Head of Zeus acquires two new thrillers by David Gilman

Nicolas Cheetham, CEO at Head of Zeus, has acquired UK & Commonwealth rights to two new David Gilman thrillers from Isobel Dixon, Head of Books at Blake Friedmann.

David Gilman is best known for his MASTER OF WAR series, set during the 100 Years War, which has sold some 400,000 copies in English and is a top 10 paperback and eBook bestseller in Germany (Rowohlt). The 6th MASTER OF WAR title CROSS OF FIRE is published in the UK on 6 February 2020 and Gilman is currently completing the 7th. He is also the author of THE LAST HORSEMAN (shortlisted for the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize) and NIGHT FLIGHT TO PARIS. Rights to his books have been sold in 16 languages worldwide.

The former paratrooper, marketing manager (Penguin South Africa) and screenwriter (TOUCH OF FROST) is now set to return to shelves with a contemporary thriller THE ENGLISHMAN, following its eponymous ex-Foreign Legion protagonist from the arid deserts of Africa, to the bleak streets and back-alleys of South London, and beyond to the underbelly of Moscow and the icy grip of an arctic prison camp.

Nicolas Cheetham said: ‘Building on the success of David’s historical thriller NIGHT FLIGHT TO PARIS, this is a KOLYMSKY HEIGHTS-class novel which will be our star title for July 2020 – a quest for revenge that leads to the permafrost desolation of a Siberian penal colony. A place that holds Russia's most brutal murderers. How will our hero get in? More importantly, how will he get out?’

David Gilman said: ‘Many years ago I met some French Foreign Legionnaires and was fascinated by them. Then, while completing a MASTER OF WAR title, Raglan knocked firmly on my door and wouldn’t go away. I realised this intriguing, intelligent, highly trained and fallible ex-Legionnaire with a strong moral code would be a valuable asset in any situation in which I placed him, stepping from the shadows and into danger when governments need him – someone who does not officially exist. I’m very glad my publisher Nic Cheetham of Head of Zeus let him in too.’

Isobel Dixon said: ‘Fans already eagerly await the next appearance of Thomas Blackstone in every MASTER OF WAR title, and now they have a fantastic contemporary treat in store as well, with the arrival of Dan Raglan on the scene. An arrival that is guaranteed to cause a stir. I’m delighted that Head of Zeus will be introducing readers to David Gilman’s unforgettable hero in THE ENGLISHMAN this year.’


Praise for David Gilman

'I'm totally bedazzled. I'd never thought that another writer could rival Bernard Cornwell…but David is giving him a real run for his money.’ — Sharon Penman

‘What Gilman does superlatively is heart-pounding action.’ — Amanda Craig, The Times

'Like a punch from a mailed fist, MASTER OF WAR gives a true taste of the Hundred Years War. It is a gripping chronicle of pitched battle, treachery and cruelty.' — Robert Fabbri

‘NIGHT FLIGHT TO PARIS is a magnificent war spy thriller. I couldn’t read it fast enough. Clever, complex, gripping, emotionally engaging, terrifying. And so much more. A stand-out novel of the year for me and one that kept me reading late into the summer night.’ — For Winter Nights

‘A gripping read from an assured storyteller’ — Antonia Senior, The Times

'A gripping ride.' — Wilbur Smith

'Page-turning and gritty.' — Daily Mail


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BFLA Best of 2019 and Picks for 2020

We are so proud that our authors have been featured in so many of the Best of 2019 selections and picks for 2020. In celebration of these amazing achievements, we have compiled this summary of the lists in which our authors were included, along with the praise that accompanied their selection.

BEST BOOKS OF 2019

MANDALAY: RECIPES AND TALES FROM A BURMESE KITCHEN by Mimi Aye
‘It’s rare to come across a book that opens up a largely unknown cuisine, but MANDALAY does exactly that. Burmese recipes that combine the deliverable with the authentic, written with calm authority leavened with personal touches from an engaging personality.’ – Financial Times, Best Books of 2019: Food and Drink

‘This will likely be an introduction for many to an underappreciated cuisine, partly because of the politics of the place. Worry not, you are in excellent hands. Aye is a gifted recipe writer and opinionated champion of the food of her family (see, for instance, the short section on “Why MSG is A-OK”). This is a book to read as well as cook from, packed with evocative imagery.’ — The Observer, The 20 best food books of 2019

‘The book that opened my mind, and belly, to Burmese food, a cuisine I knew little about. Aye is the most beguiling of guides, weaving in tales of Burmese family and childhood travels, alongside recipes for mohinga and pickled tea-leaf salad.’ — Tom Parker Bowles, Daily Mail, Books of the Year 2019

‘Wonderful… The perfect introduction to a cuisine that draws from its neighbours in Thailand, India and China while making dishes that are quite unique. MiMi gives detailed descriptions of ingredients, techniques and recipes - giving the home cook all the tools, tips and - most of all - inspiration to make these dishes themselves.’ — Hot Dinners, The Best Cookbooks for Christmas Presents in 2019

CTRL+S by Andy Briggs
‘After more than a dozen novels for children, Andy Briggs has turned his hand to adult SF in the fast-paced, hi-tech thriller CTRL+S… A slick plot and a neat resolution.’ — The Guardian, Best Recent Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror

LITTLE by Edward Carey
’Edward Carey’s LITTLE is one of the most original historical novels of the year. Illustrated with the author’s unsettling, black-and-white drawings, it is inspired by the early life of Marie Grosholtz, better known as Madame Tussaud, although it is filled with Carey’s own vivid imaginings… By turns macabre, funny, touching and oddly life-affirming, LITTLE is a remarkable achievement.’ — The Sunday Times, Paperbacks of the Year

