The Latest From SelfMadeHero: A Quartet Of Books For March To May 2024
by Richard Bruton
SelfMadeHero is another of those excellent UK publishers that seem to offer something of a guarantee of quality with their books – and the latest slate, releasing through the first five months of 2024, is no exception to that.
Four excellent-looking books to show you here, beginning (and already out) with the paperback edition of Peter Kuper‘s award-winning Ruins. Following that we have the latest from the creator of Snowpiercer and the quite wondrous climbing adventure from 2020, Altitude, Jean-Marc Rochette, with a mountainous bear encounter in The Last Queen. Then SelfMadeHero follow with a graphic guide to managing anxiety, The Anxiety Club, and the latest in their always fascinating series of graphic biographies, this time focussing on the pioneering female novelist George Sand in True Genius, True Woman.
More on each book nearer the time, but here we have covers and descriptions of what appear to be four must see books for you….
RUINS – by PETER KUPER – paperback edition .
Published on 29th February (UK); 5th March (US)
Samantha and George are a couple heading towards a sabbatical year in the quaint Mexican town of Oaxaca. For Samantha, it is the opportunity to revisit her past. For George, it is an unsettling step into the unknown. For both of them, it will be a collision course with political and personal events that will alter their paths and the town of Oaxaca forever. In tandem, the remarkable and arduous journey that a monarch butterfly endures on its annual migration from Canada to Mexico is woven into Ruins. This creates a parallel picture of the challenges of survival in our ever-changing world. Ruins explores the shadows and light of Mexico through its past and present as encountered by an array of characters. The real and surreal intermingle to paint an unforgettable portrait of life south of the Rio Grande.
Publishers Weekly called Ruins “magnificent… a beautiful, epic roman à clef about the importance of seeking the new and questioning the old.”
THE LAST QUEEN – by JEAN-MARC ROCHETTE, translated by Edward Gauvin
Published on 28th March
Jean-Marc Rochette, co-creator of Snowpiercer and the Eisner-nominated Altitude, returns with The Last Queen, a multi-award-winning celebration of the subjects most dear to him: the mountains, and the balance between man and nature.
THE ANXIETY CLUB: HOW TO SURVIVE MODERN LIFE – by DR FREDERIC FANGET & CATHERINE MEYER, art by PAULINE AUBRY, translation by Edward Gauvin
Published on 25th April
In The Anxiety Club we are introduced to three characters, each with a different form of anxiety. After hearing their stories, we follow them into the therapy room where they discover the behavioral, cognitive and emotional tools to help free themselves from anxious thinking. Many people believe that there is no treatment for anxiety: they try to soothe their inner suffering with medication, alcohol, drugs or binge eating. However, there are healthy ways to manage such negative thoughts and feelings.
Created by psychiatrist and leading anxiety expert Dr. Frédéric Fanget, veteran psychology writer/editor Catherine Meyer, and seasoned artist Pauline Aubry, this accessible, YA-friendly graphic self-help handbook helps the reader to identify, understand and manage anxiety.
GEORGE SAND: TRUE GENIUS, TRUE WOMAN – by SEVERINE VIDAL & KIM CONSIGNY, translation by Edward Gauvin
Published on 9th May
The latest in SelfMadeHero’s acclaimed series of graphic biographies, George Sand dutifully explores the life of one of the great pioneering figures of 19th-century French literature.
Born in 1804 – at a time when women were deprived of their civil rights (along with minors, criminals, and the insane) – Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin grew up to defy those norms, both in her life and her writing. Adopting the gender-neutral pen-name George Sand, and in a career lasting over forty years as a novelist and playwright, she is best remembered today for the affairs and friendships she enjoyed with men: the composer Chopin; the painter Delacroix; the novelist Balzac.
But this moving biographical portrait, written by Séverine Vidal and illustrated by Kim Consigny, restores her to the centre-stage she always commanded in her lifetime. Not just as the daring, scandalously cross-dressing, bisexual, cigarette-smoking divorcée novelist, but as the brilliant chronicler of her changing time – and therefore of ours.
