Indie Publisher of the Day – Canongate

We’re very conscious that, whilst this splintered world we’re living in threatens and challenges ALL of the businesses in our bookish eco-system, many of the indie publishers we love so much (and their authors) will be finding it particularly tough without shop-floors like ours open to display their books.

So, each day for the foreseeable future, we’re going to post a list featuring one of our favourite independent publishers with a mix of some of their latest titles that might not be getting the attention they deserve and some of what we regard as their “greatest hits”!

Our spotlight today falls on Canongate. Based in and named after this area of Edinburgh, they have been publishing the most exciting voices they can find since 1973. From their long, colourful and fascinating history, we have some highlights. They made a huge splash in 2002, publishing Yann Martel’s Life of Pi which rocketed to being the best-selling Booker Prize Winner, and Canongate – a small and fiercely independent publisher – won Publisher of the Year. In 2008 their reprint of Nan Tucket’s The Living Mountain kick-started a movement that made her the first woman to ever appear on a main issue Scottish bank note. There are so many of our shop and staff favourites in the ranks of The Canons that we cannot possibly list them all here – but we’re going to try and showcase their best and bravest!