Category: Books

  • I’m a fan of Fangirls

    There are two kinds of music. There is music for boys, which is good music. And there is music for girls, which is bad music. It’s not true, of course. But it’s a sadly common belief. When teen girls get upset at the breakup of their favourite band, we mock them. When the boys mourned…

  • The magic faraway racism tree

    The always insightful Laura Waddell writes about the fury over the “banning” of Enid Blyton, in which it was rightly decided that putting a big old racist on our money wasn’t a great move in 2019. Those who feel blood pressure rising at the idea a person or a thing might be scrutinised for its…

  • Book recommendation: Love Lives Here, by Amanda Jetté Knox

    I read this in a single sitting last night and cried through the whole thing. What would you do if your child came out as trans, or if your spouse did? What if both of those things happened? You may know Amanda Jetté Knox from Twitter, where she’s @mavenofmayhem. In this book she writes about…

  • When Rod Liddle is trending

    The heart always skips a beat when a famous person’s name appears in Twitter’s “trending” chart. It usually means they’ve died or been implicated in sex offences. So when Rod Liddle turned up the other night, my immediate reaction was to wonder whether he’d punched another pregnant woman in the stomach. Thankfully no: he was…

  • Amazing journalism about an amazing musician

    Music fans of a certain age will recognise the name of Ian Penman, one of the best writers ever to work for NME (the NME of its glory days, not the shallow lifestyle brand of today). Here, the London Review of Books gets him to review two biographies of Prince. It’s an incredible article about…

  • “Sweaty with rage”

    I haven’t linked to a good literary kicking for a while, so here’s Anna Leszkiewicz giving Bret Easton Ellis both barrels in The Guardian. There are too many good bits to quote them all, but these are some highlights: like a recently dumped partner ranting about their ex for 90 minutes before adding that they…

  • Read it in books

    My life isn’t all glamorous launches and rock concerts, you know. Sometimes I’ll stay in and read a book, usually a music one. Here are a few recent reads: Breaking Down the Walls of Heartache: How Music Came Out by MARTIN ASTON This is incredible. It’s the queer equivalent of Revolution In The Head, an…

  • Hat’s entertainment

    This is one of my new favourite things: it’s I Want My Hat Back, a children’s book by Canadian writer Jon Klassen. It’s just wonderful, a simple tale told with style and great wit. My son and I both giggle like loons when we read it and its follow-on books This Is Not My Hat…

  • “It was my first taste of what it meant to have my freedom taken from me.”

    Helen Taylor is the author of The Backstreets of Purgatory, which is ace. She’s a hell of a writer, a genuinely lovely person and the writer of this heartbreaking piece about being sectioned. We were supposed to have one-to-one sessions where I told him what I was feeling. It was meant to help, to give…

  • Oh, the places you’ll go!

    I’ve written about my love of children’s books before, but I didn’t mention one of my absolute favourites: Oh, The Places You’ll Go! It’s the last of Dr Seuss’s books to be published during his lifetime, and it’s a very warm, witty and wise book that’s as relevant to adults as it is to children:…