Coming up at Backstory
POSTPONED: Jeremy Bowen
As per our email to ticket-holders last week, Jeremy Bowen is still in the Middle East and so will be unable to join us as planned this coming Wednesday. He has very kindly agreed to come when he is back, however, so we will rearrange in due course, probably early in 2024. If you already had a ticket, we will simply roll it over to the new date. If you would prefer not to keep your space, just let us know at books@backstory.london and we will of course issue a refund.
Live music every Thursday in November — free, no booking necessary
Come at 6.30pm; music starts at 7pm. Browse the upcoming line-up
Janice Hallett — The Christmas Appeal
Wednesday 29th November, 7.30pm
Meet the “Queen of Cosy Crime”. The author of The Twyford Code and The Appeal discusses her new festive mystery.
Wednesday 6th December, 7.30pm
The award-winning cartoonist for the Telegraph discusses drawing the world's ups and downs which he always does with a gentle humour, never malice.
Paul Caruana Galizia — A Death in Malta
Monday 18th December, 7.30pm
The very inspiring investigative journalist Paul Caruana Galizia joins us to discuss A Death in Malta, his book about the assassination of his mother Daphne, a campaigning journalist in their native Malta. It’s an astonishing story about one family’s quest for the truth, and about the fight against corruption in a modern European country.
Coming up at the Non-Fiction Book Club: Christina Lamb (Our Bodies, Their Battlefield)
Coming up at the Fiction Book Club: Bobby Palmer (Isaac And The Egg), Andrew O’Hagan (Mayflies)
SOLD OUT: James O’Brien (22nd Nov)
A GAME FOR YOU this week. Which of these two covers sold more copies at Backstory?
If I need to tell you it’s the second one, never apply for a job in publishing.
Antarctica is an excellent case study in the difference that packaging — and most of all, a good cover — can make to a book. This collection of Claire Keegan’s short stories was first published in 1999. We’ve stocked it all year, ever since Keegan’s latest novel, Small Things Like These, flew off the shelves last Christmas. But it might not shock you that the edition with the rather dreich lighthouse cover sold in, um, rather modest quantities.
We sold far more copies of Keegan’s 2010 story, Foster, cannily reissued with a cover design that matched the Small Things aesthetic and which many customers read next, as if it were Keegan’s latest, rather than published 12 years beforehand. Ditto the very nicely packaged So Late in The Day, written yonks ago but brought out in a very fetching edition this September.
But then along came the new Antarctica cover. It’s the same book we’ve always stocked, written by the same (excellent) writer, sold by the same (ever so charming) booksellers. Yet where we had been selling one or two a month, now we are selling dozens a week. The only change? The new cover that is a) very pretty, b) matches the Keegan set and, of course, c) features a cat. There are few certainties in publishing but one of them is this: Cats sell.
So there you have it, for definite this time. Sorry, guys; I know you’re a discerning lot. But you do judge a book by its cover.
Incidentally, while we’re talking about pretty things, have you seen the gorgeous Backstory Christmas gift guide yet? It has 24 pages of inspiration featuring our books of the year, great gifts for every possible relative and lots of heart-warming illustrations from the very talented Rory. You can pick one up in the shop or download it here.
And remember: everything in the guide is available at our website as well as in the shop, with free delivery anywhere in the UK — so why not forward it to friends and relatives not fortunate enough to have Backstory near them?
Tom