Autumn 2019 SPRING 2019 HIGHLIGHTS Pure Rose Cartwright 978-1-78352-736-6 £8.99

The Sewing Machine Natalie Fergie 978-1-78352-748-9 £8.99

21st-Century Yokel Tom Cox 978-1-78352-739-7 £9.99

Common People Kit de Waal (ed.) 978-1-78352-745-8 £9.99

Don’t Hold My Head Down Lucy-Anne Holmes 978-1-78352-621-5 £14.99

How to Come Alive Again Beth McColl 978-1-78352-719-9 £14.99

The Life of Death Lucy Booth 978-1-78352-710-6 £9.99

inside2019.indd 1 05/02/2019 14:09

Unbound Unit 18 Waterside 44–48 Wharf Road London N1 7UX

Tel. 020 7253 4230

For a full list of contacts visit www.unbound.com

Trade Sales & Marketing Manager Julian Mash [email protected]

Online Accounts Manager Brian Martin [email protected]

Head of Rights Ilona Chavasse [email protected]

Head of Publicity Amy Winchester [email protected]

To order any of the books in this catalogue, please contact your PGUK rep. If you’re unsure who that is, contact Julian Mash at [email protected]. Dear Reader,

Welcome to the latest instalment of our catalogue, where you will find a full list of our new titles published between July to December 2019, along with a wealth of interviews, extracts and exclusive content.

July sees the publication of Razia, a fast-paced thriller set in contemporary London, the latest novel from Abda Khan, an author and lawyer who works with victims of domestic violence. You can read about her experience of traditional publishing and the bias she encountered on pages 52-54. Later that same month we are excited to publish the latest in our series of ground-breaking anthologies – Rife. From the creative minds behind Rife magazine, this anthology of twenty-one voices, all under the age of twenty-four, holds a mirror up to the experiences of young people in the UK today, with essays on money, mental health, sex, gender, inequality, education and the future, edited by Nikesh Shukla of The Good Immigrant.

As we move into the autumn, September sees the publication of Henrietta Heald’s Magnificent Women and their Revolutionary Machines, a centenary tribute to a group of female pioneers, Britain’s early women engineers. In 1919, in the wake of the First World War, a group of extraordinary women came together to create the Women’s Engineering Society. They were trailblazers, pioneers, boundary breakers, but many of their stories have been lost to history – until now.

In October Tom Cox returns with Ring the Hill, a book of unclassifiable non-fiction, written in his inimitable voice and studded with his trademark humour. This is the third book that Tom has crowdfunded with us (once again in record time) and it echoes 21st-Century Yokel in its discursive style. Each chapter takes a type of hill – whether it be knoll, cap, cliff, tor, mump or even mere hillock – as a starting point from which Tom will explore an experience or idea, taking in an array of topics from acid folk to wild swimming.

Later in October the hilarious Effin’ Birds hits the trade, based on the hit Twitter account: a compact field guide featuring more than 200 of the rudest and most hilarious sweary birds. And yes, it really is effin’ hilarious – everyone I have shown this book to has laughed very, very hard. If you are looking for a gift book this autumn, then look no further. In terms of gift ideas, we have another corker for you in the form of Cain’s Jawbone. In 1934, the Observer’s crossword writer, Edward Powys Mathers (aka Torquemada), released a novel that was simultaneously a murder mystery and one of the hardest and most beguiling word puzzles ever published. The 100 pages of the book were printed and bound out of order, asking the reader to reorder the pages to solve the mystery and reveal the murderers. Now, Unbound and The Laurence Sterne Trust are re-issuing the book in a custom-made box so that readers can physically reorder the pages for themselves. We are also offering a £1,000 prize for the first person to solve the mystery within a year of publication!

This autumn we are thrilled to be publishing Fuck Yeah, Video Games, the most successful book in UK crowdfunding history. Fuck Yeah, Video Games is a memoir by YouTube sensation Daniel Hardcastle (OfficialNerdCubed), told through his encounters with the most remarkable games of the last thirty years. It is also a love letter to the greatest hobby in the world. From God of War to Animal Crossing, SSX 3 to The Sims, each chapter looks at a different game and is crammed with as many jokes, obscure references and personal stories as will fit.

You can find all these books in your local bookshop or from the usual places online.

Happy reading!

Julian Mash, Trade Sales and Marketing Manager. CONTENTS

From the Shop Floor Much Ado Books 6 Fuck Yeah, Video Games Daniel Hardcastle on smashing his crowdfunding target 8 Effin’ Birds A field guide of sweary birds 10 Others Extracts from an anthology on the subject of otherness 16 Celebs at Home Stars – they’re just like you and me! 21 A Story the Country Needs to Hear Nikesh Shukla on the plight of Britain’s youth 25 Through the Keyhole… Talliston House and Gardens A photographic tour 27 Inside the Mind of Viral Internet Sensation Cyriak Harris Inspiration behind Horse Destroys the Universe 34 Hardcore Gaming 101 Presents: Japanese Video Game Obscurities A peek inside 38 Top Ten Jungle Gems A preview of the young naturalist’s adventure 40 The Magnificent Seven A profile of brilliant female engineers from the early twentieth century 42 Eileen: The Making of Orwell An excerpt from the biography of Orwell’s wife, Eileen O’Shaughnessy 45 Bird Brain Mental health pigeons with a lot to say 48 Girls Like Me Abda Khan, author of upcoming novel Razia, on proving naysayers wrong 52 21st-Century Yokel: A Soundtrack Tom Cox shares his musical inspiration 55 The Joy of Womansplaining Nell Stevens on the value of female friendships 60 New Titles July to December 2019 65 New Titles: Digital July to December 2019 94 Shelfie: Olivia Laing A peek at the writer’s bookshelf 98 Meet the Unbounder: Noelia Jiménez Martínez Head of Data Science and Astrophysics 101 FROM THE SHOP FLOOR: MUCH ADO BOOKS

Address: 8 West Street, Alfriston, Polegate BN26 5UX Opening Hours: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday & Friday: 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday: Closed Saturday: 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Sunday: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tel: 01323 871222 Email: [email protected]

Tucked away in the picturesque village of Alfriston in East Sussex, Much Ado Books opened its doors at the end of 2003. Founded by Cate and Nash, and staffed by three to five part-time booksellers (plus three chickens), it has been charming visitors ever since with its superbly well curated selection of books. For the past seven years they have occupied a compound that was once a builder’s yard, taking over two floors of a mid-Victorian barn. The entranceway to the yard features old paperbacks and affordable editions with a shepherds hut offering second-hand and vintage books. The main building, which once housed the builders’ offices, has become Prospero’s Project, the home of their social enterprise, currently focused on providing new books for foodbanks. As Nash says, ‘Too many people cannot access books, and we feel driven to try to help in some way, however small. To this end we have developed connections with seven foodbanks in the area, donating new books for their clients. We also support a local community library, a school in special measures, and a community centre. In 2018 we gave more than 3,000 books, as well as less tangible support in the form of administrative help and arranging events and speakers.’ They also offer antiquarian books; a craft workshop or meeting room; a writers room and gallery space. They host a plethora of events all year round, ranging from free craft demonstrations to workshops to book group meetings to author talks for anywhere from 8 to 120 people. They are blessed with a supportive customer base – as Nash says, ‘We love an opinionated customer, and seem to have lots of them! We value their support and loyalty; the word “Amazon” is rarely uttered in our hearing!’

6 Nash, Founder

How long have you worked at Much Ado Books? Since 1983.

What book(s) are you currently reading? Cate is reading Jonathan Coe’s Middle England; Nash is reading Anna Burns’s Milkman.

What is the strangest thing a customer has ever asked you? Customers want to hold their wedding reception here. And why not?

What is your favourite spot in the shop? The first floor of either building. Comfy chairs; a feeling of quiet sanctuary; books all around… If only we could spend more time there!

What are some of the most memorable events you have held here? Any events with either Jacqueline Wilson or Bill Bryson are a delight. Jacky charms younger readers; Bill thrills his fans.

Why are bookshops important? Bookshops are important for myriad reasons, of course. They are both havens of safety and the starting point for the most extraordinary adventures. They support and encourage ownership of books, which is life-affirming. Bookshops anchor high streets, offering commercial benefits as attractions for readers and as unofficial community centres where people can gather, meet, chat, learn, share and expand their horizons. Bookshops are responsible for making communities prosper and for making people think; for giving hope and entertainment and pleasure; for putting culture at the heart of a community, which is where culture belongs. And bookshops also put the community at the heart of culture, which is necessary to the wellbeing of the arts.

7 FUCK YEAH, VIDEO GAMES

YouTube sensation and self-proclaimed professional nerd Daniel Hardcastle (OfficialNerdCubed) reflects on his record-smashing crowdfunding campaign… and those who told him he’d never find an audience.

‘I just don’t see that there would be any interest in a computer game book written for adults.’ This was one of the emails that weighed on me the night before we launched our project on Unbound’s site, pressing down uncomfortably on my chest like anxiety mixed with cement. Over the past few months we’d taken the book to seven different publishers, all of whom had said one of two things: either the $100 billion industry that is video games was ‘too niche’, or that a book written by a YouTuber had better be aimed at teenage girls, or else it would sell a number so small that lasering the final sales figures onto the tip of a needle would seem unimpressive. I rolled over in my bed, somehow hoping this action would let all these thoughts slosh out of my ears and onto the floor. It didn’t work. All that came out was 1970s TV trivia. I don’t remember who hosted The Krypton Factor anymore. Why did I think I knew better than the professionals? These publishers are people who have made careers out of knowing what will sell and what won’t. I turned up, waved the majority of a book at them and didn’t listen when they told me I’d not become the next J. K. Rowling. Oh God, this is all going to backfire horribly, isn’t it? It’s going to be a disaster. I’m going to sell a single copy. Just one. Mum probably won’t even want me to sign it. I eventually fell asleep, enveloped by the thought that I was going to ruin my writing career on the same day that I started it, and look like a right tit in doing © Rebecca Maughan so. Bugger.

8 Less than an hour after launching, we hit 100% funded. Within twenty-four hours, the total was over 800%. Every record Unbound had was broken, their website had to be reprogrammed to allow values over 1,000% and, five months later, I still haven’t quite managed to shake off the smile. Looking back on all of this, the best part isn’t the sheer amount of support I’ve received, or that in Unbound I’ve found an awesome publisher to help me turn a .doc file into a foldy paper thing. It isn’t even my happiness that people will get to read something I’ve been working hard on for two years now. No, the best part, the very best part, is that I got to email back seven different publishers with the smuggest fucking email you’ve ever read in your entire goddamn life.

At time of print, Fuck Yeah, Video Games is 1,862% funded on Unbound.com.

Find Fuck Yeah, Video Games on page 82 9 EFFIN’ BIRDS

Have you ever looked a bird dead in the eye and wondered what it was thinking? With this highly anticipated farcical field guide to identificationI AM –FUCKING from the hugely popular @EffinBirds Twitter account – you can venture into nature with confidence. MAGNIFICENT I AM FUCKING MAGNIFICENT

VAINGLORIOUSVAINGLORIOUS GREBE

habithabitat: Foundat: Found only only in in the the mostmost elegantelegant of of forests forests, , the vaingloriousthe vainglorious grebe grebe prefers prefers to to nest nest in importedimported designer designer fabrics. fabrics.

identifying characteristics: Brilliant colours, massive sunglasses. identifying characteristics: Brilliant colours, massive sunglasses.

10 Look at this clusterfuck

11 YOU ARE TESTING MY PATIENCE

WELCOME TO HELL

12 ThisThisThis is ismy my is my surprised surprised surprised face face face

CRUSHED TURACO

The turacoCRUSHED has sprained TURACOits indignation muscle, and all it has left is a sad kind of resignation. It isn’t quite nihilism, but it involves a lot of Netflix and booze. The turaco has sprained its indignation muscle, and all it has left is a habitat: This bed is comfortable… Why would it get out of this sad kind of resignation. It isn’t quite nihilism, but it involves a lot of comfortable bed? Netflix and booze. habitat: This bed is comfortable…CRUSHED Why would TURACO it get out of this comfortable bed?

The turaco has sprained its indignation muscle, and all it has left is a sad kind of resignation. It isn’t quite nihilism, but it involves a lot of 13 Netflix and booze.

habitat: This bed is comfortable… Why would it get out of this comfortable bed? i am a goddamned delight

talking to you is fucking exhausting

14 Fuck Off with That Shit

Find Effin’ Birds on page 86 15 OTHERS

Others is an anthology of prose, poetry and essays on the theme of otherness. Contributors include Kamila Shamsie, Noam Chomsky, Louise Doughty, Matt Haig, A. L. Kennedy and many more.

