobody – deserves to drown at sea.

Against all the odds, Doro survived, not just the rescue but the ordeal that had led to him even being there, and he is alive to tell his story. That is not the mystery, and I don’t want people to read this as a story about some victim. He is more than that. He is more than a survivor. This is a story about a champion, a hero if you like, and that is a term that I don’t use lightly. Nevertheless, there are difficult questions ahead: How will Europe welcome him? Will he be granted asylum, or will he end up being sent back home? Will you think that he’s a refugee or an economic migrant, and after reading this, will you care? Could you be the one to simply send him back? Or do we all need to think a little differently?

I SAID I’M SORRY THAT SOME PEOPLE WILL SAY THAT HE IS NOT WELCOME. ‘DON’T BLAME THEM,’ HE SAID, ‘THEY HAVE NEVER SUFFERED LIKE THIS.’

Listening to people like Doro and seeing their suffering at first hand has certainly changed my perspective. Maybe it would for you too? Can you answer what exactly distinguishes a refugee from an economic migrant? Why are some people accepted, yet others aren’t? Is the reality truly so black and white, or are there many shades of grey? There is certainly a distinction between how our governments set policies for welcoming refugees from different parts of the world. These policies seem particularly detrimental to those from African nations.

My name is Brendan. This is not my story.

I want to tell you about Doro, but in fact I’m going to let him tell you. I’ll come in from time to time with an explanation or with something that I saw, but most of this will be Doro speaking. It’s his book.

THIS IS A STORY ABOUT A CHAMPION, A HERO IF YOU LIKE, AND THAT IS A TERM THAT I DON’T USE LIGHTLY.

Brendan and Doro

THE VOCAL+ FICTION AWARDS ANTHOLOGY

Discover twenty-five of the rising voices in fiction in this story collection published by Unbound in collaboration with Creatd, the parent company of digital creator platform Vocal. Founded in the US in 2017, Vocal is home to 1.5 million content creators hailing from all around the world, and the stories have been chosen from tens of thousands of entries submitted to the Vocal+ Fiction Awards. Compelling narrative, vivid language, tales of family, of hope, of terror, of the worlds that await us: these stories showcase the diversity, ingenuity and imagination of Vocal’s unique voices. Winners were selected by well-known writer, critic and former Times literary editor Erica Wagner.

From ‘The Not-Deer’ by Chelsea Catherine

The mountains are flush with colour as we make the drive north. Frost creeps across the glass. I turn on the heat, but the old RV takes time to warm. From the passenger’s seat, Jude huddles in a blanket. Andy sleeps in the back.

‘How far north are we headed?’

‘Just a half hour past Dahlonega.’

Jude glances out the window. The leaves are brittle and dry from a summer that was full of heat and sun but rare showers. Even the trees are burnt. The clouds hang low, obscuring the mountain peaks around us. The whole area is quiet and still in a way I didn’t expect it to be.

Jude isn’t used to mountains, or to cold. She grew up six hours southwest of here, in a poor Alabama town with less than three hundred residents. The first time she saw mountains was when we flew into San Francisco. She kept looking down at the Sierra Nevadas and back at me like she’d never seen anything so beautiful in her life.

‘Do you think it’ll be okay for him?’ she asks.

I glance in the rear-view mirror. Andy doesn’t love the RV loveseat, but it’s the only place where he can sleep with a seatbelt on. His preferred perch is the small space above our heads, where he likes to sleep snuggled up against a body pillow.

‘It’s so… remote.’

‘Remote is good,’ I tell her. ‘It’s people you should be worried about. People are dangerous.’

I can feel her staring at me, but she doesn’t say anything else.

We camp in a spot under some fir trees, which stretch dozens of feet above us. The view is partially obscured, but through the branches, the Blood Mountain Wilderness spreads like blue waves in the afternoon light.

Andy awakens in a foul mood, weeping quietly before Jude gives him something to eat and the attitude slips away. We decide to go for a small hike while Jude sets up. I get him into his coat, which still bears a stain from the last time we went camping. He ties up his boots – a new trick his teachers have been working on with him.

Andy likes to hike in front of me. I prefer this, so I can keep an eye on him. For a seven-year-old, he’s a great hiker. He’s quiet and aware of his

‘REMOTE IS GOOD,’ I TELL HER. ‘IT’S PEOPLE YOU SHOULD BE WORRIED ABOUT. PEOPLE ARE DANGEROUS.’

surroundings. He stops rarely, usually only to look at a bug or leaf. ‘Kat,’ he tells me. ‘Look. A Chinese mantis.’

We both stop, stooping on the dirt path, our noses close to the grass and weeds. A large praying mantis rests in a bush, delicate and slim. ‘The babies are probably somewhere close by,’ I say.

Andy sits down in the dirt to watch the mantis. I give him space, wandering around the area to look for any edible plants. I’m at the edge of the path, as far away from Andy as I dare, when a twig breaks nearby. I stop, searching the path. My hand goes automatically to my hunting knife.

The sound comes again from further in the woods. I peer into the thick pocket of trees. At first, there’s no movement. Then, I spot it. A deer. It rests in between some peeling birches about twenty feet away. It’s a strange-looking animal. Bigger than normal and with what look like at least two broken legs. The joints bend in the opposite direction. The eyes are too far forward on its face. It shouldn’t be this close. Wild deer are highly sensitive to tourists.

‘What is it?’

I jump at Andy’s voice. When I look back into the thicket, the deer is gone.

AT FIRST, THERE’S

NO MOVEMENT. THEN, I SPOT IT. A DEER. IT RESTS IN BETWEEN SOME PEELING BIRCHES ABOUT TWENTY FEET AWAY.

Jude makes sloppy joes for dinner. We eat outside around a fire I’ve hastily thrown together. The weather is cold but not unbearable. Still, when the sun goes down, we retreat into the RV and turn on the electric fireplace. I check the windows and doors, pulling the curtains and locking everything up. Andy secludes himself in his bunk. Jude and I set up in the queen bed in the back to watch a movie.

Her perfume lingers in the space, smelling of anise and coffee. The heat from the fireplace balloons near the front of the RV, keeping Andy warm, but leaving the bedroom cool. I pull Jude closer to me, her silk pyjamas smoothing against my skin.

We’re halfway into the movie when I hear a strange sound outside. It’s not normal, at least not for this area. It’s almost like a coyote cackling, but with a clicking noise that feels unnatural. It comes twice before disappearing.

Jude turns my chin, so we’re face to face. ‘You’re nervous,’ she says.

Find The Vocal+ Fiction Awards Anthology on page 92

FROM FAR AROUND THEY SAW US BURN

From Far Around They Saw Us Burn is the eagerly awaited first short story collection from Alice Jolly, one of the most exciting and accomplished voices in British fiction today. It features an extraordinary range of work that is united by Jolly’s exemplary eye for detail and intimate understanding of the complexities of human nature. The story below is just one example of how her writing insists on the ultimate question: what is revealed of us when we peel away the surfaces, and is it enough?

‘Keep Right on to Eternity Road’

We set off at first light. The air around us stretches and yawns. The sky is grey-pink, the hills blurred above us. The car is loaded with everything we could possibly need. Our bags and cases, a picnic basket, maps, bottles of water, books and games. Also a tent and blankets, although we hope we won’t need them. We cannot know how long the journey might be.

Several well-wishers have come to see us off and stand now on the drive, shouting – God speed, take care. We all pile into the car, three in the back, two in the front. With so much luggage, it takes several attempts to get the doors shut and we shriek and laugh as we bang them again and again. Then we wind down the windows, the engine starts, our trailing hands wave as we shout – Goodbye, God Bless. The car slides away and we are off.

Such bantering and bickering as we drop down those first hills. Our skin shivering as the dew-wet air blows in. The sun comes up, the air sparkles. Cow parsley and long grass sag beside the lanes. We pass no one except a dog watching from a tree stump, a herd of cows gathered behind a fence. The car growls on a hill, the gears clank. We shout and laugh, joke that we might need to get out and push.

Perhaps we sleep. I don’t know. Small towns roll past, the car squeezing down narrow high streets as people emerge, sleepy, to put out bins and unchain bikes. Church bells ring and dogs bark. Briefly, in one of those towns, I raise my head, just as the car is turning right. In a side street, narrowing endlessly towards a distant hill, two children walk side by side, both furiously waving limp flags. Briefly the light on them is stark as a spotlight, the flags are triumphant, then a shadow engulfs them. The car swings around, all is gone.

Have we come far now? How many miles? At first the questions are joking, then petulant. Our legs are bloodless, our spines have stiffened. We are crammed in too tight. The pots in the picnic basket clank against each other. A blanket keeps falling from the overcrowded boot onto our heads but there is nowhere else to put it. Surely we can stop for a while?

Yes. Let’s stop. But not for long. We mustn’t become distracted with so many miles to go. Slow down, everyone says. Slow down. So we can see where we might stop. Finally, after considerable arguing, we pull into a gateway. A wide, lazy stream runs across the fields.

We burst out of the car, climb the gate. The grass is dry now, the shadows short. The sun beats down on the crowns of our heads, our arms, the backs of our necks. We run down to the water, stand on the stony bank, lean down to spread our hands into its chilly green depths.

Oh we could have stayed there all day. But no, no. We have to get on. There isn’t much time. We must press on, cover the miles. I leave the water reluctantly, my hands still cold. As we get into the car, arguments break out. I don’t see why you have to go in the front. Why not me? Could we not get out the lemonade? Again the doors have to be banged several times. And now it seems that the engine might not start. Again and again it turns over, whines and splutters, before finally throttling into life.

The countryside changes. It is not like anywhere I have seen before. The hills grow so steep that the car struggles, the valley depths are private, damp. Crops of rocks appear above us, spindly pines clinging below them. Sometimes the lanes are edged by steep banks so that we appear to drive through trenches or tunnels. The sun is dappled, appearing briefly through a tangled mesh of leaves. All sound is numb.

Where was that place? Why did we choose that route? I do not now remember. But it seems we were passing that way a long time and all of us were silent, tense. Surely, surely, we must come soon into a kinder landscape? Up another hill, round another corner. Where are the maps? We must ask directions. Could we not get out the lemonade?

Finally we come around a corner and the land ahead drops gently downwards. Now, now it must be time to stop for lunch. No, no. Just a little further. Up to that spire ahead. There? Where? But that might be fifty miles or more. No. Not so far. We pull over to ask a man pushing a bicycle but his eyes are wide and blank, his jaw sagging. This way, that way, he babbles wildly and so we nod politely, head on.

WHERE WAS THAT PLACE? WHY DID WE CHOOSE THAT ROUTE? I DO NOT NOW REMEMBER.

The roads now are flat and straight, edged by deep ditches, the sky wide and limitless above, the villages low and scattered. A cottage here, a farm there, with a child standing on a gate, waving as we pass. And then a funeral procession, outside a country church, the verges crowded with cars, the coffin held up high, outlined against the cornflower sky. We glimpse crushed hats, chaffing shoes, handbags tightly gripped. And then on, speeding away, leaving those others to the knotted green of the churchyard, the slow unfolding of hymns and prayers, the light seeping in at the stained glass windows. Go on, go on. We must soon arrive at the town with the high spire. But it never comes. Perhaps we have already passed it.

We ask a young man lounging at a bus stop. No, he says. No. You’ve gone the wrong way. You want a right and then a left. But his directions

only lead us down an ever-narrowing lane, until we come to a ford, which is too deep to drive through. And so, sweating and swearing, we must turn the car in a tight spot, back and forwards, back and forwards, until eventually we can head back.

We give up on the spire. We must find another place to stop. Another riverbank or a village green. But no promising place presents itself and so finally we just pull up at a spot where the road is wider, under some chestnut trees. A nondescript place although the trees offer a welcoming shade and two fallen tree trunks make a place to sit.

The picnic hamper is pulled out of the back. Ham sandwiches, cake, apples, lemonade, pork pies. There is nowhere much to spread the rug but we put it down as best we can, sit on the tree trunks. I eat and then walk on down the verge, lie down in the long grass, look up at the sky, the few shreds of cloud, stationary.

If only we could stay. This surely is the place where we were always meant to be? Nothing will ever be better than this. Just to lie here forever, in the silence, with the buzz of insects all around, the smells of wild grasses hanging in the air.

But no, no. We must go on. The picnic must be packed up. The lemonade bottles are sticky, the cake has collapsed. There is nowhere to wash the plates. Again arguments start about who will sit where. Is there much further to go?

Don’t complain. It’s a fantastic adventure, the chance to see so much of the landscape. Make the best of it. The picnic hamper doesn’t want to go back in the car. Bags and cases have to be taken out to get it in. No better place is found for the falling blanket.

The sun now is unpleasantly hot. The lanes are dusty, the smell of petrol blows in. We are surely heading much too far east? We must take a right turn as soon as one appears. Why all these back lanes? There must be a more direct route. Are we too far east – or too far west? Heads loll, sweat drips. The picnic basket is rattling again. Our clothes stick to our skin.

