Karolina Sutton
@karolinasutton
Literary agent, submissions UKBookSubmissions@caa.com - here to highlight our books and authors
Sobering and important. (Via my wonderful colleague @john-ash.bsky.social) @j-amesmarriott.bsky.social
This George Saunders quote is how I feel about Jill Lepore and The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State. Out today!
Three best friends, endless golden summers, the August they never talk about. An unforgettable debut novel - out next year (Chatto & Windus)
Two remarkable books: London Falling by Patrick Radden-Keefe (18 weeks in the top three, back at number 1) and The Names by Florence Knapp (20 weeks in the top ten in paperback and back at number 2). Would not hesitate to recommend them to anyone.
Congratulations to Jill Lepore, whose outstanding book The Artificial States has been nominated for the FT Business Book of the Year. She is a genius and I don’t know anyone who has her range.
‘The whole of London felt like a tinderbox. (…) it was so hot you could smell the pavements, and the breeze was like being pummelled by a car exhaust’ The perfect ‘hot weather’ novel and ‘a tender exploration of intimacy’, says The Sunday Times. It also says ‘exhilarating’, ‘ambitious’ and much more
Dua Lipa’s book club is superb. She is one of the best literary interviewers out there. For anyone unfamiliar with Service95, link below. Here at Service95’s launch of The Manifesto Library: 100 books people tried to ban or censor. Worth visiting. (With Maria Padget 💙) www.service95.com/book-club
Two literary giants Margaret Atwood and Olga Tokarczuk at Babell Literary Festival, organised by one of the world’s most beautiful bookshops, Livraria Lallo in Porto.
Ten weeks at number 1 - LONDON FALLING by Patrick Radden-Keefe
The Times review of Rosa Rankin Gee’s MY ONLY BOY - ‘ambitious (…) exhilarating (…) it remains invested in the possibility that love can still surprise us into becoming different versions of ourselves.’ A rave! www.thetimes.com/article/83e9...
So how polluted are you, river Wye, and does the heat make me find out?
Siri Hustvedt at Hay-on-Wye. She calls books ‘the technology of ghosts’-how the dead communicate with us. Her memoir Ghost Stories is a dialogue between her & Paul Auster, also a love story captured in beautiful, clear prose: ‘The hours skip ahead but minutes often move slowly… I sleep by pill.’
‘Energy that might once have gone into adaptation, rebuilding or risk taking is redirected into prosecuting a case’ exceptional Substack from Philippa Perry on victimhood, blame and responsibility’ open.substack.com/pub/philippa...
Could not have hoped for a more beautiful evening on the river for the launch of Rosa Rankin Gee’s glorious MY ONLY BOY: two unlikely lovers, a heatwave and encroaching and broken politics.
‘My anchovies are still sad,’ brilliant and inimitable Jill Lepore in The New Yorker on the origins of LLMs, including some early machine poetry - The Prehistory of A.I. Slop www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
‘No better guide to the new economic order’ Tim Harford, ‘Amazing. A breezy romp, without dumbing down’ Paul Krugman I say: I did not understand any of it until I read it. We may not want to be trade warriors, but the old rules-based system is not coming back. @soumayakeynes.ft.com @chadpbown.com
Sweeping, scary, timely, thought-provoking, sincere, sexy and sizzling with writerly energy - beautifully written. My Only Boy by Rosa Rankin-Gee
A great Nibbies evening celebrating The Names with Florence’s editor, the best of the best, Francesca Main. @francescamain.bsky.social
And the winner in the Debut Fiction category at the British Book Awards is THE NAMES by @florenceknapp.bsky.social - CONGRATULATIONS, Florence! 🍾
Good luck at the British Book Awards! @florenceknapp.bsky.social - you have written an absolute gem of a book. Honoured to represent it.
Daunted! One week, two extraordianry launches in London’s star bookshop. @dauntbooks.bsky.social
‘A masterclass in writing about grief… Hustvedt is an intelligent, elegant yet uninhibited writer… an intensely touching book’ The Times
Congratulations to the extraordinary Jill Lepore on her much deserved Pulitzer for WE THE PEOPLE @pulitzerprizes.bsky.social
‘A superb introduction to art history and image analysis’ - the Guardian on Katy Hessel’s The Story of Art Without Men, illustrated by Ping Zhu
And here is @patrickbarkham.bsky.social running for the Wildlife Trust in a badger costume. 💚