It doesn’t take much familiarity with the news to see that the world has become a more hate-filled place. In Others, a group of writers explores the power of words to help us to see the world as others see it, and to reveal some of the strangeness of our own selves. We look at otherness in a variety of its forms, from the dividing lines of politics and the anonymising forces of city life, through the disputed identities of disability, gender and neurodiversity, to the endless battles around social inequality that should have been won by now. These excerpts give a flavour of how the Others contributors challenge us to recognise our own otherness, not just to understand how people out there are different to us, but how we are alien to them. Rishi Dastidar’s narrator reflects on his own response to something that might be casual racism, while Gillian Allnutt learns something about the solace of anonymity in the tragedy of the refugee crisis. After publication costs, 50% of net profits from Others will be donated to Stop Hate UK, which works to raise awareness of hate crime and encourage its reporting, and to Refugee Action, which provides advice and support to refugees and asylum-seekers in the UK. Charles Fernyhough, editor of Others

Is Queueing Politely Really the British Way? Rishi Dastidar

D- at work’s birthday, and he is rounding people up to come with him for an impromptu lunch ‘somewhere’. We get outside of the front door of the office, we being me and T- and B- and D-, to discover that joining the four of us will be C- (or is it A-?), who is freelancing with us this week. He is wearing a fleece jacket, black, with a vivid red spider on the left breast pocket.

These temporary alliances I keep making; and yet I don’t seem to win the battle.

16 On the walk down to find food it’s clear C- is having trouble attaching himself to a conversation. Not something that is being helped by the four of us – the very image that the advertising and design community likes to think that it is, encompassing two genders, two sexualities, two nationalities, three levels of educational achievement (let’s not talk about our ages) – being cliquey and only speaking about office things there’s no way he’d ever get or that could be even close to comprehensible without a lot of explanation that no one is actually ever going to be bothered to give. I half expect at points for him to give up and drift off.

My nightmare is being on the outside – and he remains in.

But he doesn’t, and we arrive at the ‘somewhere’, the pizza place where there is a bit of a queue, but not much and it is moving. There are two tills and people are going through, ordering, getting their clickers which will let them know when their food is ready. He is standing behind me at this point. The till on the left becomes free, and I start to move towards it as I am next in line, but before I have even got off my first step he has moved ahead of me and is at that till ordering. And I can’t help but feel slighted here. That of course he would go ahead of me, instead of waiting for the till he was supposed to wait for. Is this because we – I – haven’t been inclusive enough, not sensitive enough to what is actually shyness, and not tried hard enough to welcome him in? I thought I’d been friendly earlier in the week. Is this a gag I’m missing out on? But there’s no look back, no hand up in apology. No wink. Yes, it is rank opportunism, but it is more than that, I am already telling myself. Because he is older. Whiter. Because even though he is a freelancer and not part of the gang that I am part of, he still outranks me in some way. Because he is entitled to. Because he can. Because he doesn’t see me as someone he should ever be expected to wait behind. I am surprised at how much this cuts me, even though it is a nano- moment, the business of nano-moments, as the other till becomes free in a matter of seconds so I can order. I don’t mention it to anyone when I sit down at the table while we wait for the pizzas to be ready.

Or is the nightmare being cut out when you were inside?

17 Then part of me starts thinking that actually I was expecting something like this to happen, and I’m not sure why (I’m not vocalising any of this, by the way, over lunch – I am ravenous enough to not actually engage with much other than the pizza [fully loaded, all the meats] in front of me). But even calories can’t push away all my thoughts. Maybe it was some form of barely visible revenge, or if not, an attempt by someone who was feeling excluded to not feel excluded, and he did the thing that was most natural to him so that he wouldn’t feel excluded, which was to take out his lack of status on me, the person he perceived as either having next to no status, or an unwarranted status, certainly in relation to him, certainly in terms of being above him socially in this context, even if the context is – literally – I work with these people every day and you do not. A micro-aggression. The tiniest of hostilities. A deniable slight. We’ve all done it. Haven’t we? A gesture of impatience at someone holding us up on the street as we try to get somewhere. A sotto voce retort as someone bores us. A laugh at a mean comment, then a guilty sucking up of the guffaw, as if that absolves us.We’ve all been unthinking, unwittingly cruel.

But even if you shouldn’t do it, wouldn’t you do it? Why should he be in my place?

Presumably there was also an alpha male territory thing going on, and really, it seems so silly and futile to even think about trying to fight for and/or over a patch of land which is by definition only ever going to be temporary anyway. What sort of rush are you in when we are all going to be going back to the same place at the same time? Even better, I think he thinks that he pulled off this little victory over me without me noticing, like he was so smooth and slick – I bet he gave himself a mini fist-pump mentally for that moment, and then promptly forgot about it.

A moment, erased, because it was only a moment for me.

Of course for me it was a moment that lasted longer, because it was a moment in which I was erased.

18 Stars Gillian Allnutt

There are those who have not fled shame the numberlessness of am the innumerable one in whom the dark of the moon, as absence, abstinence, is home. In shoals, in sheols, they will come with mobile phones.

Shalom.

An August night, clear and dark, in the Golden Valley near the Anglo– Welsh border – and I notice the stars and the number and anonymity of them. Though it is 2014 and still a year before refugees from Africa and the Middle East will begin arriving on the shores of Greece and Italy in sufficient numbers to become a ‘crisis’ in the mind of Europe, I have already worked for two or three years with asylum-seekers in the north- east of England. I’ve had a chance to think about what it means to work with people who arrive in the UK usually with very little other than the human ways of the more traditional and spiritual societies they have come from and the suffering they have undergone – and a mobile phone. I’ve thought a lot about how they’ve fed my hunger for the spiritual in the bland and pleasant land of the UK in which we find ourselves today and about how grateful I am for that. And I’ve thought about how I had to learn to use my mobile phone in order, sometimes, to communicate with them and about how grateful I am for that too. I have been thinking about anonymity for a long time. For me, it can have a positive or a negative value. It can be as nameless as an asylum- seeker or a refugee or an economic migrant, not speaking my language, not knowing my ways and inspiring me with fear, especially if it comes in a great crowd. Or it can be as nameless – paradoxically – as the deepest, most intimate place in myself, the place I almost never reach in meditation, the place I think the poet Yeats meant in his phrase ‘the deep heart’s core’. Anonymity is both the place before and the place after individuality, individualism, the place of the selfie. As the place after it can be full of joy and beauty.

19 And three more things. Shame: I suspect that if you have not known shame then you will not have known the give and take of love. Sheol is the Hebrew name of the land of the dead. It’s not like hell, it’s more like the Ancient Greek idea of where the dead go, being dark and cold and full of shadows, and you can’t come back from it. I have heard it suggested that Sheol is a metaphor for life on earth, that it is here and now. Shalom means ‘Peace’ or ‘Peace be with you’ and is again a Hebrew word.

20 Find Others on page 67 CELEBS AT HOME

What do the rich and famous get up to behind closed doors and away from the glare of the public eye? Between playing songs on Absolute Radio, Andy Bush always wondered about the mundane, boring stuff celebrities must have to do just like you and me. Do Kraftwerk put the bins out together? Does Paul Weller defrost the freezer with bin bags on the floor? Does Springsteen always accidentally try and turn the telly on with the DVD remote? Celebs at Home reveals all…

Phil Collins mopping himself into a corner

21 The Edge discovering that his kitchen ‘odds and sods’ drawer has got out of hand

22 Flea from the Chili Peppers sneaking his empties into next door’s recycling

23 Lady Gaga losing it because her Wotsits have got stuck in a vending machine

24 Find Celebs at Home on page 90 A STORY THE COUNTRY NEEDS TO HEAR

Nikesh Shukla on why we need to listen to Britain’s youth, and the impetus behind his latest anthology, Rife, co-edited with Sammy Jones.

Following up The Good Immigrant was always going to be tricky, but I was lucky in that the entire time I worked on that book, I was a youth worker, editing a magazine for young people, and mentoring them to create all the content for it: a magazine called Rife. We were to create a space for these young people to tell stories and make films about the things that were important to them. We did this through six-month paid internships, stressing that they didn’t need experience and they didn’t need a degree. They just needed ideas and © Ailsa Fineron enthusiasm. We’d help them find their voice. This new book, Rife: Twenty-One Stories from Britain’s Youth, featuring young voices from across Britain, is designed to continue that ethos: giving a platform to young people to tell us stories about the things most important to them. This collection of essays covers everything from housing to sex to mental health to gentrification to politics to our relationship with our elders. The brief we gave young people pitching for this book was: tell us a story the country needs to hear. This country is at crisis point. No one knows what immediate effect Brexit will have, or what the next year will look like. And more importantly, we have a generation of politicised young people wanting to know about their long-term futures. Seventy-three per cent of young people voted to remain in the EU. We’re going to get to a point where the country has moved so far away from what young people want, they are playing catch-up, and the stress point will test

25 the fabric of what we consider important. This book is about the cracks starting to form. It’s an inspirational and unflinching look at what it is to be young in Britain today: What prospects do we have? Who can we be? Most importantly, who are we now?

26 Find Rife on page 70 THROUGH THE KEYHOLE… TALLISTON HOUSE AND GARDENS

At midday on 6 October 1990, John Trevillian stepped into a three-bedroomed, semi-detached, ex-council house in Essex and started a personal journey that grew into a twenty-five- year project: to take a standard English dwelling and transform it into a wonderland of inspirational locations, each set in a different time and place.The Stranger’s Guide to Talliston was John’s next venture: an epic fantasy story following thirteen- year-old Joe, who becomes trapped in the labyrinth of Talliston, its thirteen doors each leading to a different magical realm…

Talliston exterior

27 The Starhouse | Conservatory Futuristic Japanese teahouse and Shinto vivarium The Waystation at Tzu | 2282 | Twelfth Moon, Malorian Starstation

28 The Office | Box-room Late 1920s detective’s office in New York City Trevelyan Vean | 1929 | New York, USA

29 The Haunted Bedroom | Master bedroom Edwardian child’s forgotten bedchamber Master Jack’s Bedroom | 1911 | Scotland, United Kingdom

30 The Hall of Mirrors | Hall & stairs Stone stairway of villa in Italian mountains Palazzo di Ombre (The Palace of Shadows) | 1992 | Lombardy, Italy

31 The Labyrinth | Front garden Gothic Revival rectory cottage and vegetable gardens The Old Rectory | 1852 | Essex, United Kingdom

32 The Watchtower | Living & dining room Welsh tower taken over by Victorians The Mead Hall of Twr-â-Gân (The Tower of Song) | 1887 | Wales, United Kingdom

Find The Stranger’s Guide to Talliston on page 71 33 INSIDE THE MIND OF VIRAL INTERNET SENSATION CYRIAK HARRIS

Graphic artist and author of Horse Destroys the Universe shares the source of his inspiration, from the Hampshire countryside to the tragicomic farm animals of his youth, with editor DeAndra Lupu.

DeAndra Lupu: Your graphic work seems to defy categorisation – how would you describe it?

Cyriak Harris: I’ve never really taken the time to analyse what it is that I’m doing and why – it’s just stuff that seems to appear when I get bored. There is definitely a pattern to it all, though, whether it’s writing or drawing or making music and animations. There are recurring themes of repetition, escalation, infinity and chaos. I like to take simple, familiar ingredients and build them into complex, surreal nightmares, partly for

34 © Cyriak Harris my own amusement, but also I find a weird kind of beauty in these artificial landscapes. It’s like I am making nature documentaries for unnatural worlds.

DL: Where does your inspiration come from?

CH: It’s hard to say, but it seems to be a strange mixture of mathematical principles and things that make me laugh for horrible reasons. A lot of my videos involve transforming mundane aspects of reality into grotesque living hellscapes of writhing complexity. I guess I am just drawn towards the ridiculous.

DL: And, specifically, the inspiration forHorse Destroys the Universe?

CH: The inspiration for this book probably came from my time spent wandering the Hampshire countryside, where I would occasionally stare at horses and try to discern what kind of intelligence might be staring back at me. I wanted to write a story about the nature of intelligence, and the dysfunctional relationship between humanity and technology, but I also wanted to write a story about a horse destroying the universe.

35 It turned out that these things aren’t entirely unrelated, given the extreme set of circumstances required to achieve such a goal.

DL: Your work does seem to feature a lot of farm animals – did you grow up around animals? Do you have any pets now?

CH: Growing up in the middle of nowhere in the Hampshire countryside, surrounded by fields and forests, I had a ready supply of farm animals to gawp at from behind a fence. There is something tragically comical about these creatures, which is probably why they feature so heavily in my work. The lives of domesticated © Cyriak Harris animals are like a caricature of the human condition. They also can’t complain if I use photos of them for my videos. The only pets I have now are the spiders who live in my house, who I tolerate so long as they keep eating any other creepy-crawlies.

DL: Where might people have seen your work?

