Peridot Press is excited to announce another publication by Lucy Sewill – Dogs and their Humans. This star-studded collection of photographs will be published on December 5.
Dogs have a special chemistry with humans that goes back many tens of thousands of years. In this touching new collection, renowned portrait photographer Lucy Sewill turns her lens to some of our best friends and the bond that they have with some of the nation’s favourite celebrities.
Lucy’s intimate portraits give the reader a glimpse of some remarkable, and previously unseen, relationships between well-known faces and their favourite pets.
Lucy is a photographer best known for her perceptive portraits of major British celebrities, with her specialism being one-on-one informal portraiture. Her work has been published worldwide and is held in the collection of the National Portrait gallery. She is commissioned by major publishing houses, national institutions and magazines.
Her work has been exhibited at the Getty Image Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, Glastonbury Festival and the Ivor Novello Awards. Amongst her recent publications is 100 Years Of British Music, for which Lucy was exclusively commissioned by the PRS to record some of the last century’s major musical contributors.
Amongst the faces she has captured are Dame Edna Everage, Terry Wogan, Boris Johnson, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Phil Collins, David Cameron, Dizzee Rascal, Bob Geldof, Tony Benn, Kate Adie, Tim Rice, Mark Knopfler, and Ray Davies.
In 2016 Peridot Press published another book of Lucy’s photography called Horses and Humans, using her pictures to explore the significance of horses in her own life and in the lives of others.
She lives in Dorset with her family and two dogs, Beetle and Dudley.
To order a copy of Dogs and Their Humans, go to www.johncattbookshop.com/dogs-and-their-humans
The TV rights to Nick Fisher’s debut novel Pot Luck, published by Peridot Press, have been acquired by multi-award-winning production company Kindle Entertainment.
Pot Luck, a dark thriller set in a south coast fishing community, was published by Peridot Press in June 2016 and received excellent reviews, including a cover quote from Broadchurch creator and Doctor Who show runner Chris Chibnall.
The plan is to adapt Pot Luck into a high-end series with internationalappeal.
Nick Fisher, himself a Bafta-winning TV scriptwriter, has teamed up with Joseph Wilde to adapt the novel into a six-part series. Wilde is currently adapting his own crtically-acclaimed stage play Cuddles for the big screen after it was optioned by Nicole Kidman’s production company Blossom Films.
Pot Luck tells the story of two brothers working as commercial crab-fishermen off the south coast who make a surprise catch in a far-flung spot of the English Channel. A catch which gives them a chance to totally change their lives – or destroy them. As they battle with their consciences and each other, the brothers' choices lead them into increasingly sinister territory.
Kindle Entertainment has produced many award-winning drama series as well as having a portfolio of family films in development with the BFI. Its productions have won Emmy, BAFTA and Royal Television Society awards.
Pia Ashberry, Head of Development at Kindle, said: "Nick Fisher has created a truly original and blackly comic world and cast of characters and we are delighted to have the opportunity to bring this to life for a tv audience."
Nick Fisher has a diverse range of writing credits in film, radio, stage, journalism and books. He currently works as a core writer on BBC1’s primetime hospital drama Holby City, for which he has written over 30 episodes. He is an expert in fishing and fish cookery, and has co-authored a number of River Cottage books with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. Nick has also devised and presented a handful of factual TV shows, including cult fishing show Screaming Reels. His first stage play, Basket Case, starring Nigel Havers, toured 11 top regional theatres. Pot Luck is his first novel.
Nick said: “The passionate enthusiasm expressed by Suzi McIntosh and Pia Ashberry from Kindle on reading Pot Luck was wonderfully intoxicating and refreshing. They got it immediately. And when we discussed the type of TV shows the source material could spawn Fargo and Justified I immediately came out in goosebumps.”
Jonathan Barnes, editorial director of Peridot Press, an imprint of John Catt Educational, said: “We were thrilled to publish Pot Luck last year. It’s a fantastic tale which is testament to Nick’s huge talent for story-telling. We are delighted that the TV rights have been optioned and can’t wait to see the seedy characters of Pot Luck brought to life on screen."
To order Pot Luck, go to: www.johncattbookshop.com/pot-luck
Peridot Press is delighted to announce the publication of Horses and Humans by Lucy Sewill. This stunning collection of photographs will be published on October 15.
