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WAG-WANNABES, MAKE WAY FOR A WAG DON’T-WANNA-BE
While thousands of women in Britain dream of being married to a footballer, we publish the woman who doesn’t!
Our author Francesca Amber Sawyer has written a WAG book with a difference. An Essex blonde from Canvey Island, she has had two long-term relationships with Premiership footballers, she’s "done" Richard and Judy and been profiled in The Sun.
"The fairytale ending isn’t marrying a footballer," says Sawyer, "That would be hell. The best thing is to use them to your advantage."
Her book WAG DON’T WANNA BE – The Smart Girl’s Guide to Footballers, is part memoir, part WAG manual, buzzy, bitchy and laugh-out-loud funny. It teaches girls that "a footballer is for Christmas, not for life." It shows how to meet and pull a mega rich footballer in trendy nightclubs whilst wearing a Primark top to have a fantastic time, while avoiding the dark and hurtful side of the footballer’s world.
A number of tabloids and magazines have already commissioned photo shoots and pieces on the book - you have been warned.
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UK’S FUNNIEST FOOTIE FAN, OUR AUTHOR – IN TEARS!
Congratulations to tattooed Pompey Superfan, John Westwood, known nationally as ‘That **** with the bell’, and the author of our popular True Pompey Fan’s Miscellany, on his beloved team’s victory in the FA Cup.
"I never thought I’d see it in my lifetime, Pompey winning the FA Cup. The big four have been dominating the competition for years, which is very boring, and you come to expect your team not to beat them. But now, we’ve won, and we finished eight in the Premiership. It’s been an unbelieveable season, fantastic.
"The whole weekend was surreal. I was in tears when I heard the Abide With Me, because I knew we were in the Cup Final. It meant more to Pompey Fans because it wasn’t consolation prize like, it would be for the big four. It was a major, massive achievement." But the anthem was not the only surreal touch – on a body crammed with tattoos, Westwood had new designs.
"Within 24 hours I had a new tattoo done. I already had one scroll that read "FA Cup Final Winner 1939" and I had another empty scroll that I now filled with Winners for 2008. And I’ve also had a couple more empty scrolls put in, because winning’s made me cocky!
"We’re in Europe now! We’re an ambitious club and we’ve got a fantastic manager in Harry Rednapp and a chairman Sasha Gaydamac who’s prepared to put in the financial muscle. And with the prospects of a new ground and new training facilities the progress we’re making is blowing me away.
Tattooing is not the only artistry that John has resumed: having published one successful book with us – "a lot of people came up and said it was a fun read, and they learnt a lot from it" – he is now working on another Portsmouth volume called The Twelfth Man – for updates, watch his empty scrolls.
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TOP SOCCER AGENT AND LAWYER TELLS THE GAME’S BEST KEPT SECRETS FOR PENNANT BOOKS
MEL STEIN is the most prominent lawyer and agent in the beautiful game, with 70 players on his books. He also wrote the official biographies of his clients Paul Gascoigne and Chris Waddle and a "How To" Guide to becoming a sports agent. Now, for Pennant Books, he has woven football’s best secrets into a new fiction.
Football Babylon is an insider’s journey through a fictional premiership club’s first season. Every event described has, at some time, actually taken place within an English football club. Only the names have been changed … to protect the guilty! Chairmen, managers, players, agents, officials, journalists, television pundits, marketing and public relations – even the medical staff and the groundsmen – all their deepest secrets are seen through the jaundiced eye of the narrator, the Club Secretary.
Football Babylon will bear the hallmark of absolute authenticity, since Mel Stein has observed the hidden world of our national sport close-up. To learn how and why he has woven football’s best kept secrets into his fictional debut, look for upcoming interviews in the sport and literary press.
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POWERHOUSE CRIME WRITER CAROL ANNE DAVIS JOINS PENNANT BOOKS FOR HER LATEST TRUE CRIME TITLE
Pennant Books is honoured to sign Queen of Noir CAROL ANNE DAVIS. Davis excels at both true crime and crime fiction (and is also a prolific feature writer and reviewer for Tangled Web, Crimetime and In Cold Blog). Many of her insights draw on her own crowded life experience - "Davis understands primal fears from the inside," comments The Bookseller. She left school at 15 and was everything from an artist’s model to an editorial assistant before taking an MA in criminology – Davis has won herself many prominent admirers such as best selling author Ian Rankin.
"Carol Anne Davis writes with dangerous authority, about the deadly everyday. Her work is dark in ways that Ruth Rendell and Minette Walters can only dream of. This is our world, skewed and skewered, revealed in its true sanguinary colours. You’ve got to read her," urges Rankin.
Her crime fiction includes Kiss It Away, Safe as Houses and the recent highly acclaimed Noise Abatement. Her True Crime classics are Sadistic Killers, Couples Who Kill, Children Who Kill and Women Who Kill.
To the Pennant True Crime List she contributes Youthful Prey, turning her incisive eye on society’s most extreme transgressors: those who kill children for gratification. Carol Anne Davis’ previous work on women, children, couples and sadists who commit murder has contributed greatly to the world’s understanding of ‘motiveless’ acts. This latest work takes that journey even further.