CH: Most people know me through my animations on YouTube, but I also do a variety of commissioned work, such as music videos, advertising and titles for TV shows.

DL: What is your favourite piece of animation you’ve done to date?

CH: My favourite animation is probably the one I made using only a picture of my face, which was infinitely multiplied to create a strange fleshy Cyriak universe. I called it ‘Because’, since this was the only reason I could think of for creating such a thing.

DL: And, finally, how would you sum upHorse Destroys the Universe in a single line?

CH: Everything that can go wrong will go wrong.

36 © Cyriak Harris

Find Horse Destroys the Universe on page 75 37 HARDCORE GAMING 101 PRESENTS: JAPANESE VIDEO GAME OBSCURITIES

Take a sneak peek inside this upcoming catalogue of rare, obscure and downright weird Japanese video games from the 1980s and 90s.

Tengai Makyou: The Apocalypse IV (1997) Developer: Hudson/Red Platform: Sega Saturn, PlayStation Portable

Hudson’s Tengai Makyou RPG series is based on the idea of ‘a foreigner’s misconception of Japan’, manifested through comical takes on famous historical figures and a very loose grasp on culture. They were the defining series of the PC Engine CD, with huge adventures markedly larger than other games at the time, filled with animated cut-scenes, professional voice acting, and tons and tons of goofiness. While the Japanese retro game scene generally loves the second game, Majimaru, it’s the fourth game, Tengai Makyou: The Apocalypse IV for the Saturn, that is probably most interesting for others. It flips the concept to ‘a foreigner’s misconception of America’, with an extremely loose grasp on its history and geography. It stars a young boy named Rizing in the late nineteenth century as he ventures across the continent, saving the populace from various schemes based on both the country’s culture and its social problems. During the course of your adventure, you’ll ride a gigantic flying buffalo from the island of Alaska to the plains of Montana, save a group of children from an evil pop singer, fight a nefarious Hollywood movie producer, escape from Alcatraz, fight enemies in a gigantic mecha fashioned like a geisha, and save Arizona from an obesity epidemic.

38 Your compatriots include a Native American warrior, a wannabe Japanese samurai, a cowboy superhero and a Jamaican bobsledder. Some of the villains include a gluttonous pig woman, a man with a television for a head, a robotic Al Capone and Manto, a ridiculous anthropomorphic monkey and recurring character from the Tengai Makyou series. It’s surreal to see places like Portland and Atlanta as typical JRPG towns, and locales like Carlsbad Caverns and the Sears Tower reimagined as dungeons. Plus, as goofy as the game can get, it becomes surprisingly dark in the latter half, making for an unusual contrast. Beyond its anachronistic setting, it also has some incredibly detailed 2D visuals, particularly the large portraits during dialogue, and enemies that take up the entire size of the screen in the battles. Combined with the extensive voice acting, it continues the series’ trend of making it feel like you’re playing an anime – and a ridiculous, completely bonkers one at that. Unfortunately, despite being released on both the Saturn and then later on the PlayStation Portable, the game was never localised. Neither were any of the other games in the Tengai Makyou series, save for the Neo Geo fighting game known asKabuki Klash. However, the PlayStation 2 RPG Shadow Hearts: From the New World, which was released in English, has a similar concept, right down to even featuring similar scenarios.

Find Hardcore Gaming 101 Presents: Japanese Video Game 39 Obscurities on page 84 TOP TEN JUNGLE GEMS

Young artist and naturalist Yikai Zhang lists the top ten jungle gems from his adventure hunting for the elusive Carabus in the jungle, on the island of Hainan. Read the full story in his upcoming book, Jungle Gems.

10. Batocera: A large, attractive longhorn beetle that lives on mulberry trees. It can fly clumsily like a mini-helicopter, and sounds like one when it does.

9. Alocasia: A monstrous toxic yam, its leaves are over three feet wide and laced with oxalic acid. Only the experienced can prepare it correctly and eat it without burning their tongue off.

8. Platerodrilus: A bizarre trilobite- like creature living inside the rotting trunks of rainforest trees. People only realized recently that it is a beetle.

7. Cheirotonus: A true monster among rainforest insects, with extraordinary front limbs used for grappling during territorial disputes.

40 6. Artocarpus: Commonly known as the jackfruit, this was my best food source in the rainforest – and a delicious one at that.

5. Troides: A huge butterfly that belongs to the birdwing family. Its attractive colouration and large size have made it very popular among collectors.

4. Draco: A remarkable lizard that is able to glide using its flaps of skin. I encountered many of them in the lowland rainforests.

3. Nepenthes: The infamous pitcher plant; it traps insects using its modified leaves and digests them using acids.

2. Lucanus: An extremely rare beetle that is only found in the southern foothills of the Himalayas. It is one of the specimens that came into my possession through an insect dealer, which triggered the entire adventure.

1. Carabus: A beetle that is a remnant of the last Ice Age, desperately clinging onto the mountaintop cloud forests of central Hainan. It is my mission to find a Carabus in Jungle Gems, and investigate the state of this dwindling population.

Find Jungle Gems on page 78 41 THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN

Almost a century ago, seven brilliant women set up the first professional organisation devoted to campaigning for women’s rights, the Women’s Engineering Society. From her forthcoming book, Magnificent Women and their Revolutionary Machines, Henrietta Heald presents us with a snapshot of their lives.

The idea of a woman engineer still raises eyebrows in some quarters. Can there really be women who habitually dress up in greasy boiler suits to lie under a car and fiddle with an exhaust? That picture of the engineer – female or male – is, of course, wildly outdated in the modern age, when engineering is at the heart of everything we design and manufacture, and women are represented in every engineering discipline, from aeronautics and electronics to communications, leisure and entertainment. But such an image had no more validity a century ago, when the Women’s Engineering Society (WES) was founded in Britain by a group of extraordinary individuals.

The society was the first professional organisation anywhere devoted to campaigning for women’s rights. It grew out of the experience of the First World War, when hundreds of thousands of women went to work in munitions factories – only to be told, when the war was over, to return to their homes and resume traditional, pre-war duties. This was particularly galling at a time of (limited) female enfranchisement, when women were making headway in medicine, law and other professions. Many resorted to organised protest and politics to assert their right to work in industry and achieve economic independence. From such activism grew a new wave of feminism – largely unacknowledged until now – with WES in the vanguard. The brief accounts that follow, of seven magnificent women associated with the society from its early days, display a remarkable range of abilities and interests.

Katharine, Lady Parsons was the wife of the engineer Sir Charles Parsons, whose development of the steam turbine had revolutionised

42 ship propulsion and enabled cheap and widespread electricity generation. Katharine championed the employment of women in engineering and shipbuilding during the war and delivered an influential Victory Speech highlighting this phenomenon, before co-founding WES with her daughter, Rachel.

Eleanor, Lady Shelley-Rolls, a keen balloonist, was the sister of the late Charles Rolls, who had partnered Henry Royce in a car production business, set up in 1906, until he was killed in a flying accident four years later, aged thirty-two. Eleanor later became heir to a large fortune, some of which she used to support WES and to promote her lifelong interest in aviation.

Rachel Parsons, Katharine’s daughter, had been the first woman to study mechanical sciences at Cambridge, going on to university in 1910. During the war, she was a director of her father’s firm in Newcastle upon Tyne, before joining the Ministry of Munitions. Rachel was the first president of the Women’s Engineering Society. She was a member of the London County Council and in 1923 stood (unsuccessfully) for Parliament, campaigning ceaselessly for women’s employment rights.

Margaret Rowbotham had studied mathematics at Cambridge before becoming a maths teacher. But her real passion was motor engineering, and after training at the British School of Motoring she gained a Royal Automobile Club’s Driver’s Certificate. In 1917 she became works superintendent at the Galloway Engineering Co. at Tongland, in southwest Scotland, where the workforce was largely female.

Margaret, Lady Moir – in spite of her position of apparent privilege – had worked as a lathe operator in a munitions factory and organised a weekend relief scheme for female factory employees. As the wife of the prominent Scottish civil engineer Sir Ernest Moir, in whose worldwide bridge-building, tunnelling and harbour projects she took a keen interest, she liked to describe herself as ‘an engineer by marriage’.

43 Laura Annie Willson had grown up in poverty in Halifax, West Yorkshire. Employed at a textile factory from the age of ten, she became a campaigner for workers’ rights and a suffragette, and was twice imprisoned for political activities. After her marriage in 1899 to George Willson, she and her husband jointly ran a machine-tool factory in Halifax, which favoured the employment and training of women.

Caroline Haslett, the first secretary of the Women’s Engineering Society, had learned electrical engineering ‘on the job’ at Cochran Boiler Co. in Dumfriesshire. In 1924 she founded the Electrical Association for Women and went on to become the leading professional woman of her age. Her personal mission was to relieve women from domestic drudgery by encouraging the design and development of efficient electrical devices for the home. In 1947 she became the first female member of the British Electricity Authority and was made a DBE.

44 Find Magnificent Women and their Revolutionary Machines on page 81 EILEEN: THE MAKING OF ORWELL

Eileen: The Making of Orwell is the first account of the Blairs’ nine-year marriage, which produced some of the greatest works in English literature. This touching story of an unjustly overlooked woman offers a completely new perspective on Orwell himself.

A Complicated Ancestry

‘Now that’s the kind of girl I would like to marry,’ George Orwell told a friend excitedly, the night he met Eileen O’Shaughnessy. He had just returned from escorting her to Hampstead Tube station after a party he had uncharacteristically suggested hosting with Rosalind Obermeyer, at the flat they shared at the top end of Parliament Hill. Orwell was thirty-one at the time, still using his birth name, Eric Blair, and still in the process of transforming himself into his brilliant future persona. Although he’d had many girlfriends before, some of whom he was still pursuing, Rosalind believed he was seriously in love this time. And indeed he was. Eileen O’Shaughnessy playfully recounted the evening to a friend, remembering that she was ‘rather drunk, behaving my worst, very rowdy’. Her vivacious party behaviour, added to her beauty, sparkling humour, serious academic background and rebellious nature, must have been overwhelmingly seductive to Orwell. Even her name was charming. Rosalind later recalled that the minute Eileen arrived at the party Orwell stopped mid-conversation to cross the room and introduce himself, and the two talked together most of the evening. Orwell always vividly remembered this moment, writing years later that some of Yeats’s poetic images could ‘suddenly overwhelm one like a girl’s face seen across a room’. Eileen, who was studying psychology with Rosalind at University College London, hadn’t read any of Orwell’s three published books, none of which had been hugely successful, but she was intrigued enough to join him for dinner a few days later, and the romance blossomed rapidly. Whatever Orwell’s reason for suddenly wanting to have a party, whatever Eileen’s impetus for venturing so far from her Greenwich home – that evening, a man with an obsession to be a great writer and a woman who had been bored for many years with the odd array of jobs available to a female Oxford University graduate connected in a miraculous fashion, one of those lucky accidents that are far too rare in life. They’d both come a very long way to find each other that night.

45 Within a couple of months Orwell had proposed to Eileen. When her friend and fellow psychology student Lydia Jackson was shocked that Eileen was apparently willing to consider his proposal, she joked, as she was prone to do: ‘I told myself that when I was thirty I would accept the first man who asked me to marry him. Well… I shall be thirty [this] year.’ While making it clear to her friend that she had rejected offers of marriage before, Eileen perhaps wasn’t yet sure herself why she was tempted to accept this particular one. Had she instantly recognised that Orwell had exceptional talent that hadn’t been fully realised yet? Or had he simply mesmerised her with his piercing blue eyes and ability to concentrate his energies so fully on a person that she felt immediately entwined in his future? He was no doubt the most fascinating man she had ever met, and Eileen with glass of wine. Courtesy of perhaps she understood instinctively that she UCL Special Collections. had exactly the skills and character to help him become the great writer he so desired to be.

THEIR PARTNERSHIP THROUGH THOSE YEARS PRODUCED SOME OF THE GREATEST WORKS IN ENGLISH LITERATURE

Lydia thought Orwell was completely unacceptable as a partner for her friend, and Eileen’s mother actively resisted the marriage. But in a little over a year Eileen and Orwell were indeed married. She went on to share nine years of a sometimes joyful, sometimes gruelling life with Orwell, at first subsisting happily with him in a tiny village where they grew vegetables and tended their own goats and chickens, then following him into the dangers of the Spanish Civil War, nursing him in Morocco after a severe bout of tubercular bleeding, narrowly escaping the destruction of their London flat in the Second World War, even adopting a baby boy when it became apparent that they were unable to have their own child. And their partnership through those years produced some of the greatest works in English literature.