LOWBORN by Kerry Hudson
A Book of the Year for the Book Shambles podcast

‘[Kerry’s] writing is bold, beautiful, honest and sometimes painful to read. It gets my vote because Kerry illustrates the realities of what austerity in the UK does to people. At a time when people are relying on food banks, facing homelessness and struggling with cuts – it’s an essential read.’ — Stylist, The Decade’s 15 Best Books by Remarkable Women Authors

‘The power imbalance in Kerry Hudson’s memoir, LOWBORN, is both individual – a childhood surrounded by chaotic, often substance-altered adults – and societal. For her, the combination meant: “1 single mother; 2 stays in foster care; 9 primary schools; 1 sexual abuse child protection inquiry; 5 high schools; 2 sexual assaults; 1 rape; 2 abortions; my 18th birthday.” Also occasional homelessness and eight out of 10 on the Adverse Childhood Experiences scale. She escaped into the middle-class world of novel writing; in LOWBORN she returns, a refugee afflicted with survivor guilt, looking for memories and raging at how little has changed.’ — Guardian, Best Biography and Memoirs of 2019

‘A frank, personal story of Britain’s impoverished hidden millions.’ — Metro, Most Revealing Memoirs and Autobiographies of 2019

‘If there were any justice in the world, there would be a copy of Hudson’s powerful examination of her impoverished upbringing and why it continues to resonate under every politician’s Christmas tree.’  —iNews, Books of the Year 2019

‘In a society which often prefers to look in the opposite direction, Kerry Hudson's LOWBORN is an essential tour-de-force unravelling the realities of being born working class in Britain. Dubbed 'one of the most important books of the year' by the Guardian, LOWBORN is by turns an indictment of the UK's failing welfare state, and a humorous, heart-warming homage to the resilience of the human spirit. Read it, learn from it and pass it on.’ — Penguin, 10 of the Best VINTAGE Books of 2019

Peter James
Number 40 in The Bookseller’s list of the Top 50 highest earning authors of the year.

SWIMMING IN THE DARK by Tomasz Jedrowski
‘The overwhelming SWIMMING IN THE DARK by Tomasz Jedrowski, a young Polish author who writes rather miraculously in English, of which he has magisterial and frankly, Conradian command.’ — Sebastian Barry, Guardian, Best Books of the Year 2019

THE SCARFOLK ANNUAL by Richard Littler
‘This is the blackest of black humour.’ — Daily Mail, The Year’s Most Essential Books 2019

HIS BLOODY PROJECT by Graeme Macrae Burnet
‘If there is anything better than a historical novel, it has to be a historical crime novel, and Burnet proves himself a bit of a master of the genre with HIS BLOODY PROJECT… Multiple perspectives make this novel more twisty and turny than it already is, and although Burnet was an unexpected addition to the Man Booker Prize shortlist, this book more than earns its place. Masquerading as true crime – one of the most popular genres of the decade – it is also a work of strong literary merit, set in a community and a time that doesn’t get too much attention from authors who aren’t part of the Scottish literary scene. Burnet contributes to his own literary heritage with this novel, and honestly it also just a really cracking read.’ — Cultured Vultures, 10 Best Historical Novels of the 2010s

THE WILD REMEDY by Emma Mitchell
’A beautifully illustrated journey through the year, focussing on how nature and the outdoors can help our mental well being. Written with wisdom and kindness, and centred on Emma Mitchell’s own experiences, this is for anyone who loves learning more about the world around us, and for those who seek a way to help an unquiet mind. This book is a joy to own, and I cannot think of anyone whose life would not be a better place for reading it.’ — Joanna Cannon, Waterstones, Top 5 Reads of 2019

SHADOWPLAY by Joseph O’Connor
‘SHADOWPLAY is an absolutely magnificent book. It's not just a portrait of Bram Stoker, but a novel of the here and now. This is one of the best books of the year, anywhere.’ – Column McCann, The Irish Independent, Books of the Year

‘SHADOWPLAY has an extraordinary sense of the period and, using shifting scenes and changing perspectives, displays a brilliant ear for tone and nuance, and a wonderful talent for evoking and creating drama.’ – Sebastian Barry, Irish Independent, Books of the Year

‘A book inspiring deepest gratitude and admiration was Joseph O’Connor’s SHADOWPLAY, whose immaculate sentences were engines of the sometimes strange inner and outer reality of Bram Stoker and Henry Irving.’ — Sebastian Barry, Guardian, Best Books of the Year 2019

‘Resurrecting Victorian theatre in all its gaudy wizardry, this novel throws the limelight on three figures: Ellen Terry, the best-loved actress of the age; Henry Irving, its charismatic actor-impresario; and Bram Stoker, friend of both and author of the vampire classic Dracula. O’Connor’s panache and subtlety wonderfully match the gusto and creative finesse of the High Victorian world he dazzlingly evokes.’ – The Sunday Times, Best Novels of the Year 

‘Joseph O’Connor’s depiction of the theatre world of late 19th-century London in SHADOWPLAY is atmospheric and evocative, while he also manages to explore with verve, humour and acuity the public role and inner turmoil of the intriguing Bram Stoker.’ — Diarmaid Ferriter, The Irish Times, Books of the Year 2019

‘SHADOWPLAY by Joseph O’Connor was a glorious romp through Victorian London in the excellent company of Bram Stoker, Ellen Terry, Sir Henry Irving and the Lyceum Theatre. I believed every word of this fictionalised account of their relationship.’ — Liz Nugent, The Irish Times, Books of the Year 2019

‘I thoroughly enjoyed Joseph O’Connor’s SHADOWPLAY, which offers a dramatic and sensual insight into the lives of Bram Stoker and Henry Irving when they were working alongside each other at the Lyceum Theatre in 1870s London. O’Connor inhabits his characters with all the intensity of a method actor, re-creating an extraordinary world of creativity and self-doubt.’ — John Boyne, The Irish Times, Books of the Year 2019

