HOW TO BE AN INTERNATIONAL SPY BY ANDY BRIGGS TO BE PUBLISHED BY LONELY PLANET KIDS

Lonely Planet Kids - an imprint from Lonely Planet, the world's leading travel publisher - is pleased to introduce an impressive line-up of new children's books that aim to enhance learning, interaction and appreciation for the planet's rich diversity of people, places and cultures. Immersive, engaging and educational, the new Lonely Planet Kids books, available in October, continue to explore the world and inspire a whole new generation of travellers as only Lonely Planet can.

HOW TO BE AN INTERNATIONAL SPY: YOUR TOP SECRET GUIDE TO ESPIONAGE by Andy Briggs will teach aspiring undercover investigators (ages 8+) all they need to know about the shadowy world of spies. From cool gadgets and sneaky surveillance to code cracking and daring decoys they can try in real life, this guide will take readers through the ranks of new recruit to secret agent in no time.

Successful scriptwriter with scripts sold to Hollywood and in Europe, including FOREVERMAN which was commissioned by Paramount Pictures (producers: Stan Lee and Robert Evans), Andy Briggs collaborated with the Edgar Rice Burroughs Estate on young adult trilogy based on the adventures of Tarzan. HERO.COM and VILLAIN.NET are Andy's dual series of books - the series and the anti-series - which reinvent the superhero genre for a young-adult audience. Either series stands alone - but are perfect companion pieces - occasionally interweaving plot and character, and providing an exciting new take on an established genre, thrusting it into the present for the Playstation Generation.

Other books include POLYBIUS The Urban Myth – the first in a series of SpyQuest novels. Andy has also written several comics and graphic novels for Markosia, And he has been commissioned to write numerous thrillers for cinema and television.

Praise for Andy Briggs:

‘Andy Briggs vision of a world with super-hero's and super-villain's is a very original one and has been very well realised. These books are superbly written, the story sets off at a high pace and never once slows down...' – Antony, ScienceFictionandfantasy.co.uk

‘Tweens and younger teens who have wished for super powers will be drawn to this interesting concept, and there will be plenty of action to keep them reading.’ – Booklist

‘You like stories with fights? Chases? Explosions? Heroes? Villains? Explosions? Spectacular hideouts? Sinister master plans? Gadgets? Missiles? Awesome powers and (oh, yeah) explosions?? Then these books have got THE LOT.’ – Sam Enthoven, author of THE BLACK TATOO and TIM

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RECIPES FOR LOVE AND MURDER: A TANNIE MARIA MYSTERY published in Australia today

RECIPES FOR LOVE AND MURDER, the sensational debut Tannie Maria mystery from South African novelist Sally Andrew, is published today in Australia by Text Publishing. This is the first of five English Language publications of the novel over the next three months, with Umuzi publishing in South Africa next month, and Canongate in the UK, Ecco Press in the US and HarperCollins in Canada in November.

RECIPES FOR LOVE AND MURDER: A TANNIE MARIA MYSTERY marks the start of a delicious new mystery series with a lovable, unforgettable heroine. Tannie Maria used to write a recipe column for the Klein Karoo Gazette. Then Head Office decided they wanted an advice column instead, so now she gives advice. In the form of recipes. Because, as she says, she may not know much about love, but food—that’s her life.

Everything has been going well. A tongue-tied mechanic wins his girl with text messages and Welsh rarebit. A frightened teenager gets some much-needed sex ed with Tannie Maria's chocolate-coated bananas. But then there is a letter from Martine, whose husband beats her, and Tannie Maria feels a pang of recognition and dread. This may be a problem that cooking can’t solve…

Warm, funny, poignant: Sally Andrew’s irresistible heroine brings mystery, romance and amazing cooking together in the most entertaining new series in years. And all Tannie Maria’s mouthwatering recipes are right there in the book! You can read a wonderful blog about the Text team’s efforts baking Karoo Farm bread following Tannie Maria’s recipes here.

Sally Andrew divides her time between the Cape Town coast and a nature reserve near Ladismith in the Klein Karoo, which she shares with her artist partner, a giant eland and a secretive leopard. Her work is being translated into 11 languages.

Praise for RECIPES FOR LOVE AND MURDER:

‘Vivid, amusing and immensely enjoyable read about detection (and cooking) in an intriguing part of southern Africa. …  A triumph.’ – Alexander McCall Smith

‘A delightful debut, tender and funny. The mystery takes on the worldwide problem of abused women while revealing both the beauties and problems of South Africa. And the recipes will make you want to drop everything and start cooking.’ – Kirkus, Starred Review.

‘A culinary and linguistic treat … and has a pleasing bite.’ – Cathy Rentzenbrink, Editor’s Choice, The Bookseller

WILLIAM COLLINS TO PUBLISH EDWARD WILSON-LEE’S SHAKESPEARE IN SWAHILILAND

Arabella Pike of William Collins has acquired from Isobel Dixon at Blake Friedmann the UK and Commonwealth rights in a radical, original and breath-taking new book about William Shakespeare – to be published for the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death in April 2016. Farrar Straus & Giroux will publish in the USA.

Shakespeare in Swahililand is the first book by Edward Wilson-Lee, a Fellow in English at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. In a narrative that is part travelogue, part memoir, a satire, an ode to Shakespeare and a potted history of East Africa, Wilson-Lee aims to find the holy grail of literary studies – an answer to how and why Shakespeare is acclaimed as a global poet and why his writings should be so universally adored. 

