Making Shore is one of the 12 shortlisted titles, so our congratulations are due once again to Sara Allerton, who won last summer’s People’s Book Prize for Fiction.
The competition for the French festival will be fierce, as the list includes two novels that have collected the Costa First Novel Award: Kishwar Desai’s Witness the Night (2010) and Raphael Selbourne’s Beauty (2009), and a Richard and Judy-selected novel, Elizabeth Speller’s The Return of Captain John Emmett.
The shortlisted novels are published by Mantle Pan Macmillan, Faber and Faber, Virago, Headline, Tindal Street Press, Maclehose Press, Sceptre, Orion, Beautiful Books and Alma Books – an interesting mix of indies and large houses. The festival selections are made by 3000 participants in regular literary events and reading groups. The English-language reading selections are coordinated by Waverton Good Reads, their affiliate partner in the UK.
A fantastic online gallery of Zhou Mengqi's panda photographs is currently being featured on the BBC Discover Wildlife magazine website, leading on the homepage. The gallery features images from our book Panda: Back from the Brink, which has been picked as the magazine's Book of the Month for February.
With January 25th less than two weeks away, our Burns Night app has become a hit! From one iTunes download to nearly four thousand in a few short days, we could hardly have hoped for such an overwhelming response. Much of this is no doubt due to a mention in Guardian blogger Stuart Dredge’s Apps Rush roundup, and then to getting on to the title screen of the iTunes app store under ‘New & Noteworthy’. Woo-hoo! (It's also on iTunes US and on Android)
Exposure aside, we’re happy that we could include such stellar content. The app includes Burns songs from acclaimed Scottish singers Annie Grace, Karine Polwart and Corrina Hewat, and a rousing performance of Tam o’ Shanter from Herald Angel winner Aly Macrae.
Developers Spot Specific built us a compass to point to Burns’ birthplace, which you can use during your Burns Supper toast to the Bard’s Immortal Memory, and an autocue in case you need prompting when you try reciting Tam o’ Shanter for yourself.
For those who didn’t realise how popular Burns is around the world, we included some voices of non-Scots too. We now discover that no less than the King of Pop himself was a fan! It seems that Michael Jackson recorded his own version of several top Burns songs, and there will be donations to the Burns Birthplace Museum from the proceeds. Thriller, claims David Gest, was at least partly inspired by Tam o' Shanter.
For anyone throwing their own party or, going to a Burns Supper or otherwise commemorating Burns Night, the app is rich with history, music and poetry. The new update also allows you to tweet our very own @Burns_Night with your interpretations of his poetry, to translate lines of Auld Lang Syne in whatever language takes your fancy (be it indigenous, fictitious or intergalactic), and to tell the world what Burns means to you. So “hope springs exulting on a triumphant wing” for all at Saraband today.
We’ve just learned that the editors of BBC Wildlife Magazine have named Panda: Back from the Brink as their Book of the Month for their February issue, saying: “Astonishing photos of giant pandas in their native habitat grace an absorbing overview… [it] is a fitting tribute to these global mascots of conservation”.
Outdoor Photography’seditor also gives it the thumbs up in their February 2012 issue: "Featuring wonderful images by Zhou Mengqi – taken at the famous Wolong research centre and in the wilds of the magnificent Qionglai Mountains, in the Sichuan region of China – and insightful text covering their history, behaviour and the conservation effort around them, this book feels like the complete story."
Panda: Back From the Brink is now the number one best seller at Edinburgh Zoo (on sale from their online shop). Pandas are a hot topic at the moment. As France’s Vincennes Zoo acquires two bears of their own, Edinburgh’s Tian Tian and Yang Guang have settled in nicely, though a dose of colic has meant one of our furry friends has had to take a few days rest from entertaining the public. Get well soon Yang Guang!
Robert Burns was famous for his partying, but not as many people know he was also a big fan of new technology. So the Bard would have loved the idea of a Burns Night app, according to Nat Edwards, director of the Burns Birthplace Museum.
We have now released an app to bring the traditional Burns birthday party up to date. It features some of his best-known poems and songs and boasts a selection of Scotland’s favourite musicians and actors performing the greatest works by Burns. It's FREE to download from iTunes (UK app store) and the Android Market. The US iTunes app store is also live, and Canada, Australia and more will follow soon.
Our behind-the-scenes video shows a glimpse of the rousing performance by Alasdair Macrae bringing Tam o' Shanter to life, and the app’s built-in autocue means you can work on your own delivery of Burns’ masterpiece without worrying about forgetting the lines or losing your place. Top singers Karine Polwart, Corrina Hewat and Annie Grace also perform some of their acclaimed a capella Burns arrangements– again, preview their recording on the video.
