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The J&N authors Lauren Elkin, Bradley Garrett and Olivia Laing have all appeared on panels at the Festival of the Future City in Bristol this week, reminding us that there?s a strong city-theme going on at our agency. Both Lauren and Olivia are publishing books about the city next spring (The Lonely City by Olivia Laing is published by Canongate in March 2016; Fl?neuse by Lauren Elkin comes from Chatto & Windus in July 2016.) Lauren?s recent pieces about being caught up in the Friday 13th events in Paris can be found here and here.

Check-out this photo of crime writer, Elly Griffiths, dropping into Sundsvall Police Station to talk unsolved murders with Peter James, Arne Dahl and the Swedish Police Force! Elly is in Sundsvall to take part in the Swedish Crime Writing Festival, and to promote her most recent novels Smoke and Mirrors and The Outcast Dead.

Sunjeev Sahota has been selected as one of four authors who have made the shortlist for The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. The prize is 25 years old but was re-launched in May to include self-published writers for the first time. Sahota has been nominated for his second novel, the Man Booker-shortlisted The Year of the Runaways (Picador), a timely take on the British immigrant experience. The award recognises the best literary work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry by a British or Irish writer of 35 and under, with ?5,000 given as the prize. Judges for this year's award are author Sarah Waters; The Sunday Times literary editor Andrew Holgate and chief fiction reviewer Peter Kemp. Commenting on the short-list, Waters, also a previous winner, said: ?This is a wonderful line-up of books from four extremely talented writers. I think what?s particularly thrilling is the range of work on display here, as well as its quality. Each of these books confronts the complexities of life, but each has its own distinct style, its own energy. Collectively, they offer a very exciting snapshot of the literary scene.? Holgate added that the response from publishers and writers this year had been ?huge? and the quality of the short-list ?better than any previous shortlist? he could remember. He said: ?So many things about the award in its new incarnation are better than I could possibly have hoped for: the huge response by publishers and writers to the initial call-in; the immense support provided by Peters Fraser & Dunlop; the enthusiastic way in which the prize has been received; and the sheer quality of this short-list, which is better than any previous short-list I can remember for the award. The diversity of genres - poetry, historical thriller, novel and linked short stories - speaks volumes for the adventurous nature of much modern writing, and the variety of themes and approaches is immensely impressive. There is such quality here, and it's a short-list to be proud of.? The prize was suspended in 2008, but Holgate told The Bookseller in May that he had long wanted to resurrect it. ?There was some trimming going on back then [because of the recession] so we suspended it, but ever since I?ve always wanted to re-start it,? he said. The winner of The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award 2015 will be revealed on Thursday 10th December.

Julie Kavanagh has won this years Giovanni Comisso Literary Prize for Biography for her account of the life and legend of Marie Duplessis, The Girl Who Loved Camelias. The other finalists were Mementos: The life of Wis?awa Szymborska,Anna Bikont and Joanna Szczesna (Adelphi) and The Courage of the Gray Days. Life of Giorgio Agosti Paul Borgna (Yale University Press). The Italian prize is awarded annually in Treviso and organized by the 'Friends of John Comisso. This is the XXXIII edition. For 16 years it has been chaired by Bruno Visentini and was launched by Giulietta Masina, then handed over to Cino Boccazzi. Technical Jury Rolando Damiani (President), Silvia De Laude, Sandro Gerbi, Danilo Mainardi, Giancarlo Marinelli, Anna Modena, Pierluigi Panza, Sergio Perosa, Giorgio Pullini, Olga Visentini. Grand Jury Neva Agnoletti, Francesco Agostini, Franco Andreetta, Adriano Badoer, Emanuela Bardin Caccianiga, Marta Battisti, Andrea Bellieni, Emmanuel Bello, Simon Benetton, Giuliana Bettiol, Ennio White, Thomas Biancuzzi, Natalina Botter, Laura Bressan, Gino Caccianiga, Enrico Cagnato, Leonardo Canal, Gaetano Cappelletto, Franco Caramanti, Augustine counted, Bruno De Dona, Alessandra De Faveri, Silvia De March, Paul Favaro, Peter Gasparoni, Marina Geromel, Alberto Giacomin, Mariangela Guandalini, Valeria Lipparini, Emilio Lippi, Dino Luppi, the Great Victory, Franca Malabotta, Mazzotti Anna Maria Pugliese, James Molina, Lina Murari Small, Tina Murgia Dall'Armi, Antonio Olives, Giorgio Palesa, Isabella Panfido, Gianluigi Perino, Laura Pisanello, Gianna Polizzi, Irma Salvuzzi, Anna Dry, Mario Sutor, Maria Carla Tecce, Thomas Tommaseo Ponzetta, Gianni Turchetto, Maurizio Vanin, Antonio Zappador.

