Most writers have day jobs. Mine is working for the Probation Service where I write the reports courts use to help determine what sentences offenders will be given. A lot of my time is spent with young men who have got into trouble because of drugs or alcohol or because they simply lack the skills to avoid getting into fights – ‘users, boozers and losers’ as one cynical ex-colleague used to put it.

Every now and again, though, there is a different story. Dave was one of them. He was convicted of charges of criminal damage after he smashed up the kitchen of his marital home. It was down as a ‘DV’ case – domestic violence. Always a serious concern.

He came into the interview and answered all my questions about what had happened calmly. He made no attempt to say he’d been provoked. It was his fault and his alone. As far as he was concerned they should lock him up. But there was something he wasn’t telling me. I knew from his wife’s witness statement that Dave had been in the army and I asked him about it. He agreed he’d been in but offered no more. I asked what unit. When he told me, I joked about the regiment’s nickname. He looked surprised that I knew it. I mentioned I’d been in the Army Air Corps – ‘teeny weeny airways’ as they called us. I started to ask about his service and scattered military jargon through the questions. Dave began to respond. Then the dam burst.

For twenty minutes he talked about his service, the good times he’d had, the pride he felt in his regiment. As he opened up, I moved the discussion towards his experiences on active service. Slowly, hesitantly, he began to describe the freezing night he and a friend had been on duty. They had been there for hours and were chilled to the bone. Then a shot rang out. The round took off the top of his friend’s head. Dave sat holding him as he died. As the blood dripped over Dave’s hands, ‘All I could think of was that my hands felt warm at last. What sort of person thinks like that?’

We talked about how overwhelming experiences sometimes make the brain focus on small things but for Dave, everything he believed about himself changed that night. How could anyone else ever love a man who could think that way about someone he cared about? What sort of monster was he? From then on, his time in the forces was like a daydream. He left a year later.

While he was away, his wife had lived independently, learning to do all the jobs he had done. Paying bills, changing plugs, decorating the house, all the little jobs he had done for her before. Unable to find a steady job, they had lived on her income. Unemployed, feeling redundant in the home and barely able to cope with the sense of shame he felt at being unable to ‘hack it’ in the army, Dave had turned to drink. Then, one night just after the anniversary of his friend’s death, something snapped. Convinced he did not deserve the love of his family, Dave drank. Inside, he raged against what had happened and at how it had lost him everything he believed in. Unable to express what he was feeling, he turned and punched the door. The pain felt good. It felt like punishment. He kicked the fridge. He smashed the plates. His wife, terrified, called the police. And now he was here.

I sat quietly as he cried. After a few minutes, he looked up. ‘I’ve never told anybody about it before’, he said. ‘How do you tell someone you love just what sort of person you really are?’

I was able to propose a sentence that would help Dave access the help he would need to try to rebuild his life, but I watched the recent Panorama documentary by Colonel Tim Collins about the hidden casualties of war and I thought of Dave.

And I thought of Andy, the young ex-medic turned chaotic drug user because he dreaded what dreams normal sleep might bring. I thought of Jason, the ex-Marine found drunk in a car lodged in a fence over a long drop. The police reported that it could have been a fatal accident. ‘That was the idea’, he told me.

I thought about the ‘users, boozers and losers’ who pass through the courts every day, many convinced that society has failed them and how they rage against it for letting them down. I thought, too, of those who pass through in numbers that have never been counted. Men and women whose anger is turned inwards at themselves and whose main concern is how much they have let everyone else down.

Not all veterans have such serious problems making the adjustment to civilian life, but almost all find the going difficult at first. Some manage better than others. What Dave did was inexcusable. He told me so himself. But neither of us were looking to excuse his behaviour, we needed to explain it so that he could understand why he did what he did and find the skills to avoid it happening again.

They say old soldiers never die. Perhaps not, but young ones certainly do. At a time when most young people believe they are immortal, some of our teenagers come face to face with death and all that it means. When they struggle to cope, they are dismissed as somehow weak and abandoned to their fate. They end up like Dave or Andy or Jason. The lucky ones hit bottom and bounce. Far too many don’t.

What sort of soldier goes to pieces when a friend is killed in front of him? Let’s put it another way, what human being doesn’t?

Tim Lynch is the author of Courage Under Fire, published by Elliott & Thompson in conjunction with Combat Stress.