46 Orwell’s life before meeting Eileen has been thoroughly documented: born in India on 25 June 1903, to a father in the Indian Civil Service; sent away at the age of eight to St Cyprian’s, a school he claimed to have hated, then at thirteen to Eton, where most of the pupils were expected to proceed to university, a future Orwell turned against; five years endured in Burma with the Indian Imperial Police; then struggling through his late twenties and early thirties in Paris and London, learning how to write. But what had Eileen been doing through all her first twenty-nine years?

Eileen and baby Richard. Courtesy of UCL Special Collections.

Find Eileen: The Making of Orwell on page 87 47 BIRD BRAIN

Chuck Mullins loves pigeons. Chuck loves pigeons so much that she began drawing cartoons of them to depict her experiences of anxiety and depression, and they soon made her a hit on social media. This excerpt from her upcoming bookBird Brain stars just a few of the pigeons that first appeared on her Twitter account, Chuck Draws Things @charlubby.

48 49 50 Find Bird Brain on page 89 51 GIRLS LIKE ME

Abda Khan, author of the thrilling new novel Razia, considers her experience of traditional publishing and the bias she encountered.

‘Pakistani girls don’t carry on © Sully M in school’ was the answer I got from my family when I was in my early teens and asked if I could continue studying into the sixth form. ‘Perhaps you should think about something else, like working in a library, or typing,’ was the response I got from my careers advisor when, aged fifteen, I dared to express my ambition to go to university and study law. ‘Girls like you don’t go to university, do they?’ she added. Girls like me. Girls like me, born to immigrant parents in deprived inner-city Bradford, into a strict Pakistani family, were always told that they couldn’t do stuff. However, I wasn’t having any of it. I fought the patriarchal culture in my family, with the help of my amazing mum, and went to sixth form. My mum died suddenly just months before my A levels, but somehow, I managed to carry on through the immense grief, pass my exams, and against the guidance of my careers advisor, I went on to university to do a law degree. I qualified as a solicitor, I set up my own law firm and I managed my career alongside my family commitments. Hurray! Girls like me could do things, I thought. That was, until I got to my mid-forties and decided to write because I was so troubled by the problems I saw around me. And that old ‘you can’t’ came back to haunt me. I wrote my first novel,Stained , as a result of my experience. I dealt with many British Asian and Muslim women who had suffered rape and honour abuse, but their stories didn’t feature in mainstream British fiction.

52 My novel was rejected by every literary agent and small publisher that I approached in the UK. I was told that my book was ‘really interesting’, and ‘well written’, and ‘this is an accomplished story’. However, I was also told by the literary agents that they were not ‘sufficiently confident’ about placing it. They ‘didn’t feel that [they] would be able to find publishers’. The small press said they didn’t think there was a market for it; one of them commented that they couldn’t publish it for commercial reasons no matter how ‘worthy’ my story was. So, a story about a young British Asian woman, set in Britain (a country with over 3 million Asians according to the 2011 census), wasn’t relevant enough to be published. And readers from outside this culture were denied the opportunity to have an insight into how ‘honour’ issues affect the lives of young women.

A STORY ABOUT A YOUNG BRITISH ASIAN WOMAN, SET IN BRITAIN … WASN’T RELEVANT ENOUGH TO BE PUBLISHED

And once again, I was being told that I couldn’t do something. Women like me, who wrote about women like me, were being told that they couldn’t get their work published. It felt as though women like me, and their stories, didn’t matter. At least not to British literary agents and publishers. But I wasn’t having any of that either. A small publisher in the USA published the novel in 2016. It has been dubbed the ‘contemporary Tess of the d’Urbervilles’ by Booklist in America, and it went on to receive recognition with two national awards in Britain. More importantly, women who have suffered sexual violence or honour abuse have contacted me to thank me for writing the novel, to say that they found the story empowering, and some have even gone on to report their rapes to the police as a direct result of reading Stained. Soon enough, I went on to write my next novel, Razia, a dramatic story that focuses on the plight of a modern-day slave. After long days at the office, and seeing to my family’s needs in the evenings, I wrote for hours, late into the night. I finished the book, but because of my previous experience, I didn’t submit it to any literary agents or publishers. Though I had produced a thrilling and unique novel that I was immensely proud of, I held back from sending it out. Then someone suggested I approach Unbound. I had never thought of crowdfunding, but I am now so glad that I went down this path. Crowdfunding was very hard work, but reaching the target gave me a

53 real sense of achievement. The fact that people believed in me, in my characters, and the themes I wrote about, enough to back the book, made me feel like both I and the characters in my novel are relevant, and we do matter. And I am really excited about the publication of a book that touches on two of the most pressing matters of our time, both locally and globally: the issues of modern-day slavery and human trafficking. I hope that my novel will go some way towards raising awareness about these matters, and the hardships endured by modern-day slaves. And once again, despite others telling me that I can’t do it, crowdfunding the book to publication through Unbound proves that girls like me really can!

54 Find Razia on page 69 21ST-CENTURY YOKEL: A SOUNDTRACK

Tom Cox shares a playlist he compiled for 21st-Century Yokel, a book that’s not quite nature writing, not quite a family memoir, not quite a book about walking, not quite a collection of humorous essays. The paperback is published in March 2019 in advance of his next non-fiction book,Ring the Hill.

Although 21st-Century Yokel isn’t a music book, music was a hugely important part of the writing. If I was trying to emulate anything during its creation, it was less other books I love and more the colour palettes and moods of my favourite songs: exploring the idea of psychedelia as a combination of hues, rather than a genre. The book doesn’t have a linear run-through narrative, but the chapter sequence is important, in the way it is on an album which, while not in any way ‘concept’, tells an overall story of sorts. I wanted it to work as a ‘dip in and out thing’ but as something more coherent holistically as well, if readers chose to approach it that way. Quite a lot of people who’ve read the book have asked me if could compile a soundtrack to it. I’d been planning to do this since before the manuscript’s completion and I’ve finally got around to it. I’ve chosen ten songs, one for each chapter, though I’ve opted not to attach specific songs to specific chapters, since some chapters have more musical references than others, more of a musical feel. Instead, these are a collection of songs that either crop up in the book, or inspired me during the time it was conceived, or both. They’re all songs I’ve loved for many years – songs that long ago were planting little seeds in my head of what I might one day love to be able to write. You could have them tinkling away in the background as you read, or – if you’re like me, and find it hard to read and listen to lyrics simultaneously – perhaps you could spend a nice hour or so with them after you’ve closed the final page, in a way that might complement the book or – more likely – totally transcend it.

55 ‘Murdoch’ by The Trees (1971)

The big frustration with the early seventies acid folk genre – like its sort of sister genre, folk horror filmmaking – is just how tiny it truly was. Lovers of it like me are constantly looking for tidbits, lost gems on otherwise duff records, like starving sparrows in winter. In this context, the 1971 album On the Shore by The Trees is an incredibly rare thing: an acid folk album that’s utterly wonderful from beginning to end. Wonderful, but not perfect, because you wouldn’t want that. The lispy distortion on my favourite track, ‘Murdoch’, adds to its wild, windswept mood of Pagan surrender to the elements. There can be no finer, more life-affirming song to listen to at high altitude, surrounded by nothing but crows and buzzards.

‘Young Tambling’ by Anne Briggs (1972)

I have lived in several counties with obviously fascinating musical histories but the county I grew up in, Nottinghamshire, is not one of them. But maybe that’s okay, as we do have Anne Briggs, who is from Chilwell, near where I used to play golf and drink Thunderbird as a teenager, and is worth about thirteen ordinary brilliant folk singers. Briggs is often spoken about in the same breath as Vashti Bunyan, owing to the fact that both made magical records at the height of the hippy era then vanished to remote northern places, not to be heard from again for many years, but for me Briggs packs far more of a punch, prompts much more of a visceral reaction. I’ve never been musical, but around the period I was writing 21st-Century Yokel I felt, for the first time in my life, an immense urge to sing, unaccompanied, and this stripped- down piece of genius from Anne’s first album was more than a little responsible for that.

‘The Scarecrow’ by Lal & Mike Waterson (1972)

It seemed a little ambitious to write a 13,000-plus word chapter largely revolving around the theme of scarecrows, but I sometimes think ‘The Hillocks Have Eyes’, in which I did exactly that, is my favourite section of the book. During the period when I was obsessively photographing scarecrows in the Norfolk and Suffolk countryside I was also listening obsessively to the raw, sad and ragged Lal & Mike Waterson LP Bright Phoebus, especially ‘Red Wine & Promises’ (surely the best song ever written about getting wrecked) and ‘The Scarecrow’, which, as anyone

56 with a modicum of life experience who has listened to it will realise very quickly, is almost certainly not primarily about a scarecrow at all.

‘I Got a Line on You’ by Spirit (1968)

Spirit sold a fraction of the records of their similarly jazz-tinged sixties LA contemporaries The Doors but were a much braver band, although their bravery is far less showy so sometimes people don’t notice it. There is something very watery about Spirit: a bubbling quality to their far-out yet understated songs. Their leader Randy California was a strong, obsessive swimmer: an athletic hippy who, already a Hendrix- approved guitar prodigy, was only sixteen when Spirit recorded ‘Water Woman’ and the other songs on their visionary 1968 debut album. He drowned in 1997, off the coast of Molokai in Hawaii, saving his son’s life. I wrote a lot about the dangers of swimming in rivers and the sea in 21st-Century Yokel, and just happened to be listening to a lot of Spirit during my biggest outdoor swimming phase, without ever intending to.

‘Roscoe’ by Midlake (2006)

My female cat – the star of the one heavily feline- themed part of 21st-Century Yokel – is named after this example of peerless mid-noughties Civil War fetishist Americana and, like the character mentioned in it, often gives the impression of productivity, always busy with important hedgerow admin and intangible foliage-based clerical work. Midlake’s Trials of Van Occupanther album is like a lovingly carved, old chest of drawers, getting better with each year, another newly noticeable bit of beauty in its dense, high-quality grain.

‘Lyke Wake Dirge’ by Pentangle (1969)

I met Bert Jansch in 1999 and sat on his living room sofa with him, which seems like a dream from another life now: something that, like all the meetings I had with my heroes during my period as a rock journalist, happened in all too much of a rush to fully appreciate. He seemed shy and suspicious of the media but visibly relaxed upon realising I was an accidental journalist, who was rubbish at interviewing people and better at waffling aimlessly with them. I had probably already listened

57 to Pentangle’s Basket of Light album over a hundred times by then and have certainly listened to it a thousand times more since. This is sometimes my favourite song on it, sometimes not, but it’s a perfect seasonal change song: a song for November bonfires, for compressed days and the thinning of the veil.

‘The Blacksmith’ by Planxty (1973)

As a Spring Person, I am buoyed endlessly by the sight of primroses, and never more so during my almost four years living in Devon. They’re the first sign that everything is going to be OK, and are what the spurning lover wears on his billycock hat in this song where everything doesn’t turn out to be OK, or maybe it does, depending on how philosophical your worldview is. The two Steeleye Span versions are great but this one by Ireland’s finest ever band transcends it, building to a wild, intoxicating bar stomp crescendo that might be the grandest and most perfect finale to any album I own and is definitely the grandest and most perfect finale to any folk song I own. I’d ask for the last two minutes of it to be played at my funeral but I won’t be there so that’d be fucking pointless.

‘The Witch’ by Mark Fry (1972)

Posh boy sixties psychedelic hippy folk at its best, this track is, like nearly all of those written between 1966 and 1973 about witches, fantastic, and somehow manages to conjure up the idea of Donovan at his most trippy having his more annoying excesses calmed down by Leonard Cohen while Nick Drake watches from a dirty window. It will probably always remind me of where I lived while I was writing the book, in its spring- on-the-cusp-of-summer psychedelic mood, and because it was written – though not recorded – within a mile of my back door. There is a weird extra relevance: during the funding of the book, I had a bet with my friend Hayley about the total funding figure, in which she won her first ever Fry’s Mint Cream, a chocolate bar made by Mark’s family.

‘The Bells of Dunwich’ by Stone Angel (1975)

I met Ken and Joan, from the much overlooked (at the time) and much prized (now) East Anglian acid folk band Stone Angel in a pub in Norfolk in 2012, and their sole 1970s album, from the year of my birth, soon became a soundtrack to my eerie walks on the Norfolk and Suffolk coast. Songs like ‘The Bells of Dunwich’ – about the bells of the sunken

58 churches of a Suffolk port, said to still ring under the waves – seem to float in on a ghostly tide, sounds as smudgy as the light in an M. R. James story. Ken is now president of The Norfolk Moth Society. Joan is a retired librarian who has never been drunk.

