Publishing Company Blog: August 2021

Tuesday, August 31, 2021

Real-life Man From Snowy River was Aboriginal, new book argues

Anthony Sharwood, author of The Brumby Wars, says all the stockmen were Indigenous where the legendary ride is thought to have happened

There is “overwhelming evidence” that the legendary stockman featured in The Man From Snowy River was Aboriginal, a new book argues.

Did AB “Banjo” Paterson “paint his stockman white to appease the literary tastes of the times”?, the journalist Anthony Sharwood asks in The Brumby Wars.

Queen of Denmark hired as set designer on new Netflix film

Queen Margrethe II, the reigning Danish monarch, will add an adaptation of Karen Blixen’s fantasy novel Ehrengard to her two previous screen credits

Queen Margrethe II, reigning monarch of Denmark, is to design the sets for a forthcoming Netflix film adapted from a novel by Karen Blixen, it has been announced.

A romantic fantasy set in the fairytale kingdom of Babenhausen, Ehrengard will be directed by Bille August, the veteran Danish director of Pelle the Conqueror (which won both the Palme d’Or and Oscar for best foreign language film in 1988) and The Best Intentions (which won August a second Palme d’Or).

Miss Marple back on the case in stories by Naomi Alderman, Ruth Ware and more

Agatha Christie’s beloved sleuth to return in new authorised collection featuring contemporary writers including Dreda Say Mitchell, Kate Mosse and Val McDermid

Miss Marple was last seen in 1976, solving a “perfect” crime committed years earlier in Agatha Christie’s Sleeping Murder. Now authors including Val McDermid, Naomi Alderman and Dreda Say Mitchell are set to continue the adventures of the elderly amateur sleuth, with the first ever “new” Agatha Christie short story collection out next year.

The 12 writers, who also include Kate Mosse, Elly Griffiths and Ruth Ware, are all “Christie devotees”, said publisher HarperCollins, and will reimagine Miss Marple “through their own unique perspective while staying true to the hallmarks of a traditional mystery”.

Edinburgh festivals’ recovery could take a decade, says director

Book festival boss says next year will be a staging post in recovery that could take until 2030

A senior figure in the Edinburgh festivals has said it could take the rest of the decade before the events fully recover from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Nick Barley, the director of the Edinburgh international book festival, said the August festivals faced a long haul before regaining their status as the world’s largest arts event.

Sunday, August 29, 2021

A master of self-promotion: letters reveal how Philip Roth ‘hustled’ for prizes

Correspondence found in archives shows how ‘pushy’ novelist used ‘collusion, networking and back-scratching’ to win literary awards

As one of America’s foremost novelists, Philip Roth was awarded nearly every literary accolade, including a Pulitzer prize. It might be assumed that his work spoke for itself in securing these plaudits, but previously unpublished letters reveal he was, in fact, a master of self-promotion, networking and mutual back-scratching.

Professor Jacques Berlinerblau, who studied the correspondence while writing a book about Roth, was surprised by how pushy the author was and by his wheeler-dealing with friends and colleagues from the worlds of publishing, literary criticism and academia. “It’s something one would never get from reading his highly autobiographical descriptions of the writer’s lonely life,” he said.

Saturday, August 28, 2021

Beyond normal: new novel brings Sally Rooney mania to bookshops across UK

Many shops plan to open early for the arrival of Sally Rooney’s latest novel, Beautiful World, Where Are You next month

When they were children they lined the streets in their witch hats and capes, keen to pick up the latest Harry Potter title as bookshops opened their doors at midnight. Now they are a little older, the prospect of a tussle with some millennial emotions could see them queuing around the block again on 7 September, as dozens of bookshops plan to open early for the arrival of Sally Rooney’s latest novel, Beautiful World, Where Are You.

In a nationwide promotional push, prompted by signs of big public demand, freshly printed copies of the Irish author’s third novel are to be served to customers with special commemorative merchandise as they enjoy a coffee and pastry.

Friday, August 27, 2021

‘Cat Torturers names withheld’: Edith Sitwell’s gossipy address book found

Detailing hundreds of the poet’s acquaintances and why they irked or charmed her, its entries are busy with names from Gore Vidal to Elizabeth Arden and the Queen Mother

Edith Sitwell was known for her scathing assessments of her contemporaries as much as for her poetry, famously dismissing FR Leavis a “tiresome, whining, pettifogging little pipsqueak”, and DH Lawrence as “a plaster gnome on a stone toadstool in some suburban garden”. Now her address book, which was found among family ephemera at Weston Hall in Northamptonshire, reveals her private takes on those who annoyed her, from the “impertinent Catholic ass” to the “psychopath who insulted me after television”.

