John Andrews
John’s memoir of fishing and family loss, FOR ALL THOSE LEFT BEHIND was published by Mainstream in September 2002.
John was Marketing Manager for Creation Records throughout its phenomenal heyday. In 1992 John’s father died young, from cancer. The experience stripped away from him all the certainties that gave his life its equilibrium and increasingly he felt the presence of his father’s ghost looming over his life like an unanswered question. It was only when he threw himself back into his childhood pursuit of fishing, which he had shared with his father, that he started to find the catharsis and the resolution he needed.
FOR ALL THOSE LEFT BEHIND is a moving but unsentimental account of this emotional journey which leads along the riverbanks of Britain and takes us as far afield as the waters off the coast of Cuba. The book is populated with the strange and beautiful creatures - Pike, Roach, Barracuda, Wahoo - that John encounters on this modern odyssey. It is a book that brings the world of the angler to electrifying life, and suggests that, ultimately, fishing really can be a matter of life and death.
UK and Commonwealth: Mainstream. Translation: Marsh Agency. US: Author.
Andrew Baker
Andrew is a feature writer for The Daily Telegraph. WHERE AM I AND WHO'S WINNING? is his first book - a travel book with an entirely unique angle: Andrew does not travel out of love or curiosity or a spirit of adventure, he travels because it is his job. And the kind of travel his job involves is the kind that the average person will never experience.
In one year Andrew makes over fifty trips abroad to report on sporting events around the world for the Telegraph, where he has worked for the past five years. Where Am I? tells the story of his development from beginner to veteran, starting at the Commonwealth Games in 1998 and ending on the other side of the world at the Games four years later.
This is a book aimed not at sports fans but at a wide general readership. It is immensely funny, instructive and touching, packed with extraordinary characters and outlandish incidents set in the most diverse of locations. And at the centre of it is the extremely likeable figure of Andrew Baker, a kind of everyman with a lap-top, who clearly loves what he does even though he constantly wonders why on earth he is doing it, when he ought to be at home with his two very young daughters.
UK, Commonwealth and Serial: Yellow Jersey. Publication October 2004. US and Translation: Author.
Mark Doyle
Mark Doyle is writing UNDER THE SAME SKY, which is a very personal account of a tragic period in recent African history. As a long-serving BBC correspondent Mark has intimate knowledge and experience of some of the most savage conflicts of modern times, and examines at first hand the phenomenon of the ‘failed state’.
The book is full of horror but also of heroism and of the most incongruous moments of humour – such as the rebel carrying his AK47 dressed in a woman’s bathrobe, or the image of Mark turning up the volume on Teletubbies to drown out the sounds of gunfire in the square below his family’s apartment.
As its sub-title - Good Guys and Bad Guys in the Failed States of Africa - suggests, this book does not simply shock and condemn - it celebrates and praises as well. Alongside the evils of internecine warfare, Mark finds the deepest humanity and friendship. He takes us on a fascinating journey behind the headlines to a world at once indescribably alien and strangely familiar.
Huw Edwards
The very well known and popular broadcaster Huw Edwards is working on a book that tells the fascinating story of the twenty-one English Princes of Wales. It covers seven hundred years of British history and will be written in Huw's wonderfully robust, sardonic and accessible style. Huw's research programme is extensive, and the book will be the definitive modern work on its subject, as well as a major commercial proposition.
Matt Ford
The editor of The Big Issue, Matt is currently working on a popular history of Anarchy.
Chris Gordon
Chris Gordon has written THE BOOK OF WEIRD SEX, an extraordinarily entertaining and informative compendium of true stories from the strangest reaches of human sexual behaviour. Bizarre practices, prejudices, contraptions, cures, misconceptions and misadventures - all this and more awaits the reader of this very funny book, which was published by Allison & Busby in October 2004.
UK and Commonwealth: Allison & Busby. US and translation available.
Justin Hempson-Jones
Justin Hempson-Jones is writing On Heaven’s Lake, a book about the year he spent recently in China. As a piece of travel writing this is beautifully evocative, full of texture, taste and surprise. It is peopled with a remarkable cast of characters, engaged in the most extraordinary activities. It takes us from the hellish white noise and frantic motion of the city to the primal stillness and silence of the Yellow Mountain, and back again. It shows us the optimism, energy and sheer belief of the people, while acknowledging their fear and acquiescence. It does what the best travel writing always does.