‘The Bee-Boy’s Song’ by Peter Bellamy (1972)

I’m a long, long way from the traditional media nowadays – I won’t write for newspapers or national magazines and have had a strict policy of not doing so for over two years, and I won’t go on TV – and for this and other reasons I did not expect any reviews of 21st-Century Yokel to appear there. Surprisingly, there was a very complimentary piece about it in the Guardian, written in an extremely thoughtful and thorough manner. One thing that made me chuckle slightly about it – apart from the accompanying photo, dragged up from the Guardian’s archives, which didn’t even look remotely like me back when it was taken, in 1937 – was that towards the end it picked up on a theme of solitude, ‘oneliness’. Something I worried about a lot while writing the book was my overuse of the phrase ‘my friend’. If you walk a lot, like me, and need thinking and writing time, a certain amount of solitude is mandatory, but I see the book – or at least my period writing it – as an overwhelmingly sociable one. If I think of the book as a little better than my others due to having read more and written more and walked more and tried harder, I am overlooking another element at play: people. The stories they have told me, the knowledge they have passed on. In Devon I was lucky to be permanently thronged by an unusually large number of nature-loving pals: people who work in jobs which necessitate getting their hands dirty and who view humans as not above nature, but part of it. I’m choosing this Rudyard Kipling poem by the late Peter Bellamy, which revolves around the tradition of ‘telling the bees’, as a tribute to them – especially my beekeeper friends Hayley and Emily. Bellamy is a taste which took me a while to acquire, and this is perhaps not the ideal place to start with him, but it’s pretty damn good, and if you find him a bit raw and bleaty at first I recommend you persevere. ‘If you don’t deceive your bees, your bees will not deceive you,’ he sings, believably, sounding not entirely unlike a sheep. A human sheep, singing about the wonder of bees, and the crucial timeless synergy of people and animals. What on earth could be wrong with that?

Find Ring the Hill on page 83 59 THE JOY OF WOMANSPLAINING

Nell Stevens, author of Mrs Gaskell and Me, celebrates womansplaining, the earnest sharing of hard-earned wisdom across the generations, in this essay that first appeared on Boundless, Unbound’s online literary magazine.

I’m having a conversation with my best friend about whether or not to have a baby. She is patient, listening while I go back and forth between imagined futures: child-free liberation and its potential regrets versus the fulfilments and inevitable trials of motherhood. I fret about money, about stigma, about disappointment, about pain, and she chips in occasionally with droplets of such profound wisdom that it takes me a moment each time to process what she is telling me. I am, at the time of this conversation, a freelance writer, thirty-one, single. My best friend is a mother and an author, so she knows what is at stake for me in making this decision. Sometimes I say things she doesn’t understand, and all I hear back from her is bemused silence. But mostly we carry on this way – distress call and wise response – until I alight on a plan. I should mention, I suppose, that my best friend has been dead for 150 years. She was born in 1810, and died in 1865, and is the author of Mary Barton and North and South and Cranford. Her name is Elizabeth Gaskell, but I always refer to her using her title, Mrs Gaskell, because that was what she put on the cover of her books, and despite my political qualms about categorising women by their relationship status, I can’t help but feel it suits her. It makes no sense, I know, to call her my best friend, and yet that is the most accurate term I can find for my relationship with her, somewhere between mother–daughter, shrink– client, sister–sister: best friend.

HER VOICE IS SO PIERCINGLY ALIVE THAT IT FEELS NEW AND RELEVANT TO ME CENTURIES LATER. SHE IS MY GUIDING LIGHT

I have been turning to Mrs Gaskell for advice for years now. I wrote my PhD thesis about her and her peers, and once I graduated, I wrote a book about her, and about me, the ways in which I understood her life through the lens of mine, and, more importantly, my life through the lens of hers. In her novels, her short stories, and particularly her letters, her voice is so piercingly alive that it feels new and relevant to me centuries later. She is my guiding light.

60 ‘I think an unmarried life may be to the full as happy’ as a married one, Mrs Gaskell says, ‘but I think there is a time of trial to be gone through with women, who naturally yearn after children.’ This is from a letter in which she frets about the future of her unmarried daughter; she is trying to reassure herself as much as anything, but in the process, she also profoundly reassures me. Because in the century since she has died, science and technology have provided a previously unimaginable solution for the single woman who is ‘to the full as happy’ as her married counterpart, but who naturally yearns after children. I can have a baby using donor sperm, and this line from Mrs Gaskell’s letter is like receiving her blessing. There is no time of trial for me to go through, because my yearning for children can be fulfilled. And I think, though Mrs Gaskell was married herself, she would perfectly understand my choice; she too treasured freedom and independence: ‘Nature intended me for a gypsy-bachelor; that I am sure of,’ she insisted. ‘Not an old maid for they are particular & fidgety, and tidy, and punctual, – but a gypsy-bachelor.’ Mrs Gaskell has answers to every kind of question: her wisdom is not confined to concerns of reproduction and love. Do I really have to go to work today, Mrs Gaskell? ‘The future must be met, however stern and iron it be.’ Is it very biblical to enforce the law, Mrs Gaskell? ‘Loyalty and obedience to wisdom and justice are fine; but it is still finer to defy arbitrary power, unjustly and cruelly used – not on behalf of ourselves, but on behalf of others more helpless.’ What will heaven be like, Mrs Gaskell? ‘Heaven will be a place where all books & newspapers will be prohibited by St Peter: and the amusement will be driving in an open carriage to Harrow, and eating strawberries and cream forever.’ There’s a disingenuous alchemy at play here, of course, and it’s one to which we are increasingly prone in the digital age. When I receive advice from Mrs Gaskell, I am turning one sense into another, am uprooting it from the circumstances in which it was written and transforming it into personalised counsel. I am not alone in doing this. Thousands of ‘author quotes’ float around the internet, gouged from their original context. They always look roughly the same, a black- and-white photo of a face, or else some soothing nature imagery, and imposed upon it, a sentence that is both loosely inspirational and vague enough to be applicable to myriad situations. ‘The beginning is always today,’ attributed either to Mary Wollstonecraft or Mary Shelley, websites not caring to distinguish between mother and daughter; ‘It is never too late to be what you might have been,’ over a photograph of a sunset and crediting George Eliot,

61 whose oeuvre contains no such sentence. This impulse invades the physical world, too: Jane Austen’s ‘I declare there is no enjoyment like reading!’ appears on the British £10 note, despite the fact that, in Pride and Prejudice, it is spoken by the profoundly duplicitous Caroline Bingley, who is only pretending to like reading in order to flirt.

IT HAS TO DO WITH A VERY SPECIFIC KIND OF FEMALE COMMUNICATION, A SHARING BETWEEN AND ACROSS GENERATIONS

There’s something superficial in the way that we rely on the dead for advice. It’s not really advice if it has been cut out of one meaning and pasted into another; we’re just hearing what we want to hear. The dead, of course, can’t speak. So how is it that, knowing all this, I still consider Mrs Gaskell my friend? She can’t advise me, can’t even acknowledge me, from the grave. The dilemmas and possibilities of my life would have been unimaginable to her. But there is something real, nonetheless, in our relationship. I think it has to do with a very specific kind of female communication, an intimate sharing of knowledge between and across generations, that was practiced by Mrs Gaskell in the nineteenth century, and is practiced by me and my peers in the twenty-first. I still remember vividly the day when, as a pre-teen, I went to a friend’s house to play and, instead of pretending we were movie stars or dressing up her dog or whatever else we normally did, we sat in her room and talked. It felt revelatory: that this could be a way of spending time, that hours could be devoted to something as simple as speaking and listening and exchanging experiences. We knew this was something our brothers and their mates did not do. We knew, even then, that we had inadvertently initiated ourselves into something feminine and important. We haven’t stopped talking since. With talking comes action, of course: acts of devotion that outshine almost any performed by the men I have dated. Holly drove through London during the riots of 2011 to collect me from the flat where I had just broken up with my boyfriend. Izra drafted text messages to lovers, who had no idea they were communicating with a committee. Gabrielle has collected me from hospital countless times, and once, visiting me in the recovery ward after I’d had a particularly painful operation, spent hours disentangling, dry shampooing and plaiting my unwashed hair. Louise once took a day off work just so she and I could go to the zoo when I was feeling low. And there have been flowers, so many bouquets, delivered between us for birthdays, celebrations, losses, bereavements:

62 a criss-crossing of florals across the country, between our homes, like a second language. The relationship I have with these women is, in many ways, the grand romance of my life. In my period of indecision about single parenthood, it is only natural, then, that I seek advice from the women around me: child-free women, mothers, grandmothers, single and married, gay and straight. It is to women I turn, have always turned, for knowledge and comfort and help, and they have always been there to guide me. If mansplaining is the unnecessary interjection of unwanted information, then womansplaining, in my experience, is this earnest sharing of hard-earned wisdom between mothers and daughters, aunts and nieces, between friends.

MY CHILD MAY NOT HAVE A FATHER, OR EVEN A FATHER FIGURE, BUT HE OR SHE WILL BE RICH IN MOTHERS

I hold the baby of my friend Louise and ask her to imagine how she’d look after him if she were single: ‘How would you shower?’ I ask. ‘Where would you put him when you ate? What would you do if you got ill?’ For some of my questions there are solutions. At other times, she tells me that she does not know how she’d do it, only that other people have managed it in the past, continue to manage it. The baby drools and I mop his chin, I coo at him, I give him my finger to squeeze in his fist. ‘I’ll help you,’ says Louise. ‘We all will. You’ll be able to do it because we will all help you.’ This is how I come to the decision to have a baby: alone but supported, single but one of many. It is the beginning of a journey that holds heartache as well as joy. I will go on to have a miscarriage, and then, unexpectedly and life-alteringly, to fall in love with a woman. Still, my desire to become a parent hasn’t faltered. Perhaps, at some point in the future, I’ll find myself responsible for the wellbeing of a screaming infant, a destructive toddler or a self-destructive teen. If I do, it will be to the women in my life that I’ll turn for advice. My child may not have a father, or even a father figure, but he or she will be rich in mothers. And amongst them will be long-dead, long-loved Mrs Gaskell, who is always ready with a wise word, always distant, always close, and always, despite herself, alive.

Nell Stevens’s latest book, Mrs Gaskell and Me, is published by Picador. This essay originally appeared on Boundless, Unbound’s online literary magazine that publishes a new piece daily: unbound.com/boundless

AUTUMN TITLES JULY TO DECEMBER 2019

July OTHERS Writers on the power of words to help us see beyond ourselves CHARLES FERNYHOUGH (editor)

An anthology of writing from Kamila Shamsie, Noam Chomsky, A. L. Kennedy, Matt Haig and more, reflecting on experiences of otherness

Others celebrates the power of words to take us out of the selves we inhabit and show us the world as others experience it. Its stories and poems invite readers to look through unfamiliar eyes, while memoir and essays probe the mental blocks that prevent us from seeing beyond our own immediate reality.

Sometimes the pieces explore the brutal consequences of intolerance, as in one shattering story of a racist hate crime. Elsewhere they illuminate the quieter forms of otherness that go with deafness, disability and mental distress. Title: Others Pub Date: 11/07/2019 Format: Paperback Contributors include Marina ISBN: 978-1-78352-751-9 Warner, Preti Taneja, Louise Price: £9.99 Doughty and Damian Barr among Rights: World/Audio/TV & Film many others.

Non-Fiction

Charles Fernyhough is a writer and psychologist. His non-fiction books include The Baby in The Mirror, Pieces of Light (shortlisted for the Royal Society’s Winton Prize) and The Voices Within. He is the author of two novels, The Auctioneer and A Box of Birds. @cfernyhough

67 July DIFFERENT CLASS The Story of Laurie Cunningham DERMOT KAVANAGH

Shortlisted for Biography of the Year at the 2018 Sports Book Awards, this is the story of the first black footballer to play professionally for England

When Laurie Cunningham played for England in an under-21s match in 1977, he became the first black footballer to represent England at a professional level. At a time when racist chants would fly from the stands, his success challenged how black players were perceived.

But Cunningham was more than an exceptional footballer: he was a dandy with a love of funk music and bespoke suits, as graceful on the dance floor as he was on the pitch. Different Class tells the story of this important but unsung figure in the rich cultural landscape of late twentieth-century Britain. Title: Different Class Pub Date: 11/07/2019 Format: Paperback ‘Stands out for examining the way ISBN: 978-1-78352-737-3 Cunningham’s distinctive grace Price: £9.99 was influenced by the fashion and Rights: World/Audio music of black Londoners in the 1970’s’ The Times

Non-Fiction

Dermot Kavanagh is the Sports Picture Editor of the Sunday Times. His writing has been published in the Sunday Times, as well as the football magazines When Saturday Comes and Howler, and he is a contributor to the literary website London Fictions. He lives in London with his wife and three sons. Different Class is his first book.