Combat Stress is the leading charity specialising in the care of British Veterans who have been profoundly traumatised by harrowing experiences during their Service career. Last year alone, they received 1,257 new referrals, bringing the number of ex-Service men and women in their care to approximately 4,200. They look after Veterans of every campaign that British Forces have been involved in since the Second World War. This includes over 300 of recent operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

To view the Panorama episode, click here (available until 9:59pm, Wednesday 26th February)

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As Hezbollah continues to amass armaments in Lebanon and upheaval and uncertainty reverberate around Egypt, Israel finds itself in an increasingly alarming position in what is already one of the most fractious political environments in the world. Not that Israel is a passive party caught in the middle of all this, The Times notes that Mr Hague, “made clear that he regarded the Israeli attitude to settlements as ‘disappointing’, adding: ‘Within a few years peace may become impossible.’”

Mr Hague’s comments come as part of a wider narrative in which Israel is struggling not so much with its neighbours as with shifting priorities in its key Western allies. Richard Beeston, also writing in The Times observes that there is a “public relations campaign being waged to undermine Israel.” It is worth looking at this in a little closer detail.

Much of Israel’s story in the twentieth century focussed on its position as a morally righteous country surrounded by hostile neighbours eager to see it, in Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s words, “wiped off the map”.

How that story has turned. Israel is now seen as the “belligerent” bully of the region and the contentious issue of the West Bank settlements has become the calling card of those wishing to cast the Middle East peace process in the easy listening terms of right vs. wrong.

Yair Lapid, Israel’s foremost political broadcaster and commentator (think a Tel Aviv Jeremy Paxman) with rumoured plans to enter Israeli politics with the formation of a new secularist political party before the next general elections, argues that this new twist in the tale has come to define how the British media portray contemporary Middle East politics.

His is an interesting voice to listen to – pro-peace, yet a supporter of a “strong Israel”; willing to dismantle most of the settlements to achieve the two-state solution, yet of the opinion that the Palestinians should “leave behind their Great Palestine dream”; a central-left liberal (“as defined by the British model,” he says), yet ever surprised at the narrow point of view from which the British are observing the conflict he lives in. As a result, whilst he is not supportive of much of Mr Netanyahu’s hawkish approach, he strongly feels that the British media does not fairly represent the story, and that consequently Britons, along with the inhabitants of other countries, do not fully understand the nuances of the situation. It is a position he likens to the perspective that outsiders had on the Northern Ireland peace process. Just as the obvious answer from the Western view is for Israel to stop settlements, relinquish the territories and support a free, independent and democratic Palestinian state, the Irish solution seemed similarly straightforward. As we know here from long and hard experience, it was anything but.

And so, it turns out, there are subtleties and hurdles at play in the Middle East also. An Israeli offer to cede 93% of the disputed territories, for instance, was rejected. The settlements too are not cut and dried. Although the settlers represent just 1.5% of the Israeli population and the issue is a constant thorn in the side to all involved in the peace process, Shas, the leading ultra-orthodox political party, holds 11 seats in the Knesset. This gives it the powerful ability to destabilise Israel’s coalition government and so affords the settlers perhaps disproportionate influence at the top end of Israeli politics. To complicate matters further, Ehud Barak’s decision last month to quit Labor, so dividing the party, has weakened a leading moderate voice in the coalition.

In addition to the complex internal politics, Mr Lapid suggests that at the international level, neither the current British nor US administrations appear to have the same intensity of interest as their predecessors. Both countries remain strong allies of Israel, of course, but Barack Obama’s background has not divested in him the same sense of unquestioning pro-Israeli drive evinced by the policies of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush before him. In the UK the situation is slightly different and Richard Beeston hints at this also: “The deteriorating relationship with Israel is in sharp contrast to that with the Arab world, where British ministers have been focussing their efforts, particularly the Gulf, where Britain is chasing lucrative contracts.” From Mr Lapid’s position, as a high-profile Israeli observer, it is deeply apparent that this analysis is correct and that as David Cameron chases the dollars desperately needed by the British economy he simply cannot afford, literally, to be overly interested in Israel. It is a position in stark contrast to the governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown for whom a strong and able Israel was a foundation stone of Middle Eastern policy.

Quite where this leaves the peace process is unclear. And seeing things in this light, it is patently obvious that just as in Northern Ireland, the much-vaunted “road map” does not show a nice straight road leading from A to B. Instead there is something much more approaching Spaghetti Junction, and like that joyous bit of British transport planning, there are plenty of traffic jams wherever you look. Israel has a lot of responsibility on its shoulders, but it is not a case of over-simplified morality. Listen to Mr Lapid, and indeed Mr Beeston. It is about time that the mass media stopped printing stories in terms of black and white.

