Claret Press

21/10/2024

“A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.”
Mark Twain

What gets me is that today's classics of today were yesterday's bestsellers. There was never a moment in time when the unreadable was celebrated.

15/10/2024

As a publisher I occasionally send out a book to (always young) bookstagramers who usually then say something pretty banal about it. Don't get me wrong, it's nice that they read it and put it out on Instagram, but it all somewhat underwhelms me.

At the other end of the spectrum is Maryse Kluck reviewing Operation Ark by Pen Farthing. She moves from the book to philosophy to a terrifying example from Dutch politics. That's pretty impressive. And I'm very grateful.

Thank you Maryse.

Dear Readers,Today I am continuing with Part Two of my review of ‘Operation Ark’: a nonfiction memoir written by founder of Nowzad Animal Charity and former Royal Marine, Pen Farthing. …

15/10/2024

We’re excited to kick off our new online series Adaptation and Conversations today!

In Adaptations and Conversations, Katie Isbester (Publisher) and her friend Michelle discuss books, their adaptations to film, TV and theatre, and answer your comments. This week we’re discussing Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams, and its story of a modern Black female experience

Tell us which you liked more, what translated brilliantly between the media (or didn’t) and what each evokes in you. It’s our first livestream and we’d love for you to join the conversation

The livestream is 7pm-8pm and can be found on our YouTube channel. The link to the YouTube livestream is in the bio

11/10/2024

📣 We’re excited to welcome Harry Whitehead as our latest author!

Harry Whitehead is a novelist and director of the Centre for New Writing at the University of Leicester, where he also directs the annual free lit-fest, Literary Leicester

His first novel The Cannibal Spirit (Penguin) was called ‘powerful, brave, ambitious’ (The Globe & Mail), ‘a unique work, compelling, complex, thought-provoking and impressive’ (Quill & Quire), ‘a thriller with a Joseph Conradian plot’ (The Walrus). He’s published short stories, reviews, essays and more in a wide variety of genres. He used to work in the film business and, before that, lived in the Far East

We were hooked by his gritty, sophisticated eco-thriller set in the Arctic, and cannot wait to share more about it in the coming months. You can find Harry on Twitter/X and Instagram

(photo credits: Henry J Allen)

11/10/2024

October 15 at 7pm Live Event: Queenie
Michelle and I are starting a conversation about adaptations of our favourite books. It's a live event so you can join the conversation from the Claret Press YouTube.
https://youtube.com/live/luYBC5zxxFk?feature=share

Our first book is the Brixton bestseller, Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams. A coming-of-age story of a Black woman, it was adapted as a Channel 4 and Hulu drama.

04/10/2024

🥳 We are thrilled to announce that Jill Culiner has won the Canadian Jewish Literary Award for Best Memoir 2024 for ‘Those Absent On the Great Hungarian Plain’!

✨ Marking its tenth successful year, the Canadian Jewish Literary Awards recognises and rewards the finest Canadian writing on Jewish themes and subjects in a variety of genres

✨ The judges said that ‘Writer, photographer and social critic Jill Culiner presents vignettes from what was planned as a six-week excursion to find traces of the Jewish presence in rural Hungary, and evolved into a multi-year sojourn exploring memory, culture and hard truths about what can lie beneath the surface in the human heart’

📕For more info, including an extract from the book, please follow the links in our bio to our website

11/09/2024

Even if you're neither a writer nor a Swiftie, you might appreciate this excellent explanation on how to write persuasively.

11th September 2024 Taylor Swift has endorsed the Democratic nominees Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. * Politically and culturally the endorsement is significant, but this is not really a political or …

03/09/2024

Damn! And I was only half way through Ali Smith.

03/09/2024

You can feel the anger coming off this guy. Glad he realised it was the government's problem.

The weekly Selfishgenie publishing blog.

22/07/2024

It’s that time of the year again ✍️

Claret Press will reopen for submissions from 1st-31st August

For what we’re looking for and how to send us your manuscript, please look at our submission guidelines on our website — link is in the bio!

19/07/2024

📣The audiobook for Operation Ark by Sunday Times bestseller Pen Farthing is OUT NOW

✨ Narrated by the superb Kerry Hutchinson, and the introduction read by Pen Farthing himself! (Huge thanks as well to the brilliant team at Raconteurs for bringing Operation Ark to life!)

📕 Listen to the “mesmerising” memoir of the most controversial figure of the 2021 Afghanistan Evacuation, whose story captured global headlines. Also available in paperback and ebook.

08/07/2024

🥳 A very happy publication day to Operation Ark by Pen Farthing!

✨ “Operation Ark was always about people and animals. Pen Farthing’s actions were nothing short of heroic.” — Ricky Gervais

✨ “A vivid, compelling and distressing account and a damning indictment of foreign policy failure.” — The Daily Beast

✨ “The most remarkable book. It’s exciting, it’s mesmerising.” — Peter Egan

📕Read the powerful memoir of the most controversial figure of the 2021 Afghanistan Evacuation, whose story captured global headlines.

Pen Farthing was branded a villain who valued “pets over people”, blamed for deserting Afghans, accused of risking British soldiers — nothing could be further from the truth.

OUT NOW and available in paperback and ebook

05/07/2024

Many of you have (with concern and enormous affection) pulled me aside and asked me this question. So I wrote a blog post to explain Why I Am Publishing the Most Controversial Man in Britain

And thank you, my friends, for caring. I mean that.

Operation Ark by Pen Farthing is out next week. He had, according to the British media, risked British soldiers during the evacuation of Afghanistan. An MP in the House of Commons accused him of costing Afghan lives. He seemed to have a weird fe**sh about dogs. Both sides of the benches condemned hi...

04/07/2024

It’s genuinely moving how in this hi-tech age, all it takes is a flick of a pencil to help shape the nation’s future — please vote!

01/07/2024

🚨 It’s only one week away from the launch of Operation Ark!

✨’The most remarkable book. It’s exciting, it’s mesmerising.’ - Peter Egan

✨ ‘A compelling, vivid and distressing account of what happened in those last days and a damning indictment of foreign policy failures.’ - The Daily Beast

✨’Operation Ark was always about people and animals. Pen Farthing’s actions were nothing short of heroic.’ - Ricky Gervais

📕 Operation Ark is the powerful memoir of the most controversial figure of the 2021 Afghanistan Evacuation, whose story captured global headlines. Pen Farthing was branded a villain who valued “pets over people”, blamed for deserting Afghans, accused of risking British soldiers —nothing could be further from the truth.

📖 Operation Ark is out on 8th July 2024, and is available for pre-order now in paperback, ebook and audiobook.

10/06/2024

As someone who runs a press that produces books about politics, I am being asked about my stance on the Baillie Gifford funding for the Hay-on-Wye lit fest.

I marched against U of Toronto to get it to divest itself from Apartheid South Africa. And earlier people campaigned against to***co companies sponsoring sporting events.

So this was an issue I struggled with.

Mark Lynas is a respected green activist and expressed my feelings the best.

As a writer and campaigner who has spent 25 years working on climate change, there is something I feel I need to say about the fossil fuels divestment campaign targeting […]

23/05/2024

Whoo-hoo! We're at Number 2 for Political Biographies of Hot New Releases on Amazon after Rory Stewart.
I feel as giddy as a schoolgirl.
Also available through the Claret Press website, as paperback and ebook.