POLYGON NEW TITLES 2020 | www.polygonbooks.co.uk SALES CONTACTS SCOTLAND ENGLAND and WALES IRELAND Seol Ltd Compass IPS Brookside Publishing Services West Newington House GW Business Centre 16 Priory Hall Office Park 10 Newington Road Great West House Stillorgan Edinburgh EH9 1QS Great West Road Co. Dublin Ireland Tel: +44 (0)131 668 1473 Brentford, Middlesex Phone (off): +353 (0)1 2784225 [email protected] TW8 9DF Phone (mob): +353 86 225 2380 Tel: +44 (0)20 8326 5696 [email protected] Polygon, an imprint of Birlinn Ltd, publishes new, vibrant fiction, poetry, music, current affairs and classic literature from world-renowned writers as well as strong, emerging voices. The list is AUSTRALIA UNITED STATES CANADA & NEW ZEALAND Casemate Georgetown Publications rooted in Scotland but publishes voices from and for the world’s stage. New South Books 2114 Darby Road 34 Armstrong Avenue c/o Alliance Dist. Services Havertown, Georgetown In Summer / Autumn 2020 Polygon will publish Denzil Meyrick’s eighth crime novel in the 9 Pioneer Avenue PA 19083 ON L7G 4R9 D.C.I series (more than 1 million books sold in this series so far) and a stand-alone novella, a Tuggerah NSW 2259 USA CANADA Australia Tel: (+1) 610 853 9131 Tel: (+1) 905 873 8498 stunning debut from Jenny Lecoat which has sold for a six-figure sum to HarperCollins US, the Tel: (+61) 2 4390 1391 [email protected] [email protected] first in a new mystery series from Sandra Ireland, a Highland-set thriller from Douglas Skelton [email protected] and a delightful new novel from Isla Dewar. New to our list – but not to readers! – is Gordon www.newsouthbooks.com.au Brown’s crime novel set in Spain (here writing as Morgan Cry). We mark the centenary of poet Edwin Morgan with five beautiful books – The Edwin Morgan Twenties –(with introductions commissioned from Ali Smith, Jackie Kay, Liz Lochhead, Michael Rosen and Ken MacLeod) and NORTHERN EUROPE SOUTHERN EUROPE Bill Bailey Publishers’ Ted Dougherty look forward to the centenary of George Mackay Brown with the republication of An Orkney Representatives Export Sales Agency Tapestry . One of the world’s favourite writers, Alexander McCall Smith, brings us a delightful 16 Devon Square 72 Hadley Street new book of Tiny Tales . In addition, he will continue to bring smiles to the faces of the many Newton Abbot London fans of his Scotland Street series with a new book in the summer. And we are proud to publish Devon NW1 8TA TQ12 2HR Tel: 020 7482 2439 his first volume of poetry at the end of the Summer. Tel: +44 1626 331079 Mob: 07802 500 448 [email protected] [email protected] Polygon emerged from radical beginnings in the aftermath of student upheavals in the late sixties. Students at the University of Edinburgh set up their own publication board (EUSPB), and published the Gramsci Prison Letters , The Red Paper on Scotland (edited by former Prime PUBLICITY & MARKETING Minister, Gordon Brown), and Who Owns Scotland – and they did so with style and panache. They went on to publish Ian Rankin, Tibor Fischer, James Meek among many others, and of SALES COORDINATOR PUBLICITY & MARKETING DIRECTOR PUBLICITY MANAGER course the beloved Alexander McCall Smith. The student publisher later became a key part of UK & EXPORT Jan Rutherford Kristian Kerr Edinburgh University Press before being purchased by the small and dynamic publisher, Birlinn. Jamie Harris [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] The full company is comprised of a number of imprints: DISTRIBUTION RIGHTS REPRESENTED BY SALES DIRECTOR Booksource Fiona Brownlee Laura Poynton 50 Cambuslang Road [email protected] [email protected] Glasgow G32 8NB Tel: 0845 370 0067 Intl: +44 (0)141 643 3961 [email protected] CONTENTS 2 FICTION 5 ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH 8 CRIME & MYSTERY 14 TRAVEL WRITING 15 NON-FICTION 17 POETRY 23 CLASSICS 24 BACKLIST HIGHLIGHTS POLYGON | FICTION JENNY LECOAT Hedy’s War In June 1940, the Channel Islands becomes the only part of Great Britain to be occupied by Hitler’s forces. Hedy Bercu, a young Jewish girl from Vienna who fled to Jersey two years earlier to escape the Anschluss, finds herself once more entrapped by the Nazis, this time with no escape. COVER IMAGE Hedy’s War follows her struggle to survive the Occupation and avoid deportation to the camps. Despite her racial status, Hedy finds work with the German authorities and embarks on acts of resistance. Most remarkable of all, she falls in love with German lieutenant Kurt Rümmele – a relationship on which her life soon comes to depend. Jenny Lecoat’s debut novel is a tense, emotional JENNY LECOAT’s parents story of forbidden love, subterfuge and survival were raised under the German against the odds Occupation of Jersey, and both Based on the true story of Hedy Bercu, a young families were involved in resistance Jewish girl who, having fled to Jersey to escape activity. Lecoat moved to England the Anschluss, finds