Gavin McCrea's d?but novel has been selected as one of Publishers Weekly's top books of 2015! "Mrs Engels is a historical novel told through the unforgettable voice of Lizzie Burns, the longtime lover of Frederick Engels. Pulled up from her working-class roots after she meets Engels, Lizzie is nonetheless excluded from upper-class society and haunted by her former flame as she struggles to find her purpose. Sparkling with energy, Lizzie is one of the year's best characters." http://best-books.publishersweekly.com/pw/best-books/2015/fiction#book/book-17

Across much of the world the ash tree has been used for centuries to make everything from axe handles, to cartwheels and even the first motorcars. In Rob Penn's latest book, The Man Who Made Things Out of Trees, he travels from Wales across Europe and Ireland to the USA, to discover that the ancient skills and knowledge of the properties of ash, developed over millennia making wheels and arrows, furniture and baseball bats, are far from dead. The book chronicles our intimate relationship with the tree, and how the urge to understand and appreciate trees still runs through us all like grain through wood. Follow this linkto watch him fell a 70-foot ash in the Black Mountains of south Wales - part of his forestry management efforts to keep the ash and other trees thriving there.

Kat Banyard, author of The Equality Illusion has offered up an early look at what's to come in her next book, Pimp State, in her essay on 'The Human Rights Scandal' published last week on the Faber and Faber website. The article, which has been generating a lot of attention, can be read, in full here: http://www.faber.co.uk/blog/a-human-rights-scandal-by-kat-banyard/ Pimp State: Sex, Money and the Future of Equality will be published next year and promises to weave together first-hand investigation, interviews and the latest research to powerfully argue that sex trade myth-makers will find themselves on the wrong side of history.

?Foyles and Hungerford Bookshop backed Robert Penn?s The Man Who Made Things Out of Trees (Particular Books) to fly off the shelves over the festive period? http://www.thebookseller.com/news/booksellers-back-bryson-super-thursday-s-finest-314211

Gavin McCrea's d?but novel, Mrs Engels, joins the twelve strong longlist of titles celebrating LGBT writing announced after hours of debates between the judges over an exceptional list of submissions, the most the prize has seen in its history to date. Once again, with a list including fiction - from debut novelists to well established literary faces - non-fiction and poetry, the Green Carnation proves itself as one of the most diverse prizes. ? Blood Relatives ? Stevan Alcock (4th Estate) ? Deep Lane ? Mark Doty (Jonathan Cape) ? Sophie and the Sibyl ? Patricia Duncker (Bloomsbury) ? Artwash: Big Oil and the Arts ? Mel Evans (Pluto Press) ? A Place Called Winter ? Patrick Gale (Tinder Press) ? Chasing the Scream ? Johann Hari (Bloomsbury Circus) ? A Brief History of Seven Killings ? Marlon James (OneWorld) ? The Gracekeepers ? Kirsty Logan (Harvill Secker) ? Mrs Engels ? Gavin McCrea (Scribe) ? Stammered Songbook ? Erwin Mortier (Pushkin Press) ? Don?t Let Him Know ? Sandip Roy (Bloomsbury) ? The Curator ? Jacques Strauss (Jonathan Cape) Chair of the judges for 2015, author Niven Govinden said of the longlist ?After a long summer of reading and discussion, I'm delighted that we have produced an incredibly strong longlist, chosen from a substantial and eclectic range of submissions. The twelve books selected - all markers of excellence - will hopefully challenge and resonate with readers, and be loved too." Simon Heafield, Marketing Manager for the prize?s partner Foyles said "The Green Carnation Prize has once again produced a longlist of fantastic quality and dazzling variety. I?m sure any of our customers could find a book to fall in love with on this list; we?re delighted to continue our partnership with the Prize, and to have the opportunity to highlight these remarkable books.? The Green Carnation Prize is a prize awarded to LGBT writers for any form of the written word, in any genre, as well as novels in translation. The shortlist for the prize will be announced on Thursday the 5th of November. For more information please visit: www.greencarnationprize.com or www.foyles.co.uk

