Our round-up of Midas announcements from the week:
Women’s Prize Trust
This week, we were excited that our pro-bono partnership with The Women’s Prize Trust – the registered charity that enriches society by creating equitable opportunities for women in the world of books and beyond – was announced. Our support will enable the charity to continue its ambitious expansion, including launching the new Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction this autumn, and will help the inspirational team realise their mission sooner: greater impact for their beneficiaries, creating equity of opportunity for women writers and improving access to and appreciation of women’s writing. We will be working with the Trust on its charitable communication strategy, whilst helping to promote the events programme for the Women’s Prize LIVE festival, which will take place again in June 2024. In addition, we will focus on North American media promotion ahead of the Women’s Prize for Fiction’s 30th anniversary celebrations in 2024/2025. Click this link to explore this year’s shortlist now.
Down the Drain by Julia Fox
Julia Fox: renowned actress, artist, fashion trailblazer, muse, and now literary talent, is ready to tell her story, her way.
Fox has become known for her mastery of many things; her breakout role in Uncut Gems; her jaw-dropping style; her transparent interview and social media style; her defiant advocacy for breaking down societal norms – but above all, her commitment to being unapologetically herself.
In her long-awaited memoir, Fox holds nothing back – detailing her parent’s volatile relationship; a possessive and abusive drug-dealing boyfriend; her work as a dominatrix and subsequent sugar daddy; her trips to jail and a psychiatric hospital; a heroin stint that saw her best friend fatally overdose; and an explosive whirlwind romance with a mysterious figure she dubs “The Artist” that catapulted her into the world of tabloid mayhem.
Down the Drain is out now and available to buy here.
Lisa St Aubin de Terán
We are thrilled to announce that Amaurea Press has acquired the ‘timeless’ new memoir from the award-winning writer Lisa St Aubin de Terán: marking her first publishing for almost 20 years and a highly-anticipated return to the literary limelight. Better Broken Than New: A Fragmented Memoir will be publish on 24 January 2024.
Following a hugely successful writing career – which saw the Anglo-Guyanese London-born author selected as a Granta Best of British Young Novelist in 1982, publish 20 works of fiction, short stories and nonfiction – Lisa retreated to a remote village in northern Mozambique: there she found her own African roots, founded a charity and confronted new challenges.
Much has been written Lisa’s life – including her escapades with a trio of Venezuelan exiles, life on an Andean hacienda, and two decades living in a crumbling Umbrian palace – but despite all the attention, she managed to hide much of her actual life. Now, like the Japanese art of kintsugi, in this new memoir Lisa puts the shattered pieces of her life back together, filling in many of the dramatic, often scandalous, gaps. Keep hold of this link to pre-order your copy.
Books Are My Bag Readers Awards shortlist
On Thursday, booksellers across the country have revealed their best books of the year, as part of the shortlist of the Books Are My Bag Readers Awards – the only book awards curated by booksellers and voted for by readers. For the second year in a row, the Fiction category is entirely made up of female writers, while Elliot Page, Chris van Tulleken, Katherine Rundell, Bonnie Garmus and Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah are among booksellers’ favourite authors across other categories. Recommended by booksellers, the experts in the field, the Books Are My Bag Readers Awards shortlist is the ultimate Christmas gift guide for book-lovers of all ages, spanning Fiction, Non-Fiction, Children, YA, Poetry and Breakthrough Author, plus the Readers’ Choice, which is voted-for entirely by readers.
The general public is now called to vote for their favourite books and authors, with the winners announced on Tuesday 7th November, at an awards ceremony at Foyles Charing Cross.
Here is the link to the public vote and shortlist.
Ghost Stories: Stephen Fry’s Definitive Collection
As the days grow shorter and the temperature drops, Halloween approaches. Come, brave listener, pull up a chair, and spend some time with master storyteller Stephen Fry as he tells us some of his favourite ghost stories of all time, in truly terrifying spatial audio.
From the headless horseman of Sleepy Hollow to the tortured spirits of M.R. James, from Edgar Allan Poe’s terrifying tale of a doppelganger to Charlotte Riddell’s Open Door that should definitely stay shut, join Stephen as he tells you some truly terrifying tales of ghosts and ghouls, spirits and phantasms, spectres and apparitions.
Ghost Stories: Stephen Fry’s Definitive Collection is available on Audible now.
Losing a Kingdom, Gaining the World by Ambrogio A. Caiani
Losing a Kingdom, Gaining the World is the untold story of the fascinating and complex history of the Roman Catholic Church in the modern age. In the first book of its kind, Dr. Ambrogio A. Caiani unravels the enthralling and horrifying history of one of the world’s most powerful, controversial, and defiantly archaic institutions.
The ambitious and authoritative work sees Caiani masterfully narrate the Church’s journey through an array of challenges posed by modernity in all its forms. From the emergence of representative democracy and the nation-state to the advancements of science, literature, and secular culture, the book offers a gripping account of the Church’s struggle to adapt and endure.
Losing a Kingdom, Gaining the World is out now and Ambrogio will be on this weekend’s episode of The Tablet’s podcast.
For more Midas news see here.
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