Lucy Sewill has photographed some of our most familiar and well loved faces and become known for her particular style of one-on-one personal portraiture. Her work has hung in the National Portrait Gallery and on other prestigious walls.
In this remarkable new collection of her work, Lucy turns her lens to the animals that she has loved her whole life, revealing the amazing bond that they have with their owners and handlers.
A project that takes her across Britain, to Ireland, the United States and North Africa, Lucy strips away physical and mental clutter to take a series of intimate portraits that give the reader a glimpse of what goes on in the minds of these magnificent creatures.
To order a copy of Horses and Humans, go to www.johncattbookshop.com/horses-and-humans
Peridot will publish crime thriller Pot Luck in June 2016. This seedy tale of greed and double-crossing, set in the south coast crab fishing industry, is the first novel by BAFTA-winning scriptwriter Nick Fisher.
Brothers Adrian and Matty Collins are close to rock bottom: sick of the sight of each other and barely scraping a living from the only job they have ever known: crab fishing off the south coast. Every day is a depressing repeat of the one that has gone before - until a discovery in a remote spot of the English Channel changes everything.
It could be the best thing that has ever happened to them - or is it the worst?
Pot Luck is a thriller with sinister twists, a raggedy mob of opportunists and bottom-feeders, and an ocean of bad blood.
Nick Fisher is a BAFTA-winning TV scriptwriter and series creator who has also gained a diverse range of writing credits in film, radio, stage, print journalism and books. He currently works as a core writer on BBC1’s primetime hospital drama Holby City, for which he has written over 20 episodes. He is a much-published expert in fishing and fish cookery, as well as being author of several highly-regarded teenage advice books for boys.
Nick has also devised and presented a handful of factual shows, including Screaming Reels, Dirty Tackle, dear Nick. He also created and wrote the BBC comedy drama series Manchild. His first stage play Basket Case, starring Nigel Havers, toured 11 top regional theatres in 2012.
“Nick Fisher’s highly original crime caper delves into the deeply fishy underbelly of Weymouth Harbour. Among the stinky bait buckets, raggedy nets and battered lobster pots, drugs are being smuggled, old friendships stretched to breaking point, and someone’s clearly about to make a killing... There’s a nice whiff of Carl Hiaasen here, but with the unmistakable tang of the British seaside standing in for the Florida Everglades.
Funny, dark, surprising and altogether highly entertaining.”
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
“A brutal but brilliantly witty tale of life on the sea. One that illustrates with painful truthfulness the reality of how tough life can be for commercial fishermen these days. To the point that these two dysfunctional brothers are driven to do some very desperate stuff to survive. I loved it.”
Mark Hix
To order Pot Luck, go to: www.johncattbookshop.com/pot-luck
Peridot Press is pleased to announce the publication of Addicted to Angling: A Lifetime’s Obsession with Fish and Fishing by Mike Thrussell, one of the most recognisable names and faces in UK angling.
Addicted To Angling is a detailed account of Thrussell’s obsession with fish and fishing, following an ever expanding road of adventure, travel and personal growth.
Taken in to the heart and mind of the author, readers will recognise and relate to the moment he crosses the line from being a fisherman to becoming an obsessive angler - one of a rare breed who have forged an entire career from the sport they love.
It is a view of an often hidden world, but one that will open up opportunities for others that feel they too may, or must, follow a similar path.
But Addicted to Angling is more than a personal journey: there is much to learn, too, and the detailed description of the capture of some incredible and unusual fish leaves readers with a wealth of tactics used to target not just the big fish, but also a wide number of individual species in the UK and across the globe.
Addicted to Angling has already received some excellent reviews, including:
'This book is exactly what I hoped it would be; full of fishing anecdotes as well as Mike's angling story. What's more it's written in such a way that I can actually hear Mike telling the tales as I read the words. Unless you are an angler it is difficult sometimes to appreciate what we have and how lucky we are to have it. Mike's seminal work will without doubt be able to bring the definition of why we fish to everyone, whether they have ever held a fishing rod or not.” Keith Arthur, presenter, Tight Lines (Sky Sports)
"I've known and fished with Mike for nearly twenty years. This book reflects some of the great stories and achievements from that time, and beyond. A great read from one of the UK's most experienced and respected sea anglers.” Dave Barham, Editor of Boat Fishing Monthly Magazine
To order Addicted to Angling, go to: www.johncattbookshop.com/addicted-to-angling
Ruins, the second title in the Sentinel Trilogy, is out now on Peridot Press. The YA dark fantasy series, by Joshua Winning, launched with book one, Sentinel, in 2014.
