News
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Glowing reviews for Sian Rees's Moll Flanders
11 Sep 2011
Congratulations to Sian Rees whose Moll Flanders , recently published by Chatto, has received glowing reviews:
“…an eye-opening introduction to an underworld of sex and crime…” The Sunday Times
“…wonderfully colourful…” The Scotsman
“…what Rees does in this engaging book is to give us the extra historical information we need to create a richer context for Moll’s story. ” Katherine Hughes, The Guardian
” Ably and entertainingly Rees pictures Moll’s world of Stuart London. She traces the sources of her remarkable story and the overlaps between Defoe’s life and that of his heroine.This is a readable, informative and colourful account.” Express
“…lively and bracing…” Valerie Grove, The Times
“Sian Rees brings alive this fictional woman and makes her live and breathe in the teeming London of her birth. The city is a character in itself, full of thieves and vagabonds and highwaymen. For me, however, the particular fascination of this work lies in the vivid detail of what it means to have been female in the 1600s…This book raises many relevant issues such as the relationship between the state and private morality and the rights of children. Rees has written history at its most accessible: learned, informative and highly entertaining.” Catherine Dunne, Sunday Express
“…her fascinating and expertly researched new book…Rees firmly repositions Defoe’s work back in its appropriate context…Rees’s skill as a masterful researcher and a story teller truly shines. We are given a detailed tour of the workings and contexts of Moll’s world - taken from London to Virginia, and introduced to everything from the practices of midwifery to indentured servitude…Sian Rees has suceeded in painting an almost three dimensional context for Defoe’s celebrated novel. Moll Flanders is meely the peg on which she hangs a thoroughly engrossing study of 17th-century life,” Hallie Rubenhold, BBC History Magazine
“…this vivid look at both the character and the culture that created her.” Metro
“…a lucid, intelligent guide. ” Sunday Herald
“Making clever use of the online Old Bailey records and the plethora of best-selling criminal biographies from the 17th and 18th centuries, Rees uncovers all manner of entertaining stories … Foregrounding riveting historical fact to colour Defoe’s famous fiction, Rees offers a lively 17th-century history with the misfortunate Moll Flanders as its inspiration.” History Today
” Rees writes vividly about the lives of the early colonial settlers…Rees has a magpie’s eye for the details that make history sparkle. She also has the dexterity needed to turn this pick ‘n’ mix approach into a neat, coherent whole. The result is a wonderfully entertaining, enlightening book, which in its own way is just as much fun as the original.” Mail on Sunday
“Rees is an assiduous researcher with a perceptive and unflinching eye for the sordid and outrageous minutiae of 17th-century English low-life…Defoe’s novel is a compulsive page-turner and so is this latest work of Sian Rees.” Patrick Skene Catling, Irish Times
“… this slim volume is brisk, lucid and packed with color…If you haven’t read the original , this book will surely prove the necessary spur; to Rees’s credit, it’s also highly enjoyable in its own right.” The Lady
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Losing Small Wars: British Military Failure in Iraq and Afghanistan is no 4
11 Sep 2011
Congratulations to Frank Ledwidge whose Losing Small Wars: British Military Failure in Iraq and Afghanistan is number four on the Evening Standard non-fiction bestseller list this week.
The book has received widespread review coverage including:
“Losing Small Wars is an excellent book … It provides a devastating, highly readable critique of why Britain’s armed forces have fared so badly in two of the country’s most recent and controversial conflicts: Iraq and Afghanistan…. what Losing Small Wars does so well is to bring the catalogue of errors to life in graphic detail.” Sean Rayment, Telegraph
” … the author deserves applause for bluntly expressing the truths about our recent military failures that too many of those involved find it convenient to obscure… The author concludes: “We do not currently have armed forces that are equipped for conflicts… where brutally put they are actually invaders in lands far away and of which they know really very little.” I agree. A radical shake-up of the army is needed. It is only because its prestige is so low after defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan – as Ledwidge justly characterises these experiences – that the government can get away with savaging its strength in defence cuts. If much is wrong with today’s British Army, by the time the Cameroons have finished there will be precious little of it left.” Max Hastings, The Sunday Times
“…Losing Small Wars, is a savage indictment of the military leadership that got British soldiers into one impossible situation after another in Iraq and Afghanistan.” Rodric Braithwaite, Financial Times
“In many ways this is the sort of book I’d like to have written. Controversial, iconoclastic even, written by an insider, it casts a knowledgeable and critical eye over recent British military operations and doesn’t shy away from exposing incompetency and naming the guilty.” Stuart Crawford, The Scotsman
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Real Business's most successful article ever
08 Sep 2011
Business magazine Real Business has officially announced that Shed Simove’s online article about how he got his blank book to the top of the Amazon chart) was their most popular article ever, garnering a quarter of a million page views in just one week.
The book has also been successful , thanks to the eforts of the team at The Marsh Agency, with recent rights sales in the UK, Australia, Spain, Croatia, Germany, Holland, France, Serbia and even Mongolia.
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Connor Rowntree honoured again
07 Sep 2011
Connor Rowntree, a winner of a national Wellchild award, was presented with his award by Prince Harry at a presentation ceremony in central London last week.