68 July RAZIA ABDA KHAN

A fast-paced thriller that exposes the truth behind Britain’s darkest secret

Farah is a young lawyer living and working in London. She’s just ended a long relationship, and her parents are looking for a husband – whether Farah wants one or not. So far, so normal. But at a work dinner, hosted by a dangerously powerful man, she comes across a young woman called Razia, who is being kept as a domestic slave.

We follow Farah’s daring investigations from the law courts of London to the brick kilns of Lahore, as she teams up with a human rights lawyer, Ali, and the two become close… But will they discover the explosive secret behind these tragic events? Title: Razia Pub Date: 11/07/2019 Format: Paperback ISBN: 978-1-78352-704-5 Price: £8.99 Rights: World/Audio/TV & Film

Fiction

Abda Khan is an author and lawyer who works with victims of domestic violence. She was born in Bradford in 1969 to Pakistani immigrant parents, and she now lives and works in the West Midlands. Her first novel,Stained , was published in 2016. She was highly commended as a finalist at the 2017 NatWest Asian Women of Achievement Awards. @abdakhan5

69 July RIFE Twenty-One Stories from Britain’s Youth NIKESH SHUKLA (editor)

An anthology of passionate young voices on the subjects that matter to them most, edited by Nikesh Shukla of The Good Immigrant

Young people in this country are facing a chasm of doubt and instability. Mental health problems are widespread, university fees are rising, job opportunities are scarce, and the prospect of ever owning a home is increasingly out of reach. But this generation is noticeably absent from the opinion columns, comment pieces and news reports of the mainstream media.

From the creative minds behind Rife magazine comes this anthology of twenty-one passionate voices, all under the age of twenty-four, holding a Title: Rife mirror up to the experience of Pub Date: 11/07/2019 Format: Paperback young people in the UK today with ISBN: 978-1-78352-576-8 essays on money, mental health, Price: £9.99 sex, gender, inequality, education Rights: World English and the future.

Non-Fiction

Nikesh Shukla is the author of the novels Coconut Unlimited, which was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, Meatspace and The One Who Wrote Destiny. He is also the editor of The Good Immigrant, a bestselling and award-winning collection of essays about race and immigration by twenty-one writers of colour. He lives in Bristol. @nikeshshukla

70 July THE STRANGER’S GUIDE TO TALLISTON JOHN TARROW

Experience the YA fantasy adventure novel inspired by ‘Britain’s Most Extraordinary Home’

Abandoned and alone, thirteen- year-old Joe’s world is shattered when he enters a deserted council house and becomes trapped within a labyrinth protecting the last magical places on earth. There, Joe discovers a book charting this immense no-man’s land, without time or place, its thirteen doors each leading to a different realm.

Hunted by sinister foes, the boy is forced ever deeper into both the maze and the mystery of his missing parents. What will he find at the labyrinth’s centre, and can it reunite him with the family he so desperately needs? Title: The Stranger’s Guide to Talliston Pub Date: 11/07/2019 Format: Hardback The novel is inspired by Talliston ISBN: 978-1-78352-724-3 House and Gardens, dubbed Price: £14.99 ‘Britain’s Most Extraordinary Home’ Rights: World/Audio/TV & Film by the Sunday Times.

Fiction

John Tarrow is a novelist, poet, storyteller and award-winning writer. His fascination with folk and fairy tales has taken him around the world, gathering threads of story and legend to weave into his own mythologies. He spent twenty-five years transforming a three-bedroom, semi-detached, ex- council house in Essex into the world-famous Talliston House and Gardens.

71 July ZIPPY AND ME My Life Inside Britain’s Most Infamous Puppet RONNIE LE DREW with DUNCAN BARRETT AND NUALA CALVI

This autobiography fromRainbow puppeteer Ronnie Le Drew is the first behind-the-scenes look at the iconic children’s TV programme

Over the course of almost half a century, puppeteer Ronnie Le Drew has worked with the greats – from David Bowie in Labyrinth to Michael Caine in A Muppet Christmas Carol. But the role that defined his career was Zippy in Rainbow, who he operated for more than twenty years.

This is the first time aRainbow insider has told the true story of what went on under the counter and inside the suits: the petty squabbles between performers, wrangling with TV executives, and scandals such as the ‘love triangle’ between musicians Rod, Title: Zippy and Me Jane and Freddy, and the now Pub Date: 25/07/2019 Format: Hardback infamous X-rated episode. ISBN: 978-1-78352-698-7 Price: £10.99 Rights: World/Audio/TV & Film

Non-Fiction

Ronnie Le Drew is one of the UK’s most respected puppeteers, and recipient of the prestigious Harlequin Award. He has operated many of the most iconic children’s puppets of the twentieth century – Zippy, Sweep, Bill and Ben, Brains from Thunderbirds – and now teaches at the London School of Puppetry, which he founded in 1987.

72 August HEAD SHOT VICTORIA NIXON

How does a Vogue model confront a double family suicide and live a normal life? An extraordinary memoir about grief and glamour

The late 1960s were an extraordinary time for Victoria Nixon. Spotted in London’s Bond Street by none other than Helmut Newton, who photographed her for Vogue, she was soon travelling the world, earning a fortune and hanging out with the era’s legendary figures, from Andy Warhol to the Shah of Iran.

But this glamorous dream came to a sudden end when Victoria’s brother took his own life in her New York apartment, echoing their father’s suicide ten years earlier, and her mother passed away shortly afterwards. Head Shot is the story of a life ripped apart by circumstance, and built up again Title: Head Shot by hard work and the quiet solace Pub Date: 08/08/2019 found in hope. Format: Hardback ISBN: 978-1-78352-749-6 Price: £14.99 Rights: World/Audio/TV & Film

Non-Fiction

Victoria Nixon was eighteen when she was first photographed forVogue . This launched her international modelling career, and led to her being named the Daily Mail’s ‘Face of 1968’. In 2002 her first book,Supermodels’ Beauty Secrets, was published, followed by Supermodels’ Diet Secrets in 2004. @victorianixon_

73 August THE DEATHS AND AFTERLIFE OF ALEISTER CROWLEY IAN THORNTON

Aleister Crowley, one of the most reviled men in history, is back to expose the truth

Aleister Crowley supposedly died in 1947, but in Ian Thornton’s new novel, set in the present day, the Great Beast is alive and well and living in Shangri-La. Now over 130 years old, thanks to the magical air of his mystical location, he looks back on his life and decides it is time to set the record straight.

For Crowley was not the evil man he is often portrayed as. This was just a cover to hide his real mission, to save the twentieth century from destroying itself and to set humanity on the road to freedom and liberty. Title: The Deaths and Afterlife of Aleister Crowley Pub Date: 22/08/2019 Format: Paperback ISBN: 978-1-78352-783-0 Price: £10.99 Rights: World/Audio/TV & Film

Fiction

Ian Thornton’s first novel,The Great and Calamitous Life of Johan Thoms, was published to acclaim in 2014. He is a co-founder of the global television industry publisher, C21 Media. Originally from Leeds, Ian currently resides in Toronto with his wife and children.

74 August HORSE DESTROYS THE UNIVERSE CYRIAK HARRIS

A horse threatens to unravel the fabric of reality in this surreal novel from cult internet phenomenon Cyriak Harris

Life was simple for Buttercup the horse. Chewing grass in a field, gazing dreamily at passing clouds or standing at a hedge to watch the world go by. Perhaps a light nap followed by a gentle canter and more grazing, and then off to the stable for a programme of psychological tests designed to expand the boundaries of horse consciousness.

For Betty and Tim, life was also simple. Or at least as simple as life can be when you are scientists conducting neurological experiments on a horse. That is until the day they discovered their horse was conducting an Title: Horse Destroys the Universe experiment of its own… Pub Date: 22/08/2019 Format: Paperback ISBN: 978-1-78352-760-1 Price: £8.99 Rights: World/Audio/TV & Film

Fiction

Cyriak is a British artist best known for his surreal animations using photo and video montage, which he began spreading on the internet in 2004. He has since built a career as a freelance animator, working on commercials, TV shows and music videos, and has a YouTube following of over a million subscribers. cyriak.co.uk/@cyriakharris

75 August ON THE ROAD NOT TAKEN PAUL DODGSON

A memoir of self-discovery through music in middle age, as heard on Radio 4

On the Road Not Taken is a memoir about the transformational power of music. It begins with a boy growing up in a small town in the 1970s, who dreams of heading out on the road with a head full of songs. But when the moment comes he is not brave enough to try and do it for a living.

Thirty-five years later, when it feels like time is running out, he walks out onto a stage in front of 500 people and begins to sing again. What follows is an extraordinary period of self-discovery as he plays pubs, clubs, theatres and festivals, overcoming anxiety to experience the joy of performance. Title: On the Road Not Taken Pub Date: 22/08/2019 Format: Paperback ISBN: 978-1-78352-775-5 Price: £9.99 Rights: World/Audio/TV & Film

Non-Fiction

Paul Dodgson joined the BBC as a studio manager and went on to become a producer making programmes for BBC Radio. In 2001, he left the BBC and has since written sixteen plays for Radio 4 and been a member of the Eastenders writing team. He has written for the theatre, taught creative writing around the world, and been awarded a Hawthornden Fellowship. 76 September ANOTHER LIFE NICK DANZIGER

From award-winning photojournalist Nick Danziger comes this extraordinary record of life in the world’s poorest regions

In 2005, photographer Nick Danziger was commissioned to visit eight of the world’s poorest countries and see what effect the UN’s Millennium Development Goals were having on people’s lives. He realised that one journey wasn’t going to be enough, so he returned five years later – and again in 2015 with author Rory MacLean – to assemble a stark portrait of forty lives lived on the edge in India, Cambodia, Zambia, Uganda, Niger, Honduras, Bolivia and Armenia.

The resulting book stands as a record of courage and humanity, Title: Another Life as well as a reminder of the work Pub Date: 05/09/2019 Format: Hardback that still needs to be done. ISBN: 978-1-78352-653-6 Price: £50.00 Rights: World/Audio/TV & Film

Non-Fiction

Nick Danziger is one of Europe’s leading photojournalists, having spent a life documenting what he sees in bestselling books, and in award- winning documentaries and photography. His work is held in museum collections worldwide and his ‘mirror’ image of Tony Blair and George W. Bush won the World Press Photo Award. @danziger2

77 September JUNGLE GEMS A Naturalist’s Tale YIKAI ZHANG

An amateur naturalist travels to China on the hunt for an elusive beetle

Young naturalist Yikai Zhang is given a case of beetle specimens as payment by a client. But when he shows it to an expert at the Natural History Museum questions are raised. One of the specimens is so rare that only a single example is known to exist, and Zhang decides he must travel to the Chinese jungle in search of it.

As he treks through the island of Hainan, he encounters the most bizarre and wonderful creatures imaginable. What he doesn’t know is that the outcome of his adventure has already been written, and as the cloud of Title: Jungle Gems mystery clears he is forced to Pub Date: 05/09/2019 Format: Hardback accept a shocking but irrefutable ISBN: 978-1-78352-792-2 truth. Price: £18.99 Rights: World/Audio/TV & Film

Non-Fiction

Yikai Zhang is a twenty-one-year-old self-taught artist with a degree in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University. He lives in London but spends a lot of time in the mountains of China looking for interesting creatures.

78 September MY MOTHER, THE BEARDED LADY The Selected Letters of Miles Kington MILES KINGTON

A collection of letters spanning the life and career of one of our best- loved humorists

When he died in 2008, journalist, columnist, humorist and musician, Miles Kington, left behind an enormous archive of correspondence. He had kept copies of every letter he had sent or received for the best part of fifty years, letters to and from the great and the good of the arts – Terry Jones, Melvyn Bragg, Joanna Lumley, John Cleese, André Previn, Philip Larkin, Alan Coren, Kenneth Williams, and many more. Now, for the first time, a selection of these letters, chosen and edited by his wife, Caroline, are being collected and published.

Title: My Mother, the Bearded Lady Pub Date: 05/09/2019 Format: Hardback ISBN: 978-1-78352-650-5 Price: £25.00 Rights: World English (excl. audio & film)

Non-Fiction

During his lifetime Miles wrote for Punch, where he created the hugely popular Franglais, then went on to write a daily humorous column for The Times, followed by the Independent. Turning his back on a promising career in television because he wanted to concentrate on writing, he became a regular broadcaster on radio until his death in 2008.

79 September CAIN’S JAWBONE A Novel Problem ERNEST POWYS MATHERS

Can you solve Torquemada’s murder mystery? An infamously difficult puzzle book in a custom-made box

In 1934, the Observer’s crossword writer, Edward Powys Mathers (aka Torquemada), released a novel that was simultaneously a murder mystery and one of the hardest and most beguiling word puzzles ever published. The 100 pages of the book were printed and bound out of order, asking the reader to re-order the pages to solve the mystery and reveal the murderers.