In his desperate search for answers about the Sentinels, an ancient society of demon hunters that his parents belonged to, fifteen-year-old Nicholas Hallow is tipped into a fresh nightmare of terrifying monsters – and even more sinister humans – which threaten to send the world spiralling into chaos. Can Nicholas track down the mysterious girl who holds the key to their fate?
Sentinel, the first book of the series, was released in May 2014 and received excellent reviews from The Sun, Empire, SciFi Now and Press Association.
To order Ruins, go to: www.johncattbookshop.com/ruins-book-two-of-the-sentinel-trilogy
Peridot Press is to publish the first biography of the artist Eleanor 'Erlund' Hudson, which is now available for pre-order.
The watercolorist and printmaker, who died in 2011 aged 99, was best known for depictions of women at work in the Second World War. Erlund Hudson, A Life by Simon Fenwick will be released on November 10, 2014.
Hudson’s etchings, sketches and watercolours are nearly always concerned with women at work or at rest, in wartime, domestic or ballet scenes.
After a mere 20 years as a professional artist Hudson abandoned painting and became involved in the world of ballet, working as artistic director at the Brooking School of Ballet with Nesta Brooking, her companion of almost 50 years.
Although Hudson’s output as an artist was relatively small, its significance is shown in that her work can now be found in important collections in Great Britain and North America, including the Imperial War Museum.
In this first biography of Eleanor Erlund Hudson (1912 – 2011) Simon Fenwick creates a moving and informative portrait of the woman and the artist during her long life.
The fully illustrated monograph also includes a list of her pictures shown by exhibiting societies during her lifetime.
To order Erlund Hudson, A Life, go to: www.johncattbookshop.com/erlund-hudson-a-life
Peridot Press is delighted to announce it will publish Sentinel by Joshua Winning on May 19, 2014.
The young adult dark fantasy story – the first in a trilogy of books – is the debut novel from Winning, a freelance film writer from Cambridge who now lives and works in London.
Sentinel tells the story of a secret society of guardians who are mobilised against the devastating return of centuries-old dark forces. And when 15-year-old Nicholas Hallow's parents are killed in a mysterious train crash, he is drawn into a world where nothing is quite what it seems.
The author has achieved impressive sales and excellent reviews of a self-published version of Sentinel on Amazon Kindle – and now the gripping story is set for a paperback release in the spring.
Jonathan Barnes, Head of Editorial at Peridot Press, said: "Josh is a fantastic young writer who has great passion for his work. Sentinel is a vibrant, cinematic story with thrilling action and well-drawn characters and we're delighted to give the book a paperback release under the Peridot banner.
"We were extremely impressed by how far Josh was able to take Sentinel under his own steam, and we are excited to give the book a platform for future success."
Sentinel is available for pre-order from our bookshop and other leading retailers, including Amazon.
For further information, contact Peridot Press at enquiries@peridot.co.uk
This excellent new guide to mother-in-law management is essential reading for daughters-in-law – and just in time for Christmas!
We've been thrilled at the pre-orders and the press the book has received, with coverage up and down the UK, as well as interest from Australia, South Africa and the United States!
The press has included this piece in The Daily Mail, a feature in the Daily Telegraph, an interview with Katy on Female First, a fantastic feature in the Shropshire Star and interviews on radio stations including the BBC World Service, BBC Asian Network, Newstalk Radio Dublin, BBC Radio Shropshire and BBC Radio Newcastle.
We've also had interest from magazines and TV stations in Australia, the United States and South Africa.
The launch of Managing MIL was held at Drapers Hall in Shrewsbury last week. For coverage of the event, see this report in the Shropshire Star.
To order a copy of Managing MIL, please visit our bookshop.
We are delighted to announce the publication of the paperback version of Jonathan Smith’s memoir, The Following Game.
Jonathan Smith was, for many years, Head of English at Tonbridge School. As well as his acclaimed memoir, The Learning Game, which was described by Matthew Parris as ‘the only book I have read on teaching which is not boring’, he has published six novels and written many plays for radio. A film of his novel Summer in February, for which he wrote the screenplay, will be released in 2013. Jonathan is the father of the writer, Ed Smith, who played cricket for Kent, Middlesex and England.