Let’s ask directions. We pull into a layby beside a row of pebbledash houses. A large woman in a low-cut dress leans by a gate, smoking, watching a child wobbling along the pavement on a tricycle. Oh yes, she says. You’re on the right road. Course you are. Just keep going straight on.

I sleep with my head rolling and jerking against the seat. The day is cooling now. The land around us is tired, colourless. The branches of trees hang heavy, dogs whine, streams are sluggish. The sky above is white, infinite.

And still we go on. Arguments start again. This whole trip was ill conceived, a bad idea from start to finish. We stop for tea in the square of a small town. A man in a local shop provides a kettle of water. A long journey? he asks. Yes, we say. Yes, it is, he says. Long. Very long.

The tea is welcome. We drink it propped against the car. Around us school children are dawdling home. Briefly an alarm bell rings nearby. Is there a fire? A burglary? We are too tired to care and soon the bell cuts into silence. Biscuits are passed around but no one has the heart for them. When we take the kettle back we ask about the route again. But the man scratches his head, sighs. It would be difficult to say. There are so many ways.

We go on again. Come on, brighten up. Don’t complain. No one said it would be easy. It’s meant to be an adventure. The sun is dropping in the sky. A girl and a young man walk along a pavement, their hands locked together, their heads close. Our eyes follow them hungrily. A faint, sour breeze stirs now. We wipe our eyes, push back our hair, shift aching hips and legs.

The darkness comes at a strange and sudden speed. The beam of the car headlights dashes across walls, shop fronts, a rabbit diving into the hedge. We are lost, entirely lost. We must go back. This was all a mistake. We should have had a better plan. Where are we? What are we doing? When will this journey ever end?

Coming into a village we see a man, on a level crossing, with a fat dog on a lead. Oh yes, he says. Yes. You are on the right road. Just take the next left and then right at the phone box. Then keep right on. You’re not far. Not far at all.

Thank God for that. We laugh and joke. Nearly there. Someone finds a bottle of whisky and we pass it around, start to sing. The darkness around us is absolute. Just keep going, keep going. Left, right, left. The car plunges downhill then labours up.

The whisky burns warm in our throats. We sing loudly. Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile. Hands are joined in the darkness. We are all folded together. Are we too far east, too far west? No one cares now. Rain is coming down heavily but the rhythmic swish of the wipers comforts us.

We do not want to arrive now. Why did we ever want to arrive? Why does it matter where we are going? Pack up your troubles. Pass the whisky. And sing, sing, sing. Please, please, keep on going, through the darkness and the warmth. We are all the best of friends now. We come to a crossroads, enclosed in dark hedges, high on a hill. Left, right, straight on? It doesn’t matter any more. This is the right road, the only road. How could we have been so stupid? Keep right on. There never was any other route.

Find From Far Around They Saw Us Burn on page 97

THE VERY F*CKING TIRED MUMMY

Have your kids ever shaved the dog? Or decided pants are optional? Don’t worry, you are not alone. Parenting is hard and this mummy is f*cking tired.

Inspired by the story of a beloved caterpillar, The Very F*cking Tired Mummy is an all-too-relatable tale of the frustration, exhaustion and sometimes unexpected joy of parenthood.

On Sunday morning, a little girl started wreaking havoc around the house, so with a heavy heart, from the bed there emerged a very, very tired mummy.

At once she started to look for coffee because otherwise the day would end in manslaughter.

And so the week went on…

UNBOUND FIRSTS

Unbound Firsts is an annual publishing opportunity for undiscovered debut writers of colour.

Here Aliya Gulamani (Unbound’s Editorial Lead for Unbound Firsts) explains what inspired her to create the new imprint and introduces the inaugural titles.

Established in response to Unbound’s recognition of the barriers that debut writers experience with crowdfunding, and more specifically the dual barriers that writers of colour experience in both publishing and crowdfunding, the imprint is a new space for talented debut writers of colour. Each October, Unbound launches an open call for writers to submit their fiction or non-fictional debut books, from which two will be selected and offered a publication deal with Unbound. The aim is to discover fresh voices, new talent, and amazing stories to turn into published books.

Unbound Firsts actively creates a new space for writers of colour and incorporates inclusion at every stage of the process: utilising editors of colour, designers of colour, and most importantly, readers of colour. The imprint has a clear aim of establishing an ecosystem that celebrates diversity and creativity, sparking new conversations with brilliant fiction and non-fiction titles.

Our first titles, selected from over 50 submissions, are Paul David Gould’s Last Dance at the Discotheque for Deviants and Solange Burrell’s Yeseni and the Daughter of Peace .

Paul David Gould’s debut literary thriller follows young Kostya’s coming out in the underground gay scene of 1990s Moscow. Gould said: ‘I’m not only thrilled to be getting published by Unbound Firsts, I’m also honoured — honoured to be one of this new imprint’s inaugural writers at a time when we so need to champion diversity.’

Solange Burrell, who has always been interested in the transatlantic slave trade and its continuing effects on the global African diaspora, has set her novel in 1748. The protagonist of the novel is Elewa, the Daughter of Peace who learns that she has a powerful gift, Yeseni, and has to decide whether to use it to save her kingdom or the world. Burrell said: ‘Being selected for Unbound Firsts means the universe to me. Separately though, it is admirable, dedicated, and bold of Unbound to create this special imprint that recognises underrepresented groups within the publishing industry.’

Find Last Dance at the Discotheque for Deviants and Yeseni and the Daughter of Peace on pages 108 and 109

THE GREEN HILL

In 2017, Sophie Pierce’s life changed forever when her twentyyear-old son Felix died suddenly and unexpectedly. Thrown into an unimaginable new reality, she had to find a way to survive. By writing letters to Felix – composed during walks and swims taken close to his burial place by the River Dart – Sophie gradually learned how to live in the landscape of sudden loss: actively mourning, rather than grieving. The Green Hill collects these letters alongside Sophie’s account of the years following Felix’s death, into which she weaves poignant memories of his life.

I am back at the green hill, far away.

The wind on the exposed hillside scythes my body. It always seems to be howling a gale up here and, as usual, I’m thinking, What now? I’ve been standing like this for a while, staring down to the still, silvery river, bordered by reeds and marshes, which winds through the fields below. Beyond it, under a heavy, grey sky, lies the sea. In the other direction, away to my left, is the lumpy outline of Dartmoor. I need to be here. But I also have to get away.

I head down to the estuary below and walk along the bank where wild garlic is emerging; there are no flowers yet, just broad shiny leaves and a faint oniony echo. Scarlet elf cups nestle in the moss. As I walk, the smooth surface of the river glints through the trees. Some geese pass above, their coarse cries reverberating. I reach North Quay, an old stone jetty that protrudes into the briny water. As I begin to change, a light breeze blows downstream, making me shiver. As usual, I leave my clothes in an untidy heap on top of my rucksack, impatient to get in I walk across the ragged grass that covers the top of the quay, a feeling of dampness between my toes, and climb down the old metal ladder off the jetty. Its rungs are cold and hard on my feet. I sink backwards off it into the River Dart. The water is turbid but silky. The tide is going out and I swim upstream past the twisting oaks whose long boughs dip into the water like the arms of wizened old ghosts reaching for sustenance. Fronds of bladderwrack float by me in the water. I look up to the Green Hill high above, where I’ve just been. And in that moment, I feel myself fall away.

The ‘Green Hill’ is where my son Felix is buried. My brother James calls it the Green Hill Far Away, recalling the Easter hymn we used to sing as children. Tiny snowdrops appear there in January, fighting their way through the rocky ground and up through the graves. They are followed by primroses and daffodils, then poppies and grasses, legions of grasses swaying on top of the mounds, blown by the wind that travels in over the moor from the Atlantic. These flowers, these grasses, this smooth river that flows below the Green Hill to the sea, they are all beautiful distractions from the fact that his body is buried here. It is down in the impoverished, stony earth below, wrapped in an old linen sheet that I inherited from my mother. There are thirteen

@ Alex Murdin

cowrie shells in with him, too, that we collected on Cornish beaches on countless holidays: one for every member of the family, to keep him company.

I continue to swim upriver, pushing against the outgoing tide, trying to remember Felix’s childhood.

Momentarily, I’m back in our tiny garden in Cambridge, years before all this happened. The apple blossom is out, pink-and-white blobs dotting the ground like confetti as Felix runs around the scrap of lawn, giggling. He’s wearing his T-shirt with the dinosaur on. I’m lying under the tree listening as he screams with delight and huffs and puffs. The sun is warm on my face and I look up through the branches to the blue, cloudless sky above. We’re having a heatwave. A large cardboard box lies on the grass, its flaps open and inviting. He goes up to the box, gets down on his hands and knees, and pulls open one of the flaps, revealing its dark interior. He looks inside and then back at me, questioningly.

‘Go on! In you go!’ I say.

He pulls open the other flap and I watch him disappear inside, making a great show of carefully closing the flaps behind him. Seconds later one of the flaps is punched open and his fist, followed by his face, appears.

‘Ha ha ha ha ha!’ he squeals, thrilled with his performance.

After this, a few more fleeting moments come back to me, but it feels as though my memories are suffocating in a thick sea of mud.

It’s hard work swimming against the current. Being here in this river is both a penance and an act of worship. I need to be here: it is a kind of compulsion but also a distraction, an empty space where nothing has meaning or relevance; a place I can be absent. In the water, I shrink back to a sort of visceral essence of being, rewinding back to Felix when he was part of my body, part of me, grown from me.

@ Alex Murdin

Moving along the shoreline, I notice sea-green lichen all over the banks like mould on a cheese. It sits next to velvety moss, which grows on the exposed tree roots. The water ripples past me, gentle and soothing, making a pleasant sound. I put my face in, holding my breath. Nothing is visible underwater – all I can see through my goggles is briny murk – but the river is soft, poppling against my cheeks. Further up the estuary there is a marshy area where I get out, my feet oozing through the sticky silt as I walk towards firmer ground. Some ducks are visible in the distance and a huge weathered tree trunk lies beached on the shore. I sit on the trunk to rest, choosing a worn section, denuded of bark, a natural seat. Again, my eyes are drawn up to the Green Hill that overlooks the estuary. I can see the trees on the skyline and the oval cob building that sits at the top.

Not long ago we were gathered up there putting Felix’s body in the ground. And a few weeks before that he was a young man just twenty years old. We were a normal family then.

@ Alex Murdin

LEGENDS OF THE LEAF

Have you ever wondered why the leaves of the Swiss cheese plant have holes? How aloe vera came to be harnessed as a medicinal powerhouse? Or why – despite your best efforts – you can’t keep your Venus flytrap alive? You are not alone: houseplant expert Jane Perrone has asked herself those very questions, and in Legends of the Leaf she digs deep beneath the surface to reveal the answers. Along the way, she unearths their hidden histories and the journeys they’ve taken to become prized possessions in our homes. Each houseplant history in this beautifully illustrated collection is accompanied by a detailed care guide and hard-won practical advice, but it is only by understanding their roots that we can truly unlock the secrets to helping plants thrive.

Aloe vera TRUE ALOE

Asphodelaceae

Aloevera is the best known of more than 500 species in the genus, but physically at least, it is far from the most interesting: at 3m or more tall, the bitter aloe, A. ferox, is far more imposing; A. variegata, the tiger aloe, has prettier leaves; and the flowers of the prickly aloe, A. aculeata, are more dramatic. But of all the species profiled in this book, A. vera is the only plant that does double duty as a multi-billion-pound commercial crop and a ubiquitous, much-loved houseplant. And throughout thousands of years of cultivation, A. vera has gathered a huge freight of folklore and claims about its powers – medicinal, nutritional and even spiritual. Yet much about it remains a mystery.

A. vera is one of the stemless, rosette-forming Aloe species, and can grow waist-high in the right soil and climate, although homegrown specimens are more likely to be 30–50cm tall. These are generous plants, throwing out lots of suckers that produce young plants or ‘pups’ around the base of the rosette, which can be pulled away to make new plants. If you don’t own one, ask around and you should be able to find friends or family who will gift you a pup.

When young, the toothed leaves are stippled with silvery marks, which disappear as the plant matures and the leaves grow bigger and more leathery. Botanists haven’t yet put their finger on the exact reason for this variegation, which is common to many Aloe species, but Dr Colin Walker, co-author of Aloes: The Definitive Guide, speculates it may be a strategy to deter herbivores from munching on the young leaves. Grown outdoors, A. vera produces tubular, acid-yellow flowers clustered together on stems that hold them aloft from the leaves, but it rarely blooms when grown indoors in a pot. Unlike some other rosette-forming succulents such as

Sempervivums and most of the Agaves, the plants do not die after flowering.

One place where you will see A. vera in flower is on farms in tropical regions around the world, where it is grown by the billion to feed demand as an ingredient in cosmetics, toiletries and foodstuffs. It features in a mind-boggling array of products, from soaps and moisturisers to drinks and yoghurts, and it’s also sold dried, powdered and as fresh leaves for home processing.

