Sorrow and Bliss

Acquired in a hotly contested five-way auction, Meg Mason’s “astonishing” novel captured the attention of every judge on the panel. “A book you read and then want to press into everyone else’s hands,” they agreed.

Weidenfeld & Nicolson put together an award-winning, “phenomenal” publicity campaign that cut through, and the word-of-mouth buzz generated by the publisher for an Australian author with no existing profile in the UK really impressed. “It is a publisher’s dream,” a judge commented, “a writer’s dream and a reader’s dream”; “this is what our business should be about” another added.

Sorrow and Bliss was a “book of the year” in more than 20 publications. Our judges predicted it will continue to sell well, and are eager to see what Mason writes next: “I’ll stand outside a bookshop for her next book,” one judge declared.