Why no Farthing

[sawyl]

Via Torque Control, an explanation of Jo Walton's mysterious absence from UK bookshelves:

At yesterday's BSFA London meeting, Jo Fletcher used as her example of the difficulties of timing in buying books published in America the example of Jo Walton and Australia. Jo Walton, author of Farthing, our Future Classic of the month, isn't published in the UK because her agent waited a little too long before offering the rights; by which points, there was no chance at all that the UK edition would be available in time to sell in Australia, and Australia, although a tiny market by American standards, is really quite large by British ones. Without any hope of being able to sell the prospective UK edition in Australia, the plans was scuppered, and those of us now reading Farthing in the UK are reading imported copies.

Which is a real shame because Farthing is a many layered delight. It works as a subversive take on the country house murder mystery, as an examination of the anti-semitism and homophobia in the British ruling class, as a character study of a honest man compelled by a private secret to do something he hates, and as an homage to Josephine Tey and, especially, Brat Farrer. I've been evangelising about it for years, but it's pretty hard to sell people on something they can't pick up in their local bookshop...