Author: Steve

Testosterone Rex WINS The Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize

WE ARE DELIGHTED TO ANNOUNCE THAT TESTOSTERONE REX HAS WON THE ROYAL SOCIETY INSIGHT INVESTMENT SCIENCE
BOOK PRIZE!

Cordelia Fine’s latest book, Testosterone Rex brings together evolutionary science, psychology, neuroscience and social history to move beyond old ‘nature versus nurture’ debates, and explains why it’s time to unmake the tyrannical myth of Testosterone Rex.

Fine’s insightful and important contribution to the debate about gender in society won over Royal Society judges. Claudia Hammond, judge and broadcaster commented on the author’s win: ‘There have been plenty of books about gender and stereotyping and unconscious bias. What’s original in this book is that she takes apart the science so forensically. I was slightly surprised that it ends with this great call to action, but that is what is refreshing about it.’

The Royal Society prize celebrates outstanding popular science writing and authors. It’s open to books written for a non-specialist audience and each year hundreds of entries are submitted by publishers from all over the world. Ten years ago Fine’s bestselling book, A Mind of Its Own, was longlisted for the Royal Society prize and this year Fine receives the further recognition she deserves!

Kiera Jamison, commissioning editor, commented on the news: ‘To win the Royal Society Book Prize is such an incredible honour, one which Cordelia well deserves. A lot will be made of Testosterone Rex as a ‘controversial’ book, but really it’s just good science: it gets into the nitty gritty of scientific methodologies, biases and the ways in which scientific findings can be distorted in popular discourse. And it’s written with a true comic’s appreciation that readers sometimes need light relief as they go along! Icon Books has long been a champion of Cordelia’s writing, so we’re just delighted that the Royal Society have given more readers the chance to discover great science writing in Testosterone Rex.‘

Read an extract from the award-winning book here.

Come Work with Icon – Marketing Assistant Position Available!

Marketing Assistant – Icon Books

Icon Books is an independent non-fiction publisher based near Caledonian Road station in north London.

We publish head-turning, thought-provoking, popular books on science, language, sport, politics, business and much else besides, including the famous Graphic Guide series, bestsellers like The Year of Living Danishly, Queer: A Graphic History and Helena Kelly’s Jane Austen: The Secret Radical.

We’re looking for a passionate new Marketing Assistant who can help us engage readers, through social media, via trade marketing and in collaboration with partners in the book world and beyond. The successful candidate will be supremely organised and able to cope with a busy and varied workload.

A keen eye for design is important, and a knowledge of InDesign and Photoshop will be a great help, as will knowledge of how to fire interest through Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and elsewhere online. You’ll coordinate and write copy for our newsletters, help keep our metadata and website up to date, send out books to reps and booksellers and assist with the creation of our bi-annual catalogue and much other marketing material.

While previous full-time experience at another publisher isn’t essential, you will be excited by everything that’s new in our business, and able to help ensure that our marketing is focused, efficient and effective.

Please send a CV and covering letter (including your current salary) to Andrew Furlow, Sales and Marketing Director, by Monday 11th September: andrew@iconbooks.com

TESTOSTERONE REX SHORTLISTED FOR ROYAL SOCIETY INSIGHT INVESTMENT SCIENCE BOOK PRIZE

Publicity Announcement

Cordelia Fine’s Testosterone Rex is one of 6 publications shortlisted for this year’s Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize!

‘Testosterone Rex is a debunking rumble that ought to inspire a roar.’
The Guardian

Testosterone Rex is the powerful myth that squashes hopes of sex equality by telling us that men and women have evolved different natures. Fixed in an ancestral past that rewarded competitive men and caring women, these differences are supposedly re-created in each generation by sex hormones and male and female brains.

Testosterone, so we’re told, is the very essence of masculinity, and biological sex is a fundamental force in our development. Not so, says psychologist Cordelia Fine, who shows, with wit and panache, that sex doesn’t create male and female natures. Instead, sex, hormones, culture and evolution work together in ways that make past and present gender dynamics only a serving suggestion for the future – not a recipe. It brings together evolutionary science, psychology, neuroscience and social history to move beyond old ‘nature versus nurture’ debates, and to explain why it’s time to unmake the tyrannical myth of Testosterone Rex.

