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Octopus Publishing Group will relaunch its Gaia imprint with a new direction and focus more than 40 years after it was first founded.
The relaunch follows the recent announcement of a restructure of Octopus’ publishing divisions which saw Aster, Gaia and Godsfield Press become one publishing division headed by publisher Stephanie Jackson. Newly promoted senior commissioning editor Natalie Bradley will also acquire titles for the list. Last month it was also revealed that Gaia Books will sponsor The Nature Writing Prize with the National Trust for working-class writers.
Gaia has continued to publish since its inception but the relaunch repositions the imprint with a new direction and focus. “Founded in the 1980s and named after James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis, Gaia Books was one of the earliest pioneers of the environmental publishing movement, and the relaunch will see Gaia putting the natural world at the heart of everything it publishes,” Octopus said.
Following its original launch, the imprint showed a joint focus on the “inner landscape” such as mind, body and spirit (MBS) titles and the “outer landscape” (environmental titles). From the point of Gaia’s acquisition by Octopus in 2004, the focus became MBS as reflected in recent years by titles such as The Little Book of Mindfulness, Good Mornings and Lagom. Gaia will now cease to acquire MBS titles — an area already covered by the Aster and Godsfield imprints — and focus on nature publishing.
“The imprint’s ethos is to publish ‘the world outside your window’ and the books on the list will explore and celebrate nature in all its forms," Octopus said. "Gaia will be home to some familiar faces in the genre as well as investing in debuts that communicate deep expertise and insight with clarity, bring wonder and joy through the eyes of enthusiasts and observers, and give a platform to fresh voices that take nature publishing to a new place.”
With an initial list of acquisitions stretching into 2023, the first titles on the newly relaunched imprint include: Empire of Ants: The Hidden Worlds and Extraordinary Lives of Earth's Tiny Conquerors to be published on Thursday (6th May), billed by the publisher as “a deep-dive into the secret life of ants” by evolutionary biologist and behavioural scientist Susanne Foitzik and the science journalist and biophysicist Olaf Fritsche.
Subsequently Thirteen Ways to Smell a Tree: Getting to Know Trees Through the Language of Scent, will be published in September and was described by Gaia as “a collection of essays celebrating our connection to trees, from the smell of a new book when first opened, to the calming scent of Linden blossom, and pine after the rain, to the ingredients of a good G&T” - by biologist and professor David George Haskell.
Joining them will be The Almanac: A Seasonal Guide to 2022, “the new instalment of Lia Leendertz’s original and bestselling annual guides for those keen to reconnect with the seasons, appreciate the outdoors and celebrate the changes in the world around us in real time”. Previously published on the Mitchell Beazley imprint, it will be published in September.
Bradley has also pre-empted two books by Ollie Olanipekun and Nadeem Perera of Flock Together - the London-based international birdwatching collective for people of colour - in a world all-languages deal via Rory Clarke of Andrew Nurnberg Associates. More details on this and other acquisitions will be announced soon.