Highly acclaimed literary critics and journalists John Sutherland and John Crace will be in Warwick on Monday 4th October at 7.30pm for a very special event discussing their two new books, as part of the Warwick Words festival.

John Sutherland’s book, co-written with Stephen Fender, is published next month by Icon and called Love, Sex, Death and Words: Surprising Tales from a Year in Literature. It collects stories from literary history for every day of the day and is treasure-trove for any bibliophile.

See much more on the event and how to get tickets here.

Also at Warwick Words, on 3rd November, will be Ben Crystal, talking about his book Shakespeare on Toast – more about that event here.

The Londonist has a competition to win 5 pairs of tickets to the aforementioned Independent Alliance weekend at Foyles – find out more here.

Starting a week tomorrow on Saturday 11th September, the Independent Alliance weekend at Foyles brings together authors from across the best of British independent publishing for a series of very special events.

Three of the events involving Icon authors, all on Sunday 12th, are:

12.30pm – 1.15pm: History Girls

Helen Castor and Lucy Worsley (Faber), Lisa Hilton(Atlantic), Kitty Ferguson (Icon), Rachel Hewitt(Granta)

We wouldn’t dream of naming names, but there seem to be a lot of men writing about history these days. Just to balance the scales (and then some), we bring you the history girls.

1.45-2.30: Me, Me, Me

Rupert Thomson (Granta), Jean Baggott (Icon) andJenny Diski (Profile)

Flannery O’Connor once said that anyone who survived childhood has enough material to write about for the rest of their days. But surely it isn’t all fodder for memoir? Our panellists look at what of our lives can be transferred to the page and what, if anything, is best left unwritten.

4.45 – 5.30: How to Write Non-fiction

Geoff Dyer (Canongate), Andrea Gillies (Short), Colin Evans (Icon), and Joe Moran (Profile)

Whether it’s a historic locale or a mother without memory, a truly gruesome crime or the banalities of daily existence, these authors have chronicled real life in unbelievable ways.

Tickets for parts of or the whole weekend range from £12 – £25 and there’s just a few left, so get yours now!

The New Scientist reviews Cordelia Fine’s Delusions of Gender, just published by Icon, and says:

‘Fine is fun, droll yet deeply serious. Setting a cracking pace, Delusions tackles the power of implicit association (those unconscious associations we make about men and women) and of negative stereotyping, plus the empathising/systematising theory proposed by psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen, and the messy world of brain scans and genetic research. Her conclusion: we are in thrall to “neurosexism”.’

The full review is here and Cordelia, pictured left, will be on Radio 4′s Woman’s Hour this morning talking about the book, too – do tune in!

Finally, here are two further pieces about the book that have just appeared in the US on the American edition – on Jezebel.com and in Newsweek.

As mentioned in the previous post, we publish a new edition of Dylan Evans’ and Oscar Zarate’s Introducing Evolutionary Psychology today.

As you can see below, this book was one of three Keanu Reeves was required to read before shooting began on the original Matrix film – as you can see below. So now you know…

Icon, Wizard and Corinthian between them publish twelve books today.

They are:

Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine, a vehement attack on the latest pseudo-scientific claims about the differences between the sexes.

Jilted Generation by Ed Howker and Shiv Malik, in which the authors argue that, in stark contrast to their parents’ generation, millions of young Britons today face the most uncertain future since the early 1930s.

The Ryder Cup: A History by Peter Pugh and Henry Lord, an authoritative up-to-date chronicle of one of the most dramatic sporting occasions in the world, which begins this year in Wales on 1st October.

The paperback edition of Darren Moore’s The Soldier, a powerful world history of the fighting man described by Max Arthur as ‘a powerful book, [which] should be read anyone contemplating taking the queen’s shilling’.

Six Introducing titles in the very-much-loved newish compact format: Aesthetics, Aristotle, Consciousness, Evolutionary Psychology, Semiotics and The Enlightenment. See more about the series on it’s website.

And finally two reissued titles in Wizard Books’ – our children’s imprint -Fighting Fantasy series, Trial of Champions and Howl of the Werewolf. Fighting Fantasy is the original, much-imitated but never bettered interactive gamebook series by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, of which much more here.

Something for everyone, eh?

A Carpet Ride to Khiva by Christopher Aslan Alexander is reviewed on the Lonely Planet website. The book is a hauntingly, beautifully written tale of the author’s journey to, and life in, the desert oasis of Khiva in Uzbekistan.

The review ends by saying:

‘It was a joy being transported back to Central Asia, with its dust and decay and rounds of flat bread, its corrupt officials and wonderful hospitality, the piles of plov and greasy lamb mantis, its pomegranates and paranoid border crossings all washed down with gallons of tea and lashings of vodka.’

See more about the book here.

Robert Colvile writes a big piece in the Telegraph today around Ed Howker and Shiv Malik’s Jilted Generation, published by Icon tomorrow.

‘Tomorrow, a provocative new book by Ed Howker and Shiv Malik, called Jilted Generation, takes things further. The two 29-year-olds show how those born after Margaret Thatcher’s arrival in Downing Street – a category into which I, too, squeeze – have things unutterably worse than their parents.’

Keep up with the latest on the book on it’s own Facebook page.