“I am absolutely delighted to be included on the shortlist of this prestigious prize.” – Cordelia Fine

Praise for Testosterone Rex:

‘The expression “essential reading for everyone” is usually untrue as well as a cliché, but if there were a book deserving of that description this might just be it.’
Financial Times

‘Fine takes on this king of all biases with admirable vigor, and it’s a pleasure — albeit a strenuous one — to follow the action as she dismembers the beast.’
New York Times

‘Ms Fine’s is a provocative and often fascinating book.’
Economist

‘Fine leavens the hard science with personal anecdote, and her entertaining and thoughtful book is a valuable addition to the discussion about gender.’
Ian Critchley, The Sunday Times

‘Testosterone Rex is a debunking rumble that ought to inspire a roar.’
The Guardian

‘A fascinating, greatly contemplative discussion of sex and gender and the embedded societal expectations of both.’
Kirkus Reviews

The winner will be announced 19th September and Cordelia is available for comment and interview.

Press Contact: Ruth Killick 07880703741 / publicity@ruthkillick.co.uk

ICON SIGNS LOST IN A GOOD GAME BY PETE ETCHELLS

Game on! Icon sign a personal investigation into the psychological benefits of videogames

Tom Webber, Commissioning Editor at Icon Books has acquired World English Language rights to LOST IN A GOOD GAME: How digital worlds show us what it means to be human, and why we need to rethink our fear of them by Bath Spa University psychology lecturer and Guardian writer Pete Etchells from Will Francis at Janklow and Nesbit for an undisclosed sum. Icon will publish in spring 2019.

When he was 13, Etchells’ father died from motor neurone disease. To cope, he immersed himself in a virtual world, first as an escape, but later to try to understand what had happened to his dad.
Video games are still fundamentally a new technology. Should we compare them with films, or paintings, or tools? Why are so many of us convinced that they’re harmful, and scared of what too much screen time might do to us or our children? What does the evidence show about the relationship between gaming and violence? Why do we do love to play games at all?

Ranging from Turing’s chess programme to multiplayer online games like EVE and World of Warcraft, and illuminating the intimate relationship between game development and scientific research, LOST IN A GOOD GAME is a journey through the history and development of video games – but also a very unusual memoir of a writer coming to terms with grief through a virtual world.

Tom Webber says ‘Pete Etchells is a completely original thinker and writer and I’m thrilled to be publishing him. Illuminating, funny, humane and occasionally very moving, this is the book about games and technology I’ve always wanted to read but have never been able to find.’

For immediate release
Press contact – Ruth Killick (publicity@ruthkillick.co.uk / 07880 703741)

Author of Lobbying For Change, Alberto Alemanno, speaks at RSA

We’re living in troubled times. Many democratic societies are experiencing a crisis of faith. People are making clear their frustration with supposedly representative governments, and yet feel powerless to effect change. Populists are capitalising on this disconnection and discontent. What can we do to fix democracy, get our voices heard and create a better society?

The answer, argues leading academic, civic entrepreneur and public interest lawyer Alberto Alemanno, is to become citizen lobbyists – learning the tools that traditional corporate lobbyists use, but to advance causes we really care about.

We all have skills that we can use to mobilise others and achieve change. Switching off is no longer an option. We all have the power – we just have to learn how to unleash it.

This event will take place on Thursday 11th May 2017 at 13:00 – 13:00 at Durham Street Auditorium, RSA House. To sign up for this event click here.

Find out a little bit more about Alberto Alemanno here.

Icon Books Acquires Memoir From Blogger Meg Fee On Love, Friendship & NYC

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – 25 APRIL 2017

Icon Books has signed PLACES I STOPPED ON THE WAY HOME by Meg Fee. Commissioning editor Kiera Jamison acquired World rights from Ella Kahn at Diamond Kahn & Woods Literary Agency.

Inspired by her popular journal-style blog, Places I Stopped on the Way Home traces Meg Fee’s life as a twenty-something in New York City, stopping to reflect on the people and places who – for better or worse – have helped her define who she is and what she wants.

Meg describes the book as ‘a love letter to the decade that changed me – to the men who were not right, and the girlfriends who kept me afloat – an ode to the mess and grace that is growing-up. This is a book about home as both a place and an idea. And about the journey towards it.’

‘I couldn’t be more thrilled to be working with Icon. I am so excited that this collection of essays, which is in so many ways about finding a home, has found exactly that with such an esteemed publisher.’

A series of interlinking essays that take us around New York, through pivotal moments from Meg’s time at college onwards, Places I Stopped on the Way Home will speak to anyone looking for their own sense of self and of home, anyone who has paused to wonder whether they’re on the ‘right’ path, anyone who shares Meg’s aim of accepting a ‘purposefully imperfect life’.

