NEWS


Frankfurt Book Fair 2023 The headlines


South Africa Top five


Tuskar Rock Press scoops two new novels by Adrian Duncan


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Home Truths South African book-


Magic Cat climbs to new heights with Tazz’s guide to the outdoors


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ikTok “sensation” Iron Tazz will publish his complete guide to the outdoors with children’s


publisher Magic Cat. World rights to Hike It were


snapped up by publisher Jenny Broom directly from the author. The book will be illustrated by


Martin Stanev and will publish in June next year. The US Pacific Northwest-based


Tazz (which he claims is his real name) is the expert hiker behind the TikTok channel “Hike It” (@Hike.It), which has amassed more than 80 million likes and has 3.6 million followers. Magic Cat bills the new book


as “a long-overdue update on the Dangerous Book for Boys” which “offers comprehensive information on hiking, backpacking, camping, outdoor skills and wilderness survival for young adventurers aged seven-plus”. Broom said: “Iron reaches out and


guides the reader by the hand across 30 diverse terrains, from snow- capped mountains to coastal trails to ancient forests—all based on years of experience hiking every kind of trail himself. His book is packed with a wonder of nature, as well as practical advice on everything right down to pooping in the woods!”


08 20th October 2023 2


buyers have eschewed their usual go-to number one bestsellers in favour of whistle-


blowing exposés in the past few years. This year has proved no different, with André de Ruyter’s Truth to


Power claiming the top spot. The former c.e.o. of South Africa’s publi- cally owned electricity network, Eskom, de


Ruyter claimed billions of Rand were lost due


to corruption, and that criminal cartels funnel- ling money from the company.


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uskar Rock, the Profile imprint founded by author Colm Tóibín


and his agent Peter Straus, has picked up two new novels by John McGahern Book Prize-winner Adrian Duncan. Tóibín and Straus acquired world English language rights from Marianne Gunn O’Connor at the Marianne Gunn O’Connor Agency. The Gorgeous Inertia of the Earth will publish in September 2025 and Catherine Carolan will publish in October 2026, both as trade paperbacks and e-books in the UK and Ireland.


The first title is a novel writen in two parts, a decade apart: the first is told in fragments or “blinks” that lead John to Bologna and Bernadete; the second opens with a leter from home asking John to pray for the speedy death of a dying friend, which sets in motion a day-long odyssey through the ancient streets and


churches of the Italian cit, where John must confront “not just his present and his past but also the bedrock of his psyche”. The follow-up, Catherine


Carolan, is a short historical novel set in two summers decades apart. The first timeline recounts a summer in post-civil war rural Ireland where the six-year-old title character slowly reveals to her country teacher, Master Francis, her intellect “as being one of genius”. The second takes


I am an enormous admirer of Adrian Duncan’s work and proud that we are continuing to publish him at Tuskar Rock Colm Tóibín


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HarperFiction snaps up two more Regency rom-coms from Sophie Irwin


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Data Source Nielsen BookScan, year to date


arperFiction had landed two new “swoon-worthy” Regency romances from


bestseller Sophie Irwin. Editorial director Belinda Toor


acquired UK and Commonwealth rights excluding Canada from Madeleine Milburn at the Madeleine Milburn Agency on behalf of publish- ing director Martha Ashby, who is currently on maternity leave. Irwin’s 2022 début, A Lady’s


Guide to Fortune-Hunting, was a UK bestseller and rights for her


novels have sold across 31 different countries. The first book in the new deal,


How to Lose a Lord in Ten Days, will be released in August 2024. It follows rich, handsome and titled Lord Ashford, who has every lady in England longing for his hand in marriage. Everyone, that is, except Miss Lydia Hanworth, who is the only young woman Ashford wishes to marry. Pressured into accepting Ashford’s proposal, Lydia has just 10 days to


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