This week’s extract comes from Janice Y. K. Lee’s acclaimed debut novel, The Piano Teacher. Picked by the Richard and Judy book club as a summer read, The Piano Teacher is a compelling and engrossing tale of two love affairs set against the backdrop of mid-century Hong Kong.
May 1952
It started as an accident. The small Herend rabbit had fallen into Claire’s handbag. It had been on the piano and she had been gathering up the sheet music at the end of the lesson when she knocked it off. It fell off the doily (a doily! On the Steinway!) and into her large leather bag. What had happened after that was perplexing, even to her. Continue reading »
Congratulations to Philip Hoare! Last night his book Leviathan, a work chronicling his lifelong fascination with whales, was awarded the prestigious Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction. Published by 4th Estate, Leviathan is a gripping voyage of discovery into the heart of his whale obsession and the book that inspired it: Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. You can watch Philip speak about his prize-winning book here.
The following guest blog comes from Elizabeth Ellis, who submitted this piece to Fifth Estate through Authonomy.com
Ahhh, beautiful blue skies and the temperature dial hitting 30C and it’s still only 8am. A light haze covers the mountains in the distance and it’s going to be another hot, hot day: a major challenge for any newcomer to Spain. Learning to live with the heat is one of the hardest parts of our new life in Madrid. For a start, there’s the important issue of what to wear. Being British, my wardrobe is the fashion equivalent of the Model T: any colour so long as it’s black. Continue reading »
‘Dr Nick Edwards’ is the pseudonym of an Accident and Emergency doctor working in the UK. He kept a blog under the name of Angry Doctor until his criticisms of NHS management drew unwanted attention and he chose to remove it for the sake of his career. His book In Stitches: the Highs and Lows of Life as an A&E Doctor was published by The Friday Project in 2007. Writing your first book is a bit like losing your virginity (from an honest bloke’s perspective anyway) - by far the best bit is telling your mates. But when I wrote my first book, In Stitches: the Highs and Lows of Life as an A&E Doctor, I had to keep quiet….and so half the fun was gone. Continue reading »
In February 2009 Fourth Estate published the international sensation Wetlands, by Charlotte Roche. The novel polarised public and critical opinion around the world and the original German edition became Amazon’s biggest selling book – anywhere.
Today, Fourth Estate publishes the paperback edition of 2009’s most talked about and contentious novel.
In high schools all over America, J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye is a staple of course reading for many English lit classes. Along with those other American classics like The Great Gatsby, Of Mice and Men, and The Old Man and the Sea, TheCatcher in the Rye is among that prestigious company of books that nearly every teenager inevitably ends up having to buy cliff notes to write an essay on.Continue reading »
This week’s extract comes from Andrew Marr’s foreword to Tommy’s War, which was published in paperback this May. Tommy’s War presents the extraordinary diaries of Thomas Livingstone Cairns. Starting in 1913, the diaries provide a priceless record of the impression world events were making on the ordinary people throughout this turbulent chapter of history. In this piece Andrew Marr gives his perspective on the importance of Thomas Cairns’ diaries as a record of the time, and offers brilliant insight into the World War I era.
A small man in a badly made suit, a hat jammed on his head and an empty pipe between his lips, is walking down the street towards the tram, with a small boy attached to one hand, in turn clutching a mouth organ. Continue reading »
The following guest blog comes from Phillipa Fioretti, who submitted this piece to Fifth Estate through Authonomy.com.
Choosing the Right Word
I am busy engaging in the old must-sharpen-pencils-before-I-can-write strategy. Procrastination, as it is commonly known. But as I write on a laptop, I don’t need the pencils. Perhaps I could check my email – there might be something interesting or urgent waiting for me. Or I could look slightly to the left and stare out the window. Or I could look up the meaning of ‘procrastinate’. May as well know the exact meaning of my current state of mind. Continue reading »
This week’s post from The Friday Project comes from John Higgs, author of I Have America Surrounded: The Life of Timothy Leary. Higgs is a BAFTA-nominated television writer and producer, and has written for publications including the Guardian, Mojo and the Independent.
I am about to admit a shameful secret. I have only confessed this once before, to a publisher who was so appalled that I feared she might slap me rudely across the face. When I pick out an interesting looking book in a bookshop I check how many pages it has. If it is four or five hundred, I usually put it back. Continue reading »
Today Fifth Estate begins an exciting new weekly feature: every Wednesday we will post an extract from a different book. Keep tuned in as we release free material from a diverse range of Press books titles.