Adds Jamison, ‘We’re delighted to be working with Meg. She weaves together the dramatic and the quotidian to form snapshots of her life that are in turn exhilarating, beautiful and raw. Her writing is generous – bringing you into her intimate and formative relationships, so that you feel both a warm familiarity as a reader, and also hopefully gain some perspective on your own journey.’

For those who love memoirs, stories of real women, and portraits of NYC; fans of Meg; and anyone looking for a book that’s at once comforting and critical, realistic and uplifting.

Icon will publish as a £14.99 / $22.95 Demy hardback, and as an ebook, in spring 2018.

For more information please contact Victoria Reed, Publicity Assistant; victoria@iconbooks.com / 0207 700 9960

Notes for editors:

Meg blogs at megfee.com, or you can find her on Instagram @meg_fee
ISBN: 9781785783036 / ebook: 9781785783043

Lobbying for Change: Press Release

“…I have no hesitation in lobbying you to read this book.” Bill Emmott Former editor, The Economist

Lobbying for Change:
Find Your Voice to Create a Better Society
by Alberto Alemanno

1 May 2017 ISBN 9781785782084 £8.99 paperback original

Alberto Alemanno will in the UK from 9-11 May

Public lecture: RSA on 11 May, 1 pm.

Press contact Ruth Killick 07880703741 / publicity@ruthkillick.co.uk

Don’t get mad – get lobbying! From the Austrian student who took on Facebook to the Mexicans who campaigned successfully for a Soda sugar tax to the British scientist who lobbied for transparency in drug trials, citizen lobbyists are pushing through changes even in the darkest of times. Here’s how you can join them.

Many democratic societies are experiencing a crisis of faith. We cast our votes and a few of us even run for office, but our supposedly representative governments seem driven by the interests of big business, powerful individuals and wealthy lobby groups. All the while the world’s problems – like climate change, Big Data, corporate greed, the rise of nationalist movements – seem more pressing than ever. What hope do any of us have of making a difference?

Yet we can. In fact, we have more power than we think, argues Professor Alberto Alemanno. We can shape and change policies. How? Not via more referenda and direct democracy, as the populists are arguing, but by becoming ‘citizen lobbyists’ – learning the tools that the big corporate lobbyists use, but to advance causes we really care about, from saving a local library to taking action against fracking. The world of government appears daunting, but this book outlines a ten-step process that anyone can use, bringing their own talent and expertise to make positive change. This process works: Alemanno has spent years teaching individuals and non-profit organisations, and the book is full of inspiring examples of citizen lobbying in action. They range from cutting down international roaming charges for cell phones to championing whistleblower protection in Europe. Most recently Alemanno advocated and obtained from the EU full transparency of the BREXIT process.

10 steps to becoming an expert lobbyist:

Pick Your Battle
Do Your Homework
Map Your Lobbying Environment
Lobbying Plan
Pick Your Allies
You Pays?
Communication and Media Plan
Face-to-Face Meeting
Monitoring and Implementation
Stick to the (Lobbying) Rules

If you’re looking to improve – or to join – your community, if you’re searching for a sense of purpose or a way to take control of what’s going on around you, switching off is no longer an option. It’s time to make your voice count. Whoever you are, you’ve got power, and this book will show you how to unleash it.

Alberto Alemanno is a leading academic, civic entrepreneur and public interest lawyer. He is currently Jean Monnet Professor of European Union Law at HEC Paris and Global Professor of Law at the New York University School of Law. Due to his commitment to bridge the gap between academic research and policy action, Alberto is a Co-Founder and Director of The Good Lobby, the first advocacy skill-sharing community forging partnerships to lobby for the public interest. In 2015 he was named Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. www.facebook.com/alberto.alemanno twitter: @alemannoEU; Instagram: aalemanno; www.albertoalemanno.eu and www.thegoodlobby.eu

Advance praise for Lobbying for Change:

‘In these troubling times, we need effective citizen-lobbyists – not just likers, followers or even marchers – more than ever. No one has provided a more readable, persuasive and inspiring guide to how to be such a person than Alberto Alemanno. I have no hesitation in lobbying you to read this book.’

Bill Emmott, former editor in chief, Economist

‘Reviving civil society is a crucial task for today and tomorrow, and the strength of citizen lobbying is a vital indicator of civil society’s health. Alberto Alemanno has given us just what we need to guide us in this task – an intelligent, accessible and comprehensive handbook.’

Michael Edwards, editor of OpenDemocracy’s ‘Transformation’

‘Lobbying for Change is the antidote to what ails us: moving would-be change makers beyond “clicktivism” and the occasional march through a step-by-step guide to get active in shaping the future you want to see.’