‘GHOST LIGHT, Joseph O’Connor’s exquisite reimagining of Synge’s love affair with Molly Allgood, did not get the recognition it deserved. Not so SHADOWPLAY, his brilliant portrayal of Bram Stoker’s intense relationships with Henry Irving and Ellen Terry, a witty, wry, astute and tender delight.’ — Martin Doyle, The Irish Times, Books of the Year 2019

‘Now on the shortlist for the Costa Fiction Book of the Year, SHADOWPLAY is a fabulous, atmospheric jaunt back in time to Victorian London's West End, when Bram finds new inspiration and we watch as the immortal Dracula begins to take shape. An unmissable, colourful read about love, performance and creativity, you will practically be able to smell the greasepaint.’ — Penguin, 10 of the Best VINTAGE Books of 2019

‘It’s a book that totally swept me away to that lovely Victorian time in London, moonlight and fog – the atmosphere of it. He paints the canvas so well. You’re with Bram Stoker in the attic of the Lyceum Theatre where he was writing Dracula surrounded by all these ghost stories and the monstrous ego of Sir Henry Irving. Bram must have used Irving as inspiration for Dracula – he comes across as a really insecure monster in the book. It has comical flourishes as well because Oscar Wilde makes a cameo, which is very funny. You have some crazy tantrums by actors. It’s a bit like MOULIN ROUGE meets DRACULA. I absolutely loved it.’ — Oliver Callan, Irish Examiner, Well Known Figures Tell Us About Their Favourite Books of 2019

THE ’D’ MONOLOGUES by Kaite O’Reilly
Welsh Books – The Best of 2019 in Wales Arts Review

BOOKS TO READ IN 2020

ALLIGATOR & OTHER STORIES by Dima Alzayat
‘This rich short story collection exploring gender, identity, family and inheritance packs an emotional punch. Often told through the lens of everyday scenarios, the stories evoke displacement in a variety of ways: as a Syrian, as an Arab, as an immigrant and as a woman. While each story is different, they’re underpinned by experiencing “otherness”.’ — Cosmopolitan, 49 New Books by Black and POC Authors You’ll Be Reading in 2020

LOVE IN COLOUR: MYTHICAL TALES FROM AROUND THE WORLD, RETOLD by Bolu Babalola
‘In these 18 stories, writer and columnist Bolu Babalola retells love stories with a twist: she (thankfully) modernises the stories by removing sexism, racism and violence from these tales. Spanning Nigerian folktales, Greek myths to ancient tales from South Asia, these tales of romance and desire move across perspectives, continents and genre from the historic to current.’ — Cosmopolitan, 49 New Books by Black and POC Authors You’ll Be Reading in 2020

THE SWALLOWED MAN by Edward Carey
‘Edward Carey’s LITTLE (about the Life of Madame Tussaud) was a bit of a hit. This new one imagines the experiences of Pinocchio’s father, Geppetto, during the years he spent trapped in the belly of a shark.’ — The Times, Best Books of 2020

SWIMMING IN THE DARK by Tomasz Jedrowski
‘Imagine CALL ME BY YOUR NAME set in Communist Poland and you'll get a sense of Jedrowski's moving debut about a consuming love affair amidst a country being torn apart.’ — The Oprah Magazine, 31 LGBTQ Books That'll Change the Literary Landscape in 2020

THE LAST HUNT by Deon Meyer
‘The indefatigable detective duo of Benny Griessel and Vaughn Cupido has returned in this latest blockbuster adventure from Deon Meyer… You’ll enjoy the suspense and thrills of this runaway train of a mystery.’ — CrimeReads, Most Anticipated Crime Books of 2020

BOBBY MARCH WILL LIVE FOREVER by Alan Parks
Scottish Book Trust, 30 Scottish novels to look out for in 2020

PETER JAMES’ ROY GRACE SERIES COMMISSIONED BY ITV TO STAR JOHN SIMM AS ROY GRACE

Credit: James Clarke

Acclaimed screenwriter and Endeavour creator, Russell Lewis, has adapted two of international bestseller Peter James’ award-winning novels for ITV from the Roy Grace series starring John Simm in the lead role of the tenacious detective.

Entitled Grace, the 2 x 120 screenplays will narrate the first two stories in the series, DEAD SIMPLE and LOOKING GOOD DEAD, which introduced Brighton-based Detective Superintendent Roy Grace, a hard-working police officer who has given his life to the job. 

Co-produced by Second Act Productions, Tall Story Pictures and Vaudeville Productions, the drama opens with Grace’s career at rock bottom. He’s fixated by the disappearance of his beloved wife, Sandy, which haunts his thoughts.  He’s in the last chance saloon running enquiries into long forgotten cold cases with little prospect of success. Following another reprimand for his unorthodox police methods, Grace is walking a career tightrope and risks being moved from the job he loves most. 

With so much at stake, his colleague Detective Sergeant Glenn Branson knows he has more to give and asks him for help with a case.  When a stag night prank appears to go wrong and the groom goes missing, Branson calls upon Grace to unravel events that led to the mysterious disappearance three days before his wedding to his beautiful fiancé. 

A successful property developer with everything to live for, there is no trace of the missing groom. Is this a case of stag night shenanigans gone badly awry? Or is this something more sinister? With nothing but instinct, a lingering suspicion and his obsessive nature, Grace doggedly pursues the groom’s disappearance and becomes uneasily close to the bride-to-be….