We’re really excited to have developed this new app that helps people have fun with the world’s greatest birthday party. As well as the built-in compass, the app gives tips on how to plan the evening and how to address your haggis, with recipes so you can cook up a storm. It can help you find out what the most famous poems mean and their relevance today. For example, ‘Auld Lang Syne’ is known all over the world and has been translated into countless languages – even Klingon.
Whether you’re a veteran of Burns Suppers or going to your first one, this app will help you enjoy Burns Night and celebrate the legacy of the Bard himself.
The BBC's wildlife magazine, Discover Wildlife, is now featuring an online gallery of stunning photos by David Hall from Beneath Cold Seas, which is published this month.
Have a look at the gallery and see for yourself why Peter Rowlands of Underwater Photography Magazine calls these images "quite exceptional"; Discover calls the book "A stunning, wildly colorful marine world"; and Shelf Awareness says it's "A dazzling book filled with dazzling sea creatures, showing us an astonishing marine domain"!
Below: cover image: Blue rockfish & lion's mane jelly. The fish seems to be nibbling small particles adhering to the tentacles of the jelly.
Continuously in print for more than 15 years, it's nice to see Pioneer Women, by Linda Peavy and Ursula Smith, due to be published in translation for the first time. A new edition is due out in German, published in 2012 by Gerstenberg Verlag. Westwärts mit gerafften Röcken (which translates to "Women with gathered-up skirts").
New reviews for the New Year: with the launch this month of David Hall's Beneath Cold Seas, featuring his gorgeous and technically superb photographs of the underwater life of the Pacific Northwest, we are pleased to share these reviews. The importance of marine conservation is becoming more and more widely recognised, and we hope this incredible glimpse of the underwater world will contribute to the cause.
“Coincidence had it that I had just returned from my first trip to British Columbia in September when I received an electronic copy of David Hall’s excellent book. As a result I know that these waters are not easy to operate in with strong currents, cold temperatures, variable visibility and low light levels. However, looking through this coffee-table book you would be forgiven for thinking that these waters are just an emerald version of the tropics with vibrant colours and exotic inhabitants. The level of consistency and standard of imagery is quite exceptional and it captures the wild spirit of this corner of the planet page after page. “The highlights for me were the split level shots which combined moody surface light with perfectly balanced artificial light. Indeed in many of them the split was carefully chosen to create a downward angle rather than a horizontal one and the artificial light seemed to penetrate unnaturally far through the water. “Beneath Cold Seas has taken more than 15 years to achieve, but the hard work has been worthwhile and it is difficult to imagine that there will ever be a better collection of photographs to come out of this area.”– Peter Rowlands, Publisher/editor, Underwater Photography Magazine
“Start with the frontispiece photograph of a Blue Rockfish gazing at a mango orange peony of a Lion's Mane Jelly…and you can tell you're in for a stunning photography book. Using state-of-the-art equipment, innovative techniques and electronic strobes, David Hall shows us an underwater world surprising to those who think colour and diversity belong to the tropics. “Purple and tangerine sea stars prey on mussels amid dark aqua sea urchins; a Mosshead Warbonnet peeks out from a kelp bed; a semi-camouflaged Red Irish Lord nestles over a Sulfur sponge; a harbor seal scratches its back underwater; an adult wolf eel looks like a cranky gray monster; migrating sockeye are seen at dusk against a sunset sky; pale Plumose anemones are as graceful as a ballet; opalescent nudibranchs resemble fireworks. “David Hall has created a dazzling book filled with dazzling sea creatures, showing us an astonishing marine domain.” --Marilyn Dahl, book review editor, Shelf Awareness
'A new chapter opens for Scots literary entrepreneurs', announces Louisa McLennan, the Herald's Assistant Digital Editor, as she presents a round-up of Scotland's digital publishing scene. Along with describing some of our own adventures in ebooks and apps, she includes her interviews with Allan Guthrie, one of the the inventive 'Blasted Heathens', and Annaliese Mackintosh of Cargo (congrats to Cargo for their recent Best Newcomer award from The List!) Ewan Morrison comments as an author, and Marc Lambert, chief executive of the Scottish Book Trust, says "We are happy with people reading on whatever platform is appropriate and useful to them".
We're happy to see how enthusiastically Glasgow-based companies have embraced the digital revolution. But we still love the printed book. Anyone who's seen our new releases Panda: Back from the Brink or Beneath Cold Seas will know that we've done everything possible to present the stunning work of two exceptional wildlife photographers to best effect. Look out for reviews of both in January.
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