Gillian Caldwell, CEO, Global Witness

‘This book is an engaged pledge for a renovated, participatory democracy of the 21st century … the revival of the republican agora of the ancient writers.’

Ulrike Guerot, author of Why Europe Must Become a Republic: A Political Utopia

‘The nexus of citizens and technology can form a “fifth estate”, a force for progressive change that will ultimately change politics itself for the better. A must read to understand the future of governance.’

Parag Khanna, author of Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization

‘A guide for citizens to act as an equalising force in today’s polarised society. An inspiring, timely and positive narrative of today’s state of democracy and an antidote to the trap of populism.’

Pascal Lamy, former director of the World Trade Organisation and EU Commissioner for Trade

‘Many people feel powerless and believe the system is rigged against them. While the likes of Trump, Farage and Le Pen want to tear down the system in the name of “the people”, Alberto Alemanno has a much more positive solution. A must-read in these troubled times.’

Philippe Legrain, political economist and writer

‘An easy read packed with powerful insights from both academic research as well as the author’s personal experience, Lobbying for Change will give you all the tools you need to make your voice heard and make a lasting difference.’

Manuel Arriaga, author of Rebooting Democracy

‘This is an essential guidebook for navigating the new political landscape. Alberto sets out the tools that citizens will need to fix broken politics and power a new participation revolution.’

Danny Sriskandarajah, director of CIVICUS Alliance

‘Celebrating the spirit of the Sustainable Development Goals, Alberto Alemanno’s book is an unparalleled guide for true citizen engagement with youth at the focal point.’

Trisha Shetty – Founder & CEO, SheSays, UN Young Leader for the SDGs

‘This book provides much needed hope. A generation after Albert Camus advised us to rebel against the absurdities of life, Alberto Alemanno has provided us with a manual on how to do so. Get it, read it, become a citizen advocate – and help to rebuild progressive politics.’

Gerard Hastings, professor of social marketing

‘Alberto Alemanno delivers a true door opener to a new democratic world, where everybody is in charge and has a duty to act. This is essential reading for today’s active citizens across the globe.’

Bruno Kaufmann, co-president of the Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy

‘At a time when corporate lobbying dominates decision making in government, Alberto Alemanno has produced a vital counter to this unfettered power: citizen lobbying. Here are the means to regain some power and influence over the decisions affecting our lives. This is a toolbox for change.’

Ed Straw, political consultant and writer

‘Alberto Alemanno offers inviting and practical ways for people to connect to politicians and decision makers. Only through this kind of interaction can we build resilient, open, and legitimate governance and cooperation.’

Marietje Schaake, Member of the European Parliament

‘This lively book challenges preconceptions about lobbying and lobbyists. Alberto Alemanno shows with style that there are other ways beyond conventional politics to change the world.’

Andrew Duff, Visiting Fellow, European Policy Centre

Lobbying for Change will be published by Icon books on 1 May price £8.99 paperback original. Alberto Alemanno will be available for interview. For press enquiries, please contact Ruth Killick (publicity@ruthkillick.co.uk / 07880 703741)

Join Charlotte Rampling at Hay Festival

The actor reminisces in an intimate self-portrait, with stories and photographs from her long career, discussing her newest book, Who I Am.

Charlotte Rampling will be joining Sarfraz Manzoor on the 27th May.

Buy your tickets here.

Join Charlotte Rampling at Cambridge Literary Festival

This April 23rd join Charlotte Rampling at Cambridge Literary Festival!

A rare opportunity to spend an hour with the actress, model and sixties icon Charlotte Rampling. Most recently on our screens in ITV’s Broadchurch, HBO’s Dexter and 45 Years, Rampling’s career spans popular entertainment and arthouse cinema, starring in English, French and Italian films. Until now, she has shied away from ‘too personal’ autobiography, but with Who I Am, Rampling gives an idiosyncratic and beguiling insight into one of our most consistently adventurous and interesting actors.

In conversation with Alex Clark, literary critic.

Buy your tickets here.

Department of Education hails ‘honest and engaging’ approach to grammar, as bestselling book is introduced to curriculum.

After prolonged negotiations with ministers from DfE and head teachers across the country, Icon Books announce today that Simon Griffin’s Fucking Apostrophes is to be introduced as part of the school curriculum for Key Stage 1 and 2 pupils, commencing Autumn 2017.