This succulent has been cultivated for so many centuries and become naturalised in so many subtropical and tropical countries, from India to South America, that many nations have claimed A. vera as their own. But its precise ancestral origins have, until very recently at least, remained unclear. Aloe species are found in a range of locations across sub-Saharan Africa, Madagascar and the Arabian peninsula. In 2015, a team of scientists led by Olwen Grace of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and Nina Rønsted of the University of Copenhagen finally provided an answer. DNA analysis of A. vera and other Aloe species allowed Grace and colleagues to narrow down its homelands to the Al-Hajar mountains of north-eastern Oman, in the Arabian peninsula.

Starting to solve the genetic puzzle of A. vera’s ancestry helps to explain its physical characteristics: it evolved to survive the dry climate and rocky, nutrient-poor soils of an arid, mountainous landscape by combining a leathery skin – known as a waxy cuticle – on the outside of the leaves with a fleshy interior. The carbohydrate-loaded tissue that makes up the fleshy part stores water and nutrients the plant can draw on during droughts. This translucent, gel-like substance is cut away from the outer waxy leaf cuticle when the leaves are processed for the commercial market, in a movement similar to filleting a fish. It’s this mucilaginous substance that has earned this species the common name erva-babosa in Brazilian Portuguese, which means ‘slobber herb’.

That is not A. vera’s only product: a yellow liquid, known as exudate, can be extracted from just below the surface of the leaf. I will not attempt to evaluate the vast and sometimes contradictory scientific literature on the effectiveness of A. vera gel and exudate for a bewilderingly huge array of conditions suffered by both humans and livestock, including baldness, headaches, burns, dysentery, stomach ulcers, digestive problems, parasite infestations,

t rue A loe

fever convulsions, radiation burns, genital sores, skin inflammation and cancer. My own use of A. vera is limited to grabbing a leaf and applying the gel to the skin to treat minor burns.

I am even less qualified to validate A. vera’s other application, as a talisman reputed to bring good luck and fend off evil. I came across numerous examples of this practice across various cultures and time periods, with a concentration in South America and Egypt. Egyptologist Edward William Lane reported in 1825 the ‘very common custom’ of hanging an Aloe over the doorways of homes ‘as a charm to ensure long and flourishing lives to the inmates, and long continuance to the house itself’. In 2015, anthropologist Dr Nicholas C. Kawa saw an A. vera hanging in a shop in Iquitos, Peru. When asked, the bodega owner told him, ‘It’s to keep the bad vibes (malas vibras) away.’ A few years earlier, ethnobotanists reported in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology that Spanish-speaking Latino immigrants in London grew A. vera in pots by their doors for the same reason. It has also been used as a boundary marker and a grave plant in the Middle East: Gilbert Reynolds’ 1966 book The Aloes of Tropical Africa and Madagascar records that Aloe is grown in Egypt ‘especially as a cemetery plant, and sometimes as boundary marks demarcating fields’.

To delve into the first documented references to this plant, we need to go back to the first century AD, when Greek physician and botanist Pedanius Dioscorides wrote De Materia Medica, his five-volume work on medicinal plants. The original document has been lost to history, but a parchment dating to AD 512 known as the Codex Aniciae julianae contains the first known image of A. vera. It looks remarkably like the one I have in my sunroom, barring the fat flower spike. There are many claims for A. vera’s fame even before the sixth century, including impossible-to-verify stories that Cleopatra used the plant in her beauty regimen, and the Ancient Egyptians used it as part of the process of embalming bodies. Was this A. vera, or some other member of the Aloes? We may never know, but the cumulative historic power of the A. vera story has cemented this plant as deserving of the title of true aloe.

Does A. vera possess any qualities or ingredients that render it more powerful than any other Aloe? Olwen Grace and the other scientists who located its origins believe its preeminence is more a case

Aloe ver A

of geography: true aloe originated close to important historic trade routes, and came into cultivation earlier than other species with similar qualities. Some Aloe experts even postulate that A. vera’s reluctance to flower and eagerness to send out suckers to create new plants may indicate that this species is in fact a hybrid: a cross between two Aloe species dating so far back that its parentage has been lost.

CARE GUIDE

Light Your sunniest windowsill is ideal for this plant, although it sustains itself in a gloomy corner without keeling over provided you get watering and substrate right (see below). The grey-green leaves sometimes take on a reddish tinge if underwatered or suddenly exposed to more light than they’re used to. If your plant gets leggy, it’s probably not getting enough light.

Temperature It will take as much heat as you can throw at it in summer. But A. vera needs a dormant period in winter, brought on by lowering temperatures to around 10–15°C (50–59°F) and allowing the potting mix to dry out almost completely.

Water During the growing season, water generously. From November to March, leave the substrate just shy of dry, particularly if the plant is being kept cool.

Humidity Perfectly adapted to cope with dry air.

Pests and diseases Mealybugs are probably its number one enemy.

Substrate Aloe vera roots are adapted to live in rocky, free-draining ground. As houseplants, they benefit from a potting mix containing half drainage material (perlite, grit) and half a regular houseplant mix such as John Innes No. 2.

Propagation It’s not possible to propagate A. vera from an individual leaf. Nevertheless, propagation is easy: plants produce numerous pups or young plants from around the base of the rosette. Carefully tease these away and repot separately in gritty compost.

Feeding Use a half strength houseplant feed or specialist cactus and succulent feed occasionally when the plant is in active growth.

Other maintenance tasks Pull away dead leaves from the base

t rue A loe

only when they are completely desiccated.

Danger signs Leaves may become soft and puckered when the plant is left without water for long stretches, although similar symptoms can show signs of root rot caused by overwatering, so check the rootball before watering. Weak, spindly growth often occurs when plants do not receive enough sunlight. Plants may turn pale if exposed to low temperatures, or if suddenly moved from shade to bright sunlight.

Toxicity Toxic to pets; while A. vera extracts are present in many dietary supplements and other products, research is ongoing as to their possible health benefits and risks to humans: in 2015, A. vera whole leaf extract was classified by the International Agency for

Research on Cancer as a possible human carcinogen.

Display Planting in a terracotta pot will allow more air to access the roots; if you use plastic or glazed china, it’s all the more important to ensure your potting mix is free draining. Leaves that rest on the edges of the pot tend to rot. It’s an aesthetic decision whether you prefer your A. vera to stand alone as an architectural feature, or to leave pups to proliferate and create a clump.

Cultivars None.

Also try… There are many Aloe species and hybrids that make wonderful houseplants: the many-leaved aloe, A. polyphylla, is worth growing for its fractal-shaped rosettes, while the tiger tooth aloe, Aloe juvenna, is compact enough for the narrowest windowsill.

All illustrations @ Helen Entwisle

Nephrolepis exaltata ‘Bostoniensis’: Boston fern

Oxalis triangularis: false shamrock

Spathiphyllum: peace lily

Saxifraga stolonifera: strawberry saxifrage

THE LOW ROAD

The Low Road is a gripping, atmospheric novel that bring to life the forgotten voices of the early eighteenth century – convicts, servants, the rural poor – as well as being a moving evocation of love that blossomed in the face of prejudice and ill fortune. It follows the story of Hannah Tyrell, an orphaned young woman whose tragic upbringing leads her to the Refuge for the Destitute in London, where she meets a fellow resident, Annie Simpkins. The two women’s friendship deepens into passionate love, but when they’re caught stealing from the Refuge and sentenced to transportation to Botany Bay, their lives are set on separate paths that may never cross again. Here, author Katharine Quarmby writes about the real figures and events that inspired her novel.

The story behind The Low Road caught my attention seven years ago, when I was visiting my parents in the Waveney Valley, which runs between the border of the East Anglian counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. I came across a reference to one Mary Tyrell, who in 1813 had been buried on the parish boundary, between Harleston and Redenhall at a place known as Lush Bush.

The inquest on Mary had recorded a verdict of ‘felo de se’ (selfmurder), as she had taken poison after being accused of infanticide. As the Norfolk Chronicle recorded at the time, the punishment was brutal after the verdict was passed on her dead body at the Swan Inn: ‘On the same evening about seven o’clock she was buried in the high road with a stake driven through her body in the presence of a vast concourse of people.’

In his churchwarden’s accounts, published in 1896, Charles Candler reported more details that he had obtained from an old man who had witnessed the burial when he was a very young boy:

Creeping between the legs of the men who stood close round the grave, he saw in the gloom of the evening the parish constable fix the stake in position, while another drove it home with a heavy beetle, Mr. Oldershaw sitting his horse in silent charge of the proceedings.

A daughter survived, known only as A. T. I traced her to the Refuge for the Destitute in Hackney, where the good people of Harleston had sent her. An April 1817 entry in the Minute Book for the Refuge for the Destitute, which I found in the Hackney Archives, recorded in fine handwriting:

A person attended from Mr Fox, attending Ann Tyrrell, who stated that the mother had destroyed herself, that the Girl had then given herself to all kinds of pilfering. The mother had murdered one of her children and in the face of apprehension destroyed herself. The girl stated to the Committee that she was now sensible that her mother had committed an Iniquity and that she begged to be admitted. The girl is illegitimate. Admitted.

With the flourish of the Clerk’s pen, Ann Tyrrell became an Object at the Refuge – and what a life she led, both before and after. First, she met another destitute, Anne Simpkins. According to academic research about the Refuge, there were a number of

loving same-sex relationships there that were harshly punished but unsuccessfully repressed. In The Low Road, the two girls fall in love.

In December 1821, they stole laundry from the Refuge, but were caught, stood trial at the Old Bailey and were sentenced to transportation. They went first to the Millbank Penitentiary, survived marsh fever and were transferred to the prison hulks before being pardoned in 1824. They then went ‘on the town’ as prostitutes.

The last archive entry I found for them, in the Harleston parish records from 1828, revealed more. The Superintendent of the Refuge, Joseph Hoskin, wrote to Harleston attorney Henry Fox that ‘A. T. had been prevented by the Laws of her Country from producing the fruits of gratitude’ – meaning that she had been transported to Botany Bay. So, what happened to Ann in between, before she was exiled? And what happened after?

The trail had gone cold, so I decided to novelise Ann’s story, but base it firmly on a mosaic of the lives of men and women who were exiled in the largest forced migration in British history. I am indebted to many historians in Australia and the UK for their help and advice in doing so.

At its heart, The Low Road is about uncovering lost histories: the stories of poor women from rural areas, the stories of the imprisoned, the stories of convicts sent to penal colonies, the stories of people who often left no records as a result of illiteracy and hardship. It also contains an important strand of narrative that explores experiences left out of the history books: a same-sex romance that evolves into a marriage of sorts two centuries before this was legally possible.

Find The Low Road on page 111

AU REVOIR NOW DARLINT: AN INTERVIEW WITH LAURA THOMPSON

Au Revoir Now Darlint narrates the events that led to Edith Thompson’s execution in 1923, with her letters collected in print for the first time and published to coincide with the centenary of her death.

Here Laura talks to Unbound’s publisher, John Mitchinson, about her life-long fascination with Edith and her story.

John Mitchinson: When did you first become aware of Edith Thompson?

Laura Thompson: In my early teens I read Agatha Christie’s Crooked House, which uses Edith - and the murder case in which she featured – as a kind of motif. I was intrigued, not least by the coincidence of the surname (in fact there is no family connection). Then I read the 1934 F. Tennyson Jesse novel A Pin to See the Peepshow, a fictionalized account of Edith’s life. A lot of invention but the basic, amazingly powerful story is there: of a bright-spirited woman, circumscribed by class, who finds an outlet in writing remarkable, imaginative letters to her lover, a merchant seaman some years her junior. He kills her husband and, because of the letters – and the interpretation placed upon them at her trial – she too is condemned for the murder. Edith has been under my skin ever since; in truth, in all those years, barely a week has gone by when I haven’t thought about her.

What was it about the case that compelled you to write Rex v Thompson?

The Ilford Murder, as it was called at the time, is apparently a classic ‘eternal triangle’ crime – committed to remove an unwanted spouse – but it presents many variants on that theme. For a start, the killing itself… The trial verdict accepted that it was a long-planned joint enterprise between Edith and her lover Freddy Bywaters, but the evidence for this is barely existent. Actually it seemed to happen out of nowhere. So why did Freddy do it? Did he even intend murder? Was Edith entirely innocent? If not, what was the nature, and substance, of her guilt?

It seemed to me that there was a lot more to say about it all; plus I had some new information from Home Office files sealed under the 100 year rule, opened slightly prematurely. When, this year, I came to write my commentary to Edith’s letters, I found that I was still thinking about the case and finding new complexities.