Now, Unbound and The Laurence Sterne Trust are re-issuing the book in a custom-made box so that readers can physically reorder the pages for themselves. We are Title: Cain’s Jawbone also offering a £1,000 prize for the Pub Date: 19/09/2019 first person to solve the mystery Format: Postcard book within a year of publication. ISBN: 978-1-78352-741-0 Price: £20.00 Rights: World/Audio/TV & Film

Fiction

Edward Powys Mathers (1892–1939) introduced the cryptic crossword to Britain in 1924 through the pages of the Observer. Known as Torquemada, he was acknowledged as a brilliant translator and a critic specialising in crime fiction. In 1934 he published a selection of his puzzles under the title The Torquemada Puzzle Book – the final 100 pages of which contained Cain’s Jawbone. 80 September MAGNIFICENT WOMEN AND THEIR REVOLUTIONARY MACHINES HENRIETTA HEALD

A centenary tribute to Britain’s trailblazing, boundary-breaking women engineers

In 1919, in the wake of the First World War, a group of extraordinary women came together to create the Women’s Engineering Society. They were trailblazers, pioneers, boundary breakers, but many of their stories have been lost to history. To mark the centenary of the society’s creation, Henrietta Heald has brought them vividly back to life.

Her book not only charts the story of the women themselves, but also the era in which they lived: the moment when women in Britain were first allowed to vote and stand for Parliament, and when Title: Magnificent Women and Their several new professions were Revolutionary Machines opened up to them. Pub Date: 19/09/2019 Format: Hardback ISBN: 978-1-78352-660-4 Price: £20.00 Rights: World/Audio/TV & Film

Non-Fiction

Henrietta was chief editor of the Chronicle of Britain and Ireland and Reader’s Digest Illustrated Guide to Britain’s Coast. Her biography of the great Victorian inventor and industrialist William Armstrong, Magician of the North, was shortlisted for the H. W. Fisher Best First Biography Prize and the Portico Prize for non-fiction.

81 October FUCK YEAH, VIDEO GAMES The Life and Extra Lives of a Professional Nerd DANIEL HARDCASTLE

The most successful book in UK crowdfunding history: a memoir through video games by YouTube star DanNerdCubed

Fuck Yeah, Video Games is a memoir by YouTube sensation Daniel Hardcastle, told through his encounters with the most remarkable games of the last thirty © Rebecca Maughan years. It is also a love letter to the greatest hobby in the world.

From God of War to Animal Crossing, SSX 3 to The Sims, each chapter looks at a different game and is crammed with as many jokes, obscure references and personal stories as will fit. Alongside this march of merriment are a handful of chapters dedicated to the hardware behind the games, a celebration of the Title: Fuck Yeah, Video Games weird and wonderful world of Pub Date: 03/10/2019 Format: Hardback consoles and peripherals. ISBN: 978-1-78352-787-8 Price: £12.99 Rights: World/Audio/TV & Film

Non-Fiction

Daniel Hardcastle, aka DanNerdCubed, is a YouTube gamer who has accumulated more than 2.5 million subscribers over the course of his 4,000 videos. He lives with his partner, Rebecca Maughan, who has provided illustrations for the book. (@DanNerdCubed) Find him on YouTube at youtube.com/user/officialnerdcubed

82 October RING THE HILL TOM COX

Tom Cox returns with a book of unclassifiable non-fiction, written in his inimitable voice and studded with his trademark humour

Ring the Hill is a book written around, and about, hills: it includes a northern hill, a European hill, some hills from East Anglia that can barely be called hills at all. Each chapter takes a type of hill – whether it be knoll, cap, cliff, tor, mump or even mere hillock – as a starting point. These hills can lead to an exploration of an intimate relationship with a beach, a journey into Cox’s past or a lesson from an expert in what goes into the mapping of hills themselves. Because a good walk in the hills is never just about the hills; it will take your mind to many other places. Title: Ring the Hill Pub Date: 03/10/2019 Format: Hardback ISBN: 978-1-78352-835-6 Price: £16.99 Rights: UK & Comm (excl. Canada)

Non-Fiction

Tom Cox lives in Somerset. A one-time music journalist, he is the author of the Sunday Times bestselling The Good, the Bad and the Furry and the William Hill Sports Book longlisted Bring Me the Head of Sergio Garcia. His most recent book, 21st-Century Yokel, was longlisted for the Wainwright Prize 2018. @cox_tom

83 October HARDCORE GAMING 101 PRESENTS: JAPANESE VIDEO GAME OBSCURITIES KURT KALATA

An illustrated collection of 101 rare, obscure and downright weird Japanese video games from the 1980s and 90s

Japan has produced thousands of intriguing video games. But not all of them were released outside of the country, especially not in the 1980s and 90s. While some of these titles have since been documented by the English- speaking video game community, a huge proportion of this output is unknown beyond Japan.

Japanese Video Game Obscurities seeks to catalogue many of these titles – games that are weird, compelling, cool or historically important. Featuring the work of giants like Nintendo, Sega, Namco Title: Hardcore Gaming 101 Presents: and Konami alongside that of Japanese Video Game Obscurities Pub Date: 03/10/2019 long-forgotten developers and Format: Hardback publishers, even those well versed ISBN: 978-1-78352-763-2 in Japanese gaming culture are Price: £25.00 Rights: World/Audio/TV & Film bound to learn something new.

Non-Fiction

Kurt Kalata has been writing about video games, mostly old and weird ones, on the internet for twenty years. He founded the website Hardcore Gaming 101, and has since edited and published over ten books through it, including The Guide to Classic Graphic Adventures. He lives in New Jersey, USA, with his wife and daughter. @hg_101

84 October #SONNETS LUCIEN YOUNG

A Shakespearean take on such topics as Kim Kardashian, Tinder and Pikachu

For hundreds of years, the sonnet has captivated poets, including its most famous practitioner, William Shakespeare. Alas, Shakespeare never used his command of iambic pentameter to explore such vital modern subjects as Snapchat, porn and Donald Trump. Enter comedian Lucien Young. While Shakespeare only wrote 154 sonnets, Lucien has written 155, making him one better.

#Sonnets is a collection of finely- wrought poems on hilariously inappropriate themes, each verse packing a multitude of gags Title: #Sonnets into its fourteen lines. As well as Pub Date: 03/10/2019 Format: Hardback being funny, Lucien’s writing is ISBN: 978-1-78352-820-2 an accomplished parody of the Price: £9.99 original, and will be partnered with Rights: World/Audio/TV & Film hand-drawn illustrations, making the book a perfect gift.

Fiction

Lucien Young is a comedy writer who has worked on various TV programmes, including BBC Three’s Siblings and Murder in Successville, as well as authoring two humour books, Alice in Brexitland and Trump’s Christmas Carol. He was born in Newcastle and read English at the University of Cambridge, where he was a member of the world-famous Footlights Club. @luciendyoung 85 October EFFIN’ BIRDS A Guide to Field Identification AARON REYNOLDS

Based on the hit Twitter account: a compact field guide featuring more than 200 of the rudest and most hilarious sweary birds

Have you ever looked a bird dead in the eye and wondered what it was thinking? With this eagerly anticipated farcical field guide, you can venture into nature with confidence.

Alongside beautiful illustrations is incisive commentary on modern life and the world we, as humans, must navigate. Or maybe it’s just some pictures of effin’ birds, okay?

Title: Effin’ Birds Pub Date: 17/10/2019 Format: Hardback ISBN: 978-1-78352-695-6 Price: £14.99 Rights: World/Audio/TV & Film

Non-Fiction

Aaron Reynolds is a humourist, professional speaker, podcast producer and the man behind the @EffinBirds and @swear_trek Twitter Accounts. He currently splits his time between Toronto and Ottawa.

86 October EILEEN The Making of Orwell SYLVIA TOPP

The never-before-told story of George Orwell’s first wife, a woman who shaped the life of one of the twentieth century’s greatest writers

From the time they spent in a tiny village tending goats and chickens, through the Spanish Civil War and the couple’s narrow escape from the destruction of their London flat during the Blitz,Eileen is the first account of the Blairs’ nine- year marriage. It is also a vivid picture of bohemianism, political engagement and sexual freedom in the 1930s and 40s.

The year before George met her, Eileen had published a futuristic poem called ‘End of the Century, 1984’, and he would go on to name his greatest work in homage to her memory. This touching Title: Eileen story of an unjustly overlooked Pub Date: 17/10/2019 Format: Hardback woman offers a completely new ISBN: 978-1-78352-708-3 perspective on Orwell himself. Price: £25.00 Rights: World English

Non-Fiction

Sylvia Topp was the wife of Tuli Kupferberg, a Beat poet who later co- founded legendary rock and roll band the Fugs. Together Sylvia and Tuli wrote and designed over thirty books and magazines. Sylvia has worked for The Soho Weekly News and The Village Voice, and she spent sixteen years in the editorial department at Vanity Fair.

87 October OF MOUSE AND MAN The Best of Jim’ll Paint It JIM’LL PAINT IT

A collection of the very best from MS Paint sensation, Jim’ll Paint It

Since he began taking requests back in 2013, Jim has painted some 400 works – including such classics as Thom Yorke the Tank Engine, Dad’s Army of Darkness and Mick Jagger disappointing customers at the paint mixing station in B&Q by matching every colour as black – each brought to life with painstaking detail using nothing but an archaic version of Microsoft Paint and an optical mouse.

Ranging from the surreal to the completely unhinged via parody, political satire and pitch-black humour, Of Mouse and Man Title: Of Mouse and Man compiles the very best of Jim’s Pub Date: 17/10/2019 Format: Hardback first five years of work alongside ISBN: 978-1-78352-840-0 never-before-seen material Price: £25.00 and unique insights into his Rights: World/Audio/TV & Film creative process.

Fiction

Jim is best known for his popular ongoing social media project, Jim’ll Paint It, where, using an archaic version of Microsoft Paint, he takes requests from his followers and turns them into intricately detailed paintings. In 2014 he published his first book,Electric Dreams, which compiled his earliest work. He lives in Bristol.

88 November BIRD BRAIN CHUCK MULLINS

A comic about mental health, starring pigeons

When she was seventeen, Chuck began experiencing feelings of anxiety and depression. This has manifested in her creating comics depicting her life with mental illness... using pigeons. Chuck has what you might call an excessive adoration for pigeons, and feels the general public’s contempt makes pigeons the perfect subjects on which to project her experiences.

Bird Brain features ninety comics showing what it’s like living with anxiety in ways that make you think about the intricacies of mental illness while also having Title: Bird Brain a laugh. If it helps you have a Pub Date: 14/11/2019 Format: Hardback bit more sympathy and love for ISBN: 978-1-78352-785-4 pigeons as well, then Chuck’s Price: £9.99 work here is done. Rights: World/Audio/TV & Film

Non-Fiction

Chuck is a twenty-something Londoner who is full of anxiety and a love of pigeons. She likes to combine the two of these things into comics that depict life with mental illness. @charlubby/@chuckdrawsthings

89 November CELEBS AT HOME ANDY BUSH

Cartoons depicting famous people in humorously mundane situations, from Absolute Radio presenter Andy Bush

Do Kraftwerk put the bins out together?

Does Paul Weller defrost the freezer with bin bags on the floor?

Does Springsteen always accidentally try and turn the telly on with the DVD remote? Title: Celebs at Home Pub Date: 14/11/2019 Format: Hardback ISBN: 978-1-78352-819-6 Price: £9.99 Rights: World/Audio/TV & Film

Fiction

Andy Bush is a broadcaster, illustrator and writer who presents the afternoon show on Absolute Radio and a weekend show with Mel Giedroyc on Magic. Bush was raised in Bristol and spent ten years presenting the number one commercial radio show in the West Country. He writes and draws for the Huffington Post. @bushontheradio

90 November THE COMING AGE OF IMAGINATION PHIL TEER

A manifesto for how automation and universal basic income will free humanity and welcome a new age of creativity

Universal Basic Income is a very old concept that is fast becoming the radical idea of the twenty-first century: every adult paid a living wage, no strings attached. Basic income could eradicate poverty, or help us avoid a dystopian future where robots have taken all our jobs. But Universal Basic Income will have another effect too: a massive creative explosion.

From the Romantic poets who invented consumerism to cities like New York, Glasgow and Berlin that were transformed by their creative residents, The Coming Age of Imagination proves that when we no longer have to worry Title: The Coming Age of Imagination about money, we are able to be Pub Date: 14/11/2019 Format: Paperback creative on a mass scale. ISBN: 978-1-78352-593-5 Price: £8.99 Rights: World/Audio/TV & Film

Non-Fiction

Phil Teer is a co-founder of St Luke’s, a creative agency called ‘the most frightening company on earth’ by Harvard Business Review. @pteer

91 November SMALL ROBOTS A collection of one hundred (mostly) useful robot friends THOMAS HEASMAN-HUNT

A spotter’s guide to one hundred Small Robots, as featured on the Twitter account of the same name

Small Robots began with a simple idea: to draw cute robots and post them on Twitter. The bots would be kind, helpful and, when called upon, fiercely defensive of the marginalised and oppressed. They would offer idiosyncratic solutions to everyday anxieties: bring tea, remember names, complain in restaurants on your behalf.