The publisher will initially be producing a substantial print-run of the existing text for KS2 children in time for the new academic year, with plans for a milder, censored version being introduced in 2018 for KS1. Coverage will start at 74% of primary schools, hopefully rising to complete coverage by 2021.

The move comes after independent research revealed that fewer than 15% of the UK’s schoolchildren manage to use apostrophes correctly, with a shocking 27% still unable to differentiate between your and you’re by the age of 16.

Griffin’s book became a bestseller in late 2016, and was widely recognised by education figures and thought leaders as an influential work of significance and importance.

Junior Minister for the Department of Education Ian Mulholme expressed his approval: ‘We’re aware of the sensitive nature of the book, but we believe no other word truly captures the frustration felt over apostrophes better than the word “fucking”. We’d also like to reassure parents that no child under the age of seven will be exposed to the full, uncensored version of the book.’

Head teachers have also been quick to show their support. Adrienne Blackburn, Head of Irewood Primary School in Surrey, believes it’s a positive step: ‘Many of the pupils are already using this kind of language on an hourly basis, so it makes sense to talk to them on their level. If they’re going to be using such profanities, they might as well be used in a fucking productive manner.’

Griffin was inspired to write the book when his eight-year-old daughter said during her homework that ‘the fucking things are doing me head in’, he says. ‘Through social media and online forums our children’s use of profanities has improved massively over recent years, but their grasp of apostrophes has remained static. The book was simply my way of redressing that balance.’

In advance of the KS2 school edition the book is available in all good bookshops, priced £6.99.

Jane Austen, The Secret Radical

AUTHOR HELENA KELLY SEARCHES FOR THE REAL JANE AUSTEN

‘However well you think you know the novels, you’ll be raring to read them again once you’ve read this.’
Caroline Sanderson, The Bookseller

Almost everything we know about Jane Austen is wrong. Her novels don’t confine themselves to grand houses and they were not written for readers’ enjoyment. She writes about serious subjects and her books are deeply subversive.

We just don’t read her properly – and we haven’t been reading her properly for 200 years. Jane Austen, The Secret Radical puts that right.

In her first, brilliantly original book, Austen expert Helena Kelly introduces the reader to a passionate woman living in an age of revolution; to a writer who used what was regarded as the lightest of literary genres, the novel, to grapple with the weightiest of subjects – feminism, slavery, abuse, the treatment of the poor, the power of the Church, even evolution – at a time, and in a place, when to write about such things directly was akin to treason.

Uncovering a radical, spirited and politically engaged woman, this book will encourage Austen fans to read her all over again.

The Book: Jane Austen, The Secret Radical by Helena Kelly is published on 3rd November (Hardback, £20)

Events: Helena Kelly will be discussing her book at the following venues:

New Books published in March!

We have four brand new books to share with you, all published this month.

First up, we’re thrilled to be publishing We Have A Deal by acclaimed negotiation expert Natalie Reynolds, who will teach you how to avoid common pitfalls, keep cool and in control, and achieve what you want, every time – whether you’re responsible for large deals at work or simply renegotiating your phone contract.

Then we have a stunning piece of nature writing in Adrift, an incredibly sensory journey, tracing Helen’s journey over the course of a year from deep winter to late autumn, from east to west, taking you on a tour of the people, politics, history and wildlife of London’s canals and rivers.

We’re also publishing The 50 Most Influential Britons of The Last 100 Years, a whistle-stop tour through recent British history, as well Positive Psychology: A toolkit for happiness, purpose and well-being. It is the perfect concise start to making your life better.

For more information about all future releases and competitions, make sure you sign up to our newsletter.

All books are available in all good bookshops and as an eBook. Head over to @iconbooks to see how you can win all of our new books this month!

Adrift

Adrift: A Secret Life of London’s Waterways

by Helen Babbs

Today is the publication day of Adrift: A Secret Life of London’s Waterways, a new book by London-based writer Helen Babbs.

Here at Icon Books, we’ve loved working on Adrift and with Helen Babbs, and we wanted to give you a flavour of what’s to come.

“It was a dark and stormy night.” It’s a well-known opening line and though now something of a cliché, it never ceases to draw me in. Who doesn’t love a stormy night? If, that is, you have the opportunity of curling up in a warm, dry spot with a good book.

