It might be one of the worst years for publishers, as COVID-19 forces bookstores to close, but there is at least one reason to be happy: A new book by Hilary Mantel will release in October.
Mantel Pieces—a book of essays, book reviews and pieces of memoir—will be the second book that Mantel will publish this year. The last of her Wolf Hall trilogy, The Mirror and the Light—a mega book in scope and length—came out earlier in the pre-lockdown world.
The Mirror and the Light was compelling enough that Minister for External Affairs S. Jaishankar tweeted about finishing it in April on the occassion of World Book Day.
"We’re proud to have published this remarkable body of work,’’ says Sam Kinchin-Smith, the London Review of Books head of special projects, according to a press release announcing the book.
“We hope that this is just that latest milestone in an ongoing story, with many more Mantel pieces still to come.”
The book will have twenty essays by her spanning her decades-long career. From bringing alive her stay in Saudi Arabia where she lived in the 1980s, to the Bulger case, John Osborne, the Virgin Mary, Madonna, and an examination of Britain’s last witch Helen Duncan, this book promises to be a keeper.
Mantel Pieces will release on October 1.