As you may have seen, the hardback version of The Following Game gathered some stunning reviews upon publication in 2011:
‘Jonathan Smith is just as good at writing as he was at teaching. And that, believe me, is saying a very great deal.’ – Dan Stevens in The Times Educational Supplement
‘This beautifully produced little book says more about family, books and the game of cricket than many flashier volumes by well-known names. It is modest, candid, personal and brief, but full of surprises.’ – Robert McCrum, The Observer
‘The best passages flow along so joyously as to call to mind a cover drive by that most famous of Tonbridge old boys, Colin Cowdrey.’ – The Cricketer
To order a copy of the paperback version, visit our bookshop.
To buy the eBook, click here.
Peridot Press is pleased to announce the publication of a new eBook – a second edition of Totty Ellwood's The Crystal Spirit, now with a new chapter.
The Crystal Spirit was first published by Peridot in 2003 as a printed book. It is the moving account of Totty's journey to Bali after her brother Jonathan Ellwood was among 202 people killed in the Kuta nightclub bombing in 2002. The author recounts the horror of discovering Jonathan's death and her experiences in Bali in the aftermath of the disaster as she and her family sought to find out what happened to him and to recover his body, battling red tape and British officialdom. The obstacles and bureaucracy faced by the Ellwood family in their efforts led to an apology from the British Government and a meeting with Foreign Secretary Jack Straw amid attempts to improve the UK response to overseas disasters.
For the publication of this eBook, Totty has written a new chapter, in which she describes the lasting impact on her family of the loss of her brother. She explains how the tragedy prompted her to research the way in which schools deal with and teach about death, with the aim of helping bereaved families, and describes how colleagues and friends from all over the world have continued to pay tribute to and share their memories of Jonathan in the years since his death.
To buy the eBook, click here.
Peridot Press has published two new titles: Calcutta Song by Joe Winter, and the same author's new translation of Rabindranath Tagore's classic Lipika.
Joe Winter is a British teacher, writer and poet who has previously translated works of great Indian poets such as Tagore and Jabinananda Das.
His 12 years living in Calcutta (now known as Kolkata) from 1994 inspired him to write Calcutta Song, a vivid and atmospheric account of daily life in his new surroundings. The narrative takes the reader through Winter's forays into teaching, journalism and poetry while he gains an insight into what it means to be a Kolkatan. As well as a personal journey, Calcutta Song is a wide-ranging encounter with some of the forces that have made and make India what it is.
Lipika is a collection of prose poems, short stories and vignettes and was first published in 1922. It has long been cherished by the Bengali people and is now available in clear and direct translation in English.
Tagore (1861-1941) wrote about 200 books and Lipika (roughly translated as Brief Pieces) comes at about the midpoint in his output. He became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913 although his elegant prose and magical poetry remain largely unknown outside Bengal.
Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced), and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works, but Lipika stands up in comparison to all three.
To order Calcutta Song and Lipika, visit our bookshop.
Jonathan Smith’s The Following Game, the author’s moving account of cricket, family and poetry, will be reprinted in paperback format in the spring of 2013.
The book, published by Peridot Press in hardback in summer 2011, was regarded by some as one of the books of the year and the reissue in paperback is sure to bring the spotlight back on this beautiful piece of writing.
Here are some reviews for the hardback edition:
'Hugely affecting and touching, this is a self-effacing, gentle book, but it packs the emotional force of an MS Dhoni batting onslaught.' Roger Alton, The Spectator.
'Tender, thoughtful, elegant, passionate and honest.' Dan Jones, The New Statesman.
'Jonathan Smith is just as good at writing as he was at teaching. And that, believe me, is saying a very great deal.' Dan Stevens in The Times Educational Supplement.
'This beautifully produced little book says more about family, books and the game of cricket than many flashier volumes by well-known names. It is modest, candid, personal and brief, but full of surprises.' Robert McCrum, The Observer.
'It is about being a fan, a follower, a hero-worshipper. If you’ve ever surrendered to the magic of just following a game or a team or a player and wondered why it begins to rule your life, then with his divine craft of philosophising the everyday, the author justifies that love, putting mania into perspective with a wonderful personal journey as a man obsessed with cricket, rugby, authors and poets.' Aditya Iyer, The Indian Express.