With Adrift, Helen Babbs gives us both of these things: a dark and stormy opening scene, and a good book to get us through it. In her beautiful rhythmic style she draws us onto her boat, Pike, dashing all images of harlequin canal boats and bucolic waterway scenes:

It’s dark out. In here it’s warm and orange-lit, flickering. The smell is wet coal and woodsmoke. The sound, violent: high-pitched whistles and metallic cracks. The boat shifts and shudders, moans and rolls, more like a ship at sea than a broad barge on a narrow river. Dislocated branches suck across the Lea at speed, dragging their claws over the roof before rushing mad into the marshes. Suddenly there’s a smash and scraping overhead as the wind grabs hold of the chimney’s hat, rips it off and carries it, bouncing, away. The fire shudders in the stove, spits and starts, then settles again into its gentle, giving roar. Sometimes it’s possible to forget this is a home without bricks, that she floats free of foundations. Not tonight. Tonight she is a tin drum, beaten by a thousand furious drumsticks. Tonight she is the weather’s toy, to toss and whip at will.

The rest of the book takes you on a journey that is just as sensory, tracing Helen’s journey over the course of a year from deep winter to late autumn, from east to west, taking you on a tour of the people, politics, history and wildlife of London’s canals and rivers.

We were delighted to bring May van Millingen to the project too, who brought to life some of the book’s waterways and stopping points in six illustrated maps, helping readers to navigate Helen’s journey and bringing to life the bats and herons, gas holders and cemeteries.

Adrift publishes in Hardback and E-book on 4 March 2016 and is available at all good bookstores.

ISBN: 9781848319202

Price: £16.99

See more at: http://www.iconbooks.com/blog/title/adrift

Announcing Queer

IN LGBT HISTORY MONTH, ICON BOOKS ACQUIRE A GROUNDBREAKING NON-FICTION COMIC BOOK ON LGBTQ+ HISTORY.

Kiera Jamison, commissioning editor at Icon Books, has acquired world rights in all languages to QUEER: A GRAPHIC HISTORY by activist-academic Meg-John Barker and illustrator Julia Scheele.

Queer: A Graphic History is a groundbreaking non-fiction comic book that tells the histories of queer thought and activism. At its heart are questions and ideas relevant to everybody, such as whether we have fixed identities, understanding gender as a performance, and challenging binaries such as gay/straight or nature/nurture.

Bringing together pop-culture, activism and academic theory, Queer: A Graphic History explores the various ways in which people have wrestled with issues of sexual identity and behaviour, from studies like Alfred Kinsey’s view of sexuality as a spectrum, to Johnson and Masters’ research into sexual response. It also explores queer moments or directions in everything from Sherlock Holmes to Wicked: The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz.

Barker says, ‘This book is about making queer theory and queer activism accessible to a wide audience. There are some hugely useful ideas in queer thought that rarely get out to the people who might benefit from them, because the language can be pretty dense or because people think it won’t be relevant unless they identify as queer. I’m also a huge comics fan, so the possibility of having my words illustrated by Julia was extremely exciting.’

‘Meg-John has written an introduction to queer theory and activism that breaks out of the topic’s usual academic confines and is clever and witty,’ says Jamison. ‘Together with Julia’s cool illustrations, it will raise a lot of smiles and, hopefully, change the way many people think about LGBTQ identity, culture and history. It’s safe to say this is the only book you’ll read this year that sees Lady Gaga facing off to Foucault, and Miley Cyrus’s wrecking ball tearing into gender constructs.’

Queer: A Graphic History will appeal to anyone interested in LGBTQ issues and stories, fans of Orange is the New Black, The Danish Girl or Alison Bechdel’s comics, and anyone interested in queer, gender or critical theories, indeed anyone interested in seeing culture and society from a different perspective.

Icon will publish as an £11.99 paperback (254 x 177mm), and as an ebook, in September 2016.

Icon Books Advent Calendar Door #22

Today’s advent calendar giveaway has been chosen by Stevie Finegan, Icon’s Publicity and Digital Sales Coordinator. It is Finding Home by Emily Dugan, read below to see why this was her choice.

It has been a great year for reading non-fictionally, and there were a number of books vying for my heart when asked to name one I particularly treasured. There were books that made me laugh and books that made me cry and I lingered long and hard over a good many before finally choosing this. Because this was a book that, yes, made me laugh and yes, I shed a tear, but it was also a book that struck me with its vast and judicious importance.

Finding Home is a work of ten chapters, the first nine telling nine disparate people’s stories, the last telling the story of a town. They are united in all being stories of migration; stories of marriage, stories of refuge, stories of acceptance, alienation and – as the title rather suggests – of trying to find, or stay in, or get to, a place you belong, a home.