This book compiles a hundred of the best and most beloved Title: Small Robots bots, delving into their fictional Pub Date: 14/11/2019 Format: Hardback backstories. It also contains new ISBN: 978-1-78352-822-6 art that puts the robots in context, Price: £9.99 illustrating how they perform their Rights: World/Audio/TV & Film all-important tasks in the world of their large human friends.

Non-Fiction

By day, Thomas Heasman-Hunt works for the NHS as a specialist in data quality. By night he runs the popular Small Robots Twitter account, which he launched in November 2017. He is also a published author with his debut sci-fi novel,Legacy , released through Cynefin Road in 2017. @smolrobots

92 November THE CARPET MERCHANT OF KONSTANTINIYYA REIMENA YEE

An Eisner-nominated graphic novel set in seventeenth-century Istanbul, about a carpet merchant in the aftermath of his unwilling transformation into a vampire

Ayşe is an Anatolian girl from a tiny village, but she harbours big dreams. She meets Zeynel, the son of an esteemed family, and while she is sure of herself and what she wants, he is insecure and pressured to live up to other people’s expectations. Perhaps there is more to their meeting than chance.

Twenty-five years later, Ayşe is a successful businesswoman, and Zeynel her contented husband. But on a trip one evening, he plays Good Samaritan to a mysterious traveller, who turns out to be his undoing… Forced into unfortunate Title: The Carpet Merchant of Konstantiniyya Pub Date: 14/11/2019 circumstances he must learn to Format: Hardback reconcile himself with his curse, ISBN: 978-1-78352-577-5 and make sacrifices to protect the Price: £16.99 Rights: World/Audio/TV & Film people he loves.

Graphic Novel

Reimena Yee is an artist, writer and designer originally from Kuala Lumpur. She has drawn for Adventure Time, Image Comics, Girls Make Games, and a cornucopia of smaller businesses. You can find her comics at reimenayee.com.

93 NEW TITLES: DIGITAL

The following titles are from our digital list, available to order as short- run paperbacks from GBS at [email protected]

Sharp and atmospheric; a rural take on the noir thriller. A vivid new voice.

Title: East of England Author: Eamonn Griffin ISBN: 978-1-78965-014-3 Price: £9.99

From the Emmy Award-winning writer, a novel about an antiques whisperer and forgery hunter on the trail of a mysterious document.

Title: Go West Author: David Quantick ISBN: 978-1-912618-70-5 Price: £9.99

A melancholy Dionysus is reborn in twentieth-century Rome and creates a new cult – three teenage girls who will do anything to prove their devotion.

Title: In Exile Author: Alexandra Turney ISBN: 978-1-78965-006-8 Price: £10.99 94 A satirical novel that takes the premise of Animal Farm and applies it to the life of Margaret Thatcher.

Title: Iron Bird Author: Robert Woodshaw ISBN: 978-1-912618-30-9 Price: £10.99

If it’s all you’ve ever known, if there is nothing comparable, then is it bad? In a post-apocalyptic world, where would your moral compass sit?

Title: Axiom Author: Sebastian Ives ISBN: 978-1-912618-60-6 Price: £10.99

A contemporary noir novel set against the decaying façade of 1980s New York and a religious commune staked out in the Tennessee countryside.

Title: The Death and Life of Red Henley Author: Philip Wilding ISBN: 978-1-912618-26-2 Price: £10.99

Senseless is, at its heart, an illustration of the messy unpredictability of love and life and the resilience of the human spirit.

Title: Senseless Author: Anna Lickley ISBN: 978-1-912618-04-0 Price: £10.99 95 The finest, funniest, freakiest stories of England, Scotland and Wales, refreshed for the twenty-first century. By Brother Bernard, as told to Jem Roberts.

Title: Tales of Britain Author: Jem Roberts ISBN: 978-1-912618-44-6 Price: £11.99

Dexter has a complex over the fact that all his friends are getting married and moving in with their partners – but when aliens invade, it puts a lot of things into perspective.

Title: The Third Wheel Author: Michael J. Ritchie ISBN: 978-1-912618-58-3 Price: £10.99

How what scares us, makes us.

Title: Fear Hack Author: Hilary Gallo ISBN: 978-1-78965-010-5 Price: £9.99

Robbed and shot on Copacabana Beach, a young British soldier sets out to save the favela kid who nearly killed him.

Title: The Burning Hill Author: A. D. Flint ISBN: 978-1-78965-018-1 Price: £10.99 96 1838, a year after the Seddon union affair, Hudson and Lawes are on the case of illegal child labour and, even worse, baby-farming, among the mills and moorland of Bingley, Yorkshire.

Title: Innocents to the Slaughter Author: Helen Maskew ISBN: 978-1-912618-78-1 Price: £10.99

An Agatha Christie-inspired murder mystery novella set on board an interstellar spacecraft.

Title: Ten Little Astronauts Author: Damon L. Wakes ISBN: 978-1-912618-66-8 Price: £8.99

97 SHELFIE: OLIVIA LAING

Olivia Laing is a widely acclaimed writer and critic. She’s the author of To the River, The Trip to Echo Spring and The Lonely City, which has been translated into fifteen languages. Her latest book is Crudo, a real-time novel about the turbulent summer of 2017. It was a Sunday Times top-ten bestseller, a New York Times notable book of 2018 and was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize and the Gordon Burn Prize. She is currently working on Everybody, a book about bodies & freedom.

Can you remember the first book you bought?

I was always reading, but I can’t remember very many early cash transactions, more pilfering from adults’ shelves. I do distinctly remember bullying my father into buying me a book about how to make jewellery by Dinny Hall. He was sceptical about my fads, quite rightly, since I never so much as strung an earring. Earlier, surely, I spent book tokens on pony books, and was intensely keen on Tamora Pierce’s Alanna series. I also have distinct memories of buying a battered Goodbye to Berlin in a charity shop, but that was years later.

How big is your library now?

By normal standards huge, but utterly dwarfed by my husband’s 7,000 books, itself a radical diminution since he had to sell another 5,000 when he retired this summer as an English don and gave up his rooms at Cambridge. Books dominate our house: novels proliferating on the landing, floras self-seeding on the kitchen table. I get sent a good dozen a week, which accumulate in huge, wobbling piles and trip people up.

How do you arrange your books?

There is a vague sense of domains, though also a lot of migration and unexplained vanishings. Research for the book I’m currently writing lives in splendid isolation in my study at the top of the house. Books about gay Berlin in the 1930s, Freud, Wilhelm Reich and Agnes Martin: a strange combination that I hope I can pull together. The bedrooms and landing house mostly novels, including a mass of green-jacketed detective fiction (it’s a wonderful house to be ill in), plus biographies and children’s books from Ian’s boyhood, like Redcap Runs Away and The Green Fairy Book.

98 The bathroom has a small rotating reading library piled on a stool: current inhabitants include Derek Jarman, Audre Lorde and Ferdinand Mount’s Cold Cream. Sitting room is art books, including a shelf for an ever-growing Warhol collection, plus Henry James and Virginia Woolf. Ian’s study is given over to fiction from the first half (‘or so’) of the twentieth century, mostly first editions that I am strictly forbidden to read in the bath. The kitchen has hundreds of cookbooks and garden books, books on birds and fungi and slugs and Staffordshire pottery, plus Pevsner-ish guide books and maps. And then Ian has a splendid shed in the garden which contains pretty much every poetry book or pamphlet ever published.

Favourite reading spot in your house?

Bath. All my best reading is in the bath.

Do you have a regular purge?

I purge when I move house, which is increasingly infrequent, thank God. I still have a lot of books from my hippy years in the 1990s, including Sacred Animals and The Woman’s Book of Shadows. And schoolbooks full of mortifying marginalia. I don’t like deleting. I never delete emails either.

Favourite bookshop new or second-hand?

In the UK, the London Review Bookshop on Bury Place. Nicest, most beloved staff. In New York, Three Lives and Mast Books. Oh, and Donlon Books on Broadway Market. The Amnesty Bookshop in Cambridge is great too.

What’s on your ‘to read’ pile?

A stack on the painter Sargy Mann, who I’m writing a catalogue essay about. I also want to read Kate Atkinson’s new spy book, Transcription. I spent the summer bingeing on Margery Allingham and I have one left, Tiger in the Smoke, which is apparently the best and which I’m saving for a really miserable day. And Dance to the Music of Time, which I am moving through at an appropriately stately, glacial pace.

99 What is your favourite edition that you own and why?

My mother gave me first editions of Virginia Woolf’s letters and diaries for my fortieth birthday. The Hogarth Press ones, with beautiful pale-yellow and dove-grey and pink jackets. The first volume of the letters, The Flight of the Mind, has an inscription from my father, who gave it to my mother as a birthday present the year she was pregnant with me.

To break the spine or keep it as immaculate as possible?

Worse: I dog-ear. I used to be deputy literary editor of the Observer, and for a while I reviewed six books a week. I developed the habit of dog-earing to mark passages I wanted to quote and I’ve kept it up for the research for all my books. It’s disgraceful. But then I’m always thrilled when I see a really battered, annotated copy of one of my books. I like an engaged reader.

Do you lend books?

Within reason.

100 MEET THE UNBOUNDER: NOELIA JIMÉNEZ MARTÍNEZ

What is your role at Unbound?

Head of Data Science and Astrophysics, quite extravagant!

You have an unusual role for a publishing company; can you sum up in a few words how Data Science relates to the world of book publishing?

Data Science is a collection of techniques based on scientific and computational methods (statistical modelling, machine learning, artificial intelligence, natural language processing) used to extract knowledge from data. Publishing is no exception when it comes to understanding and optimizing processes. For example, Data Science helps us understand readers’ preferences in terms of content and format. Based on data pulled from social media platforms we can estimate the crowdfunding potential of our authors. We can also see what readers are looking for and guide them to related content. There is a lot of room for discovery given the number of books and readers out there, and the new techniques we have to combine and analyse the data.

What does a day in the life of Noelia look like?

It will depend on the project I’m working on. I manage several at the same time, so there is likely to be a combination of meetings with the teams and solitary time writing and testing code. I usually spend time in the late afternoons doing research on the latest techniques applied to the industry and updating my technical skills. Data Science is a fast-evolving field.

101 When you were working as an astrophysicist, did you ever think you’d end up working for a publishing company?

Not really! But I was looking to transition into a job that would connect me with things I love. And I love to read. I have always been a voracious reader. So I am very happy to work in a place where everyone loves, and works with, books.

You have funded a book with Unbound, Data: A Guide to Humans. How are you finding being an Unbound author?

It’s been excellent so far. The book is now fully funded, so I am looking forward to learning about the next steps of book production. I have published scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals, but never a book before – it’s exciting!

What kind of books do you enjoy reading? And what are you reading at the moment?

To relax I read fiction, particularly historical fiction. I read non-fiction books on subjects I am interested in, to keep me up to date. Nowadays, I am reading a lot of non-fiction about empathy, as I am writing about it. On my bedside table you would find books about the sixth extinction, environmental destruction, gender and race studies. Right now, I have This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein in my backpack.

Is there one thing you’d love everyone to know about Unbound? And Data Science?

Unbound is a lovely place to work. People here remind me of the best of academia: intellectual freedom, curiosity, intelligence, kindness and hard work to make ideas happen.

Data Science is going to change the way we live for the better, as long as humanists are in control.

102 CAN YOU SOLVE THE WORLD'S MOST FIENDISHLY DIFFICULT LITERARY PUZZLE?

6 murders, 100 pages, millions of possible solutions ... But only 1 is correct Play for your chance to win £1,000 Please note: this is not a competition for the faint-hearted Cain's Jawbone is rereleased by Unbound in September 2019. See page 80 for more details

103 GIVING NEW LIFE TO OLD BOOKS Backlisted.fm

Unbound Mag Spring 2018.indd 104 23/08/2018 13:57 105 Unbound Autumn 2019 Featuring FUCK YEAH, VIDEO GAMES The YouTube book that reached its crowdfunding target in a record-breaking 42 minutes

CAIN’S JAWBONE The world’s most f iendish literary puzzle

MAGNIFICENT WOMEN AND THEIR REVOLUTIONARY MACHINES A centenary tribute to a group of female pioneers

RING THE HILL The eagerly awaited new book from Tom Cox, author of 21st-Century Yokel

EFFIN’ BIRDS . . . and a veritable flock offoul-mouthed birds