September Publishing reveals lead spring titles

Indie September Publishing has revealed two lead titles for spring Melissa Rice's memoir Sobering: Lessons Learnt the Hard Way on Drinking, Thinking and Quitting, and Ronald J Deibert's non-fiction work, Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society. 

Rice's book tells her story, an insecure teenager turned "Liverpudlian party girl, schoolteacher turned addict, ex-alcoholic turned award-winning podcaster". "Hooked", the Radio 5 podcast which Rice co-presents, won the Rachel Bland new podcast award.
 
In the memoir, Rice (pictured) explores how mental health issues often drive vulnerable people to addiction and how only working on mental health can keep ex-addicts from relapsing. The synopsis explains: "Written with the expert help of addiction counsellor at the respected treatment centre Clouds, the book is structured around key emotional learnings from the rehabilitation process—from insecurity to shame to denial to relationships."
 
Publisher Hannah Macdonald said: "This is a memoir with a mission—to help anyone worried about their drinking understand themselves and move forward with the wisdom to make that hardest decision of all—to stay sober."
 
Macdonald bought World English rights from Elly James at the HBB Agency for an undisclosed sum and will publish in Febuary 2021. 

Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society is by the founder of the digital research and security group Citizen Lab, Ronald J Deibert. The book "exposes the disturbing influence and impact of the internet on politics, the economy, the environment, and humanity".

The synopsis explains: "Drawing upon Citizen Lab’s own research into spyware, Cambridge Analytica, the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, and much more, Deibert tracks a mostly unregulated surveillance industry, innovations in technologies of remote control, superpower policing practices, dark PR firms, and highly profitable hack-for-hire services feeding off rivers of poorly secured personal data. He uncovers the pressure on the natural environment caused by social media and its expanding universe of consumer electronics. The book is a call to arms—to reclaim the internet for civil society.

Macdonald bought UK and Commonwealth rights from Sonya Lalli at The House of Anansi for an undisclosed sum. She said: "This book blew me away. From the highly regarded founder of Citizen Lab—it offers real solutions and hope for restraining the current online erosion of democracy, human rights and privacy. It also exposes and—suggests ways to moderate—the damage done to our planet by tech in ways that we have simply not been monitoring and considering. It will be essential reading for fans of the Netflix documentary 'The Social Dilemma'—we are determined to get this book into as many hands as possible."

Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society will be released in January 2021.