In this book I read about Mihai, who came to London to make his fortune but struggled to obtain legal work that would pay a minimum wage. I read about Ummad, who sought asylum in the UK after his brother was killed and he himself miraculously survived a bullet to the head, persecuted for his faith. I read about Klaudia, who knew her disabled child’s quality of life would be much more limited if they were to return to the country she was born in.

Many books are described as ‘eye-opening’, but this is a book that honestly changed how I watch the news, read a paper, and continue to see the world around me.

This has been a year of immense turmoil in many places in the world. A year that has seen the highest levels of forced migration, and the most refugees seeking asylum since the second world war. This book forces you to stop turning away, closing your eyes and ears and dismissing what is going on beyond your borders, or skin colour or sense of ‘us’. This book forces you to remember that people are people, and everyone deserves a safe and happy place that they can call home.

Icon Books Advent Calendar Door #6

Our advent calendar giveaway today has been picked by Andrew Furlow, Icon’s Sales and Marketing Director. It’s Catherine Hewitt’s biography The Mistress of Paris, and here’s why Andrew has chosen it:

The book I’ve most enjoyed publishing this year – though it’s a tough choice! – is Catherine Hewitt’s The Mistress of Paris.

I love the way in which Hewitt weaves the story of Comtesse Valtesse de le Bigne – born into pretty much abject poverty as plain old Louise Delabigne – into an eye-opening portrait of Parisian life in the second half of the nineteenth century. De La Bigne’s life rode the rollercoaster of Parsian experience, and she died a rich woman celebrated across France and indeed much of Europe. She was painted by Manet, was the inspiration for Emile Zola’s scandalous novel Nana and owed art that was the envy of collectors across the continent. So it’s an incredibly rewarding read as you feel you’re learning so much and getting such a feel for the time and place. Reading it in December 2015 of course, with Paris very much in out minds, gives it an extra resonance too.

As someone in marketing I’m also very much an admirer of Valtesse as a PR person or brand manager avant la lettre – the brand of course being herself. She was a brilliant manipulator of her own image, even after her death – just before she died, at 62, she personally addressed a series of elegant notecards, to be delivered across Paris after she had died. They read, simply:

Madame
Valtesse de La Bigne
Did on the 29 July 1910
Remember

Enigmatic and extremely classy, even from the beyond the grave – that is marketing saavy of a very high order…

Icon Books Advent Calendar Door #4

Today’s Advent Calendar giveaway has been chosen by our intern of the past couple of weeks, Faye Harvey

She’s chosen a fabulous book which we published in late 2012 – Pandaemonium by Humphrey Jennings. The book, originally published in 1985, inspired Danny Boyle’s showstopping opening ceremony of the London Olympics of that year, though it was languishing out of print. Our editor spoke to the author’s daughter, Marie-Louise Jennings, who died herself recently, to secure the rights for Icon. Here’s what Faye had to say about it:

Have you seen the film ‘Listen to Britain’? Directed by Humphrey Jennings and Stewart McAllister in 1942, it presents a montage of sounds and images of Britain at war, from the monotonous tread of industrial factory noises, to the Mozart of a daytime concert at the National Gallery, to the ominous resounding of the nightly Blitz sirens.

This haunting construction of moving image montage led me to PANDAEMONIUM, a compendium of “images” by Jennings, in book form.

It is a collection of writings conveying a narrative of the Industrial Revolution, as experienced by contemporary writers between 1660–1886, such as Milton, Blake, Voltaire and Darwin, to name only a few.

The experience of reading this book is such that, in the words of Frank Cottrell Boyce: “you will feel the heat and velocity of the greatest revolution in the history of the world. You’ll hear the clank of machinery, the roar of furnaces, the bawling of orders…”

The excerpts are fascinating, poetic, insightful, in their own right.

However, this book is particularly unique in the way that it takes the reader through the works that resonated in Jennings’ mind, a remarkable artist himself. Brought together, each excerpt conveys a sense of Jennings’ visions and imagination of history through human experience.

To win a copy of Pandaemonium, just retweet our tweet about it today and say tuned!

Icon Books – Advent Calendar

Behind door #1, a copy of every book we’ve published in the last two months!

Win this stack of eight books on our Twitter page!

So Christmas is here. And what better way to celebrate than with a bookish advent calendar?

So every day we’ll be giving away a book or book-related gift. Behind every door is something different, so keep an eye out on our website and our Twitter for new and exciting prizes each day until Christmas.

Behind the first door, we’re giving away a copy of every book we’ve published in November and December this year. You have until midnight tonight to enter with the winner to be announced on Wednesday morning… where we’ll open another door and give away another wonderful prize.

