Cover Stories: Andrew Kidd, Kenneth Grahame, Sir Allen Lane
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Your support makes all the difference.¿As Andrew Kidd from Penguin prepares to take over from Peter Straus as the new publisher of Picador, the imprint continues its 30th birthday celebrations. With the autumn launch of Young Picador, it hopes that the loyal band of Picador readers will also buy these books for the children and godchildren. Among the launch titles is The Facts Speak for Themselves by Brock Cole, which has caused US controversy for its blunt telling of the story of Linda: a 13-year-old girl involved in a murder and a suicide, and brought up by a wayward mother whose casual attitude to sex leaves her with two younger brothers to care for. The social worker's report argues that the facts speak for themselves. Linda disagrees, and the brutal telling of her version forces readers to reach their own conclusions. The deceptively simple narrative has brought both critical praise and moral outrage.
¿It is 70 years since the death of Kenneth Grahame, the Bank of England secretary whose bedtime stories to his son were published reluctantly by Methuen, but became an anthropomorphic classic. Since 1908, The Wind in the Willows has sold in millions and transferred to stage and film. But Methuen, publishers of Pooh, thought so little of it they declined to pay a penny advance. However, the escalating royalty was a great boon to Grahame, whose US success came after the book was praised by President Theodore Roosevelt. With a centenary looming, Norton has now bought The Annotated Wind in the Willows by a young scholar, Annie Gaugher.
¿Explorer and novelist Sir Ranulph Fiennes has embarked on a biography. His choice of subject is logical: Scott of the Antarctic. Fiennes, the first man to reach both poles by surface, has the exclusive co-operation of the Scott family, which has granted access to papers. Surprisingly, it's more than 20 years since the last Scott biography. Fiennes will bring his personal experience to bear, offering "conclusive evidence against the carping armchair biographers who sought to denigrate" the captain. Hodder will publish next autumn.
¿Sir Allen Lane, founder of Penguin, is to be honoured with two plaques. The first will be installed at his birthplace in Bristol on 21 September, the centenary of his birth. The second will (eventually) adorn his Thirties London home in Talbot Square. But that one's in a queue: English Heritage don't expect to place it there before 2004.
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