Yair Lapid will be speaking at Jewish Book Week on Sunday 6^th March at 6:30pm.

Yair Lapid interviewing Tony Blair (website and trailers in Hebrew, interview in English).

His new book, Memories After My Death, is published on 18^th February by Elliott & Thompson. It is the memoir of his late father, Tommy Lapid, a well-loved and controversial Israeli figure who saw the development of the country from all angles over its first sixty years. Following a high-profile career in broadcast, he co-founded the secularist Shinnui and rose to deputy Prime Minister under Ariel Sharon.

From seeing his father taken away to a concentration camp to arriving in Tel Aviv at the birth of Israel, Tommy Lapid lived every major incident of Jewish life since the 1930s first-hand.

This sweeping narrative is mesmerizing for anyone with an interest in how Israel became what it is today. Lapid’s uniquely unorthodox opinions – he belonged to neither left nor right, was Jewish, but vehemently secular – expose the many contradictions inherent in Israeli life today.

Return to the E&T website.

The tape split, the flaps – well – flapped open and inside, underneath the packing material, lay pristine editions of Yair Lapid’s Memories After My Death. Several were sent to important personages to whom the book will hopefully be of interest and one made its way into my bag and from thence, a few hours later, onto the arm of the sofa where I rested it whilst I read what is genuinely one of the most intimate and fascinating biographies I have come across.

The subject of Yair’s book is his late father, Tommy Lapid. The names, I know, do not ring immediate bells in many people’s minds, but a sense of their importance in Israeli, Middle East and international politics can be taken from an article in current issue of The Economist. Tommy Lapid was the founder of the secular party, Shinnui, and went on to become deputy prime minister to Ariel Sharon in the Israeli government. Shinnui has since disappeared, but there is strong speculation that Yair may follow political ambitions of his own by launching into politics before the next general elections which are likely to take place in 2012. Some influential voices in particular suspect that he has what it takes to be prime minister. So if in a few years time, the name Lapid is a lot more familiar to you, do let people know that you were way ahead of the curve and heard it here first!

So this is certainly a political biography and the insight this gives into one of the most tempestuous political environments both today and of the latter half of the twentieth century is both deep and richly coloured. The bullish nature of Israeli politicians is sketched out on the page, and there is a wealth of anecdote and aside from moments of personal closeness with Sharon to jokes shared with Barack Obama.

Before Tommy Lapid dabbled in international politics, however, his life was already adventurous and moving enough to fill many an impressive biography. He was born in Hungary in 1931 and witnessed the rise of Nazism and its spread across Europe. A Holocaust survivor, he moved to Israel following the birth of the state in 1948 and had a hugely successful career in newspapers and television as a journalist and broadcaster. I have yet to complete the book, but am captivated already by the story of a Jewish family torn apart by World War II, and then Tommy creating a new identity at the same time as Israel, a new country, is establishing its own. It is a life, so full of spirit on the small scale, that on the large scale also tracks and engages with a narrative that is the tale of the world as it is today.

Yair has told his story with love and care, and he has done so by adopting his father’s voice, so placing this book in that rare category, the posthumous autobiography. It was an approach that sounded strange when I first heard about it, but he has done so by talking to his mother and his father’s friends, talking to those that knew him, studying correspondence and drawing on his own memories and understanding. So yes, sounded strange to be told it, but on paper the effect is profound and utterly convincing.

If this has caught your interest as much as it has caught mine, you can hear Yair discuss his book on Sunday 6^th March at an event in Jewish Book Week. As well as talking about his father, Yair will also be discussing his vision for Israel and the part he may play in the future. He’s visiting London for a couple of days only so do try and catch him if you can! For ticketing information, and more on Jewish Book Week in general, have a look at: http://www.jewishbookweek.com/2011/yair-lapid.php

Memories After My Death is published on 19th February

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For those who are unsure, to recap:

Phil Hughes is an Australian. With Alistair Cook – English batsman – on 99, Hughes looked like he might have caught Cook. He seemed unsure, but as his delighted teammates rushed to him, he threw the ball up in celebration. England appealed. The umpire referred. Hughes was shown to have caught after the bounce. Cook, reprieved, stayed in the crease to make 189 (when he was legitimately caught) and Hughes was decried in some corners and even called a cheat.

