Winners and losers: publishers pick the 2015 books they loved, missed and envied
Juliet Mabey
Publisher, Oneworld
I wish I’d published: The book that brought out the green-eyed monster in me (and every editor will know what I mean) is most definitely Mary Beard’s history of ancient Rome, SPQR – it’s exactly the sort of brilliantly researched, authoritatively written and accessible non-fiction that we particularly love to publish. A very close second would be Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels (the fourth and final one was published this year). It is terrific to see translated literary fiction achieve this level of success, and hopefully it will encourage readers to explore other writers from around the world – and booksellers to support them.
Lennie Goodings
Publisher, Virago
I wish I’d published: The extraordinary, delicious, maddening, mysterious Elena Ferrante. I have the fourth one, The Story of the Lost Child, to devour over Christmas.
Alexandra Pringle
Editor in chief, Bloomsbury
I wish I’d published: I will have to join the legion of other publishers who I am sure will say Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan quartet. Jhumpa Lahiri told me about her a few years ago and I read them passionately, obsessively, longingly.