New Books | January–June 2014 Highlights
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ONEWORLD NEW BOOKS | JANUARY–jUNE 2014 HIGHLIGHTS FICTION | 8 FICTION | 11 FICTION | 18 HISTORY | 28 POLITICS | 32 SCIENCE | 40 PSYCHOLOGY | 46 LITERATURE | 54 GIFT | 56 CONTENTS CONTENTS FICTION New 2 New in Paperback 18 NON-FICTION History 22 Philosophy 31 Politics & Current Affairs 32 Business 38 Science 40 Psychology 46 Literature 54 Gift 56 Religion 58 BEGINNER’S GUIDES New 59 Complete List 62 DISTRIBUTORS & REPRESENTATIVES 64 Beads of water sparkled on their brown backs. Even from behind her sunglasses, Janet’s eyes winced at the brightness of their silvery-brown skin. Then her eyes were drawn to the wobbling water that lassoed the sun into strange rings and coils. And there, beneath it all, was the crack. For a moment, she thought that there was no crack. Surely if there were a crack, the water level would have dipped. Surely, she would have noticed if the water level had dipped. Or Solomon would have said something about the water level dropping. Nothing had been said or noticed. Until now. She stood there. Her three little silver darlings shivered in the heat and murmured to one side. She slid her sunglasses onto the top of her head. She stood over the pool, leaning out as far as she dared. Still the water looped and coiled the glinting light. It would take time for the waves to settle. But she had time. Of that commodity she had an abundance. Always that sense of time on her hands. As though time were some sticky substance that clung to her fingers and had to be carefully scoured off. Rubbed off with care and Sunlight soap so that it did not stick under her wedding ring or catch in the gap between the white gold of that ring and its little neighbour – the more recent eternity ring presented to her by Hektor-Jan after the birth of their third child, precious little Sylvia. Well done, said the ring. Well done on securing the next generation of white South African children, but enough, now, no more. The future is safe as the eternal circle of the ring suggests, but enough, too, as the white gold zero urgently implies. For ever and now. It felt strange accepting, for a second time, such a ring from such a man. Everything and nothing. NEW FICTION 3 THE CRACK Christopher Radmann The tensions and complexities of 1970s South Africa are brought vividly to life in this dark and powerful literary thriller Gentle but highly strung, Janet must support her Afrikaner husband in his new job as a plain-clothes policeman and specialist interrogator. Hektor-Jan heads off to work on New Year’s Day, aware that he is unbearably close to a bloody drama about to unfold. As Janet’s world tightens and threatens to fracture, she must look to her children and cling to the support of Alice, her black maid, and Solomon, her ever-faithful gardener. All too Praise for Held Up: conscious of her own emotional fragility, Janet watches her mother slip into the folds of ‘Old Timers’ disease. And next ‘An angry, forceful debut.’ door, the lurking, unfathomable Doug is up to no good. As The Times the crack in the swimming pool widens, can Janet bridge the gaps that threaten them all? Written with tenderness and disquieting power, Christopher Radmann exposes a brutal centre that cannot hold – and reveals how in apartheid South Africa, things must crack and fall apart. UK & ROW 1 MAY 2014 CHRISTOPHER RaDMANN is from South Africa but USA & CAN 10 JUN 2014 has lived in England for the last twelve years. He is Hardback Head of Sixth Form and Head of English at a boarding £12.99/$19.99 school in Hampshire, England, where he lives with his Demy (216mm×135mm) wife and two children. 352pp ISBN: 978-1-78074-399-8 eISBN: 978-1-78074-427-8 4 FICTION NEW MARTIN HARBOTTLE’S APPRECIATION OF TIME Dominic Utton The very funny story of one man’s attempt to get even with The Man Dan’s got a new job, working for a scandalous tabloid. But he’s moved out of town in order to start a family and has to begin commuting into London every day. After fourteen months of the trains either making him late for work or late getting home, he’s had enough. Having tracked down the email address of the MD of the train company, Martin Harbottle, he starts to write him letters. Emails that take as long to read as the delay to his journey. If his time’s been wasted, why shouldn’t he waste Martin’s? It turns out Dan has plenty of time to fill and a lot to say: his