Ian Bell is an English batsman. He was on 67 runs when the umpire gave him out, caught behind, having nicked a delivery from Shane Watson. Bell appealed. The umpire referred. Hotspot – the computer system that marks a hot spot on a bat (i.e. where a ball has touched it) was negative. Bell, reprieved, stayed in the crease to make 115. However, another piece of cricketing technology – Snicko – which judges the sound made if a ball brushes a bat, but is unavailable to the video referees as it takes too long, had decreed that Bell had indeed nicked the ball and should have been given out. And if he had nicked it, as Snicko says, he would have known and therefore to appeal makes him … a canny sportsman.

So why are Hughes and Bell treated so differently? Why is one a cheat and the other simply playing to the laws of the game? Aren’t they really both chancers, seeing what they can get away with? Well, one part of the answer is that this cheat/not cheat stance is largely an English one – the Aussie fans were understandably not overjoyed with Bell when he walked off the field, much later than they felt he should have done. And Hughes has been roundly defended by his fellow Australian players.

Actually, and this is to the heart of the matter, Hughes has been roundly defended by the English players too – notably Cook, whose innings would have been cut unfairly short had his audacious claim been given. The debate is one largely propagated by the media. For the men out on the field, and indeed for the vast majority of fans, cricket isn’t about what are ultimately small matters and squabbles. It’s about something bigger, something represented by the glorious batting of Cook, or the rallying of players on both sides to defend Hughes. It’s what is known in football as ‘the beautiful game’. In cricket it is ‘the spirit of cricket’.

And it is from Rob Smyth’s stirring ‘The Spirit of Cricket’ that we can get a true sense of exactly how the spirit applies in the case of Bell and Hughes, for in the words of Duncan Fletcher:

“Some people have a very confused understanding of what the spirit of cricket is. Claiming a catch on the bounce, for example, is often seen as cheating. Well, yes, it is, but I don’t see why a fielder claiming the catch and leaving it to the umpire to make a decision is any different from a batsman nicking a catch behind and not walking. Yet one is seen as cheating and the other is not … It is all cheating, but some of it seen to be ‘in the spirit’ and some of it isn’t.

The spirit of cricket is not about whether a player is cheating or not; it is about how he conducts himself on and off the field, the respect with which he treats the game and the courtesy he shows the players and umpires.”

Hear, hear Duncan Fletcher. The spirit has been superbly upheld by both English and Australians alike and the Hughes/Bell incidents do nothing to diminish it. In fact, the spirit helps diminish them and put them in their proper place – minor flurries in an absorbing match. Now, to the final day and may victory come with it – enjoy the cricket in the spirit in which it is intended everyone!

What have we found out in 2011 so far then? Jamie Oliver was Christmas #1. The top selling book of 2010 was Stieg Larsson’s ‘The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo’. I have hold my hand up and admit I have never read Stieg. However, I can redeem myself as ‘The Da Vinci Code’ remains the biggest selling book for the period 2008 to December 11 2010 and that I have read along with, and with varying degrees of enjoyment, the rest of Dan Brown’s output. Including ‘The Lost Symbol’ (a low point) on my mobile phone. Which leads neatly into…

…ebooks! I love ebooks. Not necessarily to read, not yet at least, but as a publisher. There is so much opportunity in the digital environment that the avenues of exploration are nearly endless. There is the potential (and it is not necessarily a good one) to change almost everything about books from the content to the revenue generation. Digital in books is only partly about adding videos and so on to books (and remember that adding to books is not always a good thing – the ‘The Great Gatsby’, for example, was heavily reduced … and is regularly selected as many people’s favourite book). It is about new ways of doing book business, from getting money in to getting content out and into the hands of the readers. Ebooks will, I’m sure, crop up on this blog more than a few times.

I will also aim to continue Ellen’s brilliant accounts of life at Elliott & Thompson. As well as Ellen departing, Mark has also left. I have joined from Icon Books, another independent publisher, and at the moment it’s just me and Lorne in the office although person #3 will be joining in the near future I am sure. There are some fantastic looking books coming up – as soon as I’ve got to grips with them all myself I’ll blog about them here.

And to sign off, this wouldn’t be an introductory post without actually introducing myself – so hi, I’m Nick Sidwell. I’m aiming to make this blog as interesting as possible to read – I definitely want it to be interesting to write! It’s exciting times to be joining an ambitious independent publisher based in Bloomsbury. There’s a lot going on out there in the book world, from fantastic authors, publishers, readers and books to all sorts of threats and hurdles. I can’t wait to get stuck in!

