The Ministry of Common Sense: How to Eliminate Bureaucratic Red Tape, Bad Excuses, and Corporate BS
By Martin Lindstrom
Published by John Murray Learning
A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, professionals had lost their discernment and many offices were wasting a stellar amount of time, energy and money, as a result. Is this a joke? Actually, the only sense in which this is a joke is that the offices in question aren’t found in outer space but they are the very employers for whom we work every day of our lives! Luckily, a rebel book has come to the rescue: How to Eliminate Bureaucratic Red Tape, Bad Excuses, and Corporate BS explores this perplexing phenomenon with a wealth of examples and many hilarious stories from the author’s professional life (Lindstrom is a world-leading consumer strategist).
Being Reverend: A Diary
By Matt Woodcock
Published by Church House Publishing
The hilarious and heart-warming diary of rookie vicar Matt Woodcock (author of the best-selling Becoming Reverend) records with great humour, and a happy pen, the highs and lows of the author’s first ministry at one of Hull’s oldest, biggest yet emptiest churches: Holy Trinity. From masterminding a real ale festival to hiring real camels for a nativity play, Matt is determined to do whatever it takes to breathe new life into this struggling community.
Well-Kept Secrets: The Story of William Wordsworth
By Andrew Wordsworth
Published by Pallas Athene Books
Well-kept Secrets: The Story of William Wordsworth marked the 250th Anniversary of the birth of the great Romantic poet. Written by sculptor Andrew Wordsworth, a descendant based in the Tuscan countryside, this insightful biography studies the poetry to understand more fully Wordsworth’s deeply private and often enigmatic personality, and it observes the artist’s life to better grasp the meaning hidden behind the often deceptively immediate verses.
The Mad Silkman: Zika and Lida Ascher Textiles and Fashion
By Konstantina Hlavácová, with the support of Peter Ascher
Published by Slovart in collaboration with the Museum of Decorative Arts, Prague
“Le plus bel imprimé que j’ai jamais vu!” / “The most beautiful print I have ever seen!” – Christian Dior on Zika Ascher’s fabrics
The Mad Silkman: Zika & Lida Ascher Textiles and Fashion traces the story of the husband and wife who set up one of the most influential and prestigious fine textile design firms of the 20th Century. Their personal and professional lives played out against the dramatic history of the 20th Century and despite having to flee their native Czechoslovakia in 1939, they were able to build a highly successful fashion fabrics enterprise in London where they settled.
Andaluz: A Food Journey through Southern Spain
By Fiona Dunlop
Published by Interlink Books (USA)
In Andaluz: A Food Journey through Southern Spain, celebrated food writer Fiona Dunlop, author of Medina Kitchen: Home cooking from North Africa and Viva la Revolucion! New Food from Mexico, traces the culinary history of Andalusia, with an emphasis on the ingredients – saffron, sugar cane, pine nuts, almonds, aubergines and artichokes, to mention just a few – brought into the region by the Moors, the Sephardic Jews, and before them the Romans and the Phoenicians. Fiona travels the length and width of the region learning from home cooks, local tavern owners, and Michelin-starred restaurant chefs, and bringing us their best recipes.
The Birth of Modern Theatre: Rivalry, Riots and Romance in the Age of Garrick
By Norman S Poser
Published by Routledge
The Birth of Modern Theatre: Rivalry, Riots and Romance in the Age of Garrick is a vivid description of the eighteenth-century London theatre scene. It was a time when the theatre took on many of the features of our modern stage. A natural and psychologically based acting style replaced the declamatory style of an earlier age. The theatre was supported by paying audiences, no longer by royal or noble patrons. The press now determined the success or failure of a play or a performance. Actors were no longer shunned by polite society, some becoming celebrities in the modern sense of the term.
Amber Revolution: How the world learned to love orange wine
By Simon J Woolf
Winner of the Louis Roederer International Wine Writers’ Award (2018)
Shortlisted for the André Simon Food & Drink Award (2018)
The book includes 100+ colour photographs
Published by Morning Claret Productions
Amber Revolution is the first book about orange wine, the world’s oldest, most distinctive and most misunderstood wine style. Abandoned after two world wars, its modern-day rediscovery caused incomprehension and uproar within the wine establishment who considered it a poor, uncouth cousin of the by far more sophisticated red and white varieties.
Battleship Yamato: Of war, beauty and irony
By Jan Morris
The book includes 50 illustrations
Published by Pallas Athene Books
In Battleship Yamato: Of war, beauty and irony, Jan Morris with a neat, poetic and forceful prose, not only tells the dramatic story of the magnificent WW II Japanese battleship itself – from secret wartime launch to futile sacrifice 200 miles from Okinawa – but, more fundamentally, interprets the ship as an allegorical figure of war itself, in its splendour and its squalor, its heroism and its waste.
Kasmin’s Postcard Series
Five beautifully-produced small volumes: Wreck; Elders; Scrub; Meat and Size.
By John Kasmin
Published by Trivia Press
In the first decade or so of the twentieth century, picture postcards were sent by the hundreds of millions worldwide bearing messages between friends and families, and providing images of peoples, places and events to inform and entertain the recipients.
The Sleep Quilt
A collaboration between bestselling author Tracy Chevalier and prison charity ‘Fine Cell Work’
Published by Pallas Athene Books
The Sleep Quilt is unlike any other quilt. Commissioned by Tracy Chevalier from ‘Fine Cell Work’, it is entirely stitched and quilted by prisoners in the UK.
