We’re excited to announce that today is the official publication day for Japan’s WWII Legacy: Interview with Japanese Veterans by Hiroko Sherwin.

Japan’s WW2 Legacy by Hiroko Sherwin explores first-hand, previously untold stories from veterans of World War II and is an exploration of Japan’s wartime experience and its aftermath told through the testimony of war veterans and people whose lives were shaped by the war.

Hiroko Sherwin was eight when Japan finally surrendered shortly after the dropping of the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki. She herself narrowly avoided death when her town was bombarded by American B-29 bombers in the course of Japan’s epic fifteen-year wars, resulting in her country’s devastation.

Much, much later she returned to her homeland to interview an assortment of survivors, to hear their memories of the conflicts and the aftermath. All are harrowing and often painful. More importantly, perhaps, she faces the legacy of post-war Japan’s carefully staged recreation of its militaristic past, the consequences of recovery and the possibility of present generation Japanese politicians keen to play a more aggressive role in the modern world.

John Gray says  of the book “For anyone concerned with the nature and future of human conflict, this gripping and challenging book will be essential reading.”

Hiroko Sherwin was born in Nagoya, Japan and was evacuated to the countryside when the city was bombed. She later moved to Princeton, New Jersey where her three daughters were born. She served as a special correspondent for the Japanese newspaper New York Yomuiri and has written ten books in Japanese and a novel in English. She lives near Bath, England, with her husband.

You can buy Japan’s WWII Legacy on our website here.

Here at Quartet Books we’re very excited about the publishing year ahead and have some treats in store for you. From memoirs, fiction, our first children’s book in a while and a collection of interviews for Japanese WW2 Veterans, here’s what Quartet are publishing over the next few months.

February – Released 25 February 2016

Japan’s World War II Legacy – Hiroko Sherwin 

Japan’s wartime experience and its aftermath told through the testimony of war veterans and people whose lives were shaped by the war. 

Hiroko Sherwin was eight when Japan finally surrendered shortly after the dropping of the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki. She returns to her homeland to interview an assortment of survivors, to hear their memories of the conflicts and the aftermath. All are harrowing and often painful. More importantly, perhaps, she faces the legacy of post-war Japan’s carefully staged recreation of its militaristic past, the consequences of recovery and the possibility of present generation Japanese politicians keen to play a more aggressive role in the modern world.

“It is one thing to reflect on the dark side of history by myself and quite another to translate the soldiers’ words into English and expose an ugly part of my country’s history to the wider world…”

Non-fiction/Hardback/9780704374027/£20

March – Released 10 March 2016

Doctors Dissected – Jane Haynes and Martin Scurr

This is a ‘story’ book about medicine, body, mind, doctors and caprices of human nature.

 Written by an experienced doctor (Martin Scurr), who has seen every untidy vagary of disease, and a psychotherapist (Jane Haynes), who has listened to personal narratives that rival the visceral emotions of King Lear.

In Doctors Dissected Haynes and Scurr steal behind cultural issues into the heartlands of doctors who are drawn to a life in medicine, and conduct an autopsy as to the consequences of choosing a profession in which the practitioner is constantly being faced with lonely decisions that very often are a matter of life and death.

Non-fiction/Paperback/9780704374058/£14.99

Books released in May 2016

From Banking to the Thorny World of Politics – Shaukat Aziz with Anna Mikhailova

An insider’s account from the heart of the war on terror. 

Shaukat Aziz left behind a thirty-year career as a senior Citibank executive to join a military regime in Pakistan, following a coup in 1999. Two years later, 9/11 made Pakistan a vital strategic ally in the War on Terror. This is an insider’s account of what it was like to hold high office in one of the most challenging parts of the world.

Aziz served as prime minister of Pakistan between 2004 and 2007, following five years as Pakistan’s finance minister and thirty years at Citibank. While in office he steered one of the biggest economic turnarounds in recent history, taking Pakistan from the brink of bankruptcy. In 2001 he was named ‘finance minister of the year’ by Euromoney and The Banker magazines.

Anna Mikhailova is an award-winning journalist and interviewer for The Sunday Times. She has also written for Spectator LIFE and appeared as a guest presenter on ITV.

Memoir/Hardback/9780704373990/£20

From the Ganges to the Thames – Sonia Melchett

Sonia tells of her adventurous life, her family and her extensive travels across the globe; from Syria to Burma and beyond.