The fourth DI Helen Grace thriller, LIAR LIAR, by bestselling author M.J. Arlidge has gone straight into the Sunday Times Bestseller List. All three previous books in the series were ST bestsellers and the novels have now sold over 450,000 copies. In the dead of night, three raging fires light up the city skies. It's more than a tragic coincidence. For DI Helen Grace the flames announce the arrival of an evil she has never encountered before. Because this is no firestarter seeking sick thrills, but something more chilling: a series of careful, calculating acts of murder. But why were the victims chosen? What's driving the killer? And who will be next? A powder keg of fear, suspicion and dread has been laid. Now all it needs is a spark to set it off . . .

Alex Bellos, author of bestselling popular maths books, today releases a maths colouring book, Snowflake, Seashell, Star: Colouring Adventures in Numberland. Snowflake, Seashell, Star combines aesthetic and conceptual beauty to convey simple, but deep, mathematical ideas. It uses intricate patterns and illustrations to invite the reader into a calming and illuminating experience, and to communicate the visual and abstract wonder of mathematics through 80 wonderful images to colour. "Alex Bellos' and Edmund Harriss' mathematical colouring book is great. It puts the beauty of maths, famous but elusive, at the tip of anyone's pen. And you're not condemned to admire that beauty from a distance. With lines and numbers there to help, you can actually "create" it, even if you're not a gifted artist or mathematician." - Plus Magazine, an online maths magazine that is widely used by schools. https://plus.maths.org/content/snowflake-seashell-star Alex?s book, Alex Through the Looking Glass: How Life Reflects Numbers and Numbers Reflect Life, is shortlisted for The Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books 2015. This is the only major international prize that celebrates science writing for a non-specialist audience. We wish him luck for tonight?s announcement of the winner!

Many congratulations to Sunjeev Sahota, whose novel THE YEAR OF THE RUNAWAYS is one of six books shortlisted for this year?s Man Booker Prize. The novel tells the story of three Indian immigrants living in a house in Sheffield, and the devout, extraordinary woman on the other side of the city who will change at least one of their lives. Writing in the Guardian, Kamila Shamsie described it as ?a brilliant and beautiful novel? and Cressida Connolly in The Spectator said ?Novels of such scope and invention are all too rare; unusual, too, are those of real heart, whose characters you grow to love and truly care for. The Year of the Runaways has it all? I doubt if I?ll read a better novel this year." Our congratulations, too, to Anna Smaill, who was longlisted for her debut novel THE CHIMES.

Kevin Fong, a flying doctor and expert in space medicine, will use the Royal Institution Christmas lectures to explore how an immense controlled explosion propels astronauts into a beautiful and hostile environment where a single mistake can mean death in seconds. The lecture series, How to Survive in Space, will hopefully include a live two-way video chat with Tim Peake, Britain?s first European Space Agency astronaut, who is set to arrive at the International Space Station for the start of his mission, Principia, days before the lectures begin. The Royal Institution runs an online ballot for tickets to watch the lectures being filmed. The ballot is open to RI members and UK registered schools and will run from 3 to 24 September. More info can be found here: http://www.rigb.org/christmas-lectures

Adrian Scarborough reads Michael Peppiatt's intimate and indiscreet account of his thirty-year friendship with the defining artist of our time. Michael Peppiatt met Francis Bacon in June 1963 in Soho's French House to request an interview for a student magazine. Bacon invited him to lunch, and over oysters and Chablis they began a friendship and a no-holds-barred conversation that would continue until Bacon's death in 1992. The Soho photographer, John Deakin, who introduced the young student to the famous artist, called Peppiatt 'Bacon's Boswell'. And for decades, Peppiatt accompanied Bacon on his nightly round of prodigious drinking from grand hotel to louche club to casino, witnessing all aspects of Bacon's 'gilded gutter life', as well as meeting the likes of Lucian Freud, East End thugs, Andy Warhol and the Duke of Devonshire. He also frequently discussed painting with Bacon in his studio, where only the artist's closest friends were ever admitted. Despite the chaos Bacon created around him Peppiatt managed to record scores of their conversations ranging over every aspect of life and art, love and death. And here he shows Bacon close-up, grand and petty, tender and treacherous by turn, and often quite unlike the myth that has grown up around him.