But I digress. Despite the old maxim ‘All work and no play…’ the last few months have been incredibly busy, making me a very dull, brain-frazzled boy indeed. [N.B. I am not actually a boy. Just so we’re clear.] So, as I’m currently struggling to string together full, sensible sentences, without further ado, here is the round-up of a very hectic year in the life of E&T:

January

An industrious month, January, where we started putting the finishing touches to our Spring list. I learnt an enormous amount of animal facts thanks to 152 Wild Things to Do, which for a time proved an inexplicably successful party trick. Time also to reflect on the success of Classic Ephemera, our runaway bestseller from Autumn 2009 and which to date has now sold over 30,000 copies – an incredible achievement for a small independent which only started trading properly in June 2009.

February

In February, Mark set off for Cape Town to take part in the Young Entrepreneurship of the Year Award. Although he didn’t win (much to my dismay – I was tempted to start heckling until Lorne gagged me), he developed some incredibly useful business relationships, including one with Penguin South Africa, who now distribute all of our titles throughout the country. Since then, we’ve agreed terms with a North American distributor, and in 2011 we’re hoping that our titles will be sold in Australia, New Zealand, India and Asia as well.

March

Back on home turf, this month we launched The Game by Alex Buchanan, and in doing so fulfilled my lifelong ambition to go to Soho House. In March I also developed a taste for cricket (well, Stuart Broad), and went on the London Eye, courtesy of our sponsorship partners Veolia, where I found that the flight is roughly 49 times more enjoyable if you can actually get your Guide To The Sights open prior to the flight ending.

April

In April I set up the brand new E&T work experience scheme! As unlikely as it seems that anyone would want to voluntarily spend time with me whilst I impart all my wisdom, we had a huge number of responses to our advert and over the next 8 months we had a variety of graduates join us for three or four weeks at a time, to learn a little bit about how an independent publishing house works. It’s been a fantastic experience for all concerned, not least for the amount of chocolate and rose I received as thank yous. (Although, according to Mark, saying at the start of every placement, “Oh, would you like a biscuit? Just a little gift from our last intern…” is *apparently* unprofessional. What does he know etc etc.)

May

May will mainly be remembered as the month when we convinced a group of hardy souls to get up at 4am and launch 152 Wild Things To Do with us as morning broke over London. Mark and Lorne may remember it as the day when I drank so much Diet Coke to stay awake post-launch that I surpassed myself in terms of both a) inane stories and b) speed of speech.

This month we also launched The Spirit of Cricket at what was possibly my favourite E&T event to date (definitely not sure if I’m allowed to say that), where we discovered that I’m rubbish at pub quizzes, and Mark has an unfounded aversion to chocolate-covered strawberries.

June

June – oh June. What a great month this was, from the World Cup to a sweltering Glastonbury. Back at the ranch, however, we were about to launch Middle Class Nightmares, the first book that I project-managed from start to finish. Obviously I’m not one to blow my own trumpet AT ALL, but with Middle Class Nightmares I devised the concept, briefed an author, briefed the jacket designer, proofread the manuscript, sent it to print and publicised the end product. I also manually forced it upon all my friends and family, but that, as they say, is another story. At the risk of sounding cheesy, it’s incredible to think that in 14 months, I had learnt so much that I could put an entire book together from scratch. (Although admittedly, as my brother pointed out, ‘It’s rather thin, isn’t it?’ Got to start somewhere my boy!)

July

This month the Wine Guide went off to print, meaning a very busy few weeks all round. In addition, we were also hard at work on our Autumn lead titles, Courage Under Fire, Nature Tales and The Xfm Top 1000 Songs of All Time, and when I finally flew to France to join my family for a few days at the end of the month, I genuinely felt like I didn’t have a brain left. (This could also have been a direct result of my birthday drinks the night before but the less said about that, the better.)

August/September

A mad rush to finish the Autumn list and send it all off to print. This season was our most ambitious list to date, with The Xfm Top 1000 Songs Of All Time our most ambitious project. A 120,000 word, 400pp, full colour, hardback music anthology, with 11 authors and no picture budget, working in partnership with one of the UK’s best-loved radio stations, and with only 4 months to put the whole thing together? WHY ON EARTH NOT?