But it offers much more than that. As an analysis and explanation of the latest phase of the Chinese Experiment it works its way into the minds and motivations of a population and a society which is roundly beating the economic giants of the West at their own game – but on its own terms. No other book on China has managed to get to the core of this enigma: as the West waited for China to adopt its ways and join the international economic club, China found its own way, coupling the co-operative creeds of 1950s Communism to an economic train of unstoppable communal enterprise. The vision is as exhilarating as it is disturbing. This is an extremely timely, important and original addition to the sub-genre of recent non-fiction concerned with China, and an enthralling read, beautifully realised.
Justin Hempson-Jones is a former China scholar and has published several articles on Chinese politics and international relations. He currently works in an intelligence unit for the Metropolitan Police.
Anvar Khan
Anvar is a writer, broadcaster and columnist. She first started getting noticed at 21 when a short story and a poem she had written were short-listed and published in a book showcasing the best of Scottish fiction. After becoming the self appointed music, fashion and features editor of a YTS “work-for-free magazine” she became noticed by the Glasgow Herald and became a freelance contributor to the paper.
She won the UK Press Gazette Feature Writer of the Year Award and was runner up in The Jasmine literary Awards. She has written for most of the UK’s major newspapers and has worked as a presenter on radio and television, famously conducting the interview in which Greg Dyke admitted that the BBC was “hideously white”.
Anvar's first book is PRETTY WILD – the most honest diary about men, women and sex you’ll ever read.
Her next project, The Female Warrior, will be an exploration and an explanation of why women are distancing themselves from traditional roles in order to become revolutionaries in the sex war. It¹s about thinking outside the box women have been put in by men. Far from citing a male conspiracy, the Female Warrior seeks to find out why modern women still allow themselves to be defined by men and society. It is the inevitable conclusion of being brought up as a Muslim girl by a father who believed that women were to be kept in their place and that their personality should be shaped by their value on the marriage market. It is the result of knowing too many men with too many hang-ups and a strict belief in double standards.
Academic and original in its ideas, yet irreverent, funny and as easy to digest as a Jackie Collins novel, this book is meant to be read by every woman from the white coats at the make-up counter in Boots to the lecturer in gender studies in CA.
PRETTY WILD is published by Black & White Publishing (UK and Commonwealth). US and foreign rights: the Author.
Adam Macqueen
Adam Macqueen, a young journalist and protegee of Ian Hislop, has worked for Private Eye, The Big Issue and many other major UK publications. He is also a regular broadcaster on TV and Radio.
THE KING OF SUNLIGHT is Adam’s first book, a hugely entertaining biography of the eccentric, late Victorian millionaire-businessman-philanthropist Lord Leverhulme, founder of Lever Bros. Some of his ideas were decades ahead of their time - universal suffrage, workers’ profit shares - others bordered on insanity. Leverhulme’s life is a genuinely startling story.
UK & Commonwealth: Bantam Press, 2004. US and Translation: Author.
Jonathan Neale
An American born writer based in England, Jonathan has written plays, children's fiction, adult novels and serious non-fiction. His long list of books includes THE AMERICAN WAR: VIETNAM 1960-1975; TIGERS OF THE SNOW; and YOU ARE G8, WE ARE 6 BILLION. He is currently working on two projects.
Jonathan has also written a book for Vision Paperbacks entitled WHAT'S WRONG WITH AMERICA published in Spring 2004.
Lembit Õpik
Lembit is the Liberal Democrat MP for Montgomeryshire and is a member of his party's Shadow Cabinet, with responsibility for Welsh, Northern Irish and youth affairs. The son of Estonian parents who emigrated to Belfast, Lembit's life has been consistently remarkable. He is working on his autobiography NO FEAR OF FALLING.