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DISCUSSION AND Q&A TALK WITH CASS PENNANT
Monday 17th November at Leeds University Criminal Justice Society, Leeds LS2 9JT. Students only.
Friday 28th November at the Criminology School of Social sciences and Law, University of Teeside, Middlesbrough, Tees Valley TS1 3BA. |
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WHO'S WHO OF BOXING WILL ATTEND THE LAUNCH OF TEDDY BALDOCK: The Pride of Poplar, by Brian Belton
Every year, Pennant Books publishes a very special boxing biography that captures the hearts and minds of the worldwide boxing fraternity. The autobiography of Big Joe Egan was promoted by his sparring partner Mike Tyson and prompted a turnout of simply thousands at our Canary Wharf book event. Former World Champion Charlie Magri’s autobiography last year was marked by a launch with all of Britain’s great champions present.
This year on 3rd December a major book launch will be held at the Anon Club, Piccadilly W1 for our biography of Teddy Baldock. The Lonsdale International Sporting Club, the Boxers’ Benevolent fund and the Ex-Boxers Association will support the launch.
As with their last event for Billy Walker the Blonde Bomber published by Robson Books, there will be celebrity attendance from the Who's Who of British Boxing, with such names as Henry Cooper, Frank Bruno, Charlie Magri, John Conteh, Alan Minter, Kevin Mitchell, John H. Stacey, Dave ’Boy’ Green and Terry Spinks all being approached to attend and the full names list will be confirmed here nearer the launch. Duke Mackenzie, champion at 3 different weights has written the book's foreword and is also expectedt to be there. |
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LAUNCH PARTY FOR “THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE”
A launch will be held for our new book THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE, by Humfrey Hunter and Giles Vickers Jones, at The Embassy Club, Old Burlington Street in Piccadilly on Wednesday 22nd October. The big bash kicks off at 6:30 and runs till late.
So many interesting, courageous and well-known personalities have contributed to the book their memories of their particular best days ever. The book has struck an extraordinary chord with the public, with stories by the likes of one James Corden (Gavin and Stacey) being excerpted in a wide variety of publications from the Daily Mail through to Cosmopolitan.
This will be a chance for all these contributors to have a drink and meet one another, and the Pennant Books team – thus making it another very special day. The launch event is all being covered by several television stations, newspapers and magazines.
Also attending the event are representatives of the Sporting Chance Foundation, the charity founded by England Rugby star Phil Greening to benefit third world children living in dire poverty. Proceeds from the book go to the Sporting Chance Foundation. |
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BIG JOE’S BOOK SIGNING AT WATERSTONE'S HUDDERSFIELD
On the afternoon of 10 October 2008, Pennant author and former heavyweight Big Joe Egan signed copies of his autobiography by the same name at Waterstones Huddersfield.
The Huddersfield Examiner’s Andrew Hirsch described him as "a hardman in a literary mood". Mike Tyson, his former sparring partner, described him after a particularly rough bout as "the toughest white man on the planet" – which is also the sub-title of Egan’s book.
Egan is used to being all things to all people: boxer, landlord, businessman, now a actor he has already taken film parts in CASS, Joss Stone's SNAPPER'S and currently plays a heavy in the forthcoming Guy Ritchie film, SHERLOCK HOLMES. He does a great deal of charity work within Birmingham’s Irish communities. |
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THE SOHEMIAN SOCIETY PRESENTS
Wednesday September 24, 7.30pm
BILLY HILL: GODFATHER OF LONDON
A talk by Wensley Clarkson (author of the new biography of Billy Hill)
The Wheatsheaf, 25 Rathbone Place, North Soho (off Oxford Street, nearest tube: Tottenham Court Road).
Entrance fee: £3
Billy Hill was Britain’s first celebrity gangster. Born in London’s King’s Cross, Hill was a charming character with a deadly edge who elevated himself to the very top of the pantheon of organised crime. By the early 1950’s he had control of the city’s gambling rackets and masterminded a heist that set the template for the Great Train Robbery. An ally turned enemy of Jewish gangster Jack ‘Spot’ Comer, Hill ended Spot’s criminal career with a razor attack by his infamous henchman, Mad Frankie Fraser. In the 1950’s, Hill was holding court (and seducing female aristocrats) at the Soho address that now houses the Groucho Club.
Copies of Wensley Clarkson's biography of Billy Hill will be available for sale on the evening. |
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FOOTBALL BABYLON AT FULHAM FC’S FILM FESTIVAL
On 20th September 2008 our author Mel Stein gave a talk on his new book FOOTBALL BABYLON at Fulham Football Club’s Kicking and Screening film festival.
The newly inaugurated Festival was founded “to celebrate the beauty, excitement, passion, and vivacity of football as captured and expressed on film.” Stein was one of a number of sports writers, filmmakers or players chosen to talk about the true stories behind the reel and the pitch.
As such he was a perfect choice: the former manager of Gazza and Waddle has written a sharp satire set behind the scenes at a Premiership club. |
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