Katy Follain has acquired World rights in Last Christmas: Memories of Christmases past – and hopes for future ones by Greg Wise and Emma Thompson. It is a compilation of short personal essays written by a wide range of people – from actors, politicians and singers to homeless people, charity workers and refugees – about… Read more »
Bea Hemming at Jonathan Cape has acquired UK & Commonwealth rights at auction to award-winning Financial Times journalist Henry Mance’s In the Company of Animals, a wide-ranging, personal and sometimes humorous journey looking at how we live with other animals and how that might change in the future. North American rights have gone to Paul… Read more »
Cecily Gayford at Profile has bought UK & Commonwealth rights to the first book by social anthropologist and Max Planck Institute research fellow Farhan Samanani’s COMMONWEALTH. The book, which will be published in 2020, is a wide-ranging and hopeful exploration of how humans live in diverse societies. Using his own anthropological research, but also looking… Read more »
Oneworld have acquired world rights in A C Grayling’s THE GOOD STATE, a lucid exploration of the fundamental principles that should underlie a democratic constitution that receives its legitimacy, its powers, their use and scope, from the active consent of the governed. Oneworld published his acclaimed DEMOCRACY IN CRISIS in 2017.
Weidenfeld have commissioned James Hamilton, author of the highly acclaimed Gainsborough: A Portrait (‘compulsively readable’ Sunday Times) to write a biography of John Constable, the revolutionary nineteenth-century painter of the landscapes and skies of southern England.
Anne McNeil at Hodder Children’s Books, publisher of the Costa-shortlisted THE COLOUR OF THE SUN, has acquired World English rights in David Almond’s as-yet-untitled next novel, and also world rights in his novella ISLAND, adapted from a World Book Day short fiction, to be illustrated by David Litchfield. Jane Winterbotham at Walker Books has acquired… Read more »
UK and Commonwealth rights in 27 year old paleobiologist Thomas Halliday‘s YESTERDAY’S WORLDS: TRAVELS IN EARTH’S EXTINCT ECOSYSTEMS, a lyrical, on-the-ground geological history of the world, has sold to Laura Stickney at Penguin Press after a 6-way auction. US rights have been acquired by Hilary Redmon at Random House US, in a major deal, with… Read more »
Mondadori have just acquired Italian rights in THE LIFE AND LEGEND OF THE SULTAN SALADIN by Jonathan Phillips. Bodley Head publish the UK edition in April 2019, and Harvard University Press in November 2019. ‘Outstanding. Jonathan Phillips has written a compelling account of arguably the most inspirational of Islamic military heroes.’ Christopher de Bellaigue, author of… Read more »
Tim Harford’s latest book. HOW THE WORLD ADDS UP, has been commissioned by his regular UK and US publishers, Little Brown and Riverhead, for delivery in 2019 and publication in 2020.
Martin Meredith has been commissioned by Iain Macgregor of Simon and Schuster to write ZIMBABWE – A History. Martin is author of many books on Africa including the bestselling THE STATE OF AFRICA.