Cover Stories: Barbara Castle, Amy Jenkins, Erica Jong
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Your support makes all the difference.¿ The late Barbara Castle's public diaries and memoirs were enlivened by passages about her hair and clothes (Harold Wilson, she recorded, complimented her in cabinet on "my new kaftan") so it's safe to assume that her letters and private diaries, to which official biographer Anne Perkins has access, will be equally lively. The lobby correspondent and feature writer knew Castle well and has been working on the authorised biography for some time. The Red Queen, which Macmillan will publish next May, the first anniversary of her death, will also draw on Cabinet papers and on 60 years of radical journalism.
¿ It's a few years since we last heard from Erica Jong, author of Fear of Flying. She will shortly be back and with Sappho's Leap, "an exceptional novel" according to her American publisher. It's narrated by Sappho herself, who speaks frankly of her affairs on Lesbos. No word yet on a British publisher, though Jong's last few titles have been with Bloomsbury.
¿ Much ado at the Samuel Johnson Prize (deservedly won by Margaret MacMillan with Peacemakers) when the judges let all their disagreements hang out in a live TV discussion. It was only BBC4; but the happy few still saw Bonnie Greer deliver a bilious attack on one of her own shortlist – William Fiennes's The Snow Geese. What happened to collective responsibility? Afterwards, chairman of the judges, David Dimbleby, went over to commiserate with Brendan Simms, shortlisted for his book on Bosnia. Except that Mr D seized instead on Alain de Botton, not (yet) known as a Balkan expert. All those Golden Jubilee duties must have taken their toll.
¿ Well, here's a surprise: Amy Jenkins has confounded sceptics by completing the second book in a two-book contract that began expensively with Honey Moon, which publishers Hodder & Stoughton claim was the second-bestselling debut in 2001 after Zadie Smith's White Teeth. Funny Valentine, to be published in September, is all about the nature of fame. Well, It would be, wouldn't it?
¿ It's going to be a big autumn for Elizabeth Taylor. Not only will she publish a new book, My Love Affair with Jewelry, with Thames & Hudson. She will also re-publish Nibbles and Me, the book she wrote, aged 13, about her pet squirrel. Next thing you know, she'll be starring in a remake of Lassie Come Home.
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