This record of her personal history follows her dramatic journey from obscurity as a child of Empire to the considerable glamour of her later years. Sonia’s extraordinary life story is told with a wit and charm that has come to be expected from an acclaimed author and a legendary society hostess.

Her eventful marriage took her from living in a control tower in Norfolk to riches and acclaim as a leading hostess. When her husband died in 1973, she lived alone for ten years in a large house in Chelsea. She worked as a Magistrate, and was on the board of the NSPCC, the Royal Court Theatre and the Royal National Theatre.

Memoir/Hardback/9780704374102/£20

Hungry for Love – Lucy Beresford

A scrumptious celebration of survival for anyone who’s longed for love or felt unworthy of it and shows the importance of self-respect.

 Jax is about to cancel her wedding to Jonty. On the day. By text.

Jax is the daughter of Majella, famous British television chef and author of Food of Love, a best-selling cookery book due for re-issue. But if there’s one thing Jax loathes more than her ex-fiancé, it’s cooking. So when her boss orders her to use the week she’d booked off for her honeymoon to attend a cookery course in Majorca, Jax fears her life cannot get any worse.

When tragedy strikes closer to home, Jax is forced to re-assess her relationship with food. As learning to cook inflames her desires, she must decide whether her plan post-Jonty – to starve herself of men – is such a great idea. Maybe there is a recipe for love out there, after all?

Lucy’s previous book, Invisible Threads, was a Waterstones ‘Best Fiction’ pick.

Fiction/Paperback/9780704374096/£12

Books released in June 2016

The Making of an Immigration  – James Hanratty

A truthful and timely look at the most talked about issue of 2016: the European immigration crisis

This is the fascinating and thought-provoking life story of one of the UK’s most experienced judges, a man who knows the country’s courtrooms – and the realities of the immigration crisis – inside out.

Part memoir, part meditation, in this book Hanratty writes with humility and humour, drawing on the extensive experience he picked up in the corridors of power over a lifetime spent in the justice business. His voice is both personable and profound, funny and affecting, bringing a unique and authoritative insight to the ongoing debate that has divided our politicians and troubled the conscience of the country.

Memoir/Hardback/9780704374126 /£TBC

Victor Grayson – David Clark

From religion to politics, Victor Grayson’s life may have been short but it was certainly action-packed.

From a Life Peer, the author is the leading authority on Victor Grayson’s life and disappearance. First published by Quartet Books in 1985, Victor Grayson: The Man and the Mystery has been fully revised, rewritten and updated, with significant additions and new illustrations – the result of the author’s tireless research over the last 30 years.

First published in 1985, this book is being reprinted in a very different format with significant changes and including new illustrations. There is much new work as a result of research over the intervening 30 years.

Non Fiction/Hardback/9780704374089/£20

There will be more so watch this space! You can Quartet Books Spring to Summer Catalogue 2016

You can check out the books from our online shop. Support independent publishing and high quality literature.

Join @LucyBeresford on Twitter at 4pm on Friday 12 February where she’ll be talking to @QuartetBooks about her writing, the joys of relationships, and offering advice on romantic reads for valentines day.  Get involved and ask Lucy a question using #AskLucy

Lucy Beresford is the author of ‘Invisible Threads‘, a unique novel about a death explained, a marriage dissected, and the realities of global sex-trafficking exposed. Her new novel, ‘Hungry for Love’, which is due to be published this summer, is a fun read that explores love, the joys of food, and survival.

Lucy is a writer, broadcaster and psychotherapist. She hosts a weekly 2 hour Sex & Relationships phone-in radio show on LBC, appears on the Sky News Press Preview show each month and blogs for Huffington Post UK Lifestyle. She was shortlisted for ‘Dating Expert of the Year 2015′ by UK Dating Awards.

Lucy’s latest novel, ‘Invisible Threads’, was shortlisted for the Rubery International Book Award. It’s available to buy click here and is available now in bookshops across India.

‘Hungry for Love’ will be published this summer by Quartet Books.

Quartet Books and Charles Glass Books will be celebrating the publication of Low Life by Jeremy Clarke at Notting Hill Bookshop on Thursday 4th February at 6.30pm. Come meet the author, get your book signed, and hear a few words from Jeremy himself.