Sitwell, born into a family of landed gentry, was the eldest of three siblings who all became celebrated writers. She and her brothers Osbert and Sacheverell formed a kind of literary clique that some viewed as a rival to the Bloomsbury set. Her books include The Mother and Other Poems (1915) and Façade, which were set to music by her protege William Walton.

Thursday, August 26, 2021

Penguin Classics launches ‘new canon’ of environmental literature

Imprint’s Green Ideas series begins with 20 short books by writers from Rachel Carson to Greta Thunberg it believes are ‘the classics that made a movement’

From Greta Thunberg to James Lovelock, publisher Penguin Classics has come up with a “new canon” of the environmental literature, which it believes has “changed the way we think and talk about the living Earth”.

The move is part of a growing trend in publishing for books focused on the climate, whether from big hitters such as David Attenborough or Bill Gates, whose How to Avoid a Climate Disaster was out in February, or so-called “cli-fi”, climate fiction, from writers including Richard Powers and Jenny Offill. Penguin’s Green Ideas series capitalises on this appetite, collecting 20 short books it believes constitute “the classics that made a movement”, by “visionary thinkers around the world [who] have raised their voices to defend the planet”.

Wednesday, August 25, 2021

Tsitsi Dangarembga’s next work won’t be read by anyone until 2114

The Zimbabwean writer joins authors including Margaret Atwood and Ocean Vuong who have agreed to lock away new writing in the Future Library

Tsitsi Dangarembga made the Booker shortlist for her most recent novel, This Mournable Body, the story of a girl trying to make a life in post-colonial Zimbabwe which was praised as “magnificent” and “sublime”. Her next work, however, is likely to receive fewer accolades: it will not be revealed to the world until 2114.

The Zimbabwean writer is the eighth author selected for the Future Library project, an organic artwork dreamed up by the Scottish artist Katie Paterson. It began in 2014 with the planting of 1,000 Norwegian spruces in a patch of forest outside Oslo. Paterson is asking one writer a year to contribute a manuscript to the project – “the length of the piece is entirely for the author to decide” – with Margaret Atwood, Ocean Vuong and Karl Ove Knausgård already signed up. The works, unseen by anyone but the writers themselves, will be kept in a room lined with wood from the forest in the Deichman library in Oslo. One hundred years after Future Library was launched, in 2114, the trees will be felled, and the manuscripts printed for the first time.

Monday, August 23, 2021

Paul McCartney to reveal unseen Beatles lyrics in new book

The Lyrics will feature a ‘self-portrait’ in 154 songs, including the unrecorded Tell Me Who He Is

Paul McCartney will include the previously unseen lyrics to an unrecorded Beatles song in his forthcoming book The Lyrics.

On Monday, the former Beatle revealed the 154 songs to feature in the book, which will be based on conversations McCartney had with the poet Paul Muldoon. Described as a “self-portrait in 154 songs”, The Lyrics will feature songs from throughout McCartney’s career, including Blackbird, Live and Let Die, Hey Jude, Band on the Run and Yesterday.

Police officer who shot Breonna Taylor has pulled out of book deal

Jonathan Mattingly is seeking a new publisher for his account of the shooting after Simon & Schuster refused to distribute it for Post Hill Press

One of the police officers involved in the shooting of Breonna Taylor has pulled out of his book deal with a conservative press four months after Simon & Schuster refused to distribute the title.

Jonathan Mattingly is one of the Louisville, Kentucky officers who shot Taylor in the raid in her home in March 2020, and was shot in the leg by Taylor’s boyfriend Kenneth Walker. A grand jury brought no charges against Louisville police last September for the killing.

Friday, August 20, 2021

Jill Murphy, children’s author and illustrator, dies aged 72

The writer was best known for the much-loved picture book Peace at Last and the Worst Witch series of novels

Beloved children’s author and illustrator Jill Murphy has died at the age of 72. Murphy was best known for writing children’s book series The Worst Witch and The Large Family.

Murphy’s publisher Macmillan announced the author’s death in a statement, saying that she had died “peacefully” in a Cornwall hospital on Wednesday “following a long struggle with cancer”. Her son Charlie and her niece Isabelle were with her.

