Big Beacon by Alan Partridge (with Neil Gibbons, Rob Gibbons and Steve Coogan)

While I’ve only written about Steve Coogan’s probably longest lasting comedy creation, Alan Partridge, once - when his cinematic adventure Alpha Papa hit the screens - I have been a follower of his various ups and downs ever since his TV debut back on Chris Morris’ seminal news spoof The Day Today in the early...

Unruly: A History Of England’s Kings And Queens by David Mitchell

From the off I guess it’s best to make it clear, if it wasn’t already, that the David Mitchell who wrote this book is the British actor, comedian and writer known for the likes of Peep Show, his comedy partnership with Robert Webb and shows like Would I Lie To You not the author responsible...

Star Wars: Splinter Of The Mind’s Eye by Alan Dean Foster

Long before Star Wars was the seemingly unstoppable pop culture juggernaut it is now it seems there was a strong suspicion that it could vanish as quickly as it seemed to appear and leave, at best, a legacy as a cult pulp sci-fi story. With that in mind, before it even reached its initial success,...

City Lights Pocket Poets Anthology: 60th Anniversary Edition – Edited by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Ever since the mid-1950s, San Francisco’s City Lights Books has been a key part of not just the city’s literary culture but a global literary counter culture which has been summed up across that time in their iconic Pocket Poets series, which celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2015 with this anthology edited by City Lights’...

John Robb In Conversation: The History Of Goth – St James, Guernsey – 01/02/24

Last year I was very excited to read John Robb’s somewhat epic tome on that particularly darkly hued style of music, The Art Of Darkness: The History Of Goth, so when he was announced as a part of St James’ line up for Independent Venue Week 2024 I was very much looking forward to it....

Heart On My Sleeve: Collected Works 1980-2020 by Attila The Stockbroker

Capturing the entire career, to date of publication, of Attila The Stockbroker (aka John Baine) makes for an at times overwhelming prospect and, while it may not be back of the net every time, there are certainly more goals scored in Heart On My Sleeve than goal kicks given away (to stretch a metaphor the...

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Joseph Heller’s 1961 novel Catch-22 is one of those, rather like George Orwell’s 1984 or Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, that everyone has heard of but very few seem to have genuinely read, particularly noticeable in this case as ‘Catch-22’ as a phrase has entered the popular lexicon. I’ll admit that, before opening the book,...

2000 Posts Later…

Back in May 2018 I wrote a piece to mark my 1000th post here and wondered if I would make it to 2000 - well, if you hadn’t guessed, that has now happened so I thought I’d do something similar to what I did back then and look at some of the most viewed posts...

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Rather like George Orwell’s 1984, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is one of those books it feels like everyone has heard of and knows the basic facts about but not so many have actually read and, until recently, I was very much in that camp too. As I first opened the book I genuinely didn’t...

The Art Of Darkness: The History Of Goth by John Robb

Back in 2006 John Robb wrote a book entitled The Oral History Of Punk Rock which documented the punk scene of the late 70s and 80s through the words of those involved, his latest book, The Art Of Darkness: The History Of Goth, in many ways feels like a follow up as it delves into...