Bloomsbury signs 'major' non-fiction book The Growth Delusion

Bloomsury has signed a "major" work of non-fiction entitled The Growth Delusion by David Pilling.

Alexis Kirschbaum, publishing director at Bloomsbury Publishing, acquired the UK and Commonwealth rights to The Growth Delusion: Why Economists Are Getting It Wrong and What We Can Do About It by David Pilling from Felicity Bryan. Tim Duggan at Crown has acquired the US rights.

"Recent election results have shown that although our gross domestic product (GDP) is healthy, our society is unequal and dissatisfied—and fundamentally distrustful of the so-called expertise of economists, who seem to understand numbers, but not the lives of people", the burb for the book reads. "The current system of evaluating the well-being of our society is clearly deficient. The Growth Delusion by David Pilling is diagnostic and illuminating, but also full of clever and entertaining examples and, more importantly, answers."

Kirschbaum said: "The subject of the deficiencies of GDP as an adequate measure of society has been of interest amongst academics for years now. I think with The Growth Delusion, David Pilling can reach a much wider audience, because the subject has never been as timely, or as entertainingly told."

Pilling says: "I’m delighted that Bloomsbury is going to publish my book on GDP and that I will get the chance to work with such an outstanding editor as Alexis. I truly believe that this is a book for these times and that the team at Bloomsbury will help ensure it is as relevant and powerful as possible."

The Growth Delusion will be a major publication for Bloomsbury in January 2018.