The letters are the heart of the story – that in itself is unique – and, because they are subject to interpretation, they are almost infinitely interesting. And then: Edith and Freddy themselves. They were compelling, glamorous people, both of whom transcended - up to a point - their lower-middle-class East London origins, and had the capacity to lead fulfilling lives. Freddy, gallant yet thuggish, is a conundrum. And Edith’s complex personality has always spoken directly to me.

What is it about the letters that made you think they are worthy of reprinting in full?

They seem to me, firstly, a record of a woman’s life, the kind of ‘ordinary’ woman whose words would never normally be published. Her desire to be extraordinary was expressed through these letters; she sought a kind of autonomy through them and, because of them, she lost every last vestige of it. They prove the power of words. Not just how important they were to Edith, but their effect upon a reader. How did Freddy receive what she wrote? How, in particular, did he interpret the passages about poisoning Percy Thompson, the Lady Macbeth-like reiteration that they must not ‘fail’? And then, of course, the letters were evidence in a murder trial, where their interpretation became – effectively – a matter of

life and death. Edith’s words were subject to a particular kind of literary criticism: one that took them absolutely literally. In this book I too seek to analyse them, as honestly and best as I can. But readers will have their own opinions, which will be equally valid.

Most importantly, however, I think that the letters are worth reprinting for themselves. Edith was a natural born writer. Her sentences tumble on to the page, in a stream-of-consciousness flow that is almost painfully alive; ‘the untutored kin of Ulysses with a pagan Lawrentian sensuality’, as I put it in the book. She has a gift for a phrase – I particularly love when she says to Freddy: ‘I just tried to make you live in my life’ – that is so instinctual, so immediate, one can still sense the outbreath on which she conceived it… to me that is magical.

Quite simply, her voice deserves to be heard.

You have written that Edith was ‘hanged for adultery’. What was it that the Establishment found so shocking about her?

When you look at the actual concrete evidence against her, there is nothing. But she became, as people sometimes do, a scapegoat for a sense of societal unease. She touched nerves, in both men and women, and at the root of it was that thing the English cannot really deal with: sexuality.

Specifically, in 1922, there was a post-war panic about moral decline, a desire to return to old certainties: Edith became an emblem of a future that nobody yet dared confront. She rejected the role of wife and mother. She had a successful career, she was seriously attractive, she had two men at a time when many women had none, she had a lover more than eight years her junior, she had no children, she lacked the protection of class and connections but was too aspirational to arouse pity, and she was apparently shameless in her focus upon herself – she was much that this country dislikes, and a hundred years ago such loathing was lethal.

And the letters symbolized it all. When they became part of the evidence at her trial, she was finished. So immoral were they deemed to be – such a frank celebration of illicit love - that it was easy to trace in them a conspiracy to that other outrage: murder.

What is it about her story that remains relevant today?

She was a person – a woman – who did not fit, who was a bit ‘too much’, who was deemed to have transgressed, who wrote things of which orthodoxy disapproved, and who was cancelled. The resonances are extraordinary. Although today, thank God, the stakes are lower.

Had Edith lived what do you think she might have done with her life?

Percy Thompson was killed on 3 October 1922, and two days later Freddy Bywaters was supposed to sail with his ship. Had he done so, with Percy still alive, then the relationship with Edith would – surely, eventually – have run out of steam; Edith might then have ‘settled down’, settled for ordinary life, as the raging desires within her were calmed by compromise and disappointment. Of course I prefer to think that she would have pursued her managerial career, at which she was very accomplished, separated from Percy, and even found a different outlet for her writing. It is possible. The world was changing. But whether it was changing fast enough to benefit Edith, a woman born in 1893, trapped by both class and gender… I’m not sure. Had she been reprieved, and released perhaps in her 40s, she would probably have lived out her days quietly with her sister, who remained unmarried and who said, in 1973, ‘I still expect her to come walking through the door’.

©

HOW TO BE A GOOD BBOY

It’s not always easy to live your life with kindness, but human rights activist Ellen Murray and her cat Bilbo have always done their best to share messages of positivity with their 123,000 Twitter followers (@thegoodcatboy). As an LGBT+ and disability activist, Ellen’s goal is to make love, care and safety a reality for all. How to Be a Good Bboy is her accessible guide to understanding human rights work: what it’s all about, how to get involved, how to fight for your own rights and – just as importantly – how to be an ally to others.

Being a cat is easy, or so they say in the papers. I’m lucky enough to have a cat of my own, a bright orange ginger boy who turned seven years old in August 2021. Bilbo, his name since birth, is fairly large as cats go, and his fur is a delightful mix of vibrant oranges and whites. During his years on this earth, he has amassed over a hundred thousand fans on the internet, raised tens of thousands of pounds for good causes and young artists, been recognised in press and parliaments, and grown a community of caring people who keep up with everything he’s up to. Bilbo’s my darling boy, and he’s a treasure.

© Ellen Murray

Being a human rights activist is also easy, or so they say in the papers. I’ve been involved in human rights work since 2013, when I was nineteen years old and a naïve university student living alone for the first time. I fell into this particular rabbit hole mostly by chance, and though I have made a meagre wage for most of my career so far, I developed a deep fascination and love for the work, which has helped keep me going to the present day. As I’ll explore in the chapters ahead, my start in this work was not typical or secure, nor was it the culmination of years of study or a life goal. My health – and increasing lack of it – have influenced my work greatly, and I’ve been lucky to learn a lot about myself, human rights, and society in general throughout it all. As my colleagues will reliably attest, my screw-ups are at least as numerous as my success stories, and I often feel like I’ve bullshitted my way into the rooms I get access to. Looking at the hundreds of other activists I’ve talked to during my career, none of this is unusual, but I want to begin this book by setting expectations. Although in this book I will explore themes that I hope readers find useful, unless I’m talking about my own experiences, nothing I say is authoritative, nor should it be. Although I do advise people – two of my roles until recently were to advise the UK and Northern Ireland governments on LGBTQ topics – I leave it up to the reader to deduce their own paths forward, because the type of human rights work that we do individually will always be best informed by our own circumstances, safety, and beliefs.

This book is about being a cat, and about being a human rights defender. It’s about how you might dip your toe into this sort of work for the first time, and about how the world is changing to bring new dynamics to the work I do, both for the better and for the worse. It’s about cynicism, radicalisation, despair and recovery, and it’s about the lies we tell ourselves about the work we do. It’s about love, joy and kindness, and about how these are all at the core of what Bilbo and I

© Ellen Murray

do, with our work together as individuals who try to make folks a little happier and more comforted over the internet. Due to the limitations of science in the 2020s, I will not be covering how to become a cat.

To address the title of this book: ‘bboy’ means ‘boy’ in a very particular form of internet cat-speak, developed from decades of online cat culture and adapted for Bilbo. You can pronounce it ‘boy’, ‘buh-boy’ or ‘bee-boy’, whatever makes your heart happiest. My name is Ellen, traditionally a woman’s name, so readers may be fairly questioning my knowledge in how to be a good bboy. I have two things on my side which grant me the expertise for a book like this: my co-author is the quintessential model of a good bboy, and I won a trophy emblazoned ‘Boy of the Year’ in primary school in 2004. I have the qualifications, thank you very much.

MIND THE INCLUSION GAP

While most of us are curious about diversity, and some would go so far as to call ourselves allies, very few of us are skilled in inclusion. Instead, we double down on being nice and hope it will be enough. With Mind the Inclusion Gap, Suzy Levy has written a book that gives the reader everyday skills that allow them to play a meaningful role in shaping an inclusive future. This book is not about beating yourself up if you’re not taking the kind of action you aspire to take and if you’re not being the kind of ally you aspire to be. It’s also not about judgement. It presents are rare opportunity to pause, to learn, to feel empowered and, ultimately, to take action in shaping a world that we all want to be part of.

Protests erupt after a young Iranian woman is arrested for not wearing a hijab and dies in police custody. A young Black American man is gunned down in broad daylight during a midday jog by a white father and son in a truck. Two women are left bloody and bruised on a London bus because they refused to kiss each other for the pleasure of a group of men watching. Tuning into world affairs be an exercise in despair. We live in troubled times, and we face some significant world problems.

But we also live in exciting times. Never before in history have we been so close to building a society based upon decency and fundamental human rights. Today we are having tough (but stimulating) conversations about fairness and equality. We are actively engaging in conflicts that have long been there, but for the most part, we were not willing to air or explore. This exploration is both daunting and exciting. It’s daunting because expectations are rising that we must work together to fix what is broken. But deeply divided and deeply entrenched views mean we aren’t on the same page about what needs fixing, or how to fix it. It’s exciting because underneath all the drama lies opportunity.

The conversation about diversity, inclusion, equality and the future of our world is playing out in a very visible way, but how many of us are skilled enough to participate in meaningful conversations?

Where can we go to learn how to navigate the divisive and nuanced aspects of inclusion? Or better yet, how do we know what action we can take to make a difference?

Mind the Inclusion Gap is for anyone who wants to dive into the complex task of supporting diversity. It will build confidence and practical know-how to help the reader navigate a way forward with some of the most complex issues of our time, including:

The shadow of our past: Revisiting history through the lens of diversity isn’t always an enjoyable experience, but understanding the events of our past, and how they continue to shape our experience today, is a critical step in solving pervasive inequality.

The strength of social norms: Whether we are talking gender norms which guide the accepted behaviours for women and men (and at the same time stoke fear of and aggression toward the trans community), or the invisible norms of whiteness, the steady state of heteronormativity, or the lack of constraints felt by those without a disability, social norms silently shape our existence until they become seen as truths. But they are malleable and mouldable and shaped by commonplace attitudes.

The inextricable link between the world and the workplace: Workplace diversity programmes are plentiful, but they are also commonly limited in scope, neglecting to cater for the experience ‘diverse’ individuals have in the wider world. From men’s violence against women and girls, to the gaping imbalance around who does laundry and domestic chores, or the pervasive nature of racism and homophobia, we shine a light on some of the parts of our society that we are often too ashamed to face.

The messy side to inclusion: Focusing on the inclusion agenda has created a number of fears, including fear of reverse discrimination, fear of taking the agenda ‘too far’, and fear of ‘cancelling’ individuals because they hold a difference of opinion. But are these fears grounded in facts?

The impact of competing belief systems: There are, at times, infighting between, and within, diverse groups. Who wins in the fight between religious freedom and LGBTQ+ rights? Is the existence of trans women a threat to cis women and the feminist fight?

The mistake of seeing inclusion as simply being ‘nice’: In the absence of confidence, and skills in inclusion, many of us lean on being a nice person. But being nice and being inclusive are not the same thing. ‘Nice’ people often unwittingly hinder progress and steer clear of important conversations in their attempt to see both sides and avoid conflict.

The gap between aspiration and action: Whether we are an activist or a racist, or sit somewhere in a neutral middle, we are each playing a role. But for many of us who are curious, or who aspire to be an advocate or ally, there is often a gap between our aspiration and the action we take.

The actions an ally can take to make a difference: There is a growing expectation for us all to be inclusive, but what does it actually mean? What are the skills required to operate in an inclusive manner, and do they differ between diverse groups? Knowing what action to take is often difficult – it requires nuanced understanding (that so few of us have time to build), it takes stamina and courage (because we will be course corrected if we get it wrong), and it takes long-term intent and a willingness to build trusted, high-affinity relationships with people who are different from ourselves.

The joy and hope: Allyship isn’t singular and it isn’t fixed. Sometimes we are the ally, and sometimes we are the one in need of support. Nor is allyship just about hard work. Allyship brings joy, wonder and the beauty of human connection – it’s part of what makes this such an interesting life.

Find Mind the Inclusion Gap on page 104

61

© Glen Swart

HOW YOUR BRAIN IS WIRED

In the last fifteen years or so, there has been an explosion of understanding around how the brain really works. It has been shown that 95 per cent of brain activity carries on at a subconscious level, so we’re not always aware of why we think and act as we do. In How Your Brain Is Wired, awardwinning behavioural change expert Crawford Hollingworth and researcher Cathy Tomlinson examine the influence of these subconscious wirings – also known as cognitive biases – and show how we can take control over our own behaviour to lead a more positive and rewarding life. Read on for their preview of the most powerful biases covered by the book.

A Brief Look at How Your Brain Is Wired

No one is immune. Our brains are wired to make us behave in certain ways:

• to stick to the same old behaviour and avoid change

• to find it hard to re-evaluate an opinion

• to normalise what was once new and exciting

• to be future-focused, always questing for more

• to operate on autopilot, making time rush by faster

• to pay particular attention to negative things

• to believe ourselves to be nicer and more industrious than other people

Sound familiar? Our brains are contradictory creatures. Imagine how much richer and more rewarding life might be if sometimes we were able to short-circuit one or two of these wirings, even if just for a moment. Many of the biases we discuss in the book cause us to think, behave and remember in certain, often irrational, ways. They are what make us fallible human beings. Some of them work on our sense of self and

our place in the world. They can give us an inflated sense of our own importance, as the egocentric bias does, convincing us that we are the most important creatures in our universe, that our opinions are the correct opinions and that how we live and act is the right way to live and act. There’s confirmation bias too, which drives us to seek out only the information that confirms our own opinions rather than looking at the whole picture – a risky bias to defer to in a world chock-full of disinformation and fake news.

