Conville & Walsh

Nick Davies at Canongate has pre-empted a book by Canadian journalist John Geiger, about strange near-death experiences. In the book, Geiger explores a syndrome often recounted by adventurers who are on the verge of death in extreme circumstances in which they “experience” the presence of a person next to them willing them to stay alive. The journalist has found hundreds of examples, ranging from soldiers in the French Foreign Legion to the last person who got out of the Twin Towers alive. Canongate will publish in May 2009, with the Australian rights going to Text, US rights to Weinstein, and Penguin publishing in Canada.

Meanwhile, Charlotte Cole at Ebury has secured a memoir by Bel Mooney about her recovery from the breakdown of her marriage to British TV broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby. SMALL DOGS CAN SAVE YOUR LIFE will relate Mooney’s experience of being left in her fifties for a younger woman. She was initially devastated but picked herself up and resumed her life and her career as a journalist. Shortly before her husband left, Mooney had adopted a tiny Maltese terrier, Bonnie, from a rescue home - and the book tells of how the dog itself “rescued” her in the dark days after her marital breakdown.