It's a London Thing


Book Description

This book tells the history of the London black music culture that emerged in post-colonial London at the end of the twentieth century; the people who made it, the racial and spatial politics of its development and change, and the part it played in founding London's precious, embattled multiculture. It conceives of the linked scenes around black music in London, from ska, reggae and soul in the 1970s, to rare groove and rave in the 1980s and jungle and its offshoots in the 1990s, to dubstep and grime of the 2000s, as demonstrating enough common features to be thought of as one musical culture, an Afro-diasporic continuum. Core to this idea is that this dance culture has been ignored in history and cultural theory and that it should be thought of as a powerful and internationally significant form of popular art.




It's a London thing


Book Description

This book is a record of the Black music culture that emerged in post-colonial London at the end of the twentieth century; the people who made it, the racial and spatial politics of its development and change, and the part it played in founding London’s precious, embattled multiculture. It tells the story of the linked Black musical scenes of the city, from ska, reggae and soul in the 1970s, to rare groove and rave in the 1980s and jungle and its offshoots in the 1990s, to dubstep and grime of the 2000s. Melville argues that these demonstrate enough common features to be thought of as one musical culture, an Afro-diasporic continuum. Core to this idea is that this dance culture has been ignored in history and cultural theory and that it should be thought of as a powerful and internationally significant form of popular art.




Different--A Great Thing to Be!


Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • This joyful rhyming book encourages children to value the “different” in all people, leading the way to a kinder world in which the differences in all of us are celebrated and embraced. Macy is a girl who’s a lot like you and me, but she's also quite different, which is a great thing to be. With kindness, grace, and bravery, Macy finds her place in the world, bringing beauty and laughter wherever she goes and leading others to find delight in the unique design of every person. Children are naturally aware of the differences they encounter at school, in their neighborhood, and in other everyday relationships. They just need to be given tools to understand and appreciate what makes us “different,” permission to ask questions about it, and eyes to see and celebrate it in themselves as well as in those around them.




London Fields


Book Description

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A blackly comic late 20th-century murder mystery set against the looming end of the millennium, in which a woman tries to orchestrate her own extinction—from "one of the most gifted novelists of his generation" (TIME). “Lyrical and obscene, colloquial and rhapsodic." —The New York Times First published in 1989, London Fields is set ten years into a dark future, against a backdrop of environmental and social decay and the looming threat of global cataclysm. As the dreaded Y2K approaches, Nicola Six, a “black hole” of sex and self-loathing, has chosen her thirty-fifth birthday, November 5, 1999, as the date of her own murder. Whom to manipulate into killing her is the question; her choice wavers between violent lowlife Keith Talent, who is obsessed with winning a darts tournament, and a dimly romantic banker named Guy Clinch. When Samson Young—a writer suffering from a long bout of writer’s block—stumbles upon these three, he believes he has found a story that will write itself. A highly unusual mystery with an unexpected twist at the end, London Fields is also a corrosively funny narrative of pyrotechnic complexity and scalding moral vision.




The Hatred of Poetry


Book Description

"The novelist and poet Ben Lerner argues that our hatred of poetry is ultimately a sign of its nagging relevance"--




Towpath


Book Description

A lot has changed since Towpath first rolled up its shutters 10 years ago on the Regent’s Canal in Hackney and everything but the toasted cheese sandwich was cooked from home across the bridge. And a lot hasn’t. It is still as much a social experiment as a unique and beloved eatery. What happens when seasonality means you close every year in November, because England’s cold, dark winters are simply inhospitable to hospitality from a little perch beside a shallow, manmade waterway that snakes through East London? What if you don’t offer takeaway coffees in the hopes that people will decide to stay awhile and watch the coots skittering across the water? If you don’t have a phone or a website, because you’d rather people just show up like (hungry) kids at a playground? Towpath is a collection of recipes, stories and photographs capturing the vibrant cafe’s food, community and place throughout the arc of its season – beginning just before the first breath of spring, through the dog days of summer and culminating – with fireworks! – before its painted shutters are rolled down again for winter.




Mystery Train


Book Description

Now Available as an eBook Catch a train to the heart of rock ‘n’ roll with this essential study of the quintessential American art form. First published in 1975, Greil Marcus’ Mystery Train remains a benchmark study of rock ‘n’ roll and a classic in the field of music criticism. Focusing on six key artists--Robert Johnson, Harmonica Frank, Randy Newman, the Band, Sly Stone, and Elvis Presley--Marcus explores the evolution and impact of rock ‘n’ roll and its unique place in American culture. This sixth edition of Mystery Train includes an updated and rewritten Notes and Discographies section, exploring the evolution and continuing impact of the recordings featured in the book.




Sounds Like London


Book Description

For as long as people have been migrating to London, so has their music. An essential link to home, music also has the power to shape communities in surprising ways. Black music has been part of London's landscape since the First World War, when the Southern Syncopated Orchestra brought jazz to the capital. Following the wave of Commonwealth immigration, its sounds and styles took up residence to become the foundation of the city's youth culture. Sounds Like London tells the story of the music and the larger-than-life characters making it, journeying from Soho jazz clubs to Brixton blues parties to King's Cross warehouse raves to the streets of Notting Hill - and onto sound systems everywhere. As well as a journey through the musical history of London, Sounds Like London is about the shaping of a city, and in turn the whole nation, through music. Contributors include Eddy Grant, Osibisa, Russell Henderson, Dizzee Rascal and Trevor Nelson, with an introduction by Soul2Soul's Jazzie B.




Everything I Know About Love


Book Description

New York Times Bestseller "There is no writer quite like Dolly Alderton working today and very soon the world will know it.” —Lisa Taddeo, author of #1 New York Times bestseller Three Women “Dolly Alderton has always been a sparkling Roman candle of talent. She is funny, smart, and explosively engaged in the wonders and weirdness of the world. But what makes this memoir more than mere entertainment is the mature and sophisticated evolution that Alderton describes in these pages. It’s a beautifully told journey and a thoughtful, important book. I loved it.” —Elizabeth Gilbert, New York Times bestselling author of Eat, Pray, Love and City of Girls The wildly funny, occasionally heartbreaking internationally bestselling memoir about growing up, growing older, and learning to navigate friendships, jobs, loss, and love along the ride When it comes to the trials and triumphs of becoming an adult, journalist and former Sunday Times columnist Dolly Alderton has seen and tried it all. In her memoir, she vividly recounts falling in love, finding a job, getting drunk, getting dumped, realizing that Ivan from the corner shop might just be the only reliable man in her life, and that absolutely no one can ever compare to her best girlfriends. Everything I Know About Love is about bad dates, good friends and—above all else— realizing that you are enough. Glittering with wit and insight, heart and humor, Dolly Alderton’s unforgettable debut weaves together personal stories, satirical observations, a series of lists, recipes, and other vignettes that will strike a chord of recognition with women of every age—making you want to pick up the phone and tell your best friends all about it. Like Bridget Jones’ Diary but all true, Everything I Know About Love is about the struggles of early adulthood in all its terrifying and hopeful uncertainty.




Every Brilliant Thing


Book Description

You’re six years old. Mum’s in hospital. Dad says she’s “done something stupid.” She finds it hard to be happy. So you start to make a list of everything that’s brilliant about the world. Everything that’s worth living for. 1. Ice cream. 2. Kung Fu movies. 3. Burning things. 4. Laughing so hard you shoot milk out your nose. 5. Construction cranes. 6. Me. You leave it on her pillow. You know she’s read it because she’s corrected your spelling. Soon, the list will take on a life of its own. A play about depression and the lengths we will go to for those we love.