Founded | 1973 |
---|---|
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Headquarters location | Edinburgh, Scotland |
Distribution | The Book Service (UK) Grove Atlantic (US) |
Key people | Jamie Byng, Publisher and Managing Director |
Publication types | Books |
Imprints | Severn House Publishers |
Official website | canongate |
Canongate Books (trading as Canongate) is an independent publishing firm based in Edinburgh, Scotland. [1]
It is named after the Canongate area of the city. It is most recognised for publishing the Booker Prize winning novel Life of Pi (2001). Canongate was named the British Book Awards Publisher of the Year in 2003 and 2009. [2] [3]
Canongate was founded in 1973 by Stephanie Wolfe Murray and her husband Angus Wolfe Murray. [4] Originally a speciality press focusing on Scottish-interest books, generally with small print runs, its most major author was Alasdair Gray. In 1994 it was purchased from the receiver in a management buyout led by Jamie Byng, using funds provided by his stepfather Christopher Bland and his father-in-law Charlie McVeigh, and began to publish more general works, including the Pocket Canons editions of books of the Bible, as well as the Payback Press and Rebel Inc. imprints. [5] [6] Byng is CEO of the company.
In June 2010 it was announced that a "living archive" of Canongate Books was to be established at the University of Dundee in collaboration with the University's Archive Services, which will be used for teaching and research. [7] [8]
Canongate once had a sister company in Australia, Text Publishing; Canongate's majority interest was sold in 2011. [9] It also has joint venture operations with the children's publisher Walker who will publish selected titles for their young adult fiction list. [10] Grove/Atlantic, Inc. publishes under the Canongate U.S. imprint, also under a joint venture arrangement. [11] In March 2010, Canongate and Dirtee Stank announced a joint venture agreement to publish Dizzee Rascal's memoir, although this agreement later fell through. [12]
Canongate is part of the Independent Alliance, a global alliance of 10 UK publishers and their international publishing partners. [13] In 2009, the Alliance was the UK's fifth largest publisher. [14]
Enhanced Editions and Canongate also work in partnership in the production of selected books enhanced for the iPhone and iPod Touch. [15] The titles that have been released are: Dreams From My Father , The Audacity of Hope , The Death of Bunny Munro and The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ .
Noel Fielding (with Mighty Boosh member Dave Brown)
In which contemporary authors re-imagine ancient myths from a variety of cultures
The Mighty Boosh is a British comedy troupe featuring comedians Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding. Developed from three stage shows, The Mighty Boosh, Arctic Boosh (1999) and Autoboosh (2000) as well as a six-episode radio series, it has since spanned a total of 20 television episodes for BBC Three which aired from 2004 to 2007, and two live tours of the UK, as well as two live shows in the United States. The first television series is set in a zoo operated by Bob Fossil, the second in a flat and the third in a secondhand shop in Dalston called Nabootique.
Life of Pi is a Canadian philosophical novel by Yann Martel published in 2001. The protagonist is Piscine Molitor "Pi" Patel, an Indian boy from Pondicherry, India, who explores issues of spirituality and metaphysics from an early age. After a shipwreck, he survives 227 days while stranded on a lifeboat in the Pacific Ocean with a Bengal tiger, raising questions about the nature of reality and how it is perceived and told.
Lady Georgia Mary Caroline Byng is a British children's writer, educator, illustrator, actress and film producer. Since 1995, she has published thirteen children's books, and co-written and co-produced one film. Byng has won the Stockton Children's Book Award, the Sheffield Children's Book Award, the Massachusetts Children's Book Award, the Salford Children's Book Award and the Best Kid's Film at the Peace And Love Festival, Sweden. Most of Byng's books are magical realism adventures, with protagonists who overcome self-doubt and become self-empowered. The themes are often bullying and its darkness, kindness and its light, friendship and its warmth, and the power of the mind.
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Boy in da Corner is the debut studio album by English rapper and producer Dizzee Rascal. It was first released on 21 July 2003 by XL Recordings in the United Kingdom before being released the following year in the United States.
Sir Francis Christopher Buchan Bland was a British businessman and politician. He was deputy chairman of the Independent Television Authority (1972), which was renamed the Independent Broadcasting Authority in the same year, and chairman of London Weekend Television (1984) and of the Board of Governors of the BBC, when he took up a position as chairman of British Telecommunications plc (BT). He left his position with BT in September 2007. Before leaving BT, he became chairman of the Royal Shakespeare Company, in 2004.
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Tomislav Torjanac is a Croatian illustrator, who works mostly in oil paints combined with a digital medium. His creative process is very physical in the paint handling and is characterized by rich impastos.
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James Edmund Byng is a British publisher. He works for the independent publishing firm Canongate Books, where he is the CEO and publisher.
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