Jonathan Smith was, for many years, Head of English at Tonbridge School. As well as his acclaimed memoir, 'The Learning Game', which was described by Matthew Parris as 'the only book I have read on teaching which is not boring', he has published six novels and written many plays for radio. A film of his novel 'Summer in February', for which he wrote the screenplay, will be released in 2013. Jonathan is the father of the writer, Ed Smith, who played cricket for Kent, Middlesex and England.
Peridot Press will be publishing Joe Winter’s translation of Rabindranath Tagore’s Lipika, his delightful collection of prose poems, vignettes and short stories.
First published in 1922, Lipika has long been cherished by the Bengali people. At the opposite end of the scale to epic, the book captures the drama of the human journey in a perfect miniature.
Tagore (1861-1941) wrote about two hundred books and Lipika (roughly translated as Brief Pieces) comes at about the midpoint in his output. He became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913 although his elegant prose and magical poetry remain largely unknown outside Bengal.
Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced), and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works, but Lipika stands up in comparison to all three.
Joe Winter is an English writer and teacher who lived in Kolkatta (until 2001, Calcutta) from 1994 to 2006. Outwardly involved in teaching, journalism and poetry, Joe gradually came to understand a small glimmer of what it means to be a Kolkattan.
Calcutta Song, Joe’s account of his time in India, will be published at the same time as his translation of Lipika.
We are pleased to announce that The Schoolmaster, Arthur Christopher Benson’s classic account of school life at the turn of the 20th century, has been reprinted for a paperback edition.
Peridot Press republished the book last year in hardback format and we have been been delighted at the response.
The Schoolmaster was originally published when the world was a very different place – and yet Benson’s strikingly honest words about his chosen profession are, in the main, still relevant today.
Benson was born at Wellington College, educated at Eton and Cambridge and spent his life and career at both. He also had a successful career outside of education; he was the editor of Queen Victoria’s letters, a lyricist and a prolific diary writer.
The foreword is written by Tony Little, Head Master of Eton College. He writes: “Benson was a man of many parts, but above all he was a consumate schoolmaster, dedicated, stimulating, idealistic yet wise to the ways of the world, and more importantly to the wiles and needs of teenage schoolboys. His book The Schoolmaster is personal and idiosyncratic and remains one of the best accounts of schoolmastering that has been written. I am delighted to see this work back in print, which for A C Benson is the most fitting memorial.”
Executive editor at the Times, Roger Dalton, has included Jonathan Smith’s The Following Game within his column in The Spectator – as one of four ‘wonderful sporting books of this year’. An ‘exquisite volume that defies genre’, this is the latest praise of Mr Smith’s well-loved text.
It was a nice surprise to see Jonathan Smith’s excellent memoir The Following Game – published in June by our imprint Peridot Press – mentioned in a feature in The Australian newspaper yesterday.
Eminent journalist Gideon Haigh, writing about John Inverarity’s promotion to chairman of selectors for the Australian cricket team in a feature titled On the hunt for a few good men, explains how Inverarity spent some time as a teacher of mathematics at Tonbridge School in Kent, UK, where he met head of English Jonathan Smith. Haigh writes:
Perhaps the salient distinction between Inverarity’s career and that of one of his modern charges is that at the peak of his success he decided to put his career on hold, in January 1976 accepting a job in the mathematics faculty at Kent’s Tonbridge School, which came about through a friendship with the school’s most distinguished old boy, Colin Cowdrey.
“I felt that cricket was getting a grip of me, that winning the Shield had become an obsession,” explains Inverarity. “And things in Perth were at the time probably just a little easy. You had good standing, some authority. I thought: “It’s probably better for us as a family if we go off somewhere for a while on our own.”
At Tonbridge, Inverarity, his wife Jane and daughters Alison and Kate became friendly with the novelist Jonathan Smith, father of the future Test batsman and gifted journalist Ed. In Jonathan Smith’s recent memoir of life as a cricket lover and father, The Following Game, he describes Inverarity as possessing Montaigne’s quality of “severe gentleness”.
“There was kindness but there was toughness,” writes Smith. “There was understanding but there was expectation.” He describes Inverarity as possessing an ability to look “hard and straight at the world as it is, with hope, and certainly with a measure of idealism, but with clear eyes.”