Advanced copies of Sally Rooney’s unpublished book sold for hundreds of dollars

Uncorrected proofs of upcoming novels have been selling for large sums on eBay and Depop – despite the practice being banned by publishers

When advanced reading copies (ARCs) of Sally Rooney’s new novel Beautiful World, Where Are You were sent out in May, there was a flurry of social media posts. A lucky selection of editors, writers and influencers flaunted their copies; others bemoaned not having been granted one. Soon listings for proof copies (which are clearly marked “not for resale”) started to appear on trading sites such as eBay and Depop. One copy, listed on eBay by a seller in North Carolina, sold in June for $209.16. Even the canvas tote bag that Rooney’s publicists had been sending out with the ARC copies was fetching prices in the region of $80. And this growing market for unpublished novels is not just a product of Rooney-mania: Jonathan Franzen’s Crossroads, which will be published in October, sold earlier this month on eBay for $124.

Advance copies of popular and classic novels have long been collector’s items. A rare proof copy of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, for example, or classics by authors such as Ernest Hemingway or John Steinbeck can sell for up to £30,000. But this high demand for ARCs of books that are yet to be published has only emerged recently, fuelled in part by the rise of book bloggers and influencers.

Wednesday, August 18, 2021

Ted Cruz’s campaign may have spent $150,000 on copies of his book

Following One Vote Away’s publication, the Republican senator’s campaign spent large sums of money at US chain Books-A-Million

Ted Cruz’s campaign spent more than $150,000 at US book chain Books-A-Million in the months after the Texas senator’s book was published, Forbes has reported.

Cruz, who was prominent among the Republicans trying to block the certification of Joe Biden’s election, published One Vote Away: How a Single Supreme Court Seat Can Change History in September. A financial disclosure he filed on Monday, reported on by Forbes, shows he received almost $320,000 as an advance in 2020 from the book’s publisher Regnery Publishing.

Werner Herzog to tell story of Japanese soldier who refused to surrender

The German film director has announced two new books: a memoir and The Twilight World, about a remarkable second world war officer

Werner Herzog is writing a book about Hiroo Onoda, the Japanese soldier who took three decades to surrender after the end of the second world war.

The esteemed German film director’s take on the life of Onoda, The Twilight World, will be translated by the poet Michael Hofmann, and published next summer by The Bodley Head. A memoir by Herzog will follow in 2023, reflecting on his life and the decades he has spent in the film industry, creating films including Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo, and documentaries Grizzly Man and Cave of Forgotten Dreams.

Tuesday, August 17, 2021

Sarah Ferguson’s Mills & Boon novel edges on to UK bestsellers chart

Historical romance Her Heart for a Compass has made it to the official UK book chart – but it still lies well clear of Bridgerton’s success

It’s not quite Bridgerton levels of sales, but Sarah Ferguson’s first venture into the romantic fiction market, Her Heart for a Compass, has nonetheless made its way into the UK bestsellers chart, with just over 1,000 copies sold in the last week.

The picture book fighting back against Russia’s LGBT+ propaganda law

A story for children about families with same-sex parents has been published in Russia as part of a campaign to have the country’s ‘gay propaganda’ law repealed

A month after a Hungarian bookshop chain was fined for selling a children’s story about a day in the life of a child with same-sex parents, the same picture book has been published in Russia – but with an “18+” label on it in deference to the country’s so-called “gay propaganda” law.

American author Lawrence Schimel and illustrator Elīna Brasliņa’s picture book tells about a morning and an evening in the lives of two children with same-sex parents. It is published as two titles in English – Early One Morning, about a young boy’s morning with his two mothers; and Bedtime, Not Playtime!, which follows a girl with two fathers at bedtime. The Russian translation, by Dmitriy Kuzmin, combines both books under the title Mothers, Fathers and Kids from Dusk till Dawn.

Monday, August 16, 2021

Bob Woodward’s third book in Trump trilogy to cover handling of pandemic

New book Peril follows Fear and Rage, and is based on hundreds of interviews as well as diaries, secret orders and phone transcripts

US politics – live coverage

Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward’s third book about Donald Trump will be called Peril, completing a trilogy begun with Fear and Rage. According to its publisher, it will also include sections on the first months of Joe Biden’s presidency.

Woodward rose to fame in the early 1970s, working with Carl Bernstein to uncover the Watergate scandal which brought down Richard Nixon. Peril is another co-production, this time with Robert Costa, also on staff at the Post.