The background to the award can be found at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-14730719
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Gurpareet is no 1
06 Sep 2011
Congratulations to Gurpareet Bains whose Indian Superfood recently went to no.1 Indian cookery, no.1 healthy eating, no 1 food and drink, no.2 men’s health, and no 4 over all on Amazon after the BBC Radio 2 Drivetime programme with Simon Mayo cooked and rated recipes from the book.
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City of Fortune chosen for the BBC History Magazine bookclub
23 Aug 2011
Roger Crowley’s City of Fortune has been chosen for the BBC History Magazine bookclub and according to The Bookseller was the sixth most reviewed book last week.
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Tom Devine Amazon no 1 in books on Scotland
23 Aug 2011
Congratulations to Tom Devine whose history of Scottish emigration To the Ends of the Earth , published this week by Penguin, has immediately gone on Amazon to
1 in Books > History > Britain & Ireland > Scotland -
Acclaimed Iran novel now out as e book
17 Aug 2011
Journalist Christian Oliver’s debut novel The Viper of Kerman about a coup d’etat in Iran had good reviews when it came out last year. It’s now out as an e book and gathering equally good comments on Amazon including:
em>The Viper of Kerman is a story where the balance is beautifully maintained between the characters and the narrative itself, and it also possesses an authenticity that says much for the depth to which Christian Oliver immersed himself between 2003 and 2006 when he was Reuters’ Iran correspondent. The Viper of Kerman is Christian Oliver’s first novel, and for its quality, power and credibility it deserves to be highly praised. This is clearly a major new talent whose next book I shall await with keen interest.
This story of an attempted coup d’etat in Iran by a cynical, manipulative ayatollah is beautifully written with credible characters whose motives and dialogue are all totally convincing. I have recently read the latest novels by William Boyd, Henry Porter and Sebastian Faulks, all three of which singularly lacked the foregoing attributes, and indeed were all in varying degrees marked by writing of extraordinary ineptitude. In contrast, firtst time novellist Christian Oliver writes like a young John Le Carre - subtly with delicate modulation of tone and pace. I can’t recommend this book too highly, and like the other reviewers I shall be looking out for his next book with keen anticipation.
An excellent Robert Harris style political thriller. Provides excellent background on the current turmoil in Iran. Good read.
From the first page when readers are plunged into the dangerous underground waterways alongside Abbas the blind, everything is set for pace, mystery and adventure. But the book is certainly not ‘just’ a page-turner. There are many other sympathetic characters, too, and much to learn from their interlocking stories. I will be looking out for the next book from this author.
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Rave reviews for Roger Crowley's City of Fortune
15 Aug 2011
Roger Crowley’s City of Fortune: How Venice won and lost a naval empire, currently in the top ten history bestsellers on Amazon, has been receiving rave reviews including:
” Roger Crowley makes a trustworthy and wonderfully eloquent guide … Crowley is such a natural narrative historian, with such an eye for colourful but telling details and such a knack for dramatic character sketches, that he remains a constant joy to read.” Christopher Hart, Sunday Times
“In recent years Crowley has gained a reliable reputation as a confident, clear-eyed guide to the Mediterranean. In Venetian fashion he plunders the historical records and literary archives, setting them out seductively to display a teeming tapestry of Venetian bravura over half a millennium, from the years 1000 to 1500.” Iain Finlayson, The Times
“[Crowley’s previous books] were notable for their lucidity and assurance and proved Crowley to be one of the best narrative historians currently writing. City of Fortune is of the same standard … Crowley’s accounts are spare but thrilling … the rise and fall of Venice’s empire is an irresistible story and Crowley, with his rousing descriptive gifts and scholarly attention to detail, is its perfect chronicler. For centuries, he notes, the republic’s sailors returned home with “gold, spices, plague and grief” and in this compelling book, like a scrupulous Venetian merchant, he weighs out full measures of each.” Michael Prodger, Financial Times
“…this book affords a perfect account of its subject. In terms of pace, colour and fluency, Roger Crowley’s style is flawless, matched by his complete grasp of the motives - mercantile, political and ideological - driving Venetians across the increasingly tricky Mediterranean waters. Read him to discover what a muda was, how a bailo differed from a provveditore, and why our modern world has at least some of its roots embedded in the Adriatic mud on which this apparently implausible empire began.” Jonathan Keates, Literary Review
“Roger Crowley burst onto the scene six years ago with a stunning account of the fall of Constantinople in 1453….Military history is still his forte, and the book is studded with set-piece accounts of epic engagements…” Noel Malcolm, Sunday Telegraph
“Roger Crowley’s hugely readable, well-written and informative book – take it there with you this summer! – explains how the Venetian Republic grabbed the riches that built it…An expert on maritime empires and Constantinople, he conjours vividly the privations and horrors the Venetians endured in the name of trade…Crowley is excellent on all this – and in building our sense of anticipation of the empire’s end.” Stella Tillyard, Daily Telegraph
” ‘Crowley is a wonderfully lucid and enchanting writer who shines at siege warfare and combat operations but he is equally skilled in expressing the essence of Venetian economic power. His narrative is laced with references to business practice that never seem forced or inapt.” Christopher Silvester, Daily Express
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Empire of Crime in headlines
15 Aug 2011
Tim Newark’s study of crime in the Empire, published by Mainstream on 1st September, is already attracting headlines with two news stories this weekend:
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/265027/HMS-Belfast-carried-10m-smuggled-heroin-on-final-voyage-