Grace will begin filming in Brighton during the early months of 2020 with executive producers Andrew O’Connor and Paul Sandler for Second Act Productions, Patrick Schweitzer for Tall Story Pictures, Michael Vine for Vaudeville Productions, and Russell Lewis and Peter James. The first film, Dead Simple, will be directed by John Alexander (Belgravia, Trust Me, Jamestown) with the second film, Looking Good Dead, directed by Julia Ford (Sticks and Stones, The Bay II, Safe).

Part of ITV Studios, Second Act Productions was created in 2015 by Andrew O’Connor and Paul Sandler to focus primarily on scripted comedy and entertainment commissions. Grace is the company’s first scripted drama commission for ITV.

Andrew O’Connor and Paul Sandler commented on behalf of Second Act: ‘We're absolutely delighted to be working with Russell Lewis and Peter James, two of the greatest writers around and to have the chance to bring Grace alive on screen. Like so many other readers, we’ve been fans of the Grace books since they first appeared, so this is a fantastically exciting project for us.’

Co-founded by Creative Director Catherine Oldfield in 2016, Tall Story Pictures is responsible for producing The Bay, Sticks and Stones and Bancroft for ITV.  Previous commissions include Mike Bartlett’s Trauma starring John Simm and Adrian Lester, Tutankhamun and Lucan. Patrick Schweitzer executive produces Grace on behalf of Tall Story Pictures.

Patrick Schweitzer commented ‘We're thrilled to be involved in bringing these wonderful novels to the screen, with DSI Roy Grace being played by the marvellous John Simm we couldn’t wish for anyone more perfect to bring this role to life.’

Writer Russell Lewis is also known for his work on Morse, Lewis, Murphy’s Law, Sharpe’s Peril and Kavanagh QC.

Russell Lewis commented: ‘I’m thrilled and honoured to be involved in bringing Peter James’ brilliantly gripping series of Roy Grace novels to ITV.   Each story is a fantastic, hair-raising, twisting, switch-back of a roller-coaster ride that grips the reader from first to last, and the opportunity to translate that best-selling magic to television is like all one’s Christmases and birthdays come at once.  As his millions of fans and admirers are well aware, Peter's meticulous research and eye for detail is the stuff of legend.  His long established, close relationship with the police, taken together with a knowledge of Brighton and the South Coast that is the sole preserve of the born and bred lends his stories an unimpeachable veracity of place and procedure. That John Simm will be breathing flesh to the bones of Roy Grace really is the cherry on a dark, and troublingly encrimsoned cake…’

ITV’s Head of Drama, Polly Hill, and Drama Commissioner, Huw Kennair Jones have commissioned Grace for the channel. Huw will oversee production of the drama from the channel’s perspective.

Huw Kennair Jones commented: ‘With the brilliant combination of Peter James, Russell Lewis and John Simm, Grace promises to be a compelling new detective series for ITV and we're delighted to be bringing the iconic books to life with such an exciting production team.’

Peter James commented: ‘John Simm, who actually looks like the Roy Grace of my imagination, is inspired casting!  With John in the lead, the brilliant scripting by Russell Lewis, and our wonderful production team, I’m confident that fans of my novels and of TV crime dramas in general will be in for a treat.’

ITV Studios GE will be responsible for the international distribution of Grace.

The latest DS Roy Grace title DEAD AT FIRST SIGHT went to Number 1 on the UK paperback bestseller charts for several weeks and is currently still in the Top Ten, adding to a long line of major bestsellers for Peter James.

Praise for Peter James

‘Peter James is one of the best crime writers in the business’ – Karin Slaughter

‘Peter James is one of the most fiendishly clever crime fiction plotters’ – The Daily Mail

‘In my thirty-four years of policing, never have I come across a writer who so accurately depicts “The Job“’ – Detective Investigator Pat Lanigan, Office of the District Attorney, NYPD

About Peter James
Peter James is the international bestselling author of many award-winning novels. His Detective Superintendent Roy Grace series, set in Brighton – translated into thirty-seven languages with worldwide sales of over twenty million copies – has given him fifteen consecutive Sunday Times Number Ones. In 2015 WH Smith customers voted him the Greatest Crime Author of All Time and in 2016 he was awarded the coveted CWA Diamond Dagger, a lifetime achievement award for sustained excellence. In 2018 he received a Specsavers Honorary Platinum Bestseller Award.

Successful nationwide tours of the stage plays of THE PERFECT MURDER (2014), DEAD SIMPLE (2015,) NOT DEAD ENOUGH (2017) and THE HOUSE ON COLD HILL (2019) have packed theatres in dozens of British cities, and garnered magnificent reviews. Peter James’ latest standalone title THE SECRET OF COLD HILL was published in hardback in October 2019 and was also a Top Ten bestseller and his stunning international thriller ABSOLUTE PROOF was a blockbuster Richard & Judy Summer pick.

Visit the official website.

Like him on Facebook. 

Follow Peter James on Twitter. 

Follow him on Instagram. 

Watch Peter James TV.

Blake Friedmann CULTURAL HIGHLIGHTS 2019

It is an annual tradition for us to share our highlights of the year, and things we’re looking forward to next year. Enjoy, and seasons greetings from all of us at Blake Friedmann.

LIZZY ATTREE
Book: THE OLD DRIFT by Namwali Serpell

THE OLD DRIFT replaces the white man’s creation of Zambia with a vivid, Virgilian symphony that sings the songs of mothers, grandmothers and daughters of Africa; and their dual role in the powerfully mixed creation of sons and fathers and grandfathers. Dubbed “the Great Zambian novel you didn’t know you were waiting for”, Serpell’s debut novel contains epic writing reminiscent of Marquez’s 100 YEARS OF SOLITUDE. The “Zt. Zzt.” buzzing chorus of malevolent, wise, stoic mosquitoes between sections is inspired. A tale of three families weaves in malaria, madness, HIV, afronauts, and the love of a woman with fast-growing facial hair. Linking mosquitoes and viruses of the internet and the singularity, the novel (dedicated to her Mama and beginning with the ZZZzzzs, not the As) is an astonishingly articulated masterpiece.