We launched the book with an event at Proud Galleries, where Dave Berry hosted, the View played an acoustic set and I sold a copy of the book at full price to the bassist from Placebo despite four of their songs actually being featured in the book. Well done me.

October

All those organisers amongst you, get excited, because in October we launched our first range of diaries – the Classic FM Diary 2011 and The Londoner’s Diary 2011, in partnership with Classic FM and LBC respectively. As this was the first year we’d done them, we didn’t have samples in early enough to hit the key stationery buying periods (I ask you, who thinks about diaries in February eh?!) but since copies have come in we’ve received excellent feedback from buyers and, fingers crossed, both diaries will be appearing in a Paperchase near you next year.

November

There’s an on-going joke in the E&T office that despite my generally cheery disposition, you only need mention the word ‘eBook’ and immediately I get cross. On the maxim that a lady should ‘never apologise, never explain’ I will say nothing more on this subject – except that, yes, after what seemed like YEARS and YEARS of endless inputting of metadata our eBooks are finally available to purchase from Waterstones and Amazon, should you wish to do so.

December

Running the whole gamut of emotions this year, because this month both Mark and I have some very sad news in that we are – in a show of spectacularly bad timing – both leaving E&T at the end of this month. Mark has been poached by a larger publishing house whilst I’m leaving publishing altogether to join Anthony Nolan as a Communications Officer.

My replacement is a boy called Nick Sidwell, who has been doing a very similar role to me at Icon – I Interviewed him and am confident that he’ll be roughly 19 times better at this job than me. In fact, so much did I rave about him to Mark and Lorne post-interview, that they changed the name of our server, usually called Ellen’s Documents (yes, it is all about me) to Ellen Loves Nick’s Documents, the day before he was due to come in for an induction and in full knowledge that I didn’t know how to change it back. Brilliant.

Joking aside (although if you have learnt anything over the last 18 months, it’s that my definition of ‘joke’ is a lot looser than most people’s), I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you on behalf of both Mark and myself to Lorne particularly, but also to everyone that we’ve worked with over the last two years. It has been an incredible experience and when I look back at what we have achieved at E&T, I’m very proud to have been a part of it all.

As someone who has been known to cry at both Hollyoaks and X Factor, I am truly terrible at goodbyes. I actually told Lorne that it wouldn’t be a permanent goodbye, as I’d keep popping back in the New Year to see how everything was going, but he told me that a) he’d change the locks and b) stalking Nick was actually illegal. Awkward. So on that note, thank you for reading, Merry Christmas all, and I hope you have a wonderful New Year.

The other day I was helping to proofread Xfm’s Top 1000 Songs of All Time, after another mini production lesson – Mark and Ellen are always keen to teach me things. (I was informed that such production nuggets of information were invaluable ice-breakers on first dates, and am sure to try this out). This proofreading was really just for factual errors, but it was still a time intensive job. I did worry I was being too slow with it, but I wanted to do a good job. After already having had some contact with the book in previous tasks I had done, I can now say I’m pretty familiar with its contents! My eyes were swimming with band names and trivia facts by the end, and I was beginning to be convinced that it was the longest book ever written; but it is the type of task I enjoy and it was interesting to get a good feel for and deeper insight into the book, which looks great. I can begin to understand how long it might take an editor to proofread a manuscript in its earlier stages, which sounds daunting but a challenge I hope I get to experience one day!

A week ago I also attended an evening run by the Society of Young Publishers about ‘How to Get a Job in Publishing.’ This was my first event run by the SYP and I thoroughly enjoyed it (and not because they were determined to keep refilling our wine glasses every time we turned around). The three speakers gave some solid advice, and even that which I had already heard was nice to have reinforced. A particularly great aspect of such events is the opportunity to meet other people in exactly the same situation. Having sussed out that taking up position by the crisp bowl was the best place to strike up conversations, I felt happily justified in stationing myself there for half of the evening. Although I can be quite shy, everyone I spoke to was incredibly friendly and we were all of an attitude to help each other out with anything we could (even after realising that we were all technically competitors for the same jobs). Spurred on by the challenge we were set of talking to at least six people we had never met, I practised my networking skills and just generally had some great conversations, on topics ranging from work experience to interesting names discovered at university graduations. (The favourite from my own has to be that someone had the middle name ‘Goujon’, though someone else may have trumped me with ‘Winkle’).

I hope you have all been having a good week, the atmosphere in the E&T office has been excellent as usual.

