Film and TV
The film adaptation of MEG ROSOFF's How I Live Now will star Oscar-nominated Saoirse Ronan, best-known for her role in Atonement and Hanna. The director is Kevin Macdonald.
LUCY WORSLEY, author and presenter of If Walls Could Talk, has been nominated for a Royal Television Society Award for Best Female Onscreen Talent.
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Ones to Watch
Award-winning author Professor TIM BIRKHEAD's new book, beautifully illustrated by Katrina van Grouw, uses a lifetime of study to explain how birds interpret the world and show how their behaviour is shaped by the world around them.
CATHERINE FLETCHER's editor describes her new book Our Man in Rome, the story ofHenry VIII's divorce from Catherine of Aragon and England's break with Catholicism, as "the stuff of fiction by C J Sansom or Hilary Mantel. It's also of course highly topical given the recent defections of Anglican bishops."
With its themes of the rise of the papacy, the confrontation between Christianity and Islam, the evolution of the concept of holy war, of knightly piety and religious devotion, the First Crusade is one of the best-known and most written-about events in history. In this fascinating and innovative study, PETER FRANKOPAN shifts the paradigm and asks vital questions that have never been posed before.
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Shortlisted
My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece by ANNABEL PITCHER and You Against Me by JENNY DOWNHAM have both been shortlisted for the Teen Category of the Waterstone's Children's Book Prize.
LIZ KESSLER's new novel A Year Without Autumn is on the 2012 Blue Peter Book Awards shortlist. Fellow Orion author LAUREN ST JOHN is the 2011 winner.
A Year Without Autumn has also been shortlisted for the Sheffield Children's Book Award.
Tears of the Desert by HALIMA BASHIR, with DAMIEN LEWIS, has been shortlisted for the Italian Primo Terzani 2012 by the cultural organization vicino/lontano ("near/far"). The prize is for essays, novels or journalism which deal with the theme of relationships and conflicts generated between different cultures, or which offer a cross-section of a civilisation undergoing change.
My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece is on theshortlist for The Red House Children's Book Award, the Berkshire Book Award for readers aged 11-14and for the Kernow Youth Book Award, which isselected by young people in Cornwall. It was also shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and for the Galaxy Awards, along with Dead Man's Cove by LAUREN ST JOHN and was on the Guardian shortlist alongside My Name is Mina by DAVID ALMOND.
CATHERINE HALL's second novel The Proof of Love is on the shortlist for the London Book Award, which is part of the Festival of London and forthe Green Carnation prize.The Green Carnation prize launched last year and is theUK's first literary award celebrating the very best in lesbian and gay writing.
MEG ROSOFF's novel The Bride's Farewell has been shortlisted for the 2011 Carnegie Medal.
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Longlisted
My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece by ANNABEL PITCHER is on the 2012 Branford Boase longlist. www.branfordboaseaward.org.uk
My Name is Mina, You Against Me and My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece are all on the United Kingdom Literacy Association's (UKLA's) longlist for their 2012 award for the 12-16 age group.
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Dorling Kindersley have published a new edition of MARY BERRY’s bestselling Complete Cookbook. At the stylish launch party, editor Mary-Clare Jerram (on the right of the picture) announced sales of over 800,000 copies of the book since first publication. Also in the picture are, from left, Lucy Young (cookery writer and Mary’s “right hand”), Mary Berry and Felicity Bryan.
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Congratulations to DIARMAID MACCULLOCH, who received a knighthood in the New Year Honours. Sir Diarmaid is working on a new series for the BBC on How God Made the English.
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MARTIN WALKER’s Bruno crime series has become a bestseller in Germany, the series selling over half a million copies to date and film rights have been optioned to Memento Film.The seriesis set in deepest rural France and features Bruno Correges, Chief of Police, who was recently described in The Guardian as “humane, sensible, honest and a very good cook”. Published in the UK by Quercus, the first two have sold in 14 territories.
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New Deal
Hot Key Books has bought world rights in LYDIA SYSON’s first YA novel, A World Between Us. The editor Sarah Odedina calls it "a fantastic, sweeping romance…With hints of Charlotte Gray and Atonement this is a novel that will thrill and satisfy any YA reader who likes adventure and big themes with their romance…."
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New Deal
The Bodley Head have bought JONATHAN PHILLIPS' next book The Life and The Legend of the Sultan Suladin. The Bodley Headand Random House in the US recently published Jonathan's Holy Warriors: A Modern History of the Crusades; ‘the best recent history of the Crusades’ - New York Times.
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New Deal
Emmy Award-winning International Editor for the prestigious Channel 4 News, LINDSEY HILSUM has been covering events as they unfold in Libya and was there at the time of Gadaffi's death.Faber have boughtSandstorm: Libya in the Time of Revolution for publication in April 2012. US rights have been sold to Penguin.
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New Deal
LIZA KLAUSSMANN recently received a BA in Creative Writing from Barnard College, Columbia University where she was awarded the Howard M. Teichman Prize for Prose. She recently completed an MA in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway, receiving a distinction. Her first novel, Tigers in Red Weather, sold for a major sum in a two book deal to Picador in the UK in an eight publisher auction, and was pre-empted by Little, Brown in the US for a seven figure sum. Foreign rights have sold in 18 territories so far. Liza is currently working on her second novel.
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New Deal
Leading Byzantine scholar PETER FRANKOPAN's next book The New Silk Road, about the rise of the east and the fall of the west, has been sold in the US after a pre-emptive bid by Hold. UK rights have been bought by Bloomsbury.
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New Deal
CHELSEY FLOOD is completing her MA in Creative Writing at UEA and has been awarded the Curtis Brown Prize. Her YA novel Infinite Sky is a brilliant debut - a tragic summer love story between Trick, the eldest son of a traveller family who come to camp on the edge of Silverweed Farm, and Iris, who lives there with her father and brother. UK rights bought by Simon and Schuster, at auction; and by Arena in Germany.
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New Deal
CARLOS ACOSTA, author of the acclaimed autobiography No Way Home, has written his first novel. Bloomsbury commissioning editor Bill Swainson has secured world rights and will publish in 2013. Bill describes the novel as "bold, earthy and imaginative", with "extraordinary twists of plot and fascinating insights into Cuba's history".
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My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece by ANNABEL PITCHER is on the 2012 Branford Boase longlist. www.branfordboaseaward.org.uk
My Name is Mina, You Against Me and My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece are all on the United Kingdom Literacy Association's (UKLA's) longlist for their 2012 award for the 12-16 age group.
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