Theatre: ANTHONY AND CLEOPATRA at the National Theatre with Sophie Okonedo and Ralph Fiennes

I loved the play. Okonedo as Cleopatra was very funny and the delivery of the language in a fairly modern setting and the staging was brilliant. Three hours of captivating, heart-stopping Shakespeare at its best.

Art: Olafur Eliasson at Tate Modern

If only for the 45-metre sugar-steam tunnel (titled ‘Your Blind Passenger’), which I went through twice at the request of my children. A completely disorienting white-out removes all reliance on senses other than your feet on the floor, and (if you cheat), your hand on the nearest wall. Children disconcertingly disappear at one metre away, only reappearing as the fog changes colour from blinding white to orange and then blue. Brilliant, interactive art for the whole family.

Looking forward to 2020

I’m expecting an intriguing shortlist for the Short Story Day Africa project I help adjudicate. The theme was ‘Disruption’, especially but not limited to climate and environ[mental] disruption. Previous years have been so successful, and last year’s HOTEL AFRICA short story collection contains some real gems.

KATE BURKE
Book: WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING by Delia Owens

I read this with high hopes as it has been such a huge bestseller in the US but it exceeded all expectations. Beautifully written and crafted, poignant and also gripping, this is a gem of a book and the best thing I read this year. Set in 1960s North Carolina, it’s the story of a very isolated young woman, living in the swamplands who becomes a suspect in a murder case. But it’s not a thriller - more an exquisite portrait of loneliness. Absolutely unforgettable – a instant classic.

TV series: SUCCESSION (series 2)

For me, the first series of Succession was a slow burn – I hated everyone in it and yet couldn’t stop watching, then felt oddly guilty for rooting for such an unlikeable family – but, by the end of it, I was hooked. Series Two was even better – a masterclass in over-the-top and subtle acting, crackling and often very funny dialogue and great fun to be back with this bunch of shamelessly ruthless entrepreneurs. Kendall’s rap, specifically, is my TV highlight of the year!

Podcast: HIT PARADE

Always nice to discover a podcast late in the day when there are lots of episodes to burn through! This one takes a look at US music chart history, exploring themes, trends, decades, pop singers and groups, with interesting facts and figures about their chart success. It covers everything from the Beatles to Lizzo, looks at music icons’ influence on culture in general, and is very well-researched and presented. A must for any music-lover, whatever you’re into.

ISOBEL DIXON
Book/Poetry:  THE PERSEVERANCE by Raymond Antrobus

I heard Raymond Antrobus read last year from his pamphlet TO SWEETEN BITTER and was deeply struck – not just the insights and rhythms of the wise, tender sometimes fierce work, but the quality of engagement, the energy in the delivery and the attentiveness between poet and listeners. And one becomes extra-attentive to one’s own listening, in every sense, when confronted with the poems of his first full collection THE PERSEVERANCE, exploring the d/Deaf experience, masculinity, race, family, power, loss. Linguistically rich and lyrically transformed lived experience, forceful yet unforced, and beautifully published by Penned in the Margins, this is a collection I recommend to everyone.

Exhibition: WALT WHITMAN, AMERICA’S POET at New York Public Library

On a hot, bright day I had the chance to explore a fascinating, cool cave of Walt Whitman texts and artefacts at the New York Public Library. Though Walt Whitman: America’s Poet seemed a narrow descriptor for a writer so widely loved. A poet of evergreen astonishment to me, since I first stumbled across Leaves of Grass as a young girl in South Africa. The annotated books, manuscripts and ephemera (including a letter firing Whitman from his clerking job!) in the NYPL’s display cases added further depth and resonance to the life, and also sent me tracking Whitman’s multitudinous influences in the work of many other writers I love.

Book/Fiction: GOLDEN HILL by Francis Spufford

New York also gave me the ultimate impetus to read Francis Spufford’s glorious GOLDEN HILL at last – having owned and gifted a couple of copies without finding the right moment to embark on my own reading, it was the American paperback edition I began on the flight back to London that finally got me going in earnest, and once I started I couldn’t stop. What a rollicking, frolicsome roller-coaster joy of a novel! But with a serious and moving heart.

2020 prospects – my bookshelves…

Having ploughed through both office move and house renovations last year, with much packing and unpacking of boxes, and only semi-restoring my books to my beautiful new shelves since, in 2020 I look forward to browsing, reminiscing and exploring my way through my own library – including masses of D.H. Lawrence reading for my Birds, Beasts & Flowers collaboration, and some recent additions from a foray to Clarke’s Books in Cape Town, like Sol T. Plaatje’s Mafeking Diary. Starting in the charmed quiet either side of the New Year with my first Elizabeth Strout, and with novels by Ann Patchett and Elizabeth McCracken to follow.

SIAN ELLIS-MARTIN
Book: HIS DARK MATERIALS by Philip Pullman

I’m almost glad I missed the boat on this series when I was younger as it allowed me to relish in the joy of newly immersing myself in the series as an adult. Completely absorbing, I couldn’t put the books down. Luckily, I still have the Books of Dust to get stuck into.

Event: Spice Girls at Wembley Stadium

I knew when I booked my tickets that seeing the Spice Girls would be great, but I underestimated just how good it was going to be. It surpassed all expectations. I didn’t get the chance to see them when I was younger, so this was a childhood dream come true.

TV series: GOOD GIRLS

For about a year, a friend kept telling me to watch Good Girls.  I didn’t think it sounded up my street at all, but I gave it a go eventually and couldn’t stop watching. Christina Hendricks, Retta and Mae Whitman are incredible throughout. Funny and dark at the same time, it was one of the only things I ended up binge watching this year.