Some biases affect the way we remember past events; retrospective impact bias, for example, allows us to remember past events in a more positive light, prompting us to repeat previous life choices and then make the same mistakes all over again.

And there are more – many more – biases, which behavioural psychologists have explored, tested and retested, defined and brought to life over the last few years. In our book, we deconstruct some of the most powerful biases and reveal how simple changes, designed to counter or short-circuit them, can help you to:

• be a better listener

• be more conscious of your behaviour

• check negative character traits

• encode outgoing communications more effectively

• decode incoming communications less pessimistically

• approach situations with a more positive mindset

• manage conflict more successfully

• breathe new life into old

• stop negative waves and trigger positive ones

• have more fun

1. Autopilot

We’re wired to be on automatic and most of what we do is on autopilot. Many scientists estimate that around 95 per cent of brain activity occurs at a subconscious level. We show how to occasionally shift to manual control and make a deliberate point of being more conscious of the moment.

2. The Reciprocity Bias

We’re wired with the tendency to behave towards others as they behave to us. This wiring is also known as ‘Practise what you preach’ and ‘Do as you would be done by’. The words are familiar and perhaps sometimes this means that we don’t give the idea much headspace,

don’t really credit it with having much of an impact on our lives. In fact, the opposite is true. If you work through the familiarity and pull the concept to the front of your mind, you will see how much power it has. We guide people to use this wiring more purposefully in order to create positive waves or stop negative waves.

3. The Status Quo Bias

We’re wired with the tendency to maintain the status quo and avoid change. It’s because we like our lives to be dependably predictable and don’t much enjoy putting our heads over the parapet. There is no doubt that the occasional shake-up can pepper our lives with new energy and a little uncertainty. And it’s the element of the unknown, the frisson of excitement, danger and adventure involved in countering this tendency that makes it fun to challenge. Rock the boat in order to open new doors and create new opportunities.

4. The Egocentric Bias

We’re wired to be self-serving with a tendency to view ourselves and our actions through rose-tinted glasses. Having an awareness of the egocentric bias in operation in your life – in your communications, in your opinions, in your interactions – and trying to be especially conscious of it, will allow you to be more sensitive to other people. It will make you more open and draw other people to you; it might make you more relaxed; it should make you a better listener and help to resolve conflict situations sooner.

5. The Normalising Bias

We’re all wired to make new stuff old hat – to normalise things. Adaptation is obviously an important and clever part of our brain’s function. It allows us to be more cognitively efficient, to learn and not to have to relearn over and over, and to move on. However, from time to time it can be helpful to challenge this adaptation because it can inure us to parts of our daily lives that it would be a shame to waste. It’s salutary to refocus on people (as well as all the other stuff in our lives –our possessions, our homes, our jobs, all the stuff we do) just to make sure we are not taking them for granted, and if we find that we are, to take steps to rewind and refresh the essential elements of our lives.

DARK

Ever wanted to know more about the Big Bang but didn’t have Brian Cox’s email address? Ever wanted to cry out, ‘What on Earth is a black hole?’ but been afraid you’d be shouting into the abyss? Ever wanted to know how gravity works but never found the book to pull you in?

Well, have no fear: DARK is an easily digestible beginner’s guide to the Universe in a handy A to Z format. What’s more, it’s presented in a beautifully designed package, so you’ll want to keep it out on display, dipping in to check exactly when it is that Earth is likely to be engulfed by the furnace of the Sun.

universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow

EDEN PHILLPOTTS A Shadow Passes

“The

sharper.”

Black Holes IS FOR

“The black hole teaches us that space can be crumpled like a piece of paper into an infinitesimal dot, that time can be extinguished like a blown-out flame, and that the laws of physics that we regard as ‘sacred,’ as immutable, are anything but.”

JOHN WHEELER

Copernican Revolution IS FOR

@ Andreas Brooks

“The Universe is a pretty big place. If it’s just us, seems like an awful waste of space.”

CARL SAGAN

A PLEASANT ILLNESS: THOUGHTS FROM THE DESK OF A VINYL NERD

Tom Cox’s masterful debut novel synthesises his passion for music, nature and folklore and is written to the soundtrack of a Calafornian folk musician. Here, Tom considers his own evolution as a music lover by reflecting on his ever-changing record collection. Villager will be published in paperback in March 2023.

I have been in a huge, even-moretime-consuming-than-I’d-thoughtit-would-be phase of fine-tuning my record collection recently. I’d call it a spring clean, if it hadn’t gone on since long before spring and I felt totally confident that it is going to be 100% finished before summer. Part of my motivation comes from two conflicting factors: I don’t intend to stop buying records and my house is only big enough to host so many of them. But I’d be lying if my everincreasing zest for editing wasn’t behind it too. In a way, it’s another version of the trimming and purifying I do when I’m working on a book. During the spring clean, I try to be really honest with myself about the music I love, and the music I really need in my life. Am I holding onto an LP purely because it’s got a great cover, or because I’ve always felt I should like it more, or because I feel a little sorry for it? Would it not be better to trade these three albums I think are… quite nice for the early pressing that I’ve always wanted of an album that attaches electrodes to my all senses then massages treacle into them? The aim is inevitably a kind of perfectionism, even though I know that, with the music you own, perfection is not possible. After all, a record collection – mine, anyway – is a constantly evolving narrative. How could it not be, when I am, too? However strongly held some of my musical views are, I have learned that they are far from concrete. I’ve bought and sold certain albums three times over the years before their intricate brilliance has

finally hit me. I’ve also tried far too hard to like other records. I always hugely enjoy the initial part of the spring clean – pulling everything from the shelves and remembering just how much transcendental magic is in there – but eventually it leads to a kind of brain fog, especially if you’ve also acquired a few new records around the same time. You’ve test-driven so many albums, your judgement has become impaired, and because of this, the simplification and honesty you are aiming for can never be achieved. I tend to think of this as ‘Notorious Byrd Brothers Time’. It’s time to clear your mind by putting on a record you don’t need to evaluate, a record you have loved just as much ever since you first heard it – one of those records, in my case, being the pristine early pressing of the fifth Byrds album, 1968’s The Notorious Byrd Brothers, which my uncle Chris generously gave me in exchange for my CD reissue of the same record back in the late 90s.

I am more narrow than I once was as a music listener and much broader. It’s quite difficult to explain precisely how it works. I have a stronger idea of what I like and of what I don’t, yet I’m also more tolerant of everything far outside the centre of my taste, more eager to be surprised, less desperately in need of words with my melodies, keener on jazz, much more tolerant of blues than I ever imagined I could be when I was in my 20s, more willingly to be carried off into distant parts of the world and, frequently, into outer space itself (I’ve never loved early Hawkwind more). It’s probably a blindingly obvious realisation but it only hit home quite recently that it’s not exactly an everyday existence, this life I have spent as a music lover, even though it’s no less obsessive or involved than those led by countless others. I have bought records and listened to music on – if you ignore my sporty teen years and a small, less vinyl-dominated spell shortly after I quit my job as a music critic in the early 00s – a near constant basis my entire life. I have been unusually lucky in meeting and speaking to so many other music obsessives and musicians, getting so many recommendations, plus having jobs where I largely choose my own hours and often get to spend time rooting around in piles of old vinyl. After several decades of that, you are inevitably altered. It becomes a pleasant kind of illness. You are not the same as someone who puts a record on once a week. ‘You know the problem with us, Tom,’ a fellow writer said to me a couple of years ago. ‘We have heard too much music.’ That fact might be true. A problem, though? Nah. There are definitely very good records that, because they are fixed in one time of my life and I have heard a thousand times, I don’t feel I need to listen to again and some OK records that I might no longer spend as much time as I once did trying to convince myself are very good records, but

I am keener to hear new (often actually quite old) things than ever. The excitement, when it really hits, is much bigger than it once was. Of course, I don’t know for sure that this is true, because I can’t remember precisely how I felt when I was 17 or 25 and discovered a piece of brilliant music that was totally new to me, but I feel it’s true, and that’s the important thing. In my time-travel fantasies, I also sometimes think about going back to the two inexpensive shops in Nottingham where I first began to build my second-hand record collection, with the stock they had then at the prices it was then and with the eyes and ears that I have now, and discover all the gems I overlooked. But that would be cheating. Only a rare-record-buying genius gets gifted with that kind of foresight. I probably thought I was pretty on it back then, making my way home with a bag of vinyl, gradually discovering all the undiscovered records. I’d probably have it licked in a couple of years, I probably presumed. All done. All the good records heard. But what I didn’t realise is it’s never over. More music just leads to more music, makes you hear new things in other things, then makes you want to know other things associated with those things. You go wider, and wider. You’ve got to do some editing from time to time. You’ve got to aim for some kind of perfection, even though you know it doesn’t exist, even though you know you can contradict yourself, thwart yourself. It’s a temporary order you have to try to impose, not out of being narrow, or snobbish, or elitist, or exclusive, or small-minded. You do it for one simple reason: to stop your brain from entirely exploding.

You can order and listen to a sample of the soundtrack to Villager at rjmckendree.bandcamp.com

Find Villager on page

THE BREXIT TAPES

Brextorians had long suspected that at the time of the Brexit negotiations, a series of audio recordings were made by and of government officials. In the year 3563, their suspicions were confirmed with the discovery of the first cache of tapes: conversations in the halls of Westminster and in private residences, secretly recorded in direct contravention of privacy laws. In The Brexit Tapes, compiled by leading Brextorian John Bull, these transcripts appear in print for the first time in history…

© Ollie Mann

[Downing Street]

MAY: So how does the Brexit vote look?

LIDINGTON: Thirty votes.

MAY: Okay. That’s not as bad as I thought. If we lose by that, I can survive.

LIDINGTON: No, that’s how many votes we’d get.

MAY: Oh. Oh.

LIDINGTON: Yes. Sorry. Wait… it’s twenty-nine. I keep counting Grant Shapps twice. ***

[An allotment. The same time]

STARMER: Gentlemen, I’ve done the maths and the Tories are going to lose.

CORBYN: <Wise grin>

McDONNELL: Well, this is it. What do we do, Jez? Go for no-confidence? J. K. Rowling’s on Twitter saying we should call for a ‘People’s Vote’.

CORBYN: [Scribbling]

STARMER: He’s drawing! It’s…

McDONNELL: It’s a picture of Dobby the House Elf.

STARMER: What does that mean?

McDONNELL: Thank you for your counsel, oh wise one.

CORBYN: <Serene look>

McDONNELL: We will ponder this and take action. ***

[En route to Parliament. A little later]

STARMER: It’s a picture of Dobby.

McDONNELL: I know what it is.

STARMER: What does it mean?

McDONNELL: Well, I don’t fucking know, Keir. You know Jez. He’s… what do you call it? In… in—

STARMER: Infuriating?

McDONNELL: Inscrutable.

STARMER: So, what are we meant to do, then? We don’t have a plan.

McDONNELL: Wait. I’ve got an idea…

STARMER: What are you doing?

McDONNELL: I’m taking a photo of the Dobby picture.

STARMER: Why?

McDONNELL: Because we don’t have to know what it means, Keir.

STARMER: I still don’t get it.

McDONNELL: <Click> I’m simply going to email it to every fucker in Parliament and let Rorschach do the rest. ***

[A conference room. Five minutes later]

REES-MOGG: And what I really want to know is why nobody talks about men’s rights…

CHOPE: Moggy, look!

REES-MOGG: Dobby! You know what this means?

CHOPE: Do tell!

REES-MOGG: Dobby is a reminder that everyone should know their place. Send word to all! Letters must go in! The ERG are going to war!

CHOPE: Huzzah! ***

[In Paris. Simultanément]

AIDE: Mon president! Regardez!

MACRON: C’est Dobby!

AIDE: Oui. Un Dobby magnifique.

MACRON: Dobby is a symbol of fraternity among all beings. I was wrong. Raise the minimum wage.

AIDE: En anglais?!

MACRON: Oh, don’t make such a big thing about it, René. It was just easier.

[In Cabinet. The same time]

AMBER RUDD: Prime Minister, if we lose this vote there’ll be chaos. Markets will tumble. Panic will reign.

GOVE: <Lich wail>

MAY: Michael says that isn’t as bad as it sounds.

RUDD: Of course he does! He’s an undead horror!

GOVE: <Sorrowful mewling>

RUDD: Sorry Michael. ‘Eldritch being.’

GOVE: <Happy gurgle>

RUDD: I’m just… wait. Did you all get that email?

GRAYLING: Oh! What a lovely Dobby picture!

MAY: Is that by Jeremy?! Shit.

GRAYLING: The linework is glorious.

MAY: Dobby is a symbol of the oppressed masses. Labour are about to act. Hook the vote!

