SHORT BOOKS autumn 2008 NEW TITLES P HOW TO BE WILD NON FICTION 1st August We are all wild. It’s just that 352pp £8.99 A civilisation keeps getting in the way B format paperback 978-1-906021-48-1 SIMON BARNES UK & Commonwealth, ex. Canada: Short Books P Bestselling author of How to be a Bad Birdwatcher Foreign rights: Capel & Land E As everyone who has patted a dog, smelled a ‘Barnes is a poet of rose, taken a walk, or even had a drink in the the unexpected lifting garden well knows, humans have a soul-deep of the heart.’ need for non-human forms of life. This book is PJ Kavanagh R about pushing our birthright of wildness just that little bit further. In How to be Wild , Barnes takes us on a year- long journey, from one raucous spring to the ‘A bracing reminder to next, with elephants and mosquitoes, dolphins us all “to keep things B and flying squirrels, giraffes and butterflies as his open: eyes, ears, hearts, companions. And again and again, he helps us to minds. And souls.” realise an essential truth: that by enjoying the ...Sparky, inspiring.’ wild world, by seeking to understand the wild Ned Dunny, Daily Mail world, our own lives become richer and more A satisfying. Simon Barnes is the multi-award- ‘This book – packed winning chief sportswriter for the with so much insight Times . He is also a novelist, nature and so many descriptions C writer and horseman, and the of wildlife encounters bestselling author of a dozen books, always right on the including How to be a Bad Birdwatcher and The Meaning of Sport (Short button – leaves little for others to write.’ Books). He lives in Suffolk with his K family. Birds Magazine 2 August P ONE TO NINE NON FICTION 1st August The Inner Life of Numbers 328pp £7.99 A B format paperback ANDREW HODGES 978-1-906021-26-9 UK & Commonwealth, ex. Canada: Short Books 'The ideal book for P everyone interested in the Foreign rights: MBA only universal language, especially if their mathematical curiosity E exceeds their skill...' What does A4 paper have in common with Sunday Telegraph Mozart’s Requiem? Why does three have a dark side?Was zero discovered or invented? 'Hodges is very good at R With searching questions such as these, pulling numerical rabbits Andrew Hodges takes apart the numbers 1 to 9 out of every day hats… You and gathers up the pieces, exploring on the way such various topics as musical harmony, the can skip through the facts chemistry of sunflowers and the logic of the like a tourist, marvelling at game Paper, Scissors, Stone. the sights thrust in your B In One to Nine , Hodges unveils a universal path and still feeling language which has its roots in antiquity and yet impressed by the principles enables us to connect with the far reaches of that underpin them, even the universe. Whether it is explaining how when the technical detail A subatomic particles behave or challenging you to the ultimate sudoku puzzle, this is a book which eludes you.' succeeds in making the unfathomable enticing. Daily Mail Andrew Hodges is best known as 'A virtuoso stream of C the author of Alan Turing: The Enigma , consciousness containing described by the New Yorker as 'one of everything important th ere the finest scientific biographies ever written'. He is also active in research is to say about numbers in into fundamental physics and a Fellow just over 300 pages...' of Wadham College, Oxford University. Simon Ings, Daily Telegraph K 4 August P AMO, AMAS, AMAT... NON FICTION 4th September AND ALL THAT 272pp £7.99 A How to become a Latin lover B format paperback 978-1-906021-15-3 HARRY MOUNT World rights: Short Books Over 100,000 copies sold in hardback worldwide P E Have you ever found yourself irritated when a ‘Amo, Amas, Amat is a sine qua non or a mea culpa is thrown into the diverting meander and conversation by a particularly annoying person? Mount’s love of Latin shines Or do distant memories of afternoons spent out on every page.’ R struggling to learn obscure verbs fill you with The Spectator dread? Never fear! (or as a Latin show-off might say, Nil Desperandum! ) ‘If you studied Latin at In this delightful guided tour of Latin – school this will bring back featuring everything from a Monty Python B fond memories, but grammar lesson to David Beckham’s tattoos and all the best snippets of prose and poetry from even newcomers will be 2000 years of literary history – Harry Mount captivated by this witty and wipes the dust off those boring primers and entertaining book…‘ A breathes life back into the greatest language of Yorkshire Evening Post them all. ‘Latin without the pain.’ Harry Mount read Classics at Oxford The Guardian and was a Latin tutor before becoming C a journalist. He has been a leader- writer and New York correspondent at ‘The latest challenge to the Daily Telegraph . His memoir of his the crown claimed by Eats, time as a barrister’s pupil, My Brief Career , is also published by Short Shoots & Leaves .’ Books. The Times K 6 September H DEAR BLUE PETER NON FICTION 4th September The best of 50 years of letters to 244pp £12.99 Britain’s favourite children’s programme 198 x 152mm A 978-1-906021-49-8 BIDDY BAXTER World rights: Short Books And now for something completely different.. Dear Blue Peter R I couldn’t believe my ears Blue Peter , which celebrates its 50th anniversary in this morning – my mum October this year, means something to children of said come down stairs every generation from the 1960s onwards – Wendy – there’s a letter for whether it’s the theme tune, the pets, the sticky- you – I couldn’t believe it back plastic, or the legendary mishaps. D had come from Blue Peter But one little known aspect of the programme and I had won a badge! I is the extraordinary correspondence it generated took my letter to school to almost from the day that John Noakes, Valerie show to my teacher – Mr Singleton and co. first went on air. By the late Herbert – he said “Not now 1980s, Blue Peter was receiving an average of Wendy” but when he saw it 7,000 letters per week. B was from the BBC he said In this wonderfully entertaining book, Biddy “Oh alright”. He read it once, Baxter – the programme’s founding editor, and he read it twice and then he the woman who invented the Blue Peter badge to read it again – then he said encourage children to write in with ideas, “My goodness” and took it pictures and stories – introduces some of the very A to the Head Mistress Mrs best letters received. Original, engrossing, funny Smith. – and sometimes remarkably rude – they provide Mrs Smith read my letter a unique snapshot of life in the second half of the to the whole of the school at 20th century, of people from all over Britain (and Assembly – she said it was beyond) and children of every conceivable the first time anyone from C background. school had had a letter from the BBC. Biddy Baxter was the editor of Blue I’ll never forget the day I Peter , from 1962 to 1988. She was won my badge! awarded a gold badge herself when she left the programme. Wendy, aged 10 K 8 September P ALONG CAME DYLAN NON FICTION Two’s a crowd when you’ve been top dog 2nd October A 256pp £7.99 STEPHEN FOSTER B format paperback 978-1-906021-41-2 Over 100,000 copies of WALKING OLLIE sold so far! World rights: P Short Books Having cured (well, just about...) his rescue dog Ollie of his neuroses and crackpot habits, Stephen Foster might have been expected to take E a break. In Foster’s view though, there was still something missing from his dog’s world: Ollie needed a playmate, someone to talk to, someone to understand him. ‘If you must get another one, at least get a R girl,’ everybody said. But Dylan is a boy, a pure Saluki boy. And he’s a lunatic. The moment the PRAISE FOR new pup walked in the door, Ollie threw his WALKING OLLIE: master a look of contemptuous disbelief. It was a look that said,‘I refuse to have anything whatsoever ‘Ollie is trouble. But he is B to do with this.You’re on your own, pal.’ also a joy. So is reading In the riotously funny Along came Dylan , about him. Walking Ollie is Stephen Foster picks up where Walking Ollie left off. Instead of one difficult dog, he’s got two. the best book about a dog Where Ollie sees a threat, Dylan sees a challenge for... let us say eight years.’ A – and Foster finds himself forever somewhere in Roy Hattersley, Guardian the middle, trying to work out why they can’t just all be friends... ‘Foster’s wrily perceptive book perfectly illustrates C Stephen Foster is the author of six the truism that the only books including the bestselling Walking Ollie (Short 2007) which has thing wrong with dogs is sold more than 100,000 copies. He their owners...’ lives in Norwich with his partner and TLS his two dogs, Ollie and Dylan. K 10 October H HEAD OVER HEELS NON FICTION 2nd October A journey of discovery with a 288pp £12.99 rather remarkable mare B format hardback A 978-1-906021-42-9 SIMON BARNES UK & Commonwealth, ex.