The Real Rock Follies: The Great Girl Band Rip-off of 1976
By Annabel Leventon
Published by NW1 Books
The Real Rock Follies: The Great Girl-band Rip-off of 1976 is the true story of how an unknown girl band created a rock juggernaut and had it snatched away.
The Dementia Whisperer: Scenes from the Frontline of Caring
By Agnes B. Juhasz
Published by Hammersmith Health Books
Agnes B. Juhasz, writing with great humanity and understanding, draws on many years of looking after people with dementia to show how she has learned to communicate and work collaboratively with them and find the essence of the person hiding behind the symptoms of the condition.
Tasting Georgia: A Food and Wine Journey in the Caucasus
Written and photographed by Carla Capalbo
Published by Pallas Athene
In Tasting Georgia, Carla Capalbo travels through the country, visiting restaurant chefs and home cooks, natural winemakers and qvevri potters, cheesemakers and other producers of Georgia’s distinctive foods, telling their stories and collecting their recipes.
Global Teams: How the best teams achieve high performance
By Jo Owen
Published by FT Publishing/Pearson
Much has been written about globalisation. Much less has been written about global teams. Globalisation depends on small teams of people from across the world making things happen.
The Life of the Robin
A re-issue by Pallas Athene Books, with an Introduction by urban birder David Lindo and with 21 illustrations by award-winning artist Robert Gillmor
Lack’s findings about the robin were to change the perception of the bird forever. His study was the first to identify the fundamental significance of a territory and of song in the maintenance of this territory. It also shockingly exposed the robin’s Jekyll and Hyde personality.
Love Lose Live: Divorce is a Rollercoaster
By Mary Banham-Hall, family lawyer and mediator
Published by Focus Mediation (via Amazon’s CreateSpace)
Love Lose Live is a contemporary and informed observation of divorce and family breakdown seen through the eyes of the fictional Bailey family.
The Holy & Horny Farewell Tour
The Holy & Horny Farewell Tour is a powerful one-woman show written and performed by actress, author, and social entrepreneur Tonya Joy Bolton.
“I wrote Holy & Horny to address my shocking discovery that …
Porsche Sounds, Special Edition
By Dieter Landenberger, Director, Porsche Historical Archives, Porsche AG
Published by earBOOKS
Porsche Sounds is the first official Porsche book with a CD with original engine sounds. It features 300 photographs, many hitherto unpublished.
Fault Lines
By David Pryce-Jones
Published by Criterion Books (NY)
Fault Lines paints both a human and a historical picture of the XX Century: David’s family members – far and near in time – are described in their complexity and many contradictions.
Treason of the Heart: From Thomas Paine to Kim Philby
By David Pryce-Jones
Published by Encounter Books (NY)
This campaign also involved organising the book launch at Daunt’s bookshop in Marylebone. I managed the event from start to finish; including…
Seven Simple Steps to Stop Emotional Eating
By Sally Baker and Liz Hogon
Published by Hammersmith Books
‘The clue to our clients’ recurring weight problems is in their emotions’, say therapists Sally Baker and Liz Hogon, authors of Seven Simple Steps to Stop Emotional Eating.
Lord Mansfield: Justice in the Age of Reason
By Norman Poser
Published by McGill-Queen’s University Press
In the first modern biography of Lord Mansfield (1705–1793), Prof. Norman Poser details the turbulent political life of eighteenth-century Britain’s most powerful judge…
How we Treat the Sick
By Michael Mandelstam
Published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Setting out a wealth of evidence, Michael Mandelstam shows beyond question that neglectful care is a systemic blight, rather than a mere local blemish, within the UK health services.
Collins English Dictionary
Published by Collins
‘Stylish, cutting edge, far-reaching, and lighter than ever…’ this is not the description of the latest gizmo from Apple, but of the new 12th edition of Collins English Dictionary…
Chambers English Dictionary
Published by Chambers
The Chambers Dictionary delves deep into all the glories of the English language, listing weird and wonderful words like spoffish, jobernowl, mulligrubs and humdudgeon, all the while ensuring it covers the latest developments in English.
Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
With a Foreword by Susie Dent, Countdown’s lexicographer (Channel 4 TV)
Published by Chambers Harrap Publishers
Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable contains an intriguing supplement of Brewer’s Gems – facts, fables and curiosities from Brewer’s collections of the past.
Marketing to the Ageing Consumer
By Dick Stroud and Kim Walker
Published by Palgrave Macmillan
Marketing to the Ageing Consumer is the first and most comprehensive account of physiological ageing, affecting consumers’ minds, bodies and senses.
Fluent in 3 months
By Benny Lewis
Published by Collins Learning
Benny shows how anyone anywhere can learn any language without leaving their home, using a simple toolkit and by harnessing the power of the Internet.
Destination language courses
By Paul Noble
Published by Collins
Paul Noble’s Destination courses are designed to take just 150 minutes, after which time learners will be able to make themselves understood in French, Italian or Spanish.
The Correspondence of Michael Faraday in 6 Volumes
Published by the IET (Institution of Engineering & Technology)
Edited by Frank James, Professor of History of Science, Royal Institution
For this campaign, I was also tasked with overseeing the event marking the book’s launch which I had to manage from beginning to end.
Water: All That Matters
By Prof. Paul Younger
Bioethics: All That Matters
By Prof. Donna Dickenson
The publisher, Hodder & Stoughton, tasked me with launching the new All That Matters Series offering some brief but informative summaries, mostly by well-known scholars, and aimed at University students. The campaign also involved launching the first few titles in the Series, including Prof Younger’s Water and Prof Dickenson’s Bioethics.