LIDINGTON: But Prime Minister… MAY: Do it now!

WHEN GRIEF EQUALS LOVE

When Lizzie Pickering’s young son Harry died in 2000, she set out on a journey to understand how she could survive her grief and learn to live with it. In When Grief Equals Love, she details the lessons she’s learned from her own experiences and those of others, who share their thoughts in this moving and tender book. Lizzie opens her diaries, written in the early years after Harry’s death, revealing her observations on the grief of his siblings and family, what helped and what hurt. Later in the book she provides a toolkit based on what has sustained her and what she recommends to the clients and companies she now helps with grief guidance. When Grief Equals Love is for those going through grief and anyone who might need to support them. There are no easy answers, but living with grief can still be living.

When we talk about grief it is natural to think about grief for someone who has died. But as the world is finding out now, grief is experienced in so many situations: death, divorce, diagnosis, workplace change. The ripple effects of Covid-19 on individuals, on society and our shared loss of freedom. The refugee crisis with loss of home and community. Racial grief and ancestral grief. Loss of the past, present and future. Anticipatory grief through a terminal diagnosis. And the big one – cumulative grief, when many of these come one after the other and life experiences pile up and become too much to bear.

Over the last twenty-two years, through working for twelve years in the children’s hospice world, and more recently helping companies deal with change, I have listened to many people describing both the mental and physical effects of grief and, most importantly, what has helped them survive their grief; in many cases finding a healthy relationship with it from which to grow and even thrive. Each and every one of them has required a different toolkit to survive,

experiencing different effects and responses depending on their situation, DNA, neurodiversity, metabolism, diet, family and their individuality. Each of these responses has created potential difficulties for those around the grieving to cope, to walk beside them and to empathise. I have seen people turn away from the grief of their friends and I have personally witnessed friends walk away from me and turn the other cheek when they couldn’t cope with my grief. I have also felt the bonds of the friends who could withstand the effects of my loss, and the strength of the community around me. I have listened to my ‘grief tribe’, those of us living in a parallel world to those who don’t understand, tell their stories of survival and I have marvelled at the depths of sorrow and the heights of joy we humans can endure.

I have also witnessed and experienced survivor’s strength; the joy of breathing again, the joy of living and thriving when it was never deemed possible. How I personally went from the moments just after my eldest son Harry took his last breath, when part of me died, through the panic attacks and physical symptoms, not being able to drink, eat or function, and slowly, over many years, not only learning to breathe properly again, but feeling so lucky to be alive.

I HAVE ALSO WITNESSED AND EXPERIENCED SURVIVOR’S STRENGTH; THE

JOY OF BREATHING

AGAIN, THE JOY OF LIVING AND THRIVING WHEN IT WAS NEVER DEEMED POSSIBLE.

I found a new energy which I channelled into family, my surviving children, and into work connected to my son. And eventually into other projects and people, all connected to this grief experience and the great desire to use it to help others.

When Grief Equals Love is the result of my investigation, telling the story of how I learned to live alongside loss, navigating a new landscape and accommodating grief into my life, both personally and professionally. I start with an account of Harry’s life, followed by entries from the diary I started just before his death in November 2000. Leading on from those, I look at the myth of closure, survivor’s energy and cumulative grief. I interview some of my friends and family about their unique experiences of grief, before discussing my current work, with advice on supporting others and a range of resources to enable the further exploration of grief.

It took a long time and much investigation into how to survive my own grief, and that is a work in progress, but I hope that some of what I have learned so far might resonate.

Find When Grief Equals Love on page 105

DO YOU BELIEVE IN THE POWER OF ROCK & ROLL?

Do You Believe in the Power of Rock & Roll? is a history of alternative rock from John Robb, with the music still ringing in his ears. This collection follows John’s journey from the late 1970s, when he was first caught up in punk’s high-octane thrill, to the present day, via the early days of the rave scene, the birth of electronic and techno, and myriad bands that spun off on their own idiosyncratic paths. Few others have witnessed firsthand so many important moments of the last forty years of rock history. Here, they come together to form the essential history of a personal quest to document the ever-changing soundtrack of the modern world.

Lemmy, 2011

Lemmy is one of the last great rock stars.

Whereas most of his generation have disappeared into stadiums, dropped dead or got boring – he’s still out there with Mötorhead, still sounding tougher than leather as the years go by.

Before Mötorhead he sang vocals on Hawkwind’s ‘Silver Machine’ single, which is still the weirdest-ever UK top-three hit – a space-rock, freak-out boogie that never ages.

Lemmy formed Mötorhead in June 1975 after he was thrown out of Hawkwind for taking ‘the wrong drugs’, which must be the greatest-ever reason for being thrown out of a band.

In 2010 Lemmy has become a national institution. With the Lemmy film, the band’s new The World is Yours album and another sold-out UK tour, he is part and parcel of our culture.

He has also become an unlikely elder statesman, the eternal teenager whose gruff persona hides a deep, self-deprecating intelligence. He is a charismatic no-bullshit rocker who says it like he sees it, with a life story that is the very history of UK rock ’n’ roll and a bass that still spews gravel.

Mötorhead themselves are one of the great British bands. They remain loud and direct, pure and unapologetic. They never budge for anything pointless like fashion. Often mistaken for a metal band, they are, in fact, pure rock ’n’ roll with their avalanche of sound running riot over great pop songs written by Lemmy, who has loved a good tune since the day he saw the Beatles playing the Cavern in their pre-fame, pre-Fab years. The band are very much part of a r ’n’ r lineage that starts with Little Richard and runs through the Hamburg Beatles, prime-time Hendrix and the MC5 to mid-70s UK punk rock. Interestingly, Lemmy himself was there for all of these high points, like a rock ’n’ roll anti-Zelig.

Mötorhead’s new single, ‘Get Back in Line’, is a great dig at the bankers; the video is hilarious, with Lemmy and gang bottling the creeps who caused the recession and gave themselves bonuses. Lemmy doesn’t really do politics, but when he does, it’s great.

There is a great documentary about him called Lemmy doing the rounds at the moment, with a whole host of rock animals, and even Jarvis Cocker, paying tribute to him.

WHEN WE STARTED WE PRETTY MUCH SOUNDED LIKE MÖTORHEAD ALREADY. IT’S STRANGE BUT IT JUST HAPPENED LIKE THAT.

On forming Mötorhead

Everyone said we had no chance. That’s what everybody else said, but I thought we had a fine chance.

Mind you, the original line-up stunk. It was fucking terrible. We had a bad drummer, and Larry Wallis from the Pink Fairies on guitar. Me and Larry seemed to rub up against each other and I don’t mean sexually (laughs).

The original Mötorhead was a five-piece band. I wanted to form the MC5 of Britain. They were such a great band, the MC5. I did that MC5 gig a few years back and they were still fucking great, man. They sound exactly the same! I sang ‘Sister Ann’ and ‘Back in the USA’ with them. It was fucking brilliant. I came out high as a kite. It was one of them shows!

So the original Mötorhead was modelled on the MC5. Luther Grosvenor or, as he was known, Ariel Bender (laughs), was in the band for a month. A great guitar player. I like playing the bass better than guitar. I’m a really mediocre guitar player, so Luther was going to be in the band but bottled out, and we were going to get a singer and that never happened, so I got stuck with the singing.

We were never properly called Bastard. It was just an idea that I had but, as our manager rightly pointed out, we wouldn’t get a lot of Top of the Pops with a name like that (laughs).

When we started we pretty much sounded like Mötorhead already. It’s strange but it just happened like that.

On teaching Sid Vicious how to play bass Punk was great. It was what rock ’n’ roll needed at that point in time. I never had time for the Clash and their pretend politics, but the Damned and the Ramones were great rock ’n’ roll bands. Mötorhead fitted right in. We may have had long hair, but the punks understood us.

Johnny Rotten used to go and see Hawkwind play. I remember him turning up in his long hair and greatcoat at London gigs. Sid Vicious lived in my flat for a couple of months and I tried to teach him bass, but he was hopeless.

One day he came rushing into the flat all excited, saying, ‘Lemmy, I got the job with the Sex Pistols,’ and I said, ‘Great, as part of the road crew?’ and he said ‘No! The bass player…’ And I laughed. ‘You can’t even play the bass, you’re hopeless.’

Find Do You Believe in the Power of Rock & Roll? on page 100

‘A tremendous pitch-black multi-layered epic … I bloody loved it’

A delle Strip e

’

Poguemahone is the book I’d always hoped Patrick McCabe would write. It ’s his biggest, mos t audacious novel yet, a free-verse monologue narrated by Dan Fogar ty, whose voice grabs you by the throat and heart, like Francie Brady ’s did all those years back.

Poguemahone is set in 1970s London, not the small-to wn Ireland he usually writes about. A land of smoky pubs, building sites, bomb threats and squats with their drugs, prog rock, communit y theatre and police raids. And being a McCabe n ovel, it is bursting with early ’70s music: Pe te r Sarstedt, King Crimson, Budgie and lots of Mott the Hoople.

As Ir vine Welsh once wrote, if Roddy Doyle is the B eatles of modern Irish fi ction, Patrick McCabe is its Rolling Stones.’

Unb ound co-founder and publisher, John Mitchinson

‘I warn you, like all good books, Poguemahone is a mind-altering drug’

BB C Radio 4 Fr ont Row

Spring Ti t l e s

THE BREXIT TAPES

From the Referendum to the Second Dark Age

JOHN BULL

A satirical glimpse behind the curtain at the Brexit negotiations: the full (and wholly imagined) transcripts

Brextorians had long suspected that at the time of the Brexit negotiations, a series of audio recordings were made by and of government officials. In The Brexit Tapes, the transcripts of these recordings are published for the very first time. Compiled by leading Brextorian John Bull, they offer a remarkable insight into the lost years from the Referendum to the Second Dark Age, and a clear picture of the events leading up to the civil war that followed.

Directly challenging the accounts of Brexit provided in The Book of Mogg and Lord Johnson’s Res Brexitica, these transcripts are our first concrete record of history as it happened.

Title: The Brexit Tapes Pub date: 05/01/2023 Format: Paperback Price: £12.99 ISBN: 978-1-80018-214-1 Rights: World/Audio/TV & Film

NON-FICTION

John Bull is a British journalist and historian. In his writing – for the Guardian, Cult TV Times and The Dark Side, among others – he explores how obscure and unexpected moments can change history. The Brexit Tapes is his first book. @garius

HOW YOUR BRAIN IS WIRED

An Owner’s Manual

CRAWFORD HOLLINGWORTH & CATHY TOMLINSON

This practical guide shows how recent discoveries in the behavioural sciences can help you lead a more positive and rewarding life

As 95 per cent of our brain activity carries on at a subconscious level, we’re not always aware of why we think what we think and do the things we do. How Your Brain Is Wired draws on recent breakthroughs in our understanding of how the brain really works, empowering the reader to take control of their own behaviour.

This book is about rewiring your attitudes; re-seeing yourself and your choices. It reveals something rather magical: how tiny tweaks to your behaviour can be all you need to deliver a big, sometimes thrilling, reboot to your life.

‘Gives you the power to understand why you aren’t quite as rational as you think’ Rory Sutherland

Title: How Your Brain Is Wired Pub date: 19/01/2023 Format: Paperback Price: £16.99 ISBN: 978-1-80018-186-1 Rights: World/Audio/TV & Film

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Crawford Hollingworth is a behavioural change expert and co-founder of the consultancy company The Behavioural Architects. Cathy Tomlinson is a behavioural researcher with years of consumer research experience. She led the book’s volunteer ‘brain team’ on their journey of discovery and empowerment.

AU REVOIR NOW DARLINT

The Letters of Edith Thompson LAURA THOMPSON

The letters that led to Edith Thompson’s execution in 1923, collected in print for the first time by the award-winning author of Rex vs Edith Thompson

A hundred years ago, a clerk was stabbed to death as he walked home to his suburban villa in Ilford. With him was his wife, twentyeight-year-old Edith. His killer was Edith’s lover: Frederick Bywaters. Bywaters was hanged for murder on 9 January 1923. So too was Edith Thompson. There was no evidence that she was involved with the killing. What condemned Edith were the letters that she wrote to her lover, which were interpreted by the law as incitement to murder.

Published to coincide with the centenary of her death, Au Revoir Now Darlint gathers the moving, perplexing and spectacularly sensual letters together alongside illuminating commentary to tell the story of an appalling tragedy.

‘Thompson is a terrific writer’ New Statesman

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Title: Au Revoir Now Darlint Pub date: 19/01/2023 Format: Hardback Price: £18.99 ISBN: 978-1-80018-246-2 Rights: World/Audio

Laura Thompson (unrelated to Edith) has been fascinated for many years by the Thompson-Bywaters case. She re-examined it in Rex v Edith Thompson, which was shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger for NonFiction in 2018. Her other books include The Last Landlady, a memoir of her publican grandmother, published by Unbound in 2018, and the New York Times bestseller The Six, about the lives of the Mitford sisters.