JULIAN FRIEDMANN
Book: FLORA: INSIDE THE SECRET WORLD OF PLANTS

This is possibly the best ever book I have found on plants and flowers. Apart from the sumptuous illustrations it is filled with useful and entertaining information. Guaranteed to make you want to go straight out into the garden whatever the weather. But if it is raining you just go there in your mind....

Book: SALT FAT ACID HEAT: MASTERING THE ELEMENTS OF GOOD COOKING by Samin Nosrat

A wonderful and odd cookery book that goes into the physics and chemistry of how these four elements affect your food and taste buds. Now you know why things taste the way they do.

Book: THE FILM MAKERS' LEGAL GUIDE by Tony Morris.

Brilliant guide (especially to agents) of every legal aspect of film and TV contracts and law. Wish I'd had it many years ago. Never leaves my side (well, it's in my phone).

SAMUEL HODDER
Place: Matera, Italy
A unique, unforgettable city, which seems to exist outside of time. Believed to have been occupied for 10,000 years, thousands of its citizens lived in the Sassi - cave homes built into the soft rock, clustered around a communal courtyard. The city prospered in medieval times, but by the 20th century had fallen into extreme poverty and was labelled the 'Shame of Italy'. In response, the national government forcibly evicted the Sassi's 15,000 inhabitants in the 1950s. In 1993 the city was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site and this year Matera was a European Capital of Culture, and what was a cause of shame is now a source of national pride.

Book: ADELE by Leila Slimani

I found this even more compulsively readable than LULLABY. In lesser hands this story of sexual compulsion might have felt tawdry, but ADELE is devastating as Slimani portrays the gaping emptiness experienced by her eponymous protagonist. Written in taut, lucid prose, without an unnecessary line, it’s a fine addition to the libertine tradition in French literature.

TV series:  CHERNOBYL

This was breathtaking television: often terrifying, but also deeply haunting. It’s an unsparing look at a man-made ecological disaster, but also at the dysfunction – fuelled by fear – of the political state that lay behind it. Brilliantly written, impeccably acted and cinematic in scope. A new classic.

In 2020: THE MIRROR AND THE LIGHT by Hillary Mantel

We’ve been waiting so long! But I also know the wait will be entirely worth it.

LOUISA MINGHELLA
Film: BOOKSMART (Olivia Wilde)

Coming of age films are some of my favourite things in the world. Booksmart is the story of two high-school seniors (played by Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Deaver – great names) who decide to throw caution to the wind and go to a party for once in their lives. Of course, just getting to the party is a challenge, and the pair get into all sorts of antics. It’s funny and fresh and sincere, following characters of varied races, sexualities, and body types without making it all ‘about’ being inclusive. The twist is genuinely unexpected, and the finale is stand-up-and-cheer-worthy.

Theatre: FALSETTOS (William Finn)

I found Falsettos when I was shamelessly googling Christian Borle’s name and a recording of the 2016 Broadway production popped up – let’s not speak of the latest London iteration. This is a deeply emotional and poignant operetta with a phenomenally constructed score. The songs are consistently interlinked and full of character and flavor, leaving the whole thing steeped in imagery, comedy, and the universal theme is desperately clear. As much as it’s about family, sexuality, illness, and Judaism, it’s about growing up, getting older, living on a lover’s shoulder. Learning love is not a crime. It’s about time.

TV: DEAD TO ME (Liz Feldman, Netflix)

I love Netflix’s heightened reality trend. I also love Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini. When Dead To Me came out I was straight on it. It’s the story of a Jen (Applegate), full of vengeance after her husband was killed in a hit and run, and her unlikely friend Judy (Cardellini) who has grief of her own, but they are more connected than they think. Gloriously binge-able with intrigue that just keeps giving. Each episode drags you back into more mysteries. The setup? Fantastic. The ongoing intrigue? Fantastic. The end? Satisfying and fantastic. 10/10.

HANA MURRELL
TV Series: GIRI/HAJI, BBC

I’m currently watching this brilliant Japanese/British crime drama, and loving the stylish production, high tension and nuanced portrayal of cultural differences. I think it’s the first time I’ve seen a character on screen reflect my anglo-Japanese identity (minus the hard drug taking, of course!).

Book: AMERICANAH by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

This has been sitting on my shelf for a long time, and discovering Chimamanda’s illuminating, absorbing writing has been such a joy.

Travel: Ferrocarril de Sóller, Mallorca

Travelling on this electric train dating from 1911 was possibly the highlight of my Mallorca holiday in June, and I haven’t previously been a trainspotter. It winds through the mountains between Palma and Sóller, and you can cling to the little balcony at the back of the train, feel like you’re in an old Western movie and watch the beautiful scenery sweep past.

RESHAM NAQVI
Film: JOKER

Joaquin Phoenix’s heart-breaking portrayal of the Joker throws you in at the deep end from the beginning. Arthur Fleck’s tragic descent into darkness and eventual transformation into the Joker is viewed against the mean, gritty streets of Gotham in an unforgiving, corrupt society where civil unrest is bubbling under the surface. Joker takes you on a dark psychological journey, and though uneasy at times, has you hooked. Perceptive and moving, Phoenix’s performance pierces your very being – miss it at your own peril.

Art: Ólafur Eliasson – In Real Life

An immersive Exhibition at the Tate Modern until 5th January 2020. With Danish-Icelandic artist Ólafur Eliasson’s iconic artwork, the luminous orange sun (which was displayed in the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall back in 2003) in mind, I was keen to visit his latest exhibition at the Tate Modern. In Real Life is an immersive, career retrospective and it doesn’t disappoint. Catch it while you can before it disappears!   

