Back in the office today I was greeted by a pile of management accounts for our various companies. I get approximately fifty separate sets of accounts a month and nearly all of them have different formats. The formats are in line with the needs of the company but serve to make my life doubly hard - are these dollars or yen, is that last year or this year, is that profit or contribution, is that cash or sales?. C'est la vie. However, I managed to postpone the accounting ordeal by scanning the pile of new books which arrived. This was much more fun and probably more enlightening too. I've deliberately selected books which most readers are unlikely to come across in the normal course of events.

From Ireland comes the number one hardback bestseller This is Charlie Bird, having ousted U2 from the perch. We have sold 20,000 copies so far which would be pretty good for a UK hardback non-fiction title let alone in a country with a population of only four million. Charlie Bird has been the face of RTE news for the last 25 years and clearly has a dedicated fan base.

And from Australia an outstanding scholarly book The Great War by Les Carlyon. The joy of this book is that it is written by a 'writer' not by a 'scholar' although the scholarship shines through. It makes a change to read about a familiar story from an alternative perspective. World War I was Australia's (as well as Europe's) greatest tragedy and they suffered 179,000 dead or wounded and they still remember. The book is not published in Australia until 1 November and it's not listed on the Bantam website (who published his previous book) or on Amazon UK. The desire to sub-divide territorial rights on this sort of book seems to me an absurdity of value to no-one least of all to potential readers.

Also in my in-tray was Picador Asia's first book February Flowers by Fan Wu. I have yet to read the novel but it is getting rave reviews across Asia but I can say that the paperback edition I have been sent is one of the most beautiful productions I've seen in years which is why I've linked to the Asian edition. I think British publishers and printers are going to have to up their game in production standards as well as everything else if we wish to compete and attract more book buyers. I've asked Fan Wu's literary agent to contribute to this blog to describe the whole process of being published out of Asia rather than the traditional Western route.

Finally a doorstep of a book from Rodale whom we represent in many territories. It is The Encyclopedia of New Medicine from the Duke Center for Integrative Medicine in the USA. I am deeply sceptical about all forms of 'alternative' health regimes but for once there is a book which objectively tries to offer solutions from all sources and tries to deal with the person as an integrated system. It deals with 200 conditions and all the ones I checked out have been totally sensible and helpful.

Enough books - back to the accounts.