Robyn Young Breaking New Records
The paperback of Robyn Young’s Crusade went straight into the UK top ten at number 8 in its first full week of sale in February. It has now over 140,000 copies in print. BRETHREN, the first book in the trilogy, has topped 200,000 bookscan sales in paperback, and continues strongly. The trilogy has sold in seventeen countries to date.
The final part of the trilogy, Requiem, will be published in hardcover in October 2008 in the UK.
A short video documenting the launch of Crusade
Other New Publications From Our Authors In 2008
January
Lorna Martin Memoir Out April 4
Lorna Martin's Woman On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown is out in the UK on April 4. In advance of publication, Lorna was interviewed by Zoe Williams for the Guardian’s G2. Lorna is also featured on a 3-page spread in Grazia (25 March edition) and the Mail On Sunday (30 March).
The book is published by John Murray in the UK. North American, Dutch, Italian, German, Korean, Czech and Spanish rights have already been acquired.
PETER DOGGETT
There’s A Riot Going On
Canongate (US)
Between 1967 and 1973, political activists around the globe prepared to mount a revolution. While the Vietnam War raged, calls for black power grew louder and liberation movements erupted everywhere. Rock and soul music fuelled the revolutionary movement with anthems and iconic imagery. Soon the musicians themselves, from John Lennon and Bob Dylan to James Brown and Fela Kuti, were being dragged into the fray. Some joined the protestors on the barricades; some were persecuted for their political activism; some abandoned the cause and were dismissed as counter-revolutionaries.This collision of radical fervour and musical passion touched every facet of the revolution, and created a revolutionary tide that threatened to alter the face of global politics, before ebbing away under the pressure of government harassment and rampant egotism.
Peter Doggett provides the definitive account of this unique period in modern history. Based on interviews with many of the main protagonists, a decade of archive research, and the author’s 25-year career as a historian of popular music, it’s a compelling portrait of an era when revolutionaries turned into rock stars, and rock stars dressed up as revolutionaries.
October
DAYO FORSTER
Reading the Ceiling
Simon & Schuster (UK)
Shortlisted for Commonwealth Prize 2008
It is Ayodele's eighteenth birthday in her native Gambia - it is the day she has decided to lose her virginity. She's drawn up a short list: Reuben, the failsafe; Yuan a long-admired school friend; Frederick Adams, the 42-year-old, soon-to-be-pot-bellied father of her best friend. Ayodele's life will tread a different path according to this night's decision; but how can she know which one to choose? Tracing each of Ayodele's possible stories, Reading the Ceiling takes us from Gambia, to London, to Boston and Mali as Ayodele confronts dilemmas universal to women across the globe: what do we settle for, how long do we wait for love - and what are the consequences of our decisions? Dayo Forster's first novel is a remarkable achievement: fresh, funny and wholly authentic, it paints a compelling portrait of the modern African experience for women.
Read an excerpt from Reading The Ceiling
September
MERRYN SOMERSET WEBB
Love Is Not Enough: A Smart Woman’s Guide To Money (paperback edition)
HarperCollins (UK)
Let's face it! Prince Charming and his bank balance, just aren't coming to bail us out financially. Love Is Not Enough - the definitive lifestyle, financial bible for sassy women - will teach you not to care, and show you how to face the financial future with both money and confidence. Money may not buy you love but it certainly helps with life's other little luxuries. From shopping sprees to pension plans, ISAs to investments, money plays a crucial role in our present and future comfort. We may not like to admit it, but diamonds - or cold, hard cash - really can be a girl's best friend.
Combining years of financial expertise with a healthy dose of scepticism and an easy sense of humour, Merryn Somerset Webb's sharp, witty and appealing guide to personal wealth for sassy women provides the answers. Whether you're drowning in debt, negotiating a higher salary or tackling the thorny issue of a pre-nup, just one read through and you'll be in a position to sort your finances out for good, transforming them from a constant worry into a source of peace of mind.
April
MARTIN LAMPEN
The Knickerbocker Glory Years
Bloomsbury (UK)
Martin Lampen is thirty-two years old. And in every one of his thirty-two years of living and dining in Britain, he hasn't eaten a single truly great meal. Why should this be so? Is it linked to the fact that we Brits regard any artificial drink with pineapple or mango flavouring as 'tropical'? Could it be something to do with our penchant for crinkle-cut crisps? And just why are British breadcrumbs yellow in a way that no natural substance is?
Branded posh as a child for having a Club biscuit and a Mint Viscount in his packed lunch, Martin Lampen cannot promise to answer all of these complex cultural questions, but what he does give us is an indispensable and laugh-out-loud-funny A-Z guide to the not-so-wondrous world of British cuisine. All the joys and tragedies of British food are in here, from buffet cars and boil-in-the-bag gammon supreme to white wine sauce and Wagon Wheels. The book also contains tips on how to digest a scotch egg, how to converse at a dinner party - and which foods to avoid at all costs. This is a hilarious, nostalgic and irreverent look at British cuisine past and present in all its flavourless, stodgy splendour.
