Contraltos, mezzos, and the circus comes to town

   A little 'cold collation' for the end of the week, and I'll preface this with apologies to contraltos everywhere! -   

    Anyone who is reading Rebecca West's The Fountain Overflows (our book group book for February) may have noticed the passage quite early on where the family discuss the whimsical notion of 'homes for bad musicians':

" 'Homes for bad musicians, what a terrible idea,' said Mamma. 'The home for bad contraltos would be the worst. People would be afraid to go near it at night, the sounds coming from it would be so terrible, particularly when the moon was full.' "

    If I hadn't known the source I'd have sworn that that came from an Alexander McCall Smith novel - don't you think it's just his style and sense of humour?

                                            ~~~~~

    That gives me an excuse to veer away from books and on to music directly for a moment and mention a recent album, David Dubery: Songs & Chamber Music, which features a very old friend of mine, the mezzo soprano Adrienne Murray. I haven't heard it all yet but the excerpts I've listened to do show what a lovely voice Adrienne has, and the collection has literary links such as settings of poems by Robert Graves and a waltz entitled "Mrs. Harris in Paris" (see Paul Gallico's books, post on the first one here).

                                            ~~~~~

    Just announced, some exciting news from Bloomsbury - they have launched Bloomsbury Circus, a new imprint to publish "mostly fiction, unashamedly literary, always fresh and sometimes surprising". Featuring both established and debut authors, this year will see the launch of nine titles, with up to four new releases a month from next year.

    As to the look of the books, Alexandra Pringle, editor-in-chief, says, "Bloomsbury Circus books will be published as unusually-sized trade paperbacks with photographic covers, wide flaps and colour printing inside the cover. They will have all the beauty of a hardback with the ease-of-read – and price – of a trade paperback. And there is a lovely new logo – our goddess Diana dangling on a half-moon trapeze".

    Click on the link above to see this year's books - the one I'm particularly looking forward to is Rook by Jane Rusbridge (whose first novel, The Devil's Music, impressed me very much - post here). Set in Sussex, this is "a mesmerising story of family, legacy and turning back the tides".

    So, "much to entertain, amaze and enjoy" - roll up, roll up!

Comments

[Dark Puss]

Karen, since you are now closely involved with the world of publishing (in fiction anyway), can you explain why the normal "Bloomsbury" imprint (or indeed anyone elses) needs to be extended in the way you describe above? In the "good old days" (I know well that they were not of course), major publishers just published "books". Some were new authors, some were old, some books were fiction, some were not - Penguin springs to my mind here. What is the motivation for this desire for fragmentation? If I wouldn't buy a book under the Bloomsbury" banner, why would I buy it under the "Bloomsbury Circus" one?

Your curious cat.

[Cornflower]

I'm not an expert but as I understand it the reasons for a publisher to set up an imprint would include venturing into a new area - children's books, say, if they didn't already publish them, or popular fiction if they had previously offered only literary - or more easily 'branding' a given type of their book so that both booksellers and readers would be better able to identify certain 'classes' of work.
For example, Penguin have the P. Classics imprint, and they used to have the Pelican imprint under which they brought out educational works; there's also Puffin Books from that stable. Of course they have been around for a while, but those names alone tell you the reader a lot about what to expect from inside the covers.
Likewise, Orion have recently set up an imprint called Indigo as part of their children's publishing division and its books are for young adults or have subject matter that makes them less suitable for younger readers. Again, these distinctions, once people are aware of them, allow for more informed choice.
Bloomsbury have said that B. Circus will publish 'unashamedly literary' fiction, and some of their list will be 'surprising'. Having this imprint not only allows them to group like with like so that readers will get a strong feel for the type of book which bears this new name, but in addition it allows growth with focus as they can publish more books per month targeted towards a distinct readership rather than one big amorphous one.

[Mr Cornflower]

Everything is relative, even suffering. I'll take bad contraltos over bad counter tenors any day.