Cull and Co. Ltd In the Media

Authors in the Media – May 2024

As Spring is upon us and the season becomes more colourful, agency author Daniel Stables produced a stunning piece in National Geographic about the Phuket Vegetarian Festival. Don’t be deceived by the name – it’s not for the faint-hearted. A 9-day orgy of ritual mutilation, pyrotechnics and meat-free food.

A General Election has been called in the UK, where transparency is one of the buzzword. No better time, then, for Seth Thevoz to write for the Spectator on ‘Why MPs love to hate the register of interests‘. ‘Politicians have long shuddered over a document that provides fertile ground for journalists from which to dig out stories.’ Thevoz says, and cites the seminal journalism of the late Andrew Roth, for exposing such conflicts of interest.

Heading to South America, in the latest issue of National Geogrpahic Travel UK magazine, Shafik Meghji picks out some of his favourite places to stay in Santiago, Chile. Rights to Shafik’s new book, ‘Small Earthquakes’, were recently snapped up by Hurst Publishers.

Ed Peppitt’s uplifting book, The Beacon Bike, was recently published and Ed appeared on BBC Radio 4 twice in the same day. First on Front Row in the morning and then again on Drive in the afternoon. Ed is also on a book tour (not by bike this time!) so catch him in person if you can.

The BBC World Service also interviewed acclaimed music manager Rikki Stein about his memoirs, set to publish in June and now available for pre-order. All About Jazz also described the book as ‘a thrilling page-turner packed with hundreds of stories, vividly told, recounting a life so epic, and one populated by so many extraordinary actors, that a review can only skim across its surface.’

Cull and Co. Ltd Latest Deals

Deal News: BEHIND CLOSED DOORS – THE SECRET LIFE OF LONDON’S PRIVATE MEMBERS’ CLUBS by Seth Thévoz to Little, Brown

Little, Brown imprint Robinson, has acquired World English rights to the story of London’s hidden world of private members’ clubs.

With a keen eye for the juicy anecdote, Thévoz tells the fascinating and entertaining story of the rise, decline and resurgence of London’s Clubland, from the late-eighteenth century to the present day. If we think of these clubs as predominantly white, male and aristocratic, we could not be more wrong. Their true story is infinitely more interesting.

This is a chronicle, as informative as it is entertaining, of the ups and downs of London clubland, and how it had an impact on parts of the world far from London. It is packed with amusing anecdotes and illustrative examples of the growth of this quirky, unique institution, which grew to spread around the world. London, though, with its four hundred clubs, was always at the heart of this distinctively British form of leisure, across more than three centuries.

Thévoz is an investigative journalist specialising in corruption. His work has also appeared in the Observer and he has been a part-time research assistant to Michael Crick. Major stories he has worked on or broken include over-spending scandals around the 2016 EU referendum, the Cambridge Analytica–Facebook scandal, and the 2021 government ethics scandal. In 2020, he was shortlisted for a British Journalism Award for his investigative work with OpenDemocracy. His first book, Club Government, which was shortlisted for the Whitfield Prize, was praised by Ian Hislop as a ‘fascinating forensic study of the period’s networks of power’. He also contributes to Private Eye, allegedly. 

As the librarian at the National Liberal Club, he is a clubland insider. Behind Closed Doors is a distillation of a decade of research and writing on London’s clubs, based on exclusive behind-the-scenes access to archives and proceedings, as well as a love of gossip and scandal. 

Duncan Proudfoot, publishing director of Little, Brown’s Robinson imprint, said: ‘This promises to be a wonderfully entertaining book that will overturn everything we thought we knew about London’s clubs and reveal them for the unexpectedly varied yet still peculiarly British cultural institution that they have remained through over three centuries.’

Seth Thévoz said: ‘I am thrilled to be signing up with Robinson. I’ve had this book in mind for a long time, drawing on over a decade of research, and getting to know the secrets and pressures of clubs from the inside. There’s a lot of lurid speculation around this hidden world; the truth is, if anything, even more bizarre.‘