Icon News & Events

‘Despite its virtues – Hoffman is an able and articulate writer and had access to a lot of previously classified documents – the book is badly spoiled by crass anti-Sovietism.’

Posted on 2011/03/02 in General, tagged as

David Hoffman’s The Dead Hand is reviewed – as you may be able to guess from the above quote – in The Morning Star, who take issue with the book’s discussion of the extensive Soviet chemical warfare programme in particular. ‘The Soviet Union is castigated as the embodiment of a “failed ideology” and a system that “reflexively buried the truth”‘ they say (quite rightly, in fact). If you’ve read the book, tell us what you think.

Masha Gessen talks about Perfect Rigour – published tomorrow

Posted on 2011/03/02 in General, tagged as

In 2006, an eccentric Russian mathematician named Grigori Perelman was confirmed to have solved one of the world’s greatest intellectual puzzles. The Poincaré conjecture is an extremely complex topological problem that had eluded the best minds for over a century. In 2000, the Clay Institute in Boston named it one of seven great unsolved mathematical problems, and promised a million dollars to anyone who could find a solution. Perelman posted his… Read more »

OUT NOW – Icon’s new catalogue for July-December 2011

Posted on 2011/03/01 in General, tagged as

We’re proud to announce to launch of our autumn list today with the unveiling of our new catalogue for the second half of the year. View it below or click on the image to see in greater detail, and we’ve collected all of the books that feature in the new catalogue together on a page of the site here. If you’d like a copy posted to you, please email us at info@iconbooks.co.uk with your address. Open publication – Free publishing – More catalogue M… Read more »

‘Grandin tells this exotic tale in a fluent and entertaining fashion’

Posted on 2011/02/25 in General, tagged as

BBC History magazine’s review of Greg Grandin’s Fordlandia – published in paperback in October last year – has just appeared on their website. As the reviewer notes, the book is something of a fable as well as history – ‘the failings of Fordlandia pale in comparison with the current despoliation of the Amazon and its people.’ Read the full review here.

Libraries Gave Us Power

Posted on 2011/02/22 in General, tagged as

Show your support for libraries against the government’s swingeing cuts by helping get the Manic Street Preachers song A Design for Life (of which the first line is ‘Libraries Gave Us Power’) to number one. This follows Manics’ bassist Nicky Wire’s recent piece in the Guardian on the whole sorry debacle. Here’s the Facebook group so get on it!

Jilted Generation authors interviewed at Birmingham Library

Posted on 2011/02/21 in General, tagged as

Ed Howker and Shiv Malik – authors of Jilted Generation: How Britain Has Bankrupted Its Youth – are interviewed here by Social Breakfast at their recent event at Birmingham Library: And on a related note, it’s interesting to see how far the phrase ‘jilted generation’ has become lingra franca to describe today’s younger and troubled people – here’s a piece on the Brit Awards last week in the Belfast Telegraph which describes Plan B’s music as ‘Wes… Read more »

Jilted Generation publicity nominated for PPC award

Posted on 2011/02/18 in General, tagged as

Icon Books Publicity Director, Najma Finlay, was nominated for a PPC (Publishers Publicity Circle) award for her work on promoting Jilted Generation, Ed Howker and Shiv Malik’s book on how those born after 1979 have suffered from the wake of the baby boomers. She was nominated for the Foyles Award for Paperback Original Non-Fiction. Jilted Generation author Shiv Malik recently appeared on Al Jazeera talking about the jilted generation.

‘The gendering of children, (“the pernicious pinkification of little girls”) affects every aspect of their lives. An ironic book with a serious message, it points out that adults also obey this rigid code.’

Posted on 2011/02/18 in General, tagged as

Delusions of Gender is reviewed in the Independent today – you can read the full piece here. Cordelia Fine, the author, has also recently campaigned to have the word ‘neurosexism’ entered into had the The Macquarie Dictionary, ‘Australia’s National Online Dictionary’. You can read about this here.

Common sense?

Posted on 2011/02/16 in General, tagged as

John Farndon, author of The World’s Greatest Idea, writes for Soapbox, Nature magazine’s science blog, on how certain ideas come to assume the mantle of common sense knowledge. Read his full piece here and read here about about John Farndon’s appearance at the Brighton Science Festival on Saturday 5th March.

When is it acceptable to discriminate against evolution sceptics?