Play: SWEAT by Lynn Nottage – Gielgud Theatre (June 2019)

Set against the backdrop of President Bush’s election in 2000 in small town America, this gripping drama explored how bonds of love and female friendship were tested by austerity, immigration, race and a fear of loss. A powerful play which, in the current political and economic climate, seems to be timeless.

In 2020: Leonard da Vinci exhibition at the Louvre, Paris (October 24, 2019 - February 24, 2020)

2019 marks the 500 year anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci in France, and the Louvre is exhibiting as many of his paintings as possible: The Virgin of the Rocks, La Belle Ferronnière, the Mona Lisa, the Saint John the Baptist and the Saint Anne. I’m looking forward to it!

JULIET PICKERING
Book: Elizabeth Strout’s OLIVE, AGAIN, was the best of hers yet. Nuanced, deeply moving, exploring the end of an inimitable life. 

Film: CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME? was a brilliant two-hander that Melissa McCarthy and Richard E Grant excelled in, and a sensitive portrayal of a literary career gone criminal. 

Person: My third pick is a whole person as an inspiring cultural event: Greta Thunberg. For a young woman of 15/16 to have inspired a worldwide movement to protest climate change, is completely awe-inspiring. She's woken many of us up to how urgent this situation is, and ensured that world leaders take notice. What a woman!

In 2020: I'm most looking forward to reading Ann Patchett's THE DUTCH HOUSE, over the Christmas break. 

JAMES PUSEY
Film: Ari Aster’s folk horror MIDSOMMAR was the most memorable film I saw this year. Equal parts frightening, terrifying and unnerving. Bad things happen in the Swedish countryside.

Art: Harald Sohlberg

Painting Norway at the Dulwich Picture Gallery. Like a Nordic Peter Doig, Sohlberg infused his paintings with an eerie wonder.

Sport: ICC Cricket World Cup final, 14 July.

England beat New Zealand in the most life-enhancing one-day match ever played. It was a close-run thing, finally decided in a Super Over. Nobody understood the rules, but that’s part of the fun.

JAMES SYKES
TV series: DARK SHADOWS

Gothic horror soap opera from the 1960s which I became addicted to this year. A young woman is mysteriously offered the job of governess at a creepy old house in Collinsport, Maine. Cue vampires, werewolves, time travel, parallel universes, and plenty of melodrama. There are 1,225 episodes, so I’ve got a way to go yet.

Theatre: COME FROM AWAY

A musical set during 9/11 doesn't sound like it would be the most heart-warming thing you could possibly see on stage, but it is. COME FROM AWAY tells the true story of what happened when 38 planes were suddenly ordered to land in the small town of Gander during the terrorist attack.

Music: THANKS FOR THE DANCE by Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen died in 2016, having just released an album, but he had already recorded many vocals intended for his next one. His son and a team of other musicians added music and produced this stunning farewell record. Cohen’s voice is more haunting than ever – hearing new material but knowing he is gone is a weird experience – and his lyrics are predictably brilliant.

DAISY WAY
Book: QUEENIE by Candice Carty-Williams

There have been so many great books to choose from this year, but I don’t think any character’s voice has stuck with me quite like Queenie’s. A heart-wrenching, dark and twisted storyline, very much at odds with its bright pink cover, I read this compulsively.

City: Copenhagen, Denmark

A mid-summer trip to Copenhagen this year, made it easy to see why Denmark is one of the world’s happiest countries. You can’t escape the beautiful architecture, incredible food options and countless green spaces. From the somewhat gaudy Tivoli Gardens to the chic Glypotetek art gallery, there is something for everyone. My personal highlight was the Cisterns: once the city’s water reservoir, it now exists as an underground exhibition space, showing incredible art installations… rubber boots recommended!

Musical: & JULIET at The Shaftesbury Theatre, London

A fun, slightly ridiculous, feminist musical, giving Juliet Capulet another chance at life after Romeo. With an amazing and energetic cast, and filled with an impressive array of some of the cheesiest pop songs from the last couple of decades – including Backstreet Boys and Britney no less – it’s impossible to leave the theatre without a smile on your face.

CONRAD WILLIAMS
Place: WALES by Jan Morris

Having just moved there, I was looking for a book that could articulate my love for the landscape, the people, the essence of Cymreictod.

This is a marvellous verbal rendering of landscape, history, and all that makes Wales so different. I come in from long walks and crack it open by the wood-burner, a nip of Penderyn at my side.

Book: FELIX HOLT by George Eliot

It’s always salutary for literary agents to reach down one of the 19th century greats and get a shock at just how brilliant they are. Eliot really is the Boss. Ravishingly intelligent and entertaining. I’m still in a spin.

Music: Boris Berezovsky piano recital in Oxford Town Hall

Scriabin, Rachmaninov, Godowsky-Chopin…This repertoire is now so firmly under the Russian maestro’s fingers that you never know whether to expect more of the same, or something new. The problem is that after a great piano recital you can never remake the experience in your mind. It is like a conjuring, an enveloping spell, as constituted by musicality, technique, story-telling, acoustics as by the X-factor, which this artist has in spades: a whopping metaphysical energy. Thus, listeners encounter the epic and the elemental, and it goes so far beyond what you can learn in a conservatoire masterclass as to be dizzying.

TOM WITCOMB
TV: DARK

‘Netflix Original’ can usually be taken to mean ‘promising, but ultimately very disappointing’, but emo-noir time-travel thriller DARK (dir. Baran bo Odar, Jantje Friese) was a nice surprise, especially in the wake of an unwatchable third series of STRANGER THINGS. There are some great sci-fi moments, and manages to avoid many of the regular pitfalls of ‘time-slip’ TV. Great casting, decent script, moody atmos, and a second season that doubles down on the wtf-ery. Shout out to Chernobyl as well, but that left me so bereft I can’t call it a highlight yet.

