Ion Sirbu & the Small, Bearded Priest
This last Friday was the centenary of the birth of the Romanian dramatist and novelist Ion D. Sirbu. His is a name not known to the English speaking world, in … Continue reading
The Narcotic Analgesia of Reading
Tenderness and relaxed reverie in these photos of retreat: Jack London and T. S. Eliot, both at the age of either eight or nine years old. Jack London is possibly … Continue reading
Mary Webb’s Gone to Earth
One of the books to be published later this year by the Albion Beatnik Press is Gone to Earth by Mary Webb. (The cover design is by Alexandra Andries.) This … Continue reading
Oxford-thoughts, From Abroad
A part of Oxford has entered the twenty-first century grudgingly. That part is the University, for everything about the University’s observance rests on tradition. Its statutes remain in Latin, Balliol … Continue reading
Books v. Cigarettes
Sibiu railway station waiting room: a vending machine of books, wholesome literary fare at bargain price. It includes Schopenhauer, Theodore Dreiser’s overlong An American Tragedy (here in 3 vols, it’s … Continue reading
Alice Dunbar-Nelson & the Apotheosis of the Commonplace: The Goodness of St. Rocque
The Goodness of St. Rocque by Alice Dunbar-Nelson is to be published by the Albion Beatnik Press in the new year. ALICE DUNBAR-NELSON (1875 – 1935) was born and raised in … Continue reading
Stella Benson, London & the First World War: Living Alone
One of the most original novels written about First World War London was Stella Benson’s Living Alone. This book, one of many to be published by the Albion Beatnik Press … Continue reading
Elizabeth von Arnim’s The Enchanted April
The Albion Beatnik Press in January next year will publish twenty-four books of American and British writing. Each will have been published before the Second World War, some before the … Continue reading
Harriet Backer’s Chez Moi
I saw this painting in a lovely art gallery in Tromsø: Chez Moi by Harriet Backer, painted in 1887. Throughout her life, Backer (1845-1932) painted pianists at play. Harriet Backer … Continue reading
Sally Bayley’s Girl With Dove
“Outside of books, nothing much happens. Most of life is boring, which is why you have to make some of it up.” I have read recently Girl With Dove: A … Continue reading
Bookshops I Have Known
In 1982 I was running books from a nearby market town, Aylesbury, to the provincial, academic avatar that is Oxford, to sell them on for what I regarded to be … Continue reading
Miles as Musical High Wire Artist
If any one track sums up Miles Davis, it might be Circle, recorded in October 1966 for the album Miles Smiles, by his quintet of the time – Wayne Shorter, … Continue reading
‘Closed For Business As Usual’
This first pic is a study in the dishonesty of perspective: my fat arse shielding the even fatter arse of Oxford-based writer Dan Holloway, both of us in pursuit of … Continue reading
Harry Worth Meets Little & Little
I was asked recently what were the funniest books, recently published, that I’ve read. I don’t read much modern fiction and suppose I am too old to find too many … Continue reading
A Postcard from the Far North
Stockholm is obsessed with grooming – tattoo parlours, hairdressers, beauticians – each salon marketed, it seems, by its seated ergonomic, its choice of chair. In fact chairs here, their variety … Continue reading
Romanian National Opera House, Cluj
I had a private viewing of the Romanian National Opera House at Cluj. I saw it first in greyscale silhouette, hints of magnificence; somebody then turned the lights on and … Continue reading
Beatnik Curiosities, or Customers Happen
Some of the more noteworthy happenings in the Bookstore of late. Russian guests meet after hours in the Beatnik the night before Prof of Poetry Simon Armitage’s lecture at University Schools to … Continue reading
Lipatti at 100
To London to see ten seconds of cinema: the only footage we have (so far) of Dinu Lipatti, unearthed last year from a private library. Ten delightful seconds filmed in … Continue reading
Fink Looking Too Closely
I saw Fink perform live in Bucharest the other week, as one does. I love his guitar work, his vocal inflections (heightened white man’s blues), his post-John Martyn sobriety. The … Continue reading
A Windermere Postcard
My fascination with hands was temporarily usurped, almost. Viz. Che Guevara’s: cut off after his execution, preserved in formaldehyde, then flown to Argentina for fingerprinting and identification, laid upon newspaper … Continue reading
Cornish Postcards
I have a feeling that wherever I go, whatever I do, the same questions will be asked of me: ‘Are you open?’, ‘Do you have a loo?’, ‘Do you have … Continue reading
