From the Crockatt & Powell's blog - No. 5 The Crafter Culture Handbook is by our Amy Spencer!

Friday, May 18, 2007

Top Ten
I haven't done this for a while...

Compare and contrast with the "market share" chasers.

1: What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn

2: On Chesil Beach by Ian McYawn

3: Damned Utd by David Peace

4: Banksy Locations and Tours by Martin Bull

5: Crafter Culture Handbook by Amy Spencer

6: Waterlog by Roger Deakin

7: The Summer Book by Tove Jansson

8: On The Road To Kandahar by jason Burke

9: Ghosts of Spain by Giles Tremlett

10: The Night Watch by Sarah Waters

A list that illustrates the power of indy bookselling I feel. Not only What Was Lost outselling Ian McEwan but Roger Deakin's Waterlog and the Tove "Moomin" Jansson's Summer Book performing well.
posted by CPMatthew at 2:26 PM 2 comments


On another note, last week we successfully concluded negotiations to buy a book in translation. It took many weeks, and a certain amount of nail biting. When I contacted the translator, he said he thought an email had gone missing, since I had not mentioned the name of the book, or the author. I apologised, and said I had not given this information, since I could see the book happily on several other larger publishers lists and I did not wish to court disaster by letting information out before we had secured the rights.

When I told the translator the title - his comment? Oh - yes, Orion wanted me to read it in a hurry a week ago, but did not want to courier the book out to me. Wonderful. We were used as leverage, of course, but at least it failed due to the costs of a courier. Thank goodness for petty costs......

Last night we attended the award for the Independent Foreign Fiction prize - Four Walls by Vangelis Hatziyannidis was one of the 'runner ups' to the winner, Arcadia's The Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualusa. It was a wonderful ceremony, with champagne supplied by Taitinger. The event was crowded, full of journalists and people involved in the world of literary translation.

But as we left and the tall wooden doors of the National Portrait Gallery shut, I felt sad. Was this it for another year - the fleeting phenomenon of enthusiasm for books from other countries? If this was the Booker or the Orange, being the winner or on the short-list would make a major impact on sales, recognition, and a feeling of having made it somehow for the authors. But I just feel as if the fight to promote really interesting books from other languages has to be started all over again this morning.

In our next catalogue, I intend to devote the first few pages to profiles of the translators of our 2008 books in translation. It may not sound ground breaking, but it probably is.