Taking over from the late Jeffrey Bernard, Jeremy Clarke has been the ‘Low Life’ columnist for the London Spectator – the oldest weekly magazine in the English-speaking world – since 2001. He was diagnosed with cancer in April 2013. ‘A week after I was told, believing that I didn’t have long to live, I went to Butlins. If the two Butlins columns collected here have a peculiar or elegiac tone, that’s why.’

Indeed, the columns in this selection were all written post-diagnosis.

‘Nearly two years later, to the disappointment of my friends, I’m still here. Reaching down inside my trousers to feel my testicles as I write, they are roughly the size of garden peas. The hormone treatment has caused them to wither on the vine. Otherwise I’m cheerful. In fact, I’ve never been happier. True story.’

Thursday 4th February 

6.30pm to 8pm

The Notting Hill Bookshop, 13 Blenheim Crescent, W11 2EE

R.S.V.P. to nici@quartetbooks.co.uk or join the Facebook event here.

Buy your copy of Low Life by Jeremy Clarke here. 

The Magic Buttons is a beautiful tale written by an author who has great creative talent and an intimate knowledge and understanding of a child’s world. She can communicate with them, nourish their minds and feed their imagination with noble ideas. The story of the book is about the International Conference of Wizards and Witches, which has been sabotaged by Izzi Berton, who has stolen all the magic from those attending, causing havoc everywhere. He has also stolen the magic buttons. The hero of the book is a little girl called Pearl. Can Pearl find and bring back the magic buttons and cure her grandfather and many others infected with Blue Fever by Izzi Berton?

Assadour Guzelian reviews Nouneh Sarkissian’s children’s book The Magic Buttons. Get your copy here today.

One of the great joys of the late Brian Sewell’s style of writing was his almost child-like bluntness. He had a three-year-old’s lack of tact when it came to saying what he thought of things, be it art or food or life in general…I’ll be honest: it’s not Sewell’s finest work. It pains me to speak ill of the dead, but there you have it. I’m not going to patronise his memory by saying otherwise. It’s certainly not a fitting coda for a writer of his calibre and intelligence…There are, however, Stefan Marjoram’s wonderful illustrations and technical sketches. By far the best thing about this little tome, they have a wistful, delicate quality to them, ghost-like on the page. Apposite in more ways than one.

The Spectator review Brian Sewell’s The Man Who Built the Best Car in the World. Get your copy here today.

Here are some of the photographs from a fantastic evening celebrating the launch of When Mr Putin Stole My Painting by Joannah Yacoub at Daunt Books, Holland Park.

‘My use of dialogue and my ability to incorporate action into the text improved. Before the course, I was prone to “telling”. Instead, I learned to “show” through speech and action. Judge Hikmet Jildani relates Azmi’s tragedy in The Dream Stealer via dialogue and behaviour. I adopted the style of the oriental coffee shop story-tellers to anchor the story in its location. I couldn’t have done that before.’

Joannah Yacoub gives 10 reasons why her MA inspired her to write the stories of When Mr Putin Stole My Painting. Read the article here and get your copy of the book here today!

‘The late Brian Sewell’s first children’s novel, written when he was 83, is an instant classic’

The Times chooses The White Umbrella by Brian Sewell as one of the best children’s books this Christmas. Get your copy of the book here today!

‘It’s an ambitious, delightful romp and there’s a very good case for making it government issue for everyone of pensionable age’

The Daily Mail reviews Not Far from Dreamland by Val Hennessy and lists it as one of the top comedy books of the year.

Not Far from Dreamland by Val Hennessy is available now. Get it today!

‘It is written with a light touch which brings life to the main subject without demanding in-depth knowledge. Sewell’s successful children’s books suggest it is a fine introduction to Royce, his engineering interests and the circles in which he moved. As a separate issue Stefan Marjoram’s artwork will have met with Sewell’s approval: quality of reproduction is excellent, making it a pleasure in its own right’

Rolls-Royce New Zealand Magazine reviews The Man Who Built the Best Car in the World by Brian Sewell. Get your copy of the book here today!

‘Peppered with interesting, well-researched facts and information on pre-history, as well as entertaining discussions from the meaning of life to fish-related bands – Pike and Tuna Turner – this book will provide an insight into both ancient history and the working of the minds of the modern middle-aged man’

Drink and Drugs News reviews In Search of the Ancients by Andy Stonard. Read the full review here and get your copy of the book here.