Instagram user accused of capitalising from Ijeoma Oluo’s anti-racist book

The white woman behind the popular Instagram account @soyouwanttotalkabout has apologised after claims that she has co-opted the black author’s brand

The white woman behind an Instagram account with almost three million followers has apologised for the “harm” she caused to bestselling black author Ijeoma Oluo.

Oluo’s examination of race in America, So You Want to Talk About Race, was published in 2018, and hit the bestseller charts in the wake of the killing of George Floyd last summer. Jessica Natale’s similarly-named Instagram account @soyouwanttotalkabout was launched in February 2020, tackling topics such as voting rights, gun reform and the sentencing of Derek Chauvin, laying out information in a series of slide-shows in muted tones. By April this year, Natale had landed a book deal with Little, Brown, and revealed her previously-concealed identity.

Amanda Gorman: hosting the Met Gala is like ‘Cinderella going to the ball’

The poet who rose to fame at Joe Biden’s inauguration will co-chair with Gen Z favourites Billie Eilish, Timothée Chalamet and Naomi Osaka

Amanda Gorman has said that hosting the Met Gala next month feels like “Cinderella going to the ball”.

The 23-year-old US national youth poet laureat, who rose to fame after her performance of The Hill We Climb in January at Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration, will co-chair the Met Gala alongside Gen Z favourites Billie Eilish, Timothée Chalamet and Naomi Osaka on 13 September.

Dutch literary prize ceremony cancelled over winner’s Desi Bouterse comments

Astrid Roemer, the Surinamese winner of the Prijs der Nederlandse Letteren, came under fire after showing support for Dési Bouterse, who was convicted of murder

Five months ago, Astrid Roemer became the first author from Suriname, a former Dutch colony in South America, to win the prestigious Dutch-language literary award the Prijs der Nederlandse Letteren, and was praised by the judges for her “unconventional, poetic” works. But last week, the organisers announced that a ceremony for the poet and novelist, due to be attended by the king of Belgium, would be cancelled, after she came under fire for her comments about the former Suriname president Dési Bouterse.

While Roemer will still receive the £40,000 prize, plans for King Philippe to present her with the award in October have been dropped. Organisers said in a statement that “as a result of Ms Roemer’s recent views and statements”, a ceremony was “not appropriate”.

Friday, August 13, 2021

Omar Sakr, Yassmin Abdel-Magied and Evelyn Araluen – on poetry in the pandemic

At Guardian Australia’s monthly Zoom book club, the poets and thinkers discussed contemporary Australian poetry – and read some of their own

Guardian Australia’s book club is a free, interactive event hosted on Zoom. September’s event will be announced in coming weeks

“I don’t turn to poetry to be soothed,” the poet Omar Sakr – winner of the 2020 Prime Minister’s Literary award – confessed at Guardian Australia’s Zoom book club on Friday.

Reading his poem Masks Off – an ironic work yearning for the “simpler anger” of everyday human atrocities that dominated the news cycle before Covid-19 hit – Sakr joined the writer and social advocate Yassmin Abdel-Magied, and the poet, critic and editor of the Overland literary journal, Evelyn Araluen, in an interactive event co-hosted by Red Room Poetry to mark Australian Poetry Month.

Sam Byers and Salena Godden shortlisted for the Gordon Burn prize

Jenni Fagan, Doireann Ní Ghríofa, Hanif Abdurraqib and Tabitha Lasley also in the running for prize to work of ‘dazzlingly bold and forward-thinking’ fiction or nonfiction

Novels by Sam Byers, Salena Godden, and Jenni Fagan have been shortlisted for this year’s Gordon Burn prize for “forward-thinking and fearless” literature. Byers’ Come Join Our Disease, Fagan’s Luckenbooth and poet Godden’s first foray into fiction, Mrs Death Misses Death, are joined on the six-book shortlist by the genre-blurring A Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ní Ghríofa and nonfiction titles A Little Devil in America by Hanif Abdurraqib and Sea State by Tabitha Lasley.

All are in the running for a £5,000 cash prize and the chance to go on a writing retreat at Burn’s cottage in the Scottish Borders.

Wednesday, August 11, 2021

Dolly Parton to publish her first novel in 2022

The country music superstar has teamed up with the novelist James Patterson to write Run, Rose, Run, which will be published in March

First globally successful entertainer, then heroic sponsor of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine, and now novelist … Dolly Parton seems determined to prove that there are few things she can’t do.