Chic Cadence & Latticed Lampshades
– I do things like get in a taxi and say, “The library, and step on it.” – To read a sentence of David Foster Wallace, the most fulfilling writer … Continue reading
Leafology, Dynamite & Richard Nixon
The Leafology beauty product range is my latest sales product here and is an attempt to go commercially peripheral. It’s a range of beauty product that includes body care, lip … Continue reading
Oxford Review of Books
At only £3, the first issue of the excellent (termly) Oxford Review of Books is a bargain and available here in the Bookstore. The newspaper is formatted as the London … Continue reading
Ungaretti’s Typewriter
A new addition to the Beatnik landscape: Ungaretti’s Typewriter. Customers (all two of them) are invited to type any random thought, flow of consciousness dribble, abstract or recited prose or … Continue reading
Homily to Keith Jarrett
What Keith Jarrett plays on any concert evening is so often spellbinding. It needs to be to stand above his histrionic and hissy fit, hypochondria, grunts, Gurdjieff philosophy and Garbarek … Continue reading
Mad Dogs, Power Drills & Englishmen (*), or Fool Britannia
(*) who are allowed to identify as women, should they wish… In Romania it is a logistical problem only (witness the photograph): the plumb line inadvertently cuts through vegetation. If there isn’t … Continue reading
Romanian Postcards
Not only has Romania moved tectonically since my childhood days (it never used to be next to the Ukraine in my school atlas), its spelling has changed: we used to … Continue reading
Toilets (or J. Alfred Pisspot)
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock hangs on the inside of the shop toilet door. It would be included in any anthology of poetry read best in the loo and, … Continue reading
Heathcote Williams: The Local Polemic
Painted fluorescent over two walls of the Albion Beatnik loo is Heathcote Williams’ poem ‘Books’. The poem was written perhaps eight or nine years ago. Heathcote Williams died recently, undoubtedly … Continue reading
Parliamentary Filibuster & an Experimental Novel
Published today by the Albion Beatnik Press is Ilia Galán’s novel All: 111 pages, and 31,113 words (31,107 are the same word). Its original Spanish publication in 2004 caused a … Continue reading
Sucking Mintoes in the Bath with Agatha Christie
“Poetry is not the most important thing in life… I’d much rather lie in a hot bath reading Agatha Christie and sucking sweets.” – Dylan Thomas The Orient Express stops … Continue reading
Siciliano, Spirituality & Saccharin
The mid-twentieth century vogue for transcribing Bach chorales or instrumentals for the piano was a meeting point of nostalgia and aspiration, perhaps sounding boards to reflect hope against the political … Continue reading
Sunrise at Wittenham Clumps
I spent the night on the Round Hill at Wittenham Clumps to catch sunrise, fortified by a fire, tea, and the best company. Paul Nash described the view from The … Continue reading
The Modern Baker
This book ‘feels’ right. Is produced by a shop in Summertown I’ve never been to (Summertown to me is a ghastly concoction of the town planners’ fevered mind, mock Corinthian … Continue reading
It’s the Church Pew that Moves, Not the Earth
You gotta be bonkers not to love Barbara Pym’s novels. Her acme was a 1950s suburban or neo-rural setting where The Archers doesn’t quite meet James Bond, coz you don’t get … Continue reading
Machiavellian Eisteddfod, Acetate Gold & Death by Corn Flakes
The Oxford Silent Film Society has had regular and mesmerising screenings in the Beatnik. All of the films have been of interest historically, although some nearly as dull as lukewarm ditchwater … Continue reading
The Fabrications by Baret Magarian
[https://youtu.be/1XrbTqiQGcg, The Mighty Boosh innit] So Howard Moon says it’s more about quality than quantity in the modern novel. For sure, but I can’t think of too many exciting novels … Continue reading
Everything Wrong With You Is Beautiful
I’ve always liked Tina Sederholm’s poetry. There is a plumb line weighted with honesty that cuts through it, and she probes either side of its divide. Her whole craft is … Continue reading
Dornford Yates: Snobbery with Violence
It is wonderful to judge a book by its cover, to date a book by its cover also. Here is a recent second-hand addition here: Blind Corner by Dornford Yates, … Continue reading
Artur Schnabel: All Gas & Gaiters, Skittles & Bluster
ARTUR SCHNABEL’s memory lapses in performance were legendary and he remained seemingly impervious to any embarrassment in concert; like a car driver never tempted to look in his rear view mirror to … