Will has finally written his masterpiece. I'm glad I could be of assistance' LAWRENCE 'Essential reading' JARVIS COCKER '****' MOJO 'One of the best music books I've ever clapped eyes on' MARC RILEY '10/10 - An extraordinarily empathetic study' UNCUT 'Magnificent' SPECTATOR Guardian Book of the Day A Foyles Top Ten Read for September Lawrence is the greatest pop star who never made it, his dreams of glory thwarted over the past five decades by bad luck and self-sabotage. At sixty-one, he set off on a new mission: to escape poverty, obscurity and the humiliation of kids at the bus stop laughing at him by writing a smash hit. But what is the cost of a dream? In 1980, Lawrence formed Felt, who released ten albums and ten singles in ten years before splitting up. In 1991, he reinvented himself with novelty-pop outfit Denim. Signed to EMI, riding the wave of Britpop, in 1997, Denim's song 'Summer Smash' became Radio 1's Single of the Week and looked like a sure-fire hit. Then Princess Diana was killed in a car crash. All copies were melted down. Crushing depression, addiction and homelessness followed... but in the face of it all, Lawrence never gave up. In Street-Level Superstar, bestselling author and journalist Will Hodgkinson follows Lawrence as he rebuilds his life. He gets mistaken for an old lady by an amorous pensioner, is reduced to dragging sacks of 2p coins to his local bank and wanders through London's distant suburbs in search of lyrical inspiration. As they walk together down rain-soaked streets, Will tells the story of Britain's most eccentric cult star. Will he write the greatest song the world has ever known before the year is out? And was it worth sacrificing everything - family, relationships, health, sanity - for art?
Will Hodgkinson dreamt of being a guitar legend but never got round to it. Now in his thirties and married with children, he still nurtures hopes of emulating his heroes. So he decides to learn the guitar from scratch, start a band and play a gig before it's too late. On his journey of discovery, he picks up tips along the way from Johnny Marr and the Byrds' Roger McGuinn, and attempts to play Davey Graham's 'Anji'. Will his debut gig end in bum notes, 'musical differences' and disaster?
In 1903, the Victorian composer Cecil Sharp began a decade-long journey to collect folk songs that, he believed, captured the spirit of Great Britain. A century later, with the musical and cultural map of the country transformed, writer and journalist Will Hodgkinson sets out on a similar journey to find the songs that make up modern Britain. He looks at the unique relationship the British have with music, and tries to understand how the country has represented itself through song. He visits remote pubs in the West Country where families have been passing down local songs for generations, monasteries in Oxfordshire where monks use plainsong to commune with God, sits in with Hindu devotional singers in the suburbs of Birmingham and learns an ancient folk tune from a Sussex farmer. Will goes from the heart of the mainstream music scenes to the very fringes as part of his quest, visiting in turn remote musical heartlands and great urban musical cities. London (The Kinks, The Who and Blur), Liverpool (The Teardrop Explodes, Echo & The Bunnymen, The Beatles), Manchester (Joy Division, Stone Roses, Oasis) and Sheffield (Cabaret Voltaire, The Human League, Pulp and more recently, The Arctic Monkeys) all feature prominently as the respective homes of clusters of great bands that have helped shape the British musical landscape. An engaging blend of humour and musical scholarship, The Ballad of Britian is as much a portrait of Britain as an adventure into lyric and melody. The project forced the author into an itinerant life, scouring the length and breadth of the country for singers and songwriters in an attempt to discover whether songs still travel the way they once did, to find out whether folk music still exists in a meaningful sense, and to see how regional variations contribute to a collective musical ''Britishness''.
The Windmill is a flat-roofed pub in Brixton that for the past two decades has been at the epicentre of the capital's underground music scene. Everyone from Mica Levi to Fat White Family to Black Midi has passed through its doors, which are presided over by a series of roof dogs including the legendary Ben the Rottweiler. With the help of impressionistic sketches by his son Otto, Will Hodgkinson goes on a spiritual journey to the heart of the Windmill, seeking to understand why this former Irish boozer has become such a magical space of freedom and discovery.
The guitar is the iconic instrument of modern popular music. It is portable, it has history, and it will always be hip. But why has the guitar become such a classic? Will Hodgkinson, a wannabe guitar player, whose only experience was an afternoon's bashing on a friend's guitar at the age of sixteen, set out to find out. Along the way he hoped to teach himself a few chords too. His goal was to get good enough to play before a live audience in just six months--even if it threatened to drive his wife and family to the point of insanity. His trip becomes an odyssey: He chats with British folk legend Bert Jansch, ex-Smith's guitarist Johnny Marr, and reclusive folk guitar legend Davey Graham, as well as Sufjan Stevens, PJ Harvey, and Cat Power's chanteuse Chan Marshall. He travels to America and with a hurricane brewing visits Roger McGuinn from the Byrds. He travels to the Deep South, looking for the spirit of Robert Johnson, and drops in on T-Model Ford, an old bluesman living in Mississippi. Gloriously readable and highly amusing, Guitar Man is classic obsessional nonfiction for a nation of guitar freaks.
