Melville House UK launches new non-fiction series

Melville House UK has announced the launch of a new non-fiction series, coming in February 2024.

Written by experts, academics, journalists and pop-culture figures, The Futures Series will aim to offer "imaginative future visions" on a range of topics. Each short paperback volume, packaged in a series look designed by Melville House’s art director Beste Miray Doğan, will be a self-contained essay.

The series will launch with four volumes and a further two volumes will follow in July 2024, with new books publishing on a regular basis. The first four books comprise The Future of Songwriting by Throwing Muses frontwoman and solo artist Kristin Hersh, The Future of Trust by journalist Ros Taylor, The Future of War Crimes Justice by ex-war correspondent and author Chris Stephen, and The Future of Wales by VICE columnist Rhys Thomas.

Melville House UK is the British arm of the Brooklyn-based independent publisher, which celebrated its 20th anniversary last year. 

Nikki Griffiths, Melville House UK’s managing director, said: “We hope the Futures books will inspire readers to imagine what might lie ahead, to figure out how they might like the future to look, and think about how, collectively, we might get there.”

The series idea was originally the brainchild of professor Max Saunders and Dr Lisa Gee at the University of Birmingham. Saunders had been researching a series first published in the 1920s and 30s called To-Day and To-Morrow (Kegan Paul), in which over 100 established and emerging authors, philosophers, scientists and others laid out their visions for the future. Melville House’s The Futures Series takes inspiration from this, with its own spin.

“We are delighted to be working with a range of talented authors, all with different styles of their own, bringing their visions of the future to life," said Griffiths. "This is a series we can’t wait to get out into the world and continue to build upon.”