The singer, best known for country-pop hits including Jolene and 9 to 5, has written her first novel, to be published by Penguin Random House next year. Run, Rose, Run, which is about a young woman who moves to Nashville to pursue her music-making dreams, has been co-written by Parton and bestselling novelist James Patterson. Both UK and US editions will be published on 7 March 2022.

Society of Authors distances itself from Philip Pullman’s tweets

The UK’s largest trade union for writers emphasised its anti-racist stance after its president, Pullman, showed support for Kate Clanchy on social media

The Society of Authors (SoA) has asked the writers it represents “to be mindful of privilege and of the impact of what they create, do and say” in an email to committee members responding to the recent criticism of Kate Clanchy’s 2019 Orwell-prize winning book, Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me.

In the email, which has since been made public, the SoA also distances itself from comments made by its president Philip Pullman on Twitter. The His Dark Materials author had defended Clanchy, whose descriptions of children of colour and autistic children in particular, have been widely criticised on Goodreads and Twitter in recent days.

Batman’s sidekick, Robin, comes out as LGBTQ in new comic

DC’s latest issue of Batman: Urban Legends shows the superhero’s companion accepting a date invitation from another male character

More than 80 years since he was first introduced to readers, and after decades of homoerotic subtext with his companion Batman, comics’ most trusty sidekick Robin has canonically come out as LGBTQ+.

In a cliffhanger ending to DC’s latest issue of Batman: Urban Legends, the current iteration of the Boy Wonder, Tim Drake, is shown accepting a date invitation from his friend Bernard, having just rescued him from a villain while in disguise as Robin.

Tuesday, August 10, 2021

Kate Clanchy to rewrite memoir after criticism of ‘racist and ableist tropes’

Poet and teacher has apologised for ‘overreacting’ to scrutiny of book’s portrayals of autistic pupils and children of colour

Kate Clanchy is rewriting her critically acclaimed memoir after widespread criticism of her portrayal of her pupils, particularly children of colour and autistic children.

It follows reports that the publisher, Picador, had been in discussions to update future editions of the Orwell prize-winning book Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me, after days of online scrutiny over offensive passages, and was criticised for not going far enough in its initial statement.

‘This is the story of my life’: Jock Zonfrillo stands by controversial memoir

One celebrity chef’s recollections have been publicly queried by another, with the publisher of Zonfrillo’s new book coming out in his defence

A stoush has erupted between the publisher of celebrity chef Jock Zonfrillo’s memoir, Simon & Schuster, and Nine, the publisher of the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age.

A widely-circulated cover story published in Good Weekend magazine on Saturday suggested there were contradictions between Zonfrillo’s recollections of his time spent with celebrated British chef Marco Pierre White in London in the 1990s, and those of White.

Monday, August 9, 2021

Kate Clanchy book may be updated to remove racial stereotypes after criticism

Publisher Picador says it is looking at changing passages in prize-winning memoir, which Clanchy intially claimed were not in the book at all

Picador, the publisher of Kate Clanchy’s award-winning Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me, is in discussions to update future editions of the book after several of Clanchy’s descriptions of her students, particularly children of colour, were widely criticised.

The Orwell prize-winning book, about poet and teacher Clanchy’s time working in state schools, was first published in 2019. More recently, it has been criticised on Goodreads and Twitter, where passages in which Clanchy described children of colour and autistic students were shared.

Sunday, August 8, 2021

‘I’ll paint you a story about Jackanory…’ TV show’s art up for sale

Lovers of the BBC story slot can recapture their childhood with illustrator’s images for Stig of the Dump and more

A good story creates pictures inside a child’s head, but the much-loved BBC television show Jackanory was not content to leave it at that. Throughout the last half of the 20th century, commissioned illustrations were as much a part of the programme’s magic as the books. If many of its viewers still have a firm idea what Stig of the Dump looks like, it’s probably thanks to the work of artist Gareth Floyd.

Some of the most evocative images from the Jackanory back catalogue are now being put up for sale for the first time. Suffolk-born Floyd, 81, is selling more than 1,200 of his storyboard illustrations in an online auction this month: they include many images from Clive King’s Stig of the Dump, and from children’s books by Penelope Lively, Cecil Day-Lewis and Jill Paton Walsh.

Saturday, August 7, 2021

‘Thanks for your help, Sticky’: Michael Rosen on learning to walk again after Covid

His traumatic experience with coronavirus inspired the author’s new children’s book – about the ‘friend’ he leaned on

It was the tweet that let the world know Michael Rosen was back on form and on the mend. “My wheelchair days are over. Stick now. Sticky McStick Stick,” he wrote in June last year, after having come down with Covid-19 in March and spent 48 days in intensive care.