herself trapped on Jersey aged 18, where she spent a decade during the German Occupation on the alternative comedy circuit. She was nominated for a prestigious Published to coincide with the 75th anniversary Perrier Award in 1986. She also of the liberation of the Channel Islands on 9 May wrote for newspapers and women’s 1945 magazines and presented TV and Rights already sold to Australia, Argentina and radio shows, before focusing on Portugal, and to the US in a six-figure auction screen writing. ISBN: 9781846975318 Price: £8.99 | Publication: 07 May 2020 - OUT NOW Format: 198 x 129mm B-pbk | Extent: 272pp Illustrations: n/a ePub: 9781788852784 2 Rights: World All Languages (exc. AU/NZ/NA) POLYGON | FICTION ISLA DEWAR A Day Like Any Other Anna and her best friend George meet every week to remember, to sigh, to laugh, to reminisce about their moments of glory, guilt and mischief and share their sorrows over a glass or three of wine. But when both are confronted with new experiences, it seems that there may be more to do than remember the past... Does all this mark an ending or the beginning of something new and marvellous for Anna and George? The wonderful new novel from the author of the summer bestseller It Takes One to Know One Readers of Gail Honeyman and Jenny Colgan will relish this new novel from one of Scotland’s best-loved authors ISLA DEWAR’s first book, Keeping A story of lifelong friendship, full of Isla Dewar’s Up with Magda, was published in trademark humour, insight, depth and honesty 1995. Dewar found success with her second novel, Women Talking Dirty, the film of which starred Helena Bonham Carter. Her most Also available: recent novel, It Takes One to Know It Takes One to Know One One, was published by Polygon in Isla Dewar 2018. Born in Edinburgh, Isla lives in the East Neuk of Fife with her husband, political cartoonist Bob Dewar. ISBN: 9781846974908 Price: £8.99 | Publication: 14 May 2020 - OUT NOW Format: 198 x 129mm B-pbk | Extent: 256pp Illustrations: n/a ePub: 9781788852906 Rights: World All Languages 3 POLYGON | FICTION ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH The Second Worst Restaurant in France Paul Stewart has returned to Scotland to continue his successful career. His agent and girlfriend, Gloria, has arranged for him to write The Philosophy of Food in Six Easy Chapters, a project he relishes but that will have to be delivered in six months. COVER IMAGE Beginning to worry that The Philosophy of Food will never be written Paul escapes to a French village just outside Poitiers. Once there, however, Paul finds his fortunes tangled up with the fate of one eating establishment in the village: the infamous Second Worst Restaurant in France ... Features the returning protagonist of the bestselling My Italian Bulldozer A delightful, humorous story set in the south of ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH is France – the perfect holiday read the author of the highly successful The Paul Stewart series has sold over 25,000 No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency copies series, which has sold over twenty- five million copies. Since then he Also available: has devoted his time to the writing Chance Developments of fiction and has seen his various Alexander McCall Smith series of books translated into over Fatty O’Leary’s Dinner Party forty-six languages and become Alexander McCall Smith bestsellers throughout the world. ISBN: 9781846975479 Price: £8.99 | Publication: 11 June 2020 Format: 198 x 129mm B-pbk | Extent: 224pp Illustrations: n/a ePub: 9781788852265 4 Rights: EL UK & Commonwealth (exc. North America) POLYGON | FICTION ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH Tiny Tales ILLUSTRATED In Tiny Tales Alexander McCall Smith explores BY IAIN MCINTOSH romance, ambition, kindness and happiness in thirty short stories that range in length from the short to the minuscule. The settings are as diverse as the characters – Scotland, England, Australia, the United States – combining to create a rich and surprising tableau. An Australian pope?. A persuasive cosmetic surgeon? The world’s laziest cat. A group of students living together and getting romantically entangled? All human and animal life is here – in miniature. These stories are inspired and accompanied by the thirty magnificent strip Tiny Tales created by McCall Smith and illustrated by the brilliant Iain McIntosh - each cartoon a little gem of observation. A series of mischievous sketch stories, some painted with words from the master of storytelling and others through extraordinary illustrations from an illustrator at the height of his powers A unique collaboration and the perfect gift for McCall Smith fans Fatty O’Leary’s Dinner Party Alexander McCall Smith ISBN: 9781846975370 Price: £12.99 | Publication: 06 August 2020 Format: 170 x 129mm H-pbk | Extent: 128pp Illustrations: n/a ePub: 9781788853170 Rights: EL UK and Commonwealth (exc.