If you’ve been barking up the wrong tree at dinner parties, you can let Hubert van den Bergh and Thomas W. Hodgkinson show you How to Sound Cultured (‘Damn, all my cheating secrets revealed. In book form’ Stephen Fry). For more dinner party ammo, there’s the ultimate science quiz book, How Many Moons Does the Earth Have? by Brian Clegg.

There’s a fantastic biography of a 19th-century Parisian courtesan who harbours an incredible secret in The Mistress of Paris by Catherine Hewitt and for the Gardens and Antiques lovers in your life, there’s Allum’s Antiques Almanac 2016 from BBC Antiques Roadshow specialist Marc Allum and The Sceptical Gardener from the Telegraph’s gardening expert Ken Thompson.

Brand new this month from sports writer Luca Caioli is the greatest rivalry in football’s history, Messi vs Ronaldo. Two of the world’s greatest ever players compared and contrasted in this wonderful new book. And finally, new in paperback we have a inspiring tale of survival during World War Two, Beyond the Call by Lee Trimble with Jeremy Dronfield and some mind-bending Oxford and Cambridge Questions in So, You Think You’re Clever? by John Farndon.

All books available in all good bookshops and as an eBook. Head over to @iconbooks to see how you can win our new titles!

How to Sound Cultured – Radio 4

Master the 250 names that intellectuals love to drop into conversation

How to Sound Cultured by Thomas W. Hodgkinson and Hubert van den Burgh is published today and we’re very excited.

Aside from the already receiving fantastic coverage, including this Sunday Times article Where are the British intellectuals?’ as well as this piece in the Sunday Herald, Thomas appeared on the Today show on Radio 4.

Which philosopher had the maddest hairstyle? Which novelist drank 50 cups of black coffee every day? What on earth did Simone de Beauvoir see in Jean-Paul Sartre?

How to Sound Cultured offers a wry and yet profoundly useful look inside the mirrored palaces of high culture. Covering such inscrutable characters as Heidegger, Montaigne, Kahlo and Lévi-Strauss (apparently not just a designer of jeans), inscrutable polymaths Thomas W. Hodgkinson and Hubert van den Bergh – the author of the acclaimed How to Sound Clever – have done the hard work of sorting the cultural wheat from the chaff.

Read this book and you’ll never again mistake Rimbaud for Rambo or Georg Lukacs for George Lucas, you’ll know precisely when to drop Foucault’s name into a conversation and how to pronounce ‘Borgesian’, and you’ll learn many more essential pointers for the intellectual life.

How to Sound Cultured is available now as a £12.99 hardback, and as an ebook.

ICON BOOKS AQUIRES EXPERT GUIDE TO NEGOTIATING

Kiera Jamison, commissioning editor at Icon Books, has bought World rights in all languages to WE HAVE A DEAL: HOW TO NEGOTIATE WITH INTELLIGENCE, FLEXIBILITY AND POWER by negotiation expert Natalie Reynolds. Jamison bought the book directly from the author.

Natalie Reynolds specialises in negotiation, commercial dispute resolution and governance. She is the founder of negotiation consultancy advantageSPRING and counts the BBC, JP Morgan, DLA Piper and the European Investment Bank among her clients. She has advised the UN and provides pro-bono negotiation support to Human Rights Watch, the NSPCC and UN Women. She also runs a hugely popular gender workshop, ‘Is Negotiation a Man’s Game?’, and has published articles in the Guardian and the Huffington Post.

WE HAVE A DEAL argues that negotiation is the most important skill you can develop to get what you want in business and life. But we often struggle to do it effectively, or try to avoid it altogether. In this book Reynolds steers us through the steps of successful negotiations, from understanding underlying motivations, to avoiding pitfalls and stereotyping, to getting what you want, every time.

Kiera said: ‘Natalie is an inspiring and empowering speaker; I’m delighted that we can now capture her expertise and share it with readers. As the diverse audiences she speaks to and trains can attest, her approach has something for everyone: from a new-starter at work to a seasoned CEO. Icon Books is building a great base of motivational business authors, and we’re so lucky to have Natalie join us.’

Natalie said: ‘I’ve long admired Icon’s publishing, particularly their recent success with Graham Allcott’s How to Be a Productivity Ninja; so they were a natural choice for my first book. From Brexit to securing a pay rise, negotiation is in the headlines, and this is the right time for my book. I’m enjoying working with Kiera and the Icon team, planning an exciting international launch – it’s time for negotiation to take centre stage!’

Icon will publish as a £12.99 trade paperback, and as an ebook, in March 2016.

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