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Last Updated: 10/30/2009

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November 2, 2009 - Monday 
It's November - we hope everyone had a good October. We're not too impressed with the clocks changing and it being dark by 5pm, but fortunately we've got some great events, and great books, coming up to lessen the misery:

You may have heard about the word-of-mouth sensation that is David Eagleman's Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives. He's flying over to the UK for two very special events - the first being a discussion panel with former Bishop of Edinburgh Richard Holloway. They will be discussing Sum and Eagleman's fantastic imaginings of lives after death and there will be a special broadcast of readings by writers, actors, musicians including Nick Cave, Stephen Fry, Jarvis Cocker, Brian Eno and The Wire's Clarke Peters. It's on 11 November at the Traverse Theatre (7pm).

The Sum event in London is already sold out, but we can tell you that it will be similar, except that Eagleman will be talking to Philip Pullman and there will also be a few live readings. Everyone who's read Sum has loved it, and this little book is getting the attention it really deserves.

The next event we're terribly excited about is our somewhat-quarterly club night, Irregular. We're going to be at Edinburgh's The Voodoo Rooms once again, and this time we've got the Forward Prizewinning Don Paterson, new talent Chris Killen and more. There will be readings, live music, DJs and (according to Irregular organiser Francis) tequila - lots of tequila. We hope to see you there.

But we're publishers, so what are we publishing this month?

We were thrilled to land the rights for Oliver Postgate's memoir, Seeing Things. His name may not be too familiar but his creations Bagpuss, Ivor the Engine, Noggin the Nog and The Clangers are well-known and -loved. The book looks great and we're so excited about publishing it, especially with the BFI and BBC doing big retrospectives of Postgate's work in December.

And we're sad to report that the Paris Review Interviews vol. 4 will be the last collection for the foreseeable future - but the series is definitely going out on a high. In this volume there are interviews with William Styron, Marianne Moore, Ezra Pound, Jack Kerouac, E.B. White, P.G. Wodehouse, John Ashbery, Philip Roth, Maya Angelou, Stephen Sondheim, V.S. Naipaul, Paul Auster, Haruki Murakami, Orhan Pamuk, David Grossman and Marilynne Robinson.

We hope you have a good November, and we'll be back in December to tell you a little more about the Canongate titles we're recommending for Christmas.
11:46 AM 
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October 1, 2009 - Thursday 
Today is known - in publishing parlance - as Super Thursday, the day when many books are published for the Christmas market. We've got some fantastic books in October that we'd like to share with our fans:

The Pocket Book of Boosh
We've built thebookofboosh.com - launched today - in celebration of The Pocket Book of Boosh, the book that comes in its own pocket! You could win a pair of Nudie Jeans (the pocket in the Pocket) by entering the competition on thebookofboosh.com. The website has loads of fun things for fans to see, including spreads from the book, a video of Julian and Noel talking about the book, fun images to download and a very special excuse randomiser. (If you missed the Boing Boing mini-review the first time, Xeni really loved the book)

Simon's Cat
Hot Spot, the new Simon's Cat video, is now on YouTube - check it out in HD! Simon's Cat has been busy - multiple competitions on the official www.simonscat.com website and loads of litblogger attention has made it a happy puss indeed.

The Wire: Truth be Told
Bookhugger Simon's already professed to loving the official companion book to award-winning series The Wire. The Wire: Truth be Told is the definitive guide to the drama, covering all five series and penned by series writer Rafael Alvarez. Listen out for an audio version of David Simon's introduction to the book, coming soon to Empire and The Times online!

Pretty Monsters
We're so pleased to publish Kelly Link's latest collection of short stories. Bound in a beautiful hardback with our favourite black sprayed edges, we're loving her deliciously dark stories - a perfect gift for any Halloween parties you're attending. Practise putting on that scary storytelling voice now.

The Complete Peanuts 1959-1960, 1961-1962
Our massive Schulz effort continues with two more volumes of The Complete Peanuts, and these are the volumes where we are first introduced to The Great Pumpkin and Lucy first starts tormenting Charlie Brown with the football. We also meet Sally Brown for the first time - what a precocious little girl...

Those Who Marched Away and The Country Diaries
For those who loved The Assassin's Cloak, editor Alan Taylor has more in store. Those Who Marched Away is a collection of war diary entries related to war and The Country Diaries is a collection of writings about life in the country. From Beatrix Potter to Queen Victoria, we take a peek into country living through the personal journals of those who lived there.

