Firstly, Eimear McBride has just been over in Listowel where she's won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the year award. In literary terms that means she has won a seriously prestigious prize and been chosen over some wonderful, wonderful writers. It's a great honour and one she richly deserves. In financial terms, it means she's won 15,000 Euros. Which is pretty great too. In legacy terms, it means she is not only now a 'genius' (copyright Anne Enright), she's a phenomenon. Well done Eimear - congratulations - again!

You can read more on the story in the Irish Times.

The other news is a little closer to home. In our little dining room, in fact.

Those are new paperback copies of The White Goddess: An Encounter. Thanks to a slight mixup at the warehouse, 300 of them have arrived at our terrace in Norwich. They're very, very beautiful, but even so. They're big books and they take up space we could really use for sitting at the table. We're very keen to get as many as possible out of the door as quickly as possible. Which is why we're selling them for the crazycheap price of £5 for the next week. You'd make me very happy if you bought one or two.

A quick explanation: The White Goddess: An Encounter is the first novel we published at Galley Beggar Press. It came out two years ago and saved our collective bacon by getting wonderful reviews and selling out… But thanks to other funding commitments, a pressing need to print more copies of A Girl is a Half-formed Thing and a desire to get the best possible cover for the mass market paperback edition, we haven't been able to bring out a new version until now. We're really hoping this cover designed by Neil Gower, the collection of glowing reviews on the back and the fact that our wonderful distributors Turnaround have got us into Waterstones and WH Smith, will give this lovely book a whole new lease of life.

We're also hoping that our increased visibility following the amazing good fortune we've had since first publishing will help - and that now the book will generate real world of mouth traction. Which is where you come in. The best possible advertising for this book will be to get it into as many hands as possible - and for as many people as possible to read it and love it as much as we do. It is an astonishing story.

And I now realise I've expended all these words without even telling you what the book's about. It's about love lies and divided loyalties. It's about bohemian Majorca and Franco's Spain. It's about youth and pleasure. It's about the extraordinary genius of the poet Robert Graves. You'll want to take this on holiday with you, I promise. £5! (Or £8 if you include the postage. Which is still mighty cheap. And Elly, as well as being a powerhouse when it comes to choosing, editing and producing superb books is also a whizz at wrapping. It'll be the nicest thing that arrives through your door that day, for sure.)