Shakespeare in Swahililand takes Wilson-Lee back to the lands of his childhood (he grew up in Kenya) to dig through mouldering archives to recover the unknown story of the part played by Shakespeare’s works in the region’s history. His story is a literary adventure that throws high culture and the wild together in celebration of Shakespeare’s legacy as a poet of the world.

Wilson-Lee says: ‘Shakespeare in Swahililand began when I discovered that one of the first books printed in Swahili, on the island of Zanzibar in 1867, was a translation of Charles and Mary Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare. Starting from there, I uncovered an extraordinary sequence of stories in which explorers, railway labourers, decadent émigrés, freedom fighters, and pioneering African leaders made Shakespeare their own in this alien land.’ 

Edward Wilson-Lee was raised in Kenya, as part of a family of wildlife conservationists and filmmakers, and now teaches Shakespeare for a living at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, where he settled after periods of living in the Swiss alps, London, Mexico, New Orleans, New York, and Oxford. He has written and lectured widely on subjects from the Bible to Don Quixote, and is an expert on the early years of the printing press, chivalric romance, and the novel. He has won prestigious research grants from Cambridge University and the British Academy, and is currently reconstructing the greatest library of the Renaissance, which Columbus’ bastard son collected and went mad trying to catalogue.

THE FOLLY published in the US by Archipelago today

Ivan Vladislavić’s THE FOLLY is published in the US today by Archipelago. The novella was originally published twenty years ago, heralding the arrival of a unique and surprising voice. It was read then as an evocative allegory on the rise and fall of apartheid, but continues to strike new chords, its haunting characters speaking strange truths to our world. Umuzi published in South Africa and And Other Stories publish in the UK in November. 

Mr and Mrs Malgas are going quietly about their lives when an eccentric squatter named Nieuwenhuizen arrives on the vacant plot next door, with a scheme to build an elaborate mansion. Slowly but surely the stranger's charm and persuasive language draws Malgas into "the plan". Grimly humorous and playfully serious, Ivan Vladislavić’s classic first novel is a comic and philosophical masterpiece.

On first publication THE FOLLY was hailed by André Brink as being ‘In the tradition of Elias Canetti, a tour de force of the imagination’ and its new edition has drawn much pre-publication praise:

‘THE FOLLY is mysterious, lyrical and wickedly funny — a masterful novel about loving and fearing your neighbor. Ivan Vladislavić is one of the most significant writers working in English today. Everyone should read him.’ — Katie Kitamura

‘The rise and fall of ‘the plan’ at the heart of this potent short novel is as brilliant as it is unsettling. Vladislavić writes with spring-loaded precision about universal dreams and local desolation. A fable for the ages, a parable for our time.’ — Laird Hunt

‘Vladislavić’s cryptic, haunting tale echoes Jorge Luis Borges and David Lynch, drawing readers into its strange depths.’ — Publishers Weekly

'Memorable work that never underplays the unpleasant societal tensions that lie below the surface. … THE FOLLY plays out like a berserk blend of fairy tales, the plays of Samuel Beckett, and the films of Jacques Tati.’ – Tobias Carroll, Electric Lit

Ivan Vladislavić will be in the US to promote THE FOLLY and to receive his Windham Campbell Prize later this month. At a ceremony at Yale University he will be awarded one of this year’s nine $150,000 prizes for Fiction, alongside writers Teju Cole, Helon Habila, Geoff Dyer and Edmund de Waal, among others.

Ivan Vladislavić is the award-winning, critically-acclaimed author of a prestigious body of literary work.  Published in ten international markets, Ivan lives in Johannesburg, where he is a Distinguished Professor in Creative Writing at the University of the Witwatersrand. He has won and been shortlisted for South Africa’s most prestigious prizes.  His work is included in the GRANTA BOOK OF THE AFRICAN SHORT STORY and Sylph Editions published A LABOUR OF MOLES in the Cahiers Series. His novel DOUBLE NEGATIVE has just been published in Germany by A1 and Osburg have  acquired German rights to THE EXPLODED VIEW.

Visit Ivan's website.

Blake Friedmann authors at the Wigtown Book Festival

The Wigtown Book Festival begins on 23rd September and it’s the perfect chance to catch four Blake Friedmann authors discussing their work. The festival takes place over ten days and welcomes over 100 writers to Wigtown, this year including Frank Gardner, Val McDermid and Phill Jupitus.

Pippa Goldschmidt will be taking part in two different events at the festival. On Sunday 27th September she will be running a creative writing workshop with a difference at her Dark Skies experience, free for under 25s. She will also be talking with Marek Kukula about I AM BECAUSE YOU ARE, an anthology she recently co-edited, and the legacy of Einstein’s achievement.

On Monday 28th September Helen Walmsley-Johnson will be talking about her manifesto for middle-age, THE INVISIBLE WOMAN. Tickets are available here.

On Sunday 4th October, Gregory Norminton will be talking about French classic THE LITTLE PRINCE by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry as part of the Children’s Festival. Buy tickets here.

Janice Galloway will also be talking about her short story collection JELLYFISH, published by Freight Books, at the McNeillie tent – you can buy tickets here.

For more information about Wigtown Book Festival, you can visit their website.