This book is about the making of a modern young political idealist with an extraordinary history and an abiding commitment to the belief that politicians really can and should improve people’s lives. Lembit is a political insider who can give an insider’s unique perspective on general elections, electioneering, leadership campaigns, the deals struck in the House of Commons tea-room, and much more. In an era of unprecedented public scepticism about the motives and abilities of politicians NO FEAR OF FALLING is a welcome corrective, and a tremendously amusing examination of what it takes to make and maintain faith in the idea of public service.
All rights available
Charles Pasternak
QUESTis a highly original contribution to the debate on Darwinism, DNA, genetics and the past and future development of human civilisation. It is at once authoritative and accessible, combining erudition, enthusiasm and the infectious energy of the true polymath. Not content with current thinking on how civilisation has developed, Professor Pasternak has addressed himself to the intractable question of why - a question that is philosophical, scientific and cultural. In QUEST he propounds a compelling theory of how the chance collision of particular physical and mental attributes elevated an ordinary instinct for struggle into a form of human endeavour which has created and destroyed civilisations. That same endeavour is still leading us into new and controversial areas of achievement: not least in the field of Genetic Modification, an issue discussed here with a bracing and robust directness.
Charles Pasternak is a distinguished biochemist based in London but renowned internationally. He is also a member of the famous Pasternak family: his grandfather was Leonid, the impressionist painter, his uncle was Boris the Nobel prize winning novelist, his mother was Josephine the philosopher and his daughter is Anna, the writer. He is, in fact, a perfect case study for the mystery of genetic inheritance. He has previously published a number of academic books, but he is now ready to write for the wider audience which exists for high-quality popular science, and is working on his next book BLINKERS, about scientific ignorance in high places.
World Rights: John Wiley
Peter Shapiro
Peter is a very well respected music journalist and TURN THE BEAT AROUND is a book which, for the first time, tells the full and extraordinary story of the musical, cultural, social and sartorial phenomenon that was Disco.
As Peter explains, Disco was far more than the cartoonish construct as which it has so often been dismissed over the past twenty years. It brought about a revolution in popular culture, in the club scene, in social and sexual attitudes, in black consciousness, in the very fabric of the entertainment industry. And if you sit down again now and listen to some of the records that Peter so eloquently describes here, you will realise that, at its best, Disco gave us some of the finest popular music ever recorded. In TURN THE BEAT AROUND Peter tells the whole story, from the ‘60s to today, using a huge amount of original interview material with the people who made it all happen, as well as his own powerfully argued analysis of its impact on music, culture and society.
Peter is an expert on soul music, funk, world music, hip hop, rap and drum ‘n’ bass. His writing has appeared in many leading publications such as Time Out, The Wire and the NME as well as several national newspapers. He has also written a number of books in the Rough Guide music series.
World Rights: Faber & Faber 2005.
The Rev. Victor Stock
TAKING STOCK: CONFESSIONS OF A CITY PRIEST. Victor Stock is the Dean of Guildford, was a regular contributor to a BBC TV series, and has also had a weekly slot on BBC radio. He has been chaplain to the Lord Mayor, and many of his friends are household names, ranging from Geoffrey Howe and Patrick Mayhew to Diana Rigg and Judi Dench. He is a fascinating and highly entertaining raconteur and his reflections embrace social, political and humanitarian issues of global importance, as well as frequently hilarious anecdotes. He has kept a Diary for 20 years and has shaped the material into a thematically focused selection. He is working on a further diary selection and other book projects.
HarperCollins (World Eng lang) Autumn 2001. First serial: Daily Mail August 2001, Second serial: The Times, Sept 2001. Translation rights - Marsh Agency.
Deborah Turner
Deborah’s first book is ESKIMO LOVE SONG, an extraordinarily moving and powerful memoir which tells the story of how she put her life ‘on hold’ to care for her boyfriend when he was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. Serious illness is distressing at any time of life, but this happened when her boyfriend was only in his mid-20s (Deborah is ten years older). The account has extraordinary narrative drive and the level of emotional analysis combined with elements of spirituality make for a compelling read. The involvement of Madonna and Guy Ritchie (a friend of her boyfriend) adds an unexpected element. It's a truly remarkable book by an amazingly resourceful woman. Tragic but ultimately uplifting.
All rights available.
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