LANDFALL

Book III in the Book of Bera Trilogy SUZIE

WILDE

The gripping conclusion to the Book of Bera Viking trilogy: Bera’s most dangerous and important journey yet

Bera is struggling to reconcile her duties as a woman with her destiny as a Valla. Under the weight of her extraordinary ability to shape the future, she finds freedom only at sea on her beloved longboat. But when she discovers that Vikings have taken her kin as slaves on Wolf Island, she knows she has no choice but to follow.

Warned that trouble is coming, Bera sets off once more on a quest to save her people. Forced to confront her worst foe, a sacrifice is demanded to finally bring peace – and human love. What will she choose?

‘Wonderfully imagined, full of character and intrigue, the Bera trilogy is instantly compelling’ Lee Child

FICTION

Title: Landfall Pub date: 19/01/2023

Format: Paperback Price: £9.99 ISBN: 978-1-80018-148-9 Rights: World/Audio/TV & Film

Suzie Wilde has an MA with Distinction in creative writing from the University of Sussex. In 2014, she was selected as one of the first six playwrights to take part in a series of workshops at the Criterion Theatre. She lives in Chichester. @susiewilde

BARDSKULL MARTIN

SHAW

The legendary storyteller and interpreter of myth delivers his first original narrative that is unlike anything he has written before

Bardskull is the record of three journeys made by Martin Shaw, the celebrated storyteller and interpreter of myth, in the year before he turned fifty. Each of the three journeys sees Shaw walk alone into a forest in the heart of Dartmoor and wait. What arrive are stories – fragments of myth and folklore that he has carried within him for decades: the deep history of Dartmoor itself; the lives of distant family members; Arthurian legend and much more.

Bardskull can be read as a fable, as memoir, as auto-fiction or as an attempt to undomesticate myth. Above all, though, it is a magnificent, unclassifiable work of the imagination. ‘Shaw encourages and illuminates the mythic in our own lives. He is a modern-day bard’ Madeline Miller

FICTION

Title: Bardskull Pub date: 02/02/2023 Format: Hardback Price: £18.99 ISBN: 978-1-78965-156-0 Rights: World/Audio/TV & Film

Martin Shaw is a writer, storyteller and teacher who lives on Dartmoor. He founded the Oral Tradition and Mythic Life courses at Stanford University and is director of the Westcountry School of Myth in the UK. He is the author of the award-winning Mythteller trilogy, and other recent titles include Smokehole and Courting the Wild Twin.

THE VOCAL+ FICTION AWARDS ANTHOLOGY

VOCAL MEDIA

Twenty-five fresh, contemporary stories chosen by Erica Wagner, former literary editor of  The Times Discover twenty-five remarkable new voices in these awardwinning stories published by Unbound in collaboration with Creatd, the parent company of digital storytelling platform Vocal. The stories have been chosen from over 13,000 entries submitted to the VOCAL+ Fiction Awards and are by writers from around the globe. Winners have been selected by well-known writer, critic and former literary editor of The Times, Erica Wagner.

Compelling narrative, vivid language, tales of family, of hope, of terror, of the worlds that await us. These stories showcase the diversity, ingenuity and imagination of Vocal’s unique voices.

Title: The VOCAL+ Fiction Awards Anthology Pub date: 16/02/2023 Format: Paperback Price: £10.99 ISBN: 978-1-80018-225-7 Rights: World English Language / Audio

FICTION

Vocal is a writing platform that allows writers – of fiction and non-fiction – to share their stories, build followers, benefit from readers’ feedback, and earn money from their writing. Vocal is based in the US and the site has over 700,000 users all over the world. It is open to content creators and podcasters of every kind. vocal.media / @Vocal_Creators

CASTING THE RUNES

The Letters of M. R. James

JANE MAINLEY-PIDDOCK (ED.)

The first-ever collection of letters by England’s greatest writer of ghost stories

The much-loved author M. R. James is best known today for his ghost stories. Their popularity has kept them in print since the first collection was issued in 1931, and they’ve earned a cult following. But for all this literary success, his lifetime’s correspondence has remained inaccessible in a Cambridge University archive –until now.

This first-ever collection of his personal letters has been meticulously curated, transcribed and annotated by Jamesian scholar Jane Mainley-Piddock to offer an unprecedented and overdue insight into a great and singular mind, covering everything from his fear of spiders to his musings on the work of other contemporary authors.

Title: Casting the Runes Pub date: 16/02/2023 Format: Hardback Price: £30.00 ISBN: 978-1-80018-175-5 Rights: World/Audio/TV & Film

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Dr Jane Mainley-Piddock is a British writer, blogger and book reviewer. She specialises in the ghost stories of M. R. James and the literature of the late Victorian period. @jmainpidd

WHO HUNTS THE WHALE

LAURA KATE DALE & JANE AERITH MAGNET

A blisteringly satirical novel that lifts the lid on the cut-throat world of big-budget game development

Supremacy Software is the world’s largest video-game developer and Who Hunts the Whale tells the story of a newly hired PA taking a seat in the executive boardroom. But she soon discovers the cynical side of things. Stolen ideas, long hours, managerial impropriety – will she risk her ideal career and take a stand for those who dare not speak, or keep quiet in the face of a powerful, litigious corporation?

Written by industry insider

Laura Kate Dale and (small ‘g’) gamer Jane Aerith Magnet, Who Hunts the Whale takes a witty, satirical look at the human cost of a rapacious market that must constantly be fed new content.

Title: Who Hunts the Whale Pub date: 16/02/2023 Format: Paperback Price: £12.99 ISBN: 978-1-78965-160-7 Rights: World/Audio/TV & Film

FICTION

Laura Kate Dale has spent the last decade as a full-time writer across a number of different creative industries. She has worked as a video-game critic, an accessibility and representation advocate, an LGBT activist and a professional fictional butt reviewer. @LaurakBuzz Jane Aerith Magnet co-hosts the podcast Queer & Pleasant Strangers with her wife Laura. @ManiacJaneiac

THE GREEN HILL Letters to a son

SOPHIE PIERCE

A deeply moving account of how engaging with the natural world helped a mother through grief following the sudden death of her son

In 2017, Sophie Pierce’s world changed forever when her twenty-year-old son Felix died unexpectedly. By writing a series of letters to Felix –composed during walks and swims taken close to his burial place by the river Dart – Sophie gradually learned how to dwell in the landscape of sudden loss, navigating the weather and tides of grief.

The Green Hill collects these letters alongside Sophie’s account of the years following Felix’s death, into which she weaves poignant memories of his life. What results is a deeply moving, beautifully captured record of one woman’s story of navigating through trauma and loss, and towards a fragile, complicated kind of joy.

NON-FICTION

Title: The Green Hill Pub date: 02/03/2023 Format: Hardback Price: £18.99 ISBN: 978-1-80018-180-9 Rights: World/Audio/TV & Film

Sophie Pierce is a writer and broadcaster who lives on the edge of Dartmoor in Devon. She is the co-author, with Matt Newbury, of several wild swimming guides including Wild Swimming Torbay, and Wild Swimming Walks Cornwall. She also wrote the introduction to the Wainwright Prize-longlisted Wild Woman Swimming by Lynne Roper. @sophiepierce

THE VERY F*CKING TIRED MUMMY A Parody

MARTYNA WIŚNIEWSKA MICHALAK

A deeply relatable, beautifully illustrated, laugh-out-loud funny parody of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, featuring one very tired mummy

Inspired by the story of a beloved caterpillar, The Very F*cking Tired Mummy is an all-too-relatable tale of the frustration, exhaustion and sometimes unexpected joy of parenthood.

Here we follow the journey of one mummy over the course of a week, taking everything life throws at her with a side of wine, coffee, chocolate from last Christmas, the kids’ leftover lunch and even the occasional dog treat.

It will comfort anyone for whom eight hours of sleep seems like a distant memory, and serve as a welcome reminder that sometimes, just sometimes, we all need a break…

Title: The Very F*cking Tired Mummy

Pub date: 02/03/2023 Format: Paperback Price: £9.99 ISBN: 978-1-80018-211-0 Rights: World/Audio/TV & Film

FICTION

Martyna Wiśniewska Michalak is a painter, illustrator and doll maker. A graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, she also writes, designs doll clothes and jewellery.

FROM FAR AROUND THEY SAW US BURN

ALICE JOLLY

The highly anticipated first short-story collection from the author of the Folio Prize-shortlisted Mary Ann Sate, Imbecile

From Far Around They Saw Us Burn is the eagerly awaited first short-story collection from Alice Jolly, one of the most exciting and accomplished voices in British fiction today.

The extraordinary range of work gathered here is united by a fascination with how everyday interactions can transform our lives in unpredictable ways, as well as a focus on lonely people, outcasts and misfits, and the ghosts that inhabit our intimate spaces. The result is a compelling, arresting and, at times, devastating collection – not least in the title story, which was inspired by the tragic true events of the 1943 Cavan orphanage fire. Title: From Far Around They Saw Us Burn Pub date: 30/03/2023 Format: Hardback Price: £18.99 ISBN: 978-1-78965-162-1 Rights: World English Language / Audio

FICTION

Alice Jolly is a novelist and playwright. She won the 2014 V. S. Pritchett Memorial Prize with one of her short stories, ‘Ray the Rottweiler’, and her memoir Dead Babies and Seaside Towns won the 2016 PEN Ackerley Prize. Her novel Mary Ann Sate, Imbecile, published by Unbound in 2018, was longlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize and shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize. In 2021, Jolly was awarded an O. Henry Prize for her short story ‘From Far Around They Saw Us Burn’. @jollyalice

VILLAGER

TOM COX

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

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

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

‘A glorious ramble … This is an epic, oddball soap opera soundtracked by folk music, birdsong and the rattle of hedgerows against car windows’

Guardian

FICTION

Title: Villager Pub date: 30/03/2023 Format: Paperback Price: £12.99 ISBN: 978-1-80018-237-0 Rights: World/Audio/TV & Film

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

FOX and

OTTER

Accordion Books JACKIE MORRIS

The first pair in a series of illustrated concertina gift books by the Kate Greenaway Medal-winning author and artist

An Accordion Book doesn’t open, it unfolds. One side is filled with beautiful watercolour images of an animal, sometimes in motion, sometimes at rest. The other is filled with text – poems, descriptions, invocations –inspired by the same animal. They will be designed by Alison O’Toole, who has worked with Jackie Morris on all her recent books, including The Lost Words and The Unwinding. They will make beautiful gifts and in time will form a library of nature, which anyone who loves Jackie’s work will want to collect and treasure.

Title: Fox and Otter Pub date: 13/04/2023

Format: 100 x 150 Concertina Price: £12.99 each ISBN: 978-1-80018-204-2 978-1-80018-205-9

Rights: World English

NON-FICTION

Jackie Morris is a writer and artist. She studied illustration at Hereford College of Arts and Bath Academy and has written and illustrated more than fifteen books. The Lost Words, co-authored with Robert Macfarlane, won the Kate Greenaway Medal 2019, and Morris was nominated again for The Unwinding in 2021. She lives in Pembrokeshire. @JackieMorrisArt

DO YOU BELIEVE IN THE POWER OF ROCK & ROLL?

Forty Years of Music Writing from the Frontline JOHN ROBB

A high-octane, first-person history of the last forty years of rock music

Do You Believe in the Power of Rock & Roll? is a history of alternative rock from John Robb, with the music still ringing in his ears. This collection follows John’s journey from the late 1970s to the present day via the early days of the rave scene, the birth of electronic and techno, and myriad bands that spun off on their own idiosyncratic paths.

Few others have witnessed firsthand so many important moments of the last forty years of rock history. Here, they come together to form the essential history of a personal quest to document the ever-changing soundtrack of the modern world.

Title: Do You Believe in the Power of Rock & Roll?

Pub date: 27/04/2023

Format: Paperback Price: £14.99 ISBN: 978-1-80018-218-9 Rights: World/Audio/TV & Film

NON-FICTION

John Robb is an award-winning journalist, author, TV presenter and boss of the music website Louder Than War. He formed the seminal punk/ alt-rock band the Membranes in 1977, and still tours with them and as lead singer of his band Goldblade. He has written highly acclaimed biographies of the Stone Roses and the Charlatans, as well as the extraordinary Punk Rock: An Oral History. @johnrob77

LEGENDS OF THE LEAF Unearthing the secrets to help your plants thrive

JANE

PERRONE

How 25 houseplants went from the wilds to our windowsills – and how to make them feel at home

Have you ever wondered why the leaves of the Swiss cheese plant have holes? Or why – despite your best efforts – you can’t keep your Venus flytrap alive?