Happy October!
12:14 PM 
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September 17, 2009 - Thursday 

Stephen Fry (now) famously tagged David Eagleman's Sum on Twitter, saying, "'You will not read a more dazzling book this year than David Eagleman's "Sum". If you read it and aren't enchanted I will eat 40 hats."

And now we have a free audio download to share of Sum! Nick Cave read the title story and audible.co.uk have converted it into a free download for all to enjoy.

10:39 AM 
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September 1, 2009 - Tuesday 
September's a HUGE month for Canongate this year - not only are we publishing Victoria Coren's long-awaited poker memoir For Richer, For Poorer (more on that below), we're also extremely excited to be presenting Nick Cave's novel, The Death of Bunny Munro, to the world.
Most Nick Cave fans will already have got their hands on the limited collector's edition of the novel, which comes in a beautifully-flocked slipcase and is signed personally by the man himself. The Meet the Author podcast is now available on iTunes, so those who didn’t win tickets to see Nick read Bunny Munro live for the first time now have a chance to listen in.
We've got formats galore when it comes to Bunny - it also comes in hardback, audiobook CD boxset, audiobook download from audible.co.uk and iTunes, and ebook download. And both audiobook editions feature a special 3D spatialised mix to enhance the listening experience, too. We've really pulled out all the stops for Bunny Munro!
No less exciting is Victoria Coren’s forthcoming memoir - For Richer, For Poorer. This telegenic poker player who's already in the public eye (part of Team PokerStars Pro, Channel 4 poker, a Guardian weekly column and the very successful BBC4 quiz show Only Connect...) has written on what it's taken her to become one of the best poker players in the world. It's a personal story, but it's also packed with tips and strategies for any budding cardshark. If you want to know about poker strategy, For Richer, For Poorer is the book for you; Victoria covers the strategies she used in every hand played at the European Poker Championship that won her a cool million dollars in 2006.
And our final book for September is the paperback edition of last year’s runaway hardback hit - Eunoia. It became a sensation when it was featured on BBC Radio 4, with word fiends embracing this feat of experimental poetry and coming up with their own univocalic verse. Now in mass market paperback with a stylish silver spine, Eunoia is five chapters of verse starring only one vowel per chapter.
(Chapter U is not for children!)
8:54 AM 
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August 18, 2009 - Tuesday 
  • 12.30-1.15pm, 3rd September: Live webchat with Nick Cave on www.waterstones.com
  • 6pm, 8th September: Book Signing, Waterstones, 203-205 Piccadilly, London, W1J 9HD. Tel: 020 78512400
  • 7.45-8.45pm, 9th September: Nick Cave In Conversation with David Peace, Purcell Rooms, South Bank, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX. Tel: 0871 663 2500 Tickets: £12
  • 1pm, 28th September: Book Signing at HMV, 150 Oxford St, London, W1D 1DJ. Tel: 020 76313423
  • 7pm, 28th September: Book Signing at Waterstones, 91 Deansgate, Manchester, M3 2BW. Tel: 0161 837 3000
  • 1pm, 29th September: Book Signing at Borders, 98 Buchanan St, Glasgow G1 3HA. Tel: 0141 222 7700
  • 6.30-7.30pm, 30th September: Nick Cave In Conversation with Will Self, City Books at The Old Market Theatre, Upper Market Street, Hove, BN3 1AS. Tel: 01273 736222 Tickets: £6

Further events will be announced here as they are confirmed!
8:45 AM 
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August 13, 2009 - Thursday 


Simon's Cat will be published in October 2009.


4:01 PM 
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August 3, 2009 - Monday 

Hello, fans and friends of Canongate Books!

We’re now smack dab in the middle of summer and the streets around the Canongate office are awash with tourists as the Festival season gets into full swing. We’ve got several authors appearing at the Edinburgh International Book Festival this year, including Richard Holloway (already sold out, sorry!), M.J. Hyland (just announced, buy your tickets quickly), David Simon, Geoff Dyer, Niccolo Ammaniti, Michel Faber... check out the festival programme and be sure to book your tickets as soon as you can!

We’re holding our first Twitter interview (and what we think is the first rock Twitter interview) this week – log on to twitter.com and search for the hashtag #TheFallen to follow the chat – if you have a question for Dave Simpson (author of The Fallen, out in paperback this month, Tweeting as @davesimps0n), or any of the three former members of The Fall also taking part (including Mike Leigh, who hasn’t been seen in 29 years!), then get yourself online and on Twitter at 8pm on 5 August!

