News

A bit of fun

2012-11-30T16:31:34Z

On Monday Philip was at the National Portrait Gallery's annual event for the gallery's associate members, who support its activities. Alongside a private tour of a current exhibition with the curators of the show (this year it was the Marilyn Monroe exhibition), an added bonus was that NPG trustee, photographer Mary McCartney was taking black and white polaroids of the guests. Here's the one she took of Philip... Thanks, Mary. For more info on the National Portrait Gallery and how to support its great work, go to www.npg.org.uk.

Gareth's choir journey

2012-09-12T09:22:55Z

The next few months see a number of books published in which Philip has been involved. First up: on Thursday 13^th September Collins are publishing Gareth Malone: Choir. Through his TV series The Choir, the Military Wives 2011 Christmas Number One and his contribution to the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations – all recognised in the summer with an OBE – Gareth has become much admired and highly respected. This is his memoir of a period in which he transformed the lives of thousands but also gained a lifetime’s worth of experience in human frailty and strength. Written with real joy, emotion and amusement, the twenty chapters each deal with an individual moment – both break-throughs and disasters – or an individual character that has contributed to this extraordinary adventure. Philip helped Gareth create the text for the book during the first half of this year: it was a genuine pleasure to work with him on the project. NB The first programme in Gareth’s new TV series, Sing While You Work, which he has described as a kind of cross between The Choir and The Great British Bake Off, airs on BBC2 on 20^th September, 9pm.

Great Night of Blues

2012-03-14T10:55:30Z

Philip was delighted to be able to help out Dora Loewenstein and her company DLA who were organising a major Save The Children fundraiser at the Roundhouse in Camden on Wednesday 29^th February – he wrote some copy for the brochure that supported the event. A Night Of Blues was a fabulous evening of blues, featuring New Orleans’ finest Dr John, great harmonica from Adam Gussow and the genuinely legendary James Cotton, soul singer Jocelyn Brown going back to her North Carolina blues roots and Maceo Parker blowing the soul out of his sax – along with guest appearances from Ronnie Wood and K.T. Tunstall (above - photo by James Yeats-Brown). The event, attended by Samantha Cameron, Erin O’Connor, Tim Burton and Helena Bonham-Carter amongst others, raised over a million pounds through tickets sales and auction items: the highest price of the evening the £150,000 successfully bid for a Marc Quinn oil painting.

Start Your Business starts today

2012-03-01T11:04:05Z

March sees the launch of the new major James Caan book for this year: Start Your Business In 7 Days, published by Penguin Portfolio. 'These days, it seems, everybody wants to be an entrepreneur,' says James. 'Every single day of my life I am bombarded by people with pitches. But 90% of new businesses fail, because their founders failed to ask themselves the simplest questions.' This is the quintessential JC book, right in his heartland of Dragon's Den entrepreneurship, and full of his trademark down-to-earth, non-conformist, original thinking and advice. Bev James, CEO of the Entrepreneurs' Business Academy says, 'Many people achieve success in business, but not everyone is willing to share their blueprint for success. The information in this book is priceless.'

Stop press: James's Quick Reads book Get The Life You Really Want, released last month, popped up in yesterday's Top 50 non-fiction paperback chart (at #31), so the omens look good for Start Your Business. There was an early, good, thoughtful review of the book in Management Today by Leon restaurants co-founder John Vincent: 'A theme of the book, and one that resonates with me, is that many would-be entrepreneurs ignore common sense. So I found myself really warming to Caan's advice and examples... He shows humanity and empathy, and a real desire to help the reader. I like the balance in this book between careful consideration for theory, deep practicality and psychology.'

Back from hibernation

2012-02-02T07:30:07Z

Lots about to happen this year, the fruits of long months of work since last spring/summer. First up: today sees the publication by Penguin of James Caan's Get The Life You Really Want, which Philip worked on with James. This is part of the Quick Reads campaign designed to encourage people who are not regular bookbuyers to buy more books and to read more. In the book James suggested some ways of changing your mindset and some practical steps for making change happen. A second book by James, Start Your Own Business In 7 Days, is coming out next month. More on that shortly.

Viva Brasil!

2011-06-12T13:50:02Z

Philip has just been featured in a flurry of articles in the Brazilian press to publicise the first-ever Portuguese edition of According To The Rolling Stones, which has just been launched by Cosac Naify, the São Paulo-based publishing house. Thanks to the energies of the company's inhouse press office João Perassolo, Philip and his co-editor on the book, Dora Loewenstein, were interviewed for cover stories in the review sections of both O Globo and Estado De Minas, with more to follow. Brazil hosted the Stones' biggest-ever gig (one of the world's largest gigs ever) when the band played to an estimated million-pus fans on the Copacabana beach in Rio, in February 2006, during their A Bigger Bang tour.

Summer reading ideas

2011-06-12T12:08:34Z

News on the release of a cluster of paperbacks from Philip Dodd's backlist of titles. On 5th May, Orion's Phoenix paperback imprint released an updated edition of Nick Mason's Inside Out with a fresh cover design, the pub date timed to tie in with the publicity surrounding Roger Waters' Wall shows at the 02 Arena (and his very good Desert Island Discs appearance). And then there's a double whammy on 7th July: an updated edition of According To The Rolling Stones, including a new foreword by Philip and Dora Loewenstein, and the paperback of The Last Matchmaker with a new cover design that is fully on-trend with its 1950s nostalgia feel. Perfect for holiday reading lists.

WOW Medway!

2011-03-11T10:38:02Z

Philip recently helped out Wow Medway, a new arts listings magazine for the part of Kent he now lives in, with a piece about the flourishing jazz scene in the area. Under the title ‘Blue Notes, Green Shoots’ he talked to Roan Kearsey-Lawson, a great jazz drummer and vibes player (and they are rarer than hen’s teeth) who runs the monthly 144Club and the annual Maritime Jazz Festival in Chatham. Also featured was James Taylor – not the former Mr Carly Simon of ‘Fire And Rain’ fame – but the James Taylor, Medway born and bred, who is by some distance the UK’s funkiest Hammond organ player. His band JTQ, the James Taylor Quartet, are celebrating their 25^th anniversary; their versions of the Starsky And Hutch and Mission Impossible themes were signature grooves of the acid jazz movement. The piece ended with a favourite quote from Frank Zappa: “Jazz isn’t dead. It just smells funny.”

Job satisfaction

2011-03-11T10:36:29Z

James Caan’s Get The Job You Really Want has been riding high in the Amazon charts, especially whenever James has had the chance to get on air. The book bounced up into the Top 50 immediately after he appeared on Simon Mayo’s Radio 2 show on 28^th February, not least because of the perceptive intelligence (as usaul) of Simon Mayo’s interviewing – he’s one of the few presenters of mainstream shows who can read, absorb and respond to a book without relying solely on the first paragraph of a press release. James talked about some of the many e-mails he’s had from people who’ve bought the book and got a job immediately afterwards, the perfect recommendation.

Wunderbar!

2011-03-11T10:29:04Z

The German edition of The Last Matchmaker, by Willie Daly with Philip Dodd, was published by Knaur on Valentine’s Day no less. It rejoices in the title Hochzeit Nicht Ausgeschlossen, which essentially means ‘Marriage is not out of the question.’ We are waiting for translations of the early reviews but one of the first, on the World of Books and Literature website, ended with the words ‘Ein wunderbares Buch’, which looks promising! More news and reviews anon.