An enthralling, emotional memoir that recounts the ups and downs of coming-of-age, set against the music and literature of the 1970s. Raised in a small town in the north of England known primarily for its cotton mills, football team, and its deep roots in the “Respectable Working Class,” Graham Caveney armed himself against the confusing nature of adolescence with a thick accent, a copy of Kafka, and a record collection including the likes of the Buzzcocks and Joy Division. All three provided him the opportunity to escape, even if just in mind, beyond his small-town borders. But, when those passions are noticed and preyed upon by a mentor, everything changes. Now, as an adult, Caveney attempts to reconcile his past and present, coming to grips with both the challenges and wonder of adolescence, music, and literature. By turns angry, despairing, beautifully written, shockingly funny, and ultimately redemptive, The Boy with Perpetual Nervousness is a tribute to the power of the arts—and a startling, original memoir that “feels as if it had to be written, and demands to be read” (The Guardian UK).

‘One of my favourite living writers: intelligent, lucid and, most impressive of all, funny’ - Jonathan Coe If we’re talking agoraphobia, we’re talking books. I slip between their covers, lose myself in the turn of one page, re-discover myself on the next. Reading is a game of hide-and-seek. Narrative and neurosis, uneasy bedfellows sleeping top to toe. On Agoraphobia is a fascinating, entertaining and sometimes painfully acute look at what it means to go through life with an anxiety disorder that evades easy definition. When Graham Caveney was in his early twenties he began to suffer from what was eventually diagnosed as agoraphobia. What followed were decades of managing his condition and learning to live within the narrow limits it imposed on his life: no motorways, no dual carriageways, no shopping centres, limited time outdoors. Graham’s quest to understand his illness brought him back to his first love: books. From Harper Lee’s Boo Radley, Ford Madox Ford, Emily Dickinson, and Shirley Jackson: the literary world is replete with examples of agoraphobics – once you go looking for them. ‘Intellectually curious, emotionally bracing and immensely erudite’ - Blake Morrison, The Guardian ‘Captivating’ Richard Beard

'Ian Stone has one of the sharpest comic minds in the country. I would read anything he’s written about anything. This book made me start listening to The Jam' Romesh Ranganathan 'Full of wit, cheek and energy – not just for fans of The Jam, this is for fans of London, of youth, of life itself' Rory Bremner 'This is a funny, fascinating, absorbing, surprising and readable book with the added bonus of Phill Jupitus’s delicious cartoons . . . A book for anyone who is now middle-aged and looking back joyfully at their youth' Jo Brand 'I really liked this book. I'd forgotten how shit it was in the seventies' Paul Weller Ian Stone grew up in a Jewish, working-class house in north London in the mid-1970s. Everywhere around him, adults were behaving badly. His parents' relationship was in freefall so he tried not to spend too much time at home. But outside, there was industrial unrest, football violence, racism and police brutality. As for the music, it was all 'Save All Your Grandma's Kisses for My Love Sweet Jesus'. It made him feel physically sick. Then The Jam appeared. This is Ian's story of that time. Of weekend jobs so that he could go to gigs. Of bunking into the Hammersmith Odeon and ending up on the roof. Of going to see The Jam in Paris and somehow finding himself being interviewed for Melody Maker. Of attempting to keep out of the way of skinheads and trying (and failing) to work out how to talk to girls. And of devastation when in 1982 Paul Weller announced that the band were splitting up. There will never be another band like The Jam. For those who went on that journey with them, the love ran deep. And still does. They helped Ian and thousands like him to grow up – to be someone.

In Are We Not New Wave? Theo Cateforis provides the first musical and cultural history of the new wave movement, charting its rise out of mid-1970s punk to its ubiquitous early 1980s MTV presence and downfall in the mid-1980s. The book also explores the meanings behind the music's distinctive traits-its characteristic whiteness and nervousness; its playful irony, electronic melodies, and crossover experimentations. Cateforis traces new wave's modern sensibilities back to the space-age consumer culture of the late 1950s/early 1960s. Theo Cateforis is Assistant Professor of Music History and Culture in the Department of Art and Music Histories at Syracuse University.

Every rock star seems to have a memoir these days. The first guitar; the drugs and debauchery; the rise, fall, and redemption. But what about the rest of us-the ordinary fans whose own lives were shaped by rock & roll? The passionate listeners who organize the moments of our lives around the albums that happened to be spinning at the time? Marc Fagel shares his own moments: from escaping pre-teen angst with the help of the Who, to spending his teen years buried in the darkest corners of used record stores, gorging on everything from Bowie to the Clash; from carving out his own musical identity in college courtesy of R.E.M. and the Replacements and a shoebox full of Grateful Dead tapes, to still finding room for occasional musical epiphanies as an indie rock-obsessed adult. Your own musical associations undoubtedly differ. But if you, too, have a story for every record that's touched your life; if you view every event as an excuse to throw together the perfect playlist; if you sometimes forget birthdays, but can recall the album that was playing that one night back in high school, hanging out in your friend's basement, dreaming about the future-then you'll see a little of yourself in these pages as well.

The first fully illustrated tribute to Allen Ginsberg--the best-known American poet of the post-war generation, mother of the Beats, and walking embodiment of Western counterculture. Ginsberg's poetry, influenced by the writings of Walt Whitman and the spontaneous prose of his friend Jack Kerouac, is open, forthright, didactic, and written fast without revision. Much of his writing has a raw, confessional quality appropriate to his roles as one of the first gay spokespeople and a leading anti-Vietnam War activist. From the publication of his first book, Howl and Other Poems, in 1956, Ginsberg became known as the champion of counterculture concerns: sexual freedom, pacifism, drug experimentation, opposition to censorship and authority, and acceptance of Eastern religions. The youngest of the Beat writers, Ginsberg was a lover to both William Burroughs and Kerouac and acted as the prophet and public face of the group--serving as Kerouac's unofficial agent for On the Road and helping Burroughs bring The Naked Lunch to the attention of publishers. Screaming with Joy, overflowing with more than 150 photographs and illustrations, is a passionate documentary of Ginsberg's zealous life. His untimely death in 1997 silenced a voice that expanded the capacity of our language, and his cultural icon status makes his work and life of even greater interest today.

Plot 29 is on a London allotment site where people come together to grow. It's just that sometimes what Allan Jenkins grows there, along with marigolds and sorrel, is solace.