Our latest Myth is also published this month – Klas Ostergren’s The Hurricane Party tackles the Norse myth of Loki and it’s a stormer. If you haven’t yet read any Ostergren (we published Gentlemen in hardback in 2008 and paperback in 2009), you should definitely check him out, he’s an absolute classic!

And while we’re talking modern classics, acclaimed American author Ron Rash is being published for the first time in the UK. His ninth novel, Serena, won recognition as one of the best books of 2008 from the Washington Post, New York Times, Amazon.com, Publishers Weekly, Christian Science Monitor, and more. Our current discussion on Goodreads has also seen one reader describe it as one of her favourite books of this year.

More paperbacks published this month include A-list litblogger Mark Sarvas’s tragicomic Harry, Revised; Richard Hollway’s Between The Monster and the Saint, and Giller Prize-winning author M.G. Vassanji’s The Assassin’s Song. Myth, music, philosophy, fiction – we think this month is a great showcase of Canongate’s breadth of literary publishing, and we hope you all enjoy it!

4:41 PM 
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July 27, 2009 - Monday 
Get all the news on www.simonscat.com
Simon's Cat will be published in October 2009!!
9:43 AM 
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July 7, 2009 - Tuesday 
We don't even know where to start this month, there's so much good stuff going on. Let's kick things off with a link to http://www.thedeathofbunny..munro.com/ - this is the official site for The Death of Bunny Munro by Nick Cave. You can keep updated on all Bunny news and events by signing up to the site.

This month also sees the publication of two great new books:

This is How by M. J. Hyland, who was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for her previous novel, Carry Me Down. The reviews are starting to come in, the Metro loved it.
http://www.metro.co.uk/met..rolife/books/article.html?..MJ_Hylands_prose_is_in_for.._the_kill&in_article_id=69..1235&in_page_id=28

The Third Man Factor by John Geiger, a Canadian author who's the authority on what happens when you're staring death in the face. How did the last man to leave the Twin Towers on 9/11 make it out alive? He thinks it was divine intervention. Recent neurological research has other ideas. Check out the extract on John's website:
http://www.thirdmanfactor...com/

We've only a month to go before our Life of Pi global readalong starts, and you can get the new edition in the shops this month if you'd like to join in and haven't read this Booker prizewinner before. If it's an old favourite or you've had a copy sitting on the shelves forever, August is a great time to start - hundreds of people have already signed up to share the experience of reading Life of Pi this summer!
http://www.lifeofpi.co.uk/

June was the month of the Edinburgh International Film Festival, and with it came the premiere of The Private Lives of Pippa Lee by Rebecca Miller. We're proud to say that the film art was inspired by our cover design! We're also publishing Personal Velocity, Rebecca's collection of short stories, in July.

More paperbacks out this month:

Indian Takeaway by Hardeep Singh Kohli - The story of his search for identity. Is he Scottish, Glaswegian, Sikh, Indian? Does he ever manage to figure it out?

Trick Baby by Iceberg Slim - We're reissuing this fiction classic with an introduction by Ice T.

The Fire Gospel by Michel Faber - The author of The Crimson Petal and the White takes aim at the cult of religious thrillers a la Dan Brown in his retelling of the Prometheus myth for our Myths series.

Enjoy!
8:12 AM 
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March 31, 2009 - Tuesday 


Tuesday 31st March
University Philosophical Society, Graduates’ Memorial Building, Trinity College, Dublin
1-2pm
Tickets are open to members but there may be also be some available for non members.  
Please contact angela@canongate.co.uk

Thursday 2nd April
Waterstones, 203 Piccadilly, London SW1Y 6WW
Tel:  0207 851 2400
5pm - Book signing on first floor of Waterstone's Piccadilly – no ticket required
7pm - Ticketed event (reading and Q&A) in the Simpson room - sixth floor of Piccadilly –
Tickets are limited and will be sold on a first come first served basis at £3 a ticket which will be redeemable against the purchase of the promoted title on the night.

Friday 3rd April
Waterstones, 153 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow G2 3EW
Tel:  0141 332 9105
6.30pm
Tickets are limited and will be sold on a first come first served basis at £2 a ticket which will be redeemable against the purchase of the promoted title on the night.

Second Life, London School of Journalism island
10pm GMT, 2pm SLT
Join Neil Strauss and Jilly Kidd as they talk about Emergency and play an interactive, audience-participation game.
http://slurl.com/secondlife/LSJ%20Student%20Union/240/126/32

3:15 PM 
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