Book: HIS DARK MATERIALS by Philip Pullman

Not wanting to go on about it but my wife and I had a baby this year. He’s the best baby ever born, DM for pics. It’s advised that for the baby to connect with the non-pregnant parent, that person could read aloud to get baby used to their voice. Not wanting to fill his head with nonsense about young wizards growing up to be policemen and state representatives, we wanted to give Ziggy a firm grounding in physics, philosophy & theology whilst championing free thought and the challenging of authority. Hopefully that won’t prove too disastrous in his teens... Categorically the best books written for young people (and adults, whilst we’re at it). It’s a shame the BBC adaptation is soulless (daemon-less?).

Music: Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats

Whilst I worry that their 2018 release, Wasteland, signals their ‘acceptable to the Guardian’ decline, the gig we went to in January contained a satisfying heavy dose of their hazy pscychedelic technicolor weirdness and they hooked our ghoulish hearts from the get-go.

EDWARD WILSON-LEE’S THE CATALOGUE OF SHIPWRECKED BOOKS WINS THE PEN HESSELL-TILTMAN PRIZE 2019

Edward Wilson-Lee’s marvellous THE CATALOGUE OF SHIPWRECKED BOOKS has won the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize 2019. The prize celebrates the best non-fiction books with specifically historical content and of high literary merit – that is, not primarily written for the academic market.

THE CATALOGUE OF SHIPWRECKED BOOKS was published by William Collins in the UK in 2018 and by Scribner in the US in 2019. Rights have been sold in eight translation markets so far: Bulgaria (Colibri), China (Guangxi Normal University Press), France (Editions Paulsen), Germany (Btb Verlag), Italy (Bollati Boringhieri), Japan (Kashiwashobo), Saudi Arabia (Madarek) and Spain (Ariel, Planeta). THE CATALOGUE OF SHIPWRECKED BOOKS was also shortlisted for the James Tait Black Prize for Biography in 2019.

Without libraries, who are we? We have no past, and no future… THE CATALOGUE OF SHIPWRECKED BOOKS tells for the first time in English the story of the first great universal library in the age of printing — and of Hernando Colon, the illegitimate son of Christopher Columbus, who created it. Hernando spent his life trying to build the first universal library of print: personally scouring bookshops in an attempt to acquire a copy of every book, he brought them back to his library in Seville, where he drove himself mad attempting to devise how best to navigate and organise the world of print.

Hernando lived in extraordinary times. He knew Erasmus, Dürer and Thomas More, was at the forefront in the first international conference to determine the circumference of the world, led the team that created the first world map on scientific principles — and invented the modern bookcase. Hernando’s life placed him at the centre of the ages of exploration, print, and the Reformation: he spent a year living with his father marooned aboard a shipwrecked hull off Jamaica and wrote the first biography of Columbus. To reconstruct his life is not only to recover a vision of the Renaissance world, but also to appreciate the passions and intrigues that lie beneath our own disciplined attempts to bring order to the world. THE CATALOGUE OF SHIPWRECKED BOOKS is an unforgettable journey through these layered realities — and a bibliophile’s dream!

Praise for Edward Wilson-Lee and THE CATALOGUE OF SHIPWRECKED BOOKS
‘Perfectly pitched poetic drama — the closest thing documented history can get to magic realism…THE CATALOGUE OF SHIPWRECKED BOOKS is a wonderful book, not least in the literal sense of an epic unfolding in a nonstop procession of marvels, ordeals and apparitions… A simile-studded prose that is seldom less than elegant and often quite beautiful… THE CATALOGUE OF SHIPWRECKED BOOKS is most compelling as a meditation on the response to an explosive expansion of knowledge.’ —  Simon Schama, Financial Times

'Wilson-Lee’s main subject… is an intellectual hunger at once dazzling and monstrous: Hernando Colon’s insatiable urge to know and to possess… For lovers of history, Wilson-Lee offers a thrill on almost every page… THE CATALOGUE OF SHIPWRECKED BOOKS is an intellectual biography, but its beating heart is the tangled love of a son for his father... Edward Wilson-Lee’s magnificent book helps us understand [Hernando’s] obsessive desire to gather and preserve, even in the face of chaos.'  — Irina Dumitrescu, New York Times

'Superb biography... THE CATALOGUE OF SHIPWRECKED BOOKS affords an intriguing glimpse into the Renaissance mind and its rage for order, as well as a beguiling preview of the modern library and, very possibly, what lies beyond.' — Ernest Hilbert, Wall Street Journal

‘An elegantly written, absorbing portrait of a visionary man and his age.’ — Kirkus Reviews (Starred review)

'A gripping study of heroic endeavour and family rivalry; it's a tour de force of sifting through dusty fragments and of vivid biographical storytelling, as well as a delicious, Borgesian dream for all bookworms and lovers of libraries and print ephemera.' — Marina Warner, New Statesman

‘Edward Wilson-Lee’s THE CATALOGUE OF SHIPWRECKED BOOKS is an utter joy, the story of the first internationally important library and the man whose vision it was. It will remind everyone who reads of it of how wonderful libraries and the people who work in them are.’ – Joseph O’Connor, Irish Times

About the Author
Raised in Kenya, in a family of wildlife conservationists and filmmakers, Edward Wilson-Lee went to school in Switzerland, then to university in London, New York, Oxford and Cambridge, with periods living in New Orleans and Mexico in between. He now teaches medieval and Renaissance literature at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, where he has won prestigious research grants. His wife is an American scholar and writer, and they visit the US regularly. He is writing his next book for William Collins.

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