Now, the poet and former children’s laureate has written a moving picture book about Sticky Mcstickstick and his battle with long Covid on an NHS rehabilitation ward last summer.

Thursday, August 5, 2021

Jamaican dub poet Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze dies aged 65

Influential pioneer touched audiences through performance, books, albums – and even Poems on the Underground

The pioneering Jamaican dub poet Jean “Binta” Breeze has died aged 65, her agents have confirmed.

Breeze, considered one of the most important and influential contemporary poets, was a regular performer at literary festivals in both the UK and across the world.

We are incredibly saddened to announce that our dear friend Jean 'Binta' Breeze MBE – poet, artist, theatre director, choreographer, actor and teacher – has died in Jamaica, aged 65.

Sending our deepest condolences to her family and friends during this terribly sad time. pic.twitter.com/yP3bkIAX4F

Wednesday, August 4, 2021

Mel Brooks announces his first memoir at the age of 95

All About Me!, to be published on 30 November, will cover everything from the film director’s military service to his long comedic partnership with Carl Reiner

At the age of 95, the comedian and film-maker Mel Brooks has written his first memoir. All About Me!: My Remarkable Life in Show Business will be published on 30 November by Penguin Random House in both the US and the UK.

The book will cover everything from Brooks’s New York childhood and service in the second world war to his creative partnership with the late Carl Reiner, his 40-year marriage to Anne Bancroft and how his film The Producers was adapted into an award-winning musical.

Tuesday, August 3, 2021

Twitter admits it verified fake account of author Cormac McCarthy

Reclusive US novelist’s agent confirms he did not share his opinions about kombucha and SoundCloud

Cormac McCarthy is known for his sparse punctuation and distinctive writing style, the violent and pessimistic themes of his work, and his reclusive public persona. So it was surprising to see the novelist on Twitter, sharing bons mots about kombucha and SoundCloud for an audience of thousands.

But it was the real Cormac McCarthy – at least, according to Twitter, which gave the account, registered in 2018 under the misspelled name “CormacMcCrthy”, a blue tick marking it as a “verified user”.

Monday, August 2, 2021

Rankin designs covers for Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy

Exclusive: photographer casts models as characters, creating an amalgam with their ‘dæmons’

The photographer Rankin has designed the covers for a forthcoming edition of Philip Pullman’s fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials.

Rankin, who has photographed everyone from the Queen to David Bowie, created eye-catching images for each of the three books, which tell the story of Lyra, an intrepid young girl who encounters otherworldly characters in parallel universes.

Sunday, August 1, 2021

Prince Harry should settle bird-shooting mystery in memoirs, say campaigners

Wildlife campaigners hope Harry will shed light on the killing of two of Britain’s rarest birds over Sandringham in 2007

Wildlife campaigners have called on Prince Harry to use his forthcoming memoirs to help solve a 14-year mystery about the killing of two of Britain’s rarest birds over one of the Queen’s estates.

In October 2007, just a few weeks after his 23rd birthday, Harry was questioned by the police after two hen harriers, a legally protected species, were seen being shot over Sandringham in Norfolk.

Bad genes, not rock’n’roll excess, killed Elvis Presley, claims biographer

A new book by Sally Hoedel argues that the singer was a sick man supporting his family and friends

Elvis Presley, who died 44 years ago this month, was not a drug abuser in the typical rock’n’roll lifestyle sense, a new book claims, but he was medicating to address a series of congenital illnesses.

According to Elvis: Destined to Die Young, the singer’s downward spiral, punctuated by health problems routinely written off as the consequences of addiction, could have been caused by Presley’s maternal grandparents, who were first cousins. His mother’s family – including three uncles – were cursed by early death, the author Sally Hoedel says.

Hay festival in disarray as director quits after bullying claim upheld

Exit of Peter Florence adds to list of woes that include two years of Covid cancellations and a sex assault claim against a Gulf royal

The future of the Hay Festival of Literature and Arts, one of Britain’s oldest and most esteemed annual cultural landmarks, was thrown into confusion this weekend after the resignation of its co-founder and director, Peter Florence.

His decision to quit follows what the board described as the unanimous endorsement last Thursday of the findings of an independent investigation that upheld an internal complaint of bullying against Florence.

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