News
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Gladstone's Library announces Writers-in-Residence Scheme 2014
24 Jun 2013
Now in its third year, the Writers-in-Residence scheme at Gladstone’s Library is going from strength to strength. Following the tremendous success of the last two years, the Library is looking for four writers to take up residence in 2014, following in the footsteps of the 2013 winners: Sarah Perry, Richard Beard, Peter Jukes, Vanessa Gebbie, Katrina Naomi and Angela Topping. Built in 1902 to house the library of pioneering politican and celebrated Prime Minister William E. Gladstone, the Library has twenty-six boutique-style rooms and is the UK’s only residential library. “We are committed to maintaining Gladstone’s legacy of engagement with social, moral and spiritual questions by helping people reflect more deeply on the questions that concern them,” says Peter Francis, Warden of the Library. “This scheme is an extension of that mission.”
Each of the four winning writers will stay at the Library for a month, enjoying full access to the Library’s rich resources and soaking up its wonderfully creative atmosphere. Each writer will keep a blog about their stay, run a creative writing workshop and an ‘Evening With’ event. They will receive full board and lodging, travel expenses and a stipend of £100.00 per week.
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Andrew Lownie celebrates 25 years
22 Jun 2013
To mark the agency’s 25th anniversary, Andrew Lownie held a small celebration last night at Westminster Abbey, to thank all the writers, editors and friends whose talents have contributed to this milestone. Here’s to the next 25 years!
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Little Prisoners no 13 on New York Times e book best seller list
22 Jun 2013
Congratulations to Casey Watson who continues her rise up the New York Times e book charts.
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James Davies's top 10 psychiatry critiques
22 Jun 2013
In today’s Guardian, the author of Cracked selects a battery of books that challenge received wisdom about mental illness and how to treat it:
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Another starred review for Daniel Tammet
19 Jun 2013
Daniel Tammet’s Thinking in Numbers has received yet another starred review, this time from Booklist:
“Tammet describes the magical realms he explores in these 25 wonderful essays. Here numbers become portals to “pure possibilities” in the “math of life.”… Admirers of Tammet’s Born on a Blue Day (2007) and Embracing the Wide Sky (2009) will find here fresh reasons to laud the author’s gifts.”
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Zero Night: The Most Daring Great Escape of World War II sold to Icon
18 Jun 2013
Mark Felton’s Zero Night: The Most Daring Great Escape of World War II has been sold to Icon and the documentary rights optioned for development.
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Two agency titles in top 15 non-fiction paperback list
18 Jun 2013
Congratulations to Casey Watson whose Breaking the Silence is no 13 and Cathy Glass whose Please Don’t Take My Baby is no 14 in the paperback non-fiction list this week.
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Criminal London event this Wednesday
18 Jun 2013
Kris and Nina Hollington will be appearing at the Woolfson And Tay bookshop this Wednesday at 7pm to talk about their new book Criminal London. The event is almost fully booked, but there may be a few tickets left.
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Gold Camera Award for Spies Beneath Berlin
18 Jun 2013
The documentary Spies Beneath Berlin, based on the book by David Stafford, has just won the prestigious Gold Camera Award at the 47th U.S. International Film & Video Festival. The book was recently reissued by Thistle Publishing.
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Rapid growth for Thistle Publishing
17 Jun 2013
The agency’s new in-house publishing imprint has been quickly expanding, with more than 50 books published in the last two months.
A number of these have reached the Amazon bestseller lists, including David Stafford’s Spies Beneath Berlin, David Haviland’s Why Was Queen Victoria Such A Prude?, and Mary Hollingsworth’s Conclave, which was published days after the Pope stepped down, and which Simon Sebag Montefiore described as follows: “If you want to understand what’s happening in the Vatican now, read this book. grippping, lurid and fascinating, both scholarly and utterly readable, oozing with original academic research, it’s a minute-by-minute, day-by-day account of all the intrigues, manoeuvres, deals, politics and scandals of a papal conclave.” Another of David Stafford’s history titles, Churchill & Secret Service, sold more than 5,000 copies in May alone.
The imprint’s latest releases include Paul Merrill’s hilarious Muddle Your Way Through Fatherhood, which has been generating lots of media coverage, as has Peter Daughtrey’s sensational new theory for the location of Atlantis: Atlantis and the Silver City – just published by Pegasus in the US.
Fiction releases have included collections of Guy Bellamy’s well-loved comic novels, originally published by Penguin, Mei Trow’s cult Lestrade detective mysteries, and RSC actor David Weston’s Dickens-inspired novel Dodger - Down Under, which was launched at a glamorous party last weekend. “I have always thought the Artful Dodger’s story needed telling and now David Weston has told it, in a wonderfully engaging way” - Julian Fellowes.
Forthcoming books include Roger Howard’s Operation Damocles, which tells the story of Israel’s secret war against former Nazi scientists, and has just been published in the US; model Rachel Woods’ guide to the beauty industry The Model’s Guide; and reissues of Andrew Lownie’s acclaimed biography of John Buchan, a three-volume collection of John Buchan short stories, and The Edinburgh Literary Companion, which will be launched during the Edinburgh Festival.
Publication through Thistle has also been the catalyst for a number of more conventional deals. Desmond Seward’s Richard III was reissued by Thistle, and immediately snapped up by Pegasus Books in the US. Chloe Govan’s Amy Winehouse - The Untold Story was serialised in The Sun. And a forthcoming Thistle book, on a secret army unit in Northern Ireland will be serialised in a national newspaper, alongside a major TV investigation.
For more details, visit Thistle Publishing.