Today we feature an extract from Outcasts United - the story of a refugee soccer team, a remarkable woman coach and a small southern town turned upside down by the process of refugee resettlement. Continue reading »
This week, an article appeared in the New Yorker that explored whether or not creative writing should be taught in academic institutions. According to the article, many creative writing courses operate on the following premise:
“students who have never published a poem can teach other students who have never published a poem how to write a publishable poem. The fruit of the theory is the writing workshop, a combination of ritual scarring and twelve-on-one group therapy where aspiring writers offer their views of the efforts of other aspiring writers… Continue reading »
Award-winning comedians David Mitchell & Robert Webb returned to BBC 2 last night with their fabulous sketch show That Mitchell & Webb Look. This September Fourth Estate publish ‘This Mitchell & Webb Book’, a lovely big, colourful book featuring all-new material from the comic duo. And nothing about coal at all…
Rosie Lovell is a passionate, energetic young cook who three years ago opened up a thriving deli nestled among the salted fish, yams and sounds of reggae at the heart of Brixton market.
Gaijin Blues, the first piece in The Friday Project blog series, comes from Ben Stevens. Fascinated with Far Eastern culture all his life, Ben is the author of the martial arts guidebook, ‘From Lee to Li,’ and the just-published ‘A Gaijin’s Guide to Japan’. Ben splits his year between homes in Japan and London.
Brace yourself. Today Fifth Estate brings you the first in a series of blogs from The Friday Project. In the coming weeks Fifth Estate will feature original writing from the most talented and controversial authors of the edgy imprint. With pieces spanning an eclectic range of topics, the series aspires to dish out a taste of what the Friday Project is all about…and, hopefully, spark some debate along the way!
As part of our 25th celebrations, we’ve put together an exhibition showcasing a small selection of what we consider to be our most interesting and successful pieces of design and publishing from over the years.
As an Egyptian American who attended Cairo University in the seventies when there was nary a headscarf in sight, my first reaction as President Obama strode onto the stage in the grand auditorium of Cairo University was pride in the impressive setting. Then I held my breath as he launched into his much-anticipated speech, wondering if he would manage to pull off the nearly impossible tightrope act of speaking truth from power. Continue reading »
Having spent my formative years in Cheltenham, I thought I knew what to expect from a literary festival.
The Cheltenham Literary Festival occurs in the first two weeks of October, and my personal highlights include talks by Donna Tart, Bret Easton Ellis, and Alain de Botton. Continue reading »
The Great Gatsby is one of the best-loved literary classics of the 20th century. It is one of those books that is so good, so wonderfully written, that you are inspired to ask at the end of every chapter – “how was Fitzgerald so good?!”
Following up a post we did a couple of weeks ago on piracy in the book trade, here is a link to an article which controversially argues that restrictive DRM – Digital Rights Management - is actually creating pirates of us all. Continue reading »
Just arriving this week are copies of Spooning with Rosie. Rosie runs the fabulous Rosie’s Deli Cafe in Brixton, London, and we think she is soon to be a star. We’ll be posting a series of short films with Rosie in the coming weeks, but in the meantime there’s a great introduction to Rosie and the cafe here.
Today we bring you the third and final part of David Starkey and Hilary Mantel’s fascinating discussion of Henry VIII. In this portion, Starkey and Mantel touch upon the impressive young Henry who ascended the throne in 1509. Hailed by Thomas More as a “second christ”, in his early days the glamorous young king was regarded as a virtuous renaissance man. A very different figure, indeed, than the monstrous Henry of popular imagination. Enjoy!
Five hundred years after ascending the English throne, the legacy of Henry VIII continues to fascinate and endure. David Starkey and Hilary Mantel recently had an opportunity to discuss the legendary monarch in a talk chaired by Dominic Sandbrook at the Tower of London.
Above is the first of three video installments. In the coming days we will post parts two and three of this intriguing panel discussion - so keep tuned in!
Writing your first book is a bit like losing your virginity (from an honest bloke’s perspective anyway) - by far the best bit is telling your mates. But when I wrote my first book, In Stitches: the Highs and Lows of Life as an A&E Doctor, I had to keep quiet….and so half the fun was gone. 
Gaijin Blues, the first piece in The Friday Project blog series, comes from Ben Stevens. Fascinated with Far Eastern culture all his life, Ben is the author of the martial arts guidebook, ‘From Lee to Li,’ and the just-published ‘A Gaijin’s Guide to Japan’. Ben splits his year between homes in Japan and London. 
Then I held my breath as he launched into his much-anticipated speech, wondering if he would manage to pull off the nearly impossible tightrope act of speaking truth from power. 
The Cheltenham Literary Festival occurs in the first two weeks of October, and my personal highlights include talks by Donna Tart, Bret Easton Ellis, and Alain de Botton. 
Just arriving this week are copies of Spooning with Rosie. Rosie runs the fabulous Rosie’s Deli Cafe in Brixton, London, and we think she is soon to be a star. We’ll be posting a series of short films with Rosie in the coming weeks, but in the meantime there’s a great introduction to Rosie and the cafe 