Unlike most reasonable people, us publishing nerds fret about Christmas pretty much all year round. For non-fiction sales it is particularly acute and counterparts in bigger publishers have told me that the festive selling season is going to be more important to their year this year than ever before. After a ‘light’ non-fiction year last year – for which read not so many £1m+ author advance books – this year is the opposite end of the scale. For all Tony Blair’s whopping £4.5m donation to the British Legion is grabbing the headlines, there are a regiment of big celeb titles behind his, just about to publish. Stephen Fry, Michael Caine, Paul O’Grady, Alan Sugar, Nelson Mandela – the list goes on*. It feels like publishers say this every year, but this autumn will be a very telling one for a lot of the big publishing houses as there are only so many autobiographies that will sell in huge numbers, and there are quite a few coming that need to do so.

We’re fortunate that we don’t have many £1m advances to worry about here, but as an independent we need our books to succeed every bit as much as any other publisher does. We don’t have a vast backlist to fall back on, so every new project has to work for us. They’re all off to print now. The work is done and much of the advance selling has happened – so now we wait. And hope…

*Not all of these are necessarily seven figure advance deals.

Usually during my train journeys I am intrigued by the various book covers I see around me, and can’t help being a bit nosy as to what my fellow travellers are reading. This is essentially the point of the design of the book cover – to catch the eye and urge the casual peruser of the bookshelf to pick up the book; or in this case tempt you to try and lean over the person sitting next to you surreptitiously to see if they have an interesting looking publication. This can often lead to awkward social situations when said person sees you craning your neck and slowly tilting your head 45 degrees in an attempt to spot their book cover without looking stupid. Said attempt naturally fails, as everyone else in the carriage can quite clearly see what you’re doing. That moment of suddenly fixing your gaze pointedly ahead of you whilst the book owner suddenly looks up, and yet realising that your body is still contorted at an odd angle is the stuff of middle class nightmares (I know, shocking book plug there).

Recently, however, I have noticed a distinct lack of book reading on the train in favour of people tapping away at phones and other such electronic devices. Whilst some may be working or playing, it is possible that others are reading electronically. The lack of bright titles surrounding me saddened me. I am not coming out against e-book readers, but I do wonder what it means (as many have already speculated) for the book cover. I can understand the pleasance of anonymity when reading in public: after all the Harry Potter book covers were rebranded for adults embarrassed to be seen reading children’s books. However I do think that cover art not only helps sell a book, but is part of the identity of the book itself; and as nosy as I was being, I liked that books could be a part of shared culture. Book artwork can provoke discussion amongst strangers, give you an idea about them, and introduce you to books you didn’t know existed.

Book covers are constantly rebranded, such as Wuthering Heights being linked with Twilight, as ‘Edward and Bella’s favourite book’, and Penguin releasing a series of books with white covers which you could decorate yourself. Clearly the importance of book covers has not been downgraded just yet.

Whilst at E&T I have gleaned that there are several considerations put into the production and appearance of the book cover and each book’s artwork speaks out about its insides.

Apparently my Dad used to buy a book a day on his commute to London, and I would love to think that he inspired just one person to pick up a book they hadn’t looked at before.

So having imparted that literary nugget to you, I shall let you know a little of what I’ve been up to, as I approach the end of my second week as intern. Exciting news: Nature Tales is finally ready to go to print. I can only imagine the immense amount of work that has gone into it, having already seen (and been a small part of) only the last two weeks, and it must be pretty cool to see a project through from start to completion. I can’t wait to see the finished product in the shops.

Yesterday it was a girls-only office, which sadly did not see me and Ellen rocking out to girly tunes, but I promise we did actually do plenty of work. I got to do some fun research for Ellen and will hopefully share some of my ideas. A day in the E&T office is great because the work is pretty varied. I could be spot checking indexes and sending proof amendments one minute and checking out publicity opportunities or updating the website the next. The people who work here in the office also make it really enjoyable and let me ask all sorts of questions which is so useful. I really hope I’m being of some use to them in return!

I’m looking forward to the bank holiday weekend (my first ‘working’ one, and my poor neglected Terry Goodkind book is calling me), but I am also looking forward to coming back next week! In a ring composition kind of a way, I shall bring you back to my original story of going swimming last night. My lowest point in a while has got to be standing by the mirrors in public, using the inadequate pool hairdryers to try and dry my rain soaked shoes before trudging home. Oh how cool must I have looked…