work for the troubled paper, his marriage and the struggle to adjust to new parenthood, his forthright opinions on everything find their way into his letters. And when Martin starts to respond, a hilarious and extraordinary correspondence begins. DOMINIC UttON is a journalist and author of fifteen UK & ROW 9 JAN 2014 years’ experience. After going freelance from the Daily USA & CAN 18 MAR 2014 and Sunday Express in 2001 he has written for newspapers Paperback £8.99/$15.99 including the Guardian, Sunday Times, Daily Mail, and B format (198mm×129mm) Mirror, as well as magazines including Cosmopolitan, 352pp Elle, Maxim, Zoo, and many more. He lives in Oxford and ISBN: 978-1-78074-372-1 currently commutes to London six days a week. eISBN: 978-1-78074-373-8 Or rather – lucky us. Me and Overkeen Estate Agent. My sole regular fellow traveller on the night shift home. He’s an odd one, is Overkeen Estate Agent. I only ever see him when I’m on these later trains – and he always seems to have come straight from work. The shiny suit, the tie in a fat footballer’s knot. (What is that knot? Like a quadruple-Windsor, far too big for any shirt collar, squatting there at the neck like a fat silk Buddha. Who decided that was a good look? And when did we start taking sartorial direction from footballers anyway?) He’s always on the phone (a white iPhone – and that in itself speaks volumes. He chose the white model. He looked at the black version and said: No. I want a white one. I am male, I appear to be heterosexual… and yet still, despite all that, I’d prefer the white iPhone. That’s the sort of person I am) and he’s always saying things like: ‘We need to drill this down’, and ‘Let’s get that actioned asap’. He uses words like ‘diarise’ and ‘bro’ and ‘PDQ’. He calls people ‘legends’. He’s about 14 years old. I’m simultaneously repulsed and fascinated by him. But, to be fair to him, he rarely seems bothered by the train delays. He just keeps talking nonsense into his white iPhone and staring at his reflection in the window. 6 FICTION NEW IN BETWEEN DREAMS Iman Verjee A tale of a taboo love affair and its inescapable consequences Growing up in a sleepy town with parents who seem to adore her, it’s difficult to understand why Frances is the way she is. Strange, manipulating, and at times cruel, she is a mystery to Marienne, her bewildered mother. But, on closer inspection, hiding beyond the white picket fence and cherry-blossom tree that umbrellas their cosy life, something dark lies heavy on both Frances and her father. Following a disastrous sixteenth birthday party and a grandmother found dead in the bathtub, Frances is sent away to boarding school. The Academy is a place rife with teenage rivalry, secret rendezvous, and budding friendships. And it’s here - alone for the first time - that Frances is forced to confront the true nature of her life. Intertwined with Frances’ narrative is that of her father James. Between them we discover a story about a young girl entering adulthood under the smoky weight of a terrible secret; of a life stolen and rediscovered and above all, the tale of a tainted love affair and the fluid, easily traversed boundary between perversity and normality. IMAN VERJEE won the 2012 Peters Fraser & Dunlop/ UK & ROW 3 Apr 2014 City University Prize for Fiction for her debut novel In USA & CAN 13 MAY 2014 Between Dreams, which she wrote whilst completing Hardback £12.99/$19.99 an MA in Creative Writing at City University. Prior to Demy (216mm×135mm) studying in London she studied psychology at the 368pp University of Alberta in Canada, where she lived for ISBN: 978-1-78074-396-7 six years. She now lives in Nairobi, Kenya. eISBN: 978-1-78074-397-4 ‘They all say I’m strange. And they made her believe it too.’ Here, I stop myself. I cannot tell him what really happened. A quick memory of that hazy afternoon flashes through my mind and I blink it away. I turn in his arms and this time, he lets me. He rests his chin on top of my head. ‘When did this happen?’ ‘I can’t remember,’ I answer. ‘It’s been a while, I guess.’ ‘You know it’s not true, right?’ His hand runs under my hair and rubs in slow circles down my back. ‘You know how lovely you are.’ ‘Then how come you didn’t defend me today?’ I look up at him, pushing against his chest. ‘You just stood there and let her shout at me.’ He doesn’t answer. Instead, that familiar, agonizing look comes across his face and his fingers slip into mine.