Faber snares A Year of Living Curiously by Coates and Foley

Faber has acquired former Vintage colleagues Beth Coates and Liz Foley’s “delightful daily digest” that is meant to “provide answers to a range of big questions”. 

Associate publisher Laura Hassan acquired world, all-language rights directly from the authors in A Year of Living Curiously: 365 Things Really Worth Knowing. The title is due to be released in November 2024.

Foley is currently Harvill Secker publishing director; former Vintage paperbacks publishing director Coates left the Penguin Random House division in 2022 after 20 years to focus on her writing and freelance career.      

Tackling “everything from cryptocurrency to Mr Darcy’s potential as a life partner”, the book promises a year’s worth of “short but mind-expanding daily reads... huge cultural and historical events, thrilling scientific and technological concepts and irresistible curiosities for you to sprinkle into conversation with your friends and colleagues”.

Hassan said: "I’m addicted to these daily hits of knowledge. I love the mix of inspiring, leftfield, learned and funny reads. Now I know my Sumerians from my Akkadians and my Blobfish from my Coffinfish; I have learned about Renaissance art’s most extraordinary woman, the 13th Olympian, fashion felonies and antimatter. It’s an absolute joy of a book and I can’t wait to share it with readers."

Foley and Coates added: "This book combines two of our favourite things–learning new stuff and working with each other and Laura. We hope it provides a fun excuse for readers to take a few minutes each day to shut out the world, bury their nose in a book and feel like they are doing something improving for themselves."

The duo’s previous titles include Homework for Grown-Ups and Advanced Homework for Grown-Ups (both Vintage). Faber has published their recent What Would Boudicca Do? and You Goddess! Lessons in Being Legendary from Awesome Immortals.