You are not alone: houseplant expert Jane Perrone has asked herself those very questions, and in Legends of the Leaf she digs deep beneath the surface to reveal the answers. Exploring how they grow in the wild, and the ways they are understood and used by the people who live among them, we can learn everything we need to know about our cherished houseplants. Each houseplant history in this beautifully illustrated collection is accompanied by a detailed care guide and hard-won practical advice.

Title: Legends of the Leaf Pub date: 27/04/2023 Format: Hardback Price: £14.99 ISBN: 978-1-80018-200-4 Rights: World/Audio/TV & Film

NON-FICTION

Jane Perrone is a horticultural expert, journalist and the host of On The Ledge, a podcast dedicated to houseplants and indoor gardening. She is a regular contributor to the Guardian, the Financial Times and Gardens Illustrated. She lives in Bedfordshire with her husband, two children, a dog called Wolfie and a home full of plants. @janeperrone

POGUEMAHONE

PATRICK McCABE

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

Poguemahone is a wild, 600-page ballad: a free-verse monologue narrated by Dan Fogarty, an Irishman living in England, who is looking after his sister Una, now 70 and suffering from dementia in a care home in Margate.

Structured like a swirling piece of music, it’s a book that draws you in and asks you to look and listen, to follow it as it moves and riffs across the page. It’s a huge, shape-shifting epic of the Irish in England, steeped in music and folklore, crammed with characters, both real and imagined, on a scale McCabe has never attempted before. Poguemahone is audacious; a magnificent work of art.

‘If you’re looking for this century’s Ulysses, look no further’ Alex Preston, Observer

Title: Poguemahone Pub date: 27/04/2023

Format: Paperback Price: £12.99 ISBN: 978-1-80018-238-7 Rights: World/Audio/TV & Film

FICTION

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

DARK

An A to Z of the Cosmos JAMES WILKINS

A stylish, full-colour beginner’s guide to key concepts from astronomy

Ever wanted to know more about the Big Bang but didn’t have Brian Cox’s email address? Ever wanted to cry out, ‘What on Earth is a black hole?’, but been afraid you’d be shouting into the abyss? Ever wanted to know how gravity works but never found the book to pull you in?

Well, have no fear: DARK is an easily digestible beginner’s guide to the Universe in a handy A to Z format. What’s more, it’s presented in a beautifully designed package – with illustrations and typography by Andreas Brooks – so you’ll want to keep it out on display, dipping in to check exactly when it is that Earth is likely to be engulfed by the furnace of the Sun.

Title: DARK Pub date: 11/05/2023 Format: Hardback Price: £25.00 ISBN: 978-1-80018-229-5 Rights: World/Audio/TV & Film

NON-FICTION

Hailing from Essex but now living in north London with his wife and two daughters, James Wilkins is Executive Creative Director at Manchester City FC, having previously been Creative Director at the award-winning social media publisher JOE.co.uk.

MIND THE INCLUSION GAP How allies can bridge the divide between talking diversity and taking action

SUZY LEVY

An authoritative guide to help allies step up to play a meaningful role in shaping an inclusive future

A handful of organisations and individuals are leading the way but, on the whole, our diversity efforts are moving at a glacial pace. Homophobia, transphobia, racism and misogyny remain stubbornly pervasive – meanwhile many inclusion programmes do more to create negativity toward the diversity agenda than they do to create measurable and lasting change.

This book is for anyone who wants to dive into the complex task of supporting diversity. It will build your confidence and practical know-how to help you navigate the polarised and divisive issues we face both in the workplace and the wider world. Mind the Inclusion Gap will give you everyday skills to move from talking about diversity to taking action.

NON-FICTION

Title: Mind the Inclusion Gap Pub date: 11/05/2023

Format: Paperback Price: £12.99 ISBN: 978-1-80018-235-6 Rights: World/Audio/TV & Film

Suzy Levy is a specialist in delivering complex global change programmes. Combining her business transformation experience and a deep understanding of human behaviour, she works with leadership teams to drive cultural change and deliver measurable inclusion and diversity results. In 2015, Suzy founded The Red Plate where she has worked with clients on hundreds of diversity-related projects. @SuzyLevyTRP

WHEN GRIEF EQUALS LOVE

Long-term Perspectives on Living with Loss

LIZZIE PICKERING

A moving account of loss, with practical advice on navigating life after bereavement

When Lizzie Pickering’s young son Harry died twenty-one years ago, she set out on a journey to understand what grief is and how to live with it. When Grief Equals Love shares the lessons she has learned as well as interviews with others about their many different forms of grief in this moving and tender book.

When we talk about grief, it is natural to think about grief for someone who has died. But grief is experienced in so many situations: death, divorce, diagnosis, workplace change or even a global pandemic. In most lives, unfortunately, some grief and loss is inevitable. But living with grief can still be living, and this book will show you how.

Title: When Grief Equals Love Pub date: 11/05/2023 Format: Hardback Price: £18.99 ISBN: 978-1-80018-227-1 Rights: World/Audio

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Lizzie Pickering is a speaker, grief investigator, and film and podcast producer. Her main work is offering grief guidance to companies through presentations, podcasts and one-on-one sessions, helping people back to work following major life changes. In 2017 Lizzie produced the feature film Let Me Go, with Director Polly Steele, based on Helga Schneider’s memoir of the same name. @PickeringLizzie

HOW TO BE A GOOD BBOY

What a cat’s kindness can teach us about human justice ELLEN MURRAY & BILBO THE CAT

A practical guide to human rights work and being a good ally, from internet sensation Bilbo the Cat

It’s not always easy to live your life with kindness, but Ellen Murray and her cat Bilbo are doing their best to spread messages of positivity to their followers. As an LGBT+ and disability activist, Ellen’s goal has always been to make love, care and safety a reality for all – but fighting for your own rights or standing as an ally to others can be daunting, intimidating and confusing work.

How to Be a Good Bboy is an accessible guide to understanding human rights work: what it’s all about, and how to get involved, navigate the inevitable pitfalls, overcome imposter syndrome, and own your vulnerability and power.

Title: How to Be a Good Bboy Pub date: 25/05/2023 Format: Hardback Price: £14.99 ISBN: 978-1-80018-193-9 Rights: World/Audio/TV & Film

NON-FICTION

Ellen Murray is a Northern Irish trans human rights defender who has worked towards LGBTI human rights in Northern Ireland since 2013. She is executive director of TransgenderNI, a trans human rights organisation; a public appointment to the UK Government’s LGBT Advisory Panel; and an independent consultant to a variety of international human rights organisations. @thegoodcatboy

I COULD READ THE SKY

TIMOTHY O’GRADY

with photographs by STEVE PYKE

A new edition of the 1997 classic novel about an Irishman in London, told through words and photos

I Could Read the Sky is a collaboration between writer Timothy O’Grady and photographer Steve Pyke. It tells the story of a man who came of age in the middle of this century, and who now finds himself alone, struggling to make sense of a life of dislocation and loss. Remembering his childhood in the west of Ireland, he is haunted by all that he left behind: his family; his country; the seascapes; the bars and the boxing booths; the music he played; and the woman he loved. This vivid text is accompanied by stark and striking photography that explores themes of love, dislocation and yearning, to produce a powerful evocation of the Irish emigration experience.

‘If the words tell the stories of the voiceless, the bleak, lovely photographs that accompany it shows their faces’ TLS

FICTION

Title: I Could Read the Sky Pub date: 08/06/2023 Format: Paperback Price: £14.99 ISBN: 978-1-80018-271-4 Rights: World English & Translation/Audio

Timothy O’Grady is the author of four works of non-fiction and three novels. His novel Motherland won the David Higham award for the best first novel in 1989. I Could Read the Sky won the Encore Award for best second novel of 1997 and has been made into a film and stage show. Steve Pyke’s work has been exhibited worldwide and is held in many international permanent collections.

LAST DANCE AT THE DISCOTHEQUE FOR DEVIANTS

Unbound Firsts Title 2023 PAUL DAVID GOULD

A literary thriller set in Moscow during the 90s, following young Kostya’s coming out in Russia’s underground gay scene

Moscow, 1993. The collapse of the Soviet Union has brought undreamt-of freedoms to Russia: freedom to travel abroad, to befriend Westerners – and even for an underground gay scene to take root.

In this new climate of openness, twenty-one-year-old Kostya ventures out of the closet to pursue his dreams: to work in theatre and to love as his idol Tchaikovsky never could. But dreams turn to tragedy – not only for Kostya, but for his mother Tamara and for Jamie and Dima, the two young men he loves, as all three face up to the ways they betrayed Kostya.

Title:

Dance at

FICTION

YESENI AND THE DAUGHTER OF PEACE

Unbound Firsts Title 2023 SOLANGE BURRELL

Elewa learns that she has Yeseni, a powerful gift. Can she use it to save her kingdom, or the world?

The year is 1748. Elewa lives in a small West African coastal village. Her tribe has been at war for most of her life. She is described as ‘The Daughter of Peace’, and the reconciliation of the kingdom rests on her shoulders.

When she finds out that she has Yeseni – a powerful gift that allows her to see events from any point in time – horrific visions of life on barbaric slave ships begin to come to her. Her oracle encourages her to travel through time but also warns that if she goes, she may never be able to return. Will she choose the past or the present, the greater good of humankind or the peace of her kingdom?

Title: Yeseni and the Daughter of Peace Pub date: 08/06/2023 Format: Paperback Price: £12.99 ISBN: 978-1-80018-221-9 Rights: World/Audio/TV & Film

FICTION

Solange Burrell grew up in Bristol and then moved to London to study journalism at university. She has worked in HR and as a building surveyor. She currently lives in Canada with her husband. This is her first novel. @Journalish

DORO

Refugee, hero, champion, survivor DORO ĢOUMÃŇĘH & BRENDAN WOODHOUSE

The true story of Doro: a Gambian fisherman, a refugee fleeing violence, a survivor on a small boat, a friend and a hero

When Doro Ģoumãňęh’s fishing rights were retracted by a corrupt government in The Gambia, he was forced to flee his home. Falling victim to the horrific cycle of abuse targeted at refugees in Libya, he then sought sanctuary in Europe, only to be returned and sold to a ‘torture for ransom’ gang who left him for dead in a mass grave. Miraculously, Doro survived.

It would be during his next attempt to flee to Europe that he would meet Brendan Woodhouse, a rescue ship driver. A friendship was born and Brendan agreed to help Doro tell his story. Touching on questions of policy and politics, brutality and bravery, survival and belonging, this is a book about issues that confront refugees everywhere. Ultimately, it is the extraordinary story of one man and his unfailing courage and perseverance against all odds.

NON–FICTION

Doro Ģoumãňęh is a former fisherman from The Gambia who now lives in France as a refugee. Brendan Woodhouse is a former British Army combat medic, with nineteen years’ experience as a firefighter in the UK. Brendan has been involved in the search and rescue of over 8,000 refugees since the start of 2015, mainly with Sea-Watch.

THE LOW ROAD KATHARINE

QUARMBY

Based on real events, this gripping novel tells the story of two young women who fall in love at a refuge for the destitute in 1820s London

The Low Road is a historical novel set in rural England, London and Australia in the early nineteenth century. It is based on the true story of Mary Tyrell, who was staked through the heart after her death in 1813. She had been questioned repeatedly about a suspected infanticide.

This novel is about uncovering lost histories: the stories of poor women from rural areas, the stories of the imprisoned and the stories of people who often left no records as a result of illiteracy and hardship. It also contains an important strand of narrative that explores experiences left out of the history books: a samesex romance that evolves into a marriage of sorts two centuries before this was legally possible.

Title: The Low Road Pub date: 22/06/2023 Format: Hardback Price: £18.99 ISBN: 978-1-80018-239-4 Rights: World/Audio/TV & Film

FICTION

Katharine Quarmby has written non-fiction, short stories and books for children. This is her first novel. Her non-fiction works include Scapegoat: Why We Are Failing Disabled People and No Place to Call Home: Inside The Real Lives Of Gypsies And Travellers. She also works as an investigative journalist and editor, with particular interests in disability, the environment, race and ethnicity, and the care system.

Featuring:

Bardskull

The legendary storyteller and interpreter of myth Martin Shaw delivers his first original narrative: a magnificent, unclassifiable work of the imagination.

Accordion Books: Fox and Otter

The first illustrated folding gift books in an exciting new series created by Jackie Morris, bestselling co-author of The Lost Words.

From Far Around They Saw Us Burn

The highly anticipated first short story collection from Alice Jolly, the author of the Folio Prize-shortlisted Mary Ann Sate, Imbecile.

Au Revoir Now Darlint

The letters that led to Edith Thompson’s execution in 1923, collected in print for the first time by the award-winning author of Rex vs Edith Thompson.

Doro

The extraordinary story of Doro Ģoumãňęh, a Gambian refugee fleeing violence, as told to Brendan Woodhouse, one of the people involved in his rescue.

The Green Hill

A deeply moving and beautifully written account of how engaging with the natural world helped a mother through grief following the sudden death of her son.

www.unbound.com

Cover images by Jackie Morris (Accordion Books)