In 1903, the Victorian composer Cecil Sharp began a decade-long journey to collect folk songs that, he believed, captured the spirit of Great Britain. A century later, with the musical and cultural map of the country transformed, writer and journalist Will Hodgkinson sets out on a similar journey to find the songs that make up modern Britain. He looks at the unique relationship the British have with music, and tries to understand how the country has represented itself through song. He visits remote pubs in the West Country where families have been passing down local songs for generations, monasteries in Oxfordshire where monks use plainsong to commune with God, sits in with Hindu devotional singers in the suburbs of Birmingham and learns an ancient folk tune from a Sussex farmer. Will goes from the heart of the mainstream music scenes to the very fringes as part of his quest, visiting in turn remote musical heartlands and great urban musical cities. London (The Kinks, The Who and Blur), Liverpool (The Teardrop Explodes, Echo & The Bunnymen, The Beatles), Manchester (Joy Division, Stone Roses, Oasis) and Sheffield (Cabaret Voltaire, The Human League, Pulp and more recently, The Arctic Monkeys) all feature prominently as the respective homes of clusters of great bands that have helped shape the British musical landscape. An engaging blend of humour and musical scholarship, The Ballad of Britian is as much a portrait of Britain as an adventure into lyric and melody. The project forced the author into an itinerant life, scouring the length and breadth of the country for singers and songwriters in an attempt to discover whether songs still travel the way they once did, to find out whether folk music still exists in a meaningful sense, and to see how regional variations contribute to a collective musical ''Britishness''.
An original and profound portrait of contemporary Britain told through the testimonies of its inhabitants. SHORTLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE 2023 'A spectacularly enjoyable and compelling reading experience . . . funny, moving, surprising and thought-provoking. It humanises literature in this toxic moment.' MAX PORTER, author of Lanny 'Seemingly simple yet so deeply profound, The Passengers is an absorbing insight into the lives and minds of so-called ordinary people: their hopes and fears and idiosyncrasies at a specific moment in time.' CLIO BARNARD, director of Ali & Ava and The Essex Serpent 'A nation's psyche comes to the surface. The Passengers is not just an oral history of the contemporary moment but, drenched in mood and texture, renders the country itself as a sonic collage.' SUKHDEV SANDHU, GUARDIAN Between October 2018 and March 2021, Will Ashon collected voices - people talking about their lives, needs, dreams, loves, hopes and fears - all of them with some connection to the British Isles. He used a range of methods including letters sent to random addresses, hitchhiking, referrals from strangers and so on. He conducted the interviews in person, on the phone, over the internet or asked people to record themselves. Interview techniques ranged from asking people to tell him a secret to choosing an arbitrary question from a list. The resulting testimonies tell the collective story of what it feels like to be alive in a particular time and place - here and now. The Passengers is a book about how we give shape to our lives, find meaning in the chaos, acknowledge the fragility of our existence while alleviating this anxiety with moments of beauty, love, humour and solidarity. 'A magical mystery tour of Britain . . . extraordinary.' DAILY TELEGRAPH 'Ashon's gloriously polyphonic book scales the heights. A deeply felt and humane portrait of where we are.' NIVEN GOVINDEN, author of Diary of a Film 'This book couldn't have come into my life at a better time. It's a guiding mate. It enters like a cat through a window, ready to take your attention and show you what it needs to.' TICE CIN, author of Keeping the House
This book is about you. It's about how you can shape your student experience based on what matters to you. It helps you to 'get sorted', take control and make the most of your time at college or university. This unique and practical self-coaching guide bridges the gap between student life, academic performance and employability skills. It actively encourages students to discover ways to shape their outlooks and experiences. - There are a host of useful illustrations, diagrams, checklists, exercises and real student stories to help you get the most from the book. - It's easy to find your way around the chapters so you can pick the bits that are most relevant for you. Regardless of your subject, level of study or reasons for doing a degree, Get Sorted will prove invaluable in helping you to navigate the challenges of your student journey, and beyond.
This book is your own personal PhD coach. It’s not just about surviving your PhD, it’s about thriving in the experience. Taking a unique self-coaching approach, this book will enable you to understand how to navigate your way through the various challenges posed by PhD study with resilience, self-sufficiency, and the determination to succeed. Each chapter contains self-coaching challenges so that you can discover what works for you and generate fresh ideas to enable you to move forwards, banish self-doubt, bust procrastination, and realise your full potential to make the most of your PhD experience. Your PhD Coach will enable you to: Build resilience and self-leadership Challenge yourself to be focused and achieve aspiring goals Find the right balance and nurture stronger relationships Develop your confidence, creativity and motivation Using a coaching philosophy that helps you realize your own solutions and develop your own strategies to move forward, the book is packed full of techniques, tips and tricks applicable to a wide range of circumstances both within the PhD process and beyond - an essential book for all those taking on the challenge of PhD research. "Medd and Gill go deep into the under the skin of what it is like to do a PhD, pull out the reality of the operation and offer some sound advice. They provide effective techniques to bust the 'gremlins' – the voices in the head - that can haunt postgraduate researchers and diminish the research experience. I urge all research students (and supervisors) to read this very accessible book. It will help them reflect deeper into their research experience and help build confidence in themselves and (re)gain satisfaction in their work and studies." Dr Richard Hinchcliffe, Academic Development, Centre for Lifelong Learning, University of Liverpool, UK "Coaching empowered me to reclaim my PhD and this book will enable many more students to do the same. Will Medd and Jeff Gill have a deep understanding of the PhD process and students reading this book, at any stage in their PhD, will find themselves thinking 'Wow, that is exactly how I feel!' The book challenges the inevitability of the 'PhD steam-roller' and its comfortable and chatty tone creates a friendly guide for those struggling with the demands of a PhD and inspiration for those who want to get the most from the whole experience." Beth Brockett, PhD Student, Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, UK
Changing London is a rough guide for the next mayor of London, capturing the radical but practical ideas of the people of London and embracing a pioneering and collaborative approach to politics. This is the book the voters wrote. It is vital reading for those who would be mayor and those who will decide.
The official account of the Royal Artillery's activities in the Normandy campaign, this volume breaks down the historic achievements of the Regiment, integrating newly published research with a detailed account of their activities, logistics and equipment in the offensive. Gunners in Normandy includes mention of every regiment that served, a Roll of Honour, and a list of the dead by unit. This book presents the definitive record of events, assembled from interviews with veterans, papers and documents from the Firepower Archives, terrain studies, personal memoirs, war diaries and other official documents. Serious students of the battle for Normandy should find this essential reading, with comprehensive coverage of the role of the Royal Artillery, and much material not published anywhere else, including orders of battle, the details of targets engaged by the guns and their effectiveness.
Will has finally written his masterpiece. I'm glad I could be of assistance' LAWRENCE 'Essential reading' JARVIS COCKER '****' MOJO 'One of the best music books I've ever clapped eyes on' MARC RILEY '10/10 - An extraordinarily empathetic study' UNCUT 'Magnificent' SPECTATOR Guardian Book of the Day A Foyles Top Ten Read for September Lawrence is the greatest pop star who never made it, his dreams of glory thwarted over the past five decades by bad luck and self-sabotage. At sixty-one, he set off on a new mission: to escape poverty, obscurity and the humiliation of kids at the bus stop laughing at him by writing a smash hit. But what is the cost of a dream? In 1980, Lawrence formed Felt, who released ten albums and ten singles in ten years before splitting up. In 1991, he reinvented himself with novelty-pop outfit Denim. Signed to EMI, riding the wave of Britpop, in 1997, Denim's song 'Summer Smash' became Radio 1's Single of the Week and looked like a sure-fire hit. Then Princess Diana was killed in a car crash. All copies were melted down. Crushing depression, addiction and homelessness followed... but in the face of it all, Lawrence never gave up. In Street-Level Superstar, bestselling author and journalist Will Hodgkinson follows Lawrence as he rebuilds his life. He gets mistaken for an old lady by an amorous pensioner, is reduced to dragging sacks of 2p coins to his local bank and wanders through London's distant suburbs in search of lyrical inspiration. As they walk together down rain-soaked streets, Will tells the story of Britain's most eccentric cult star. Will he write the greatest song the world has ever known before the year is out? And was it worth sacrificing everything - family, relationships, health, sanity - for art?
The Windmill is a flat-roofed pub in Brixton that for the past two decades has been at the epicentre of the capital's underground music scene. Everyone from Mica Levi to Fat White Family to Black Midi has passed through its doors, which are presided over by a series of roof dogs including the legendary Ben the Rottweiler. With the help of impressionistic sketches by his son Otto, Will Hodgkinson goes on a spiritual journey to the heart of the Windmill, seeking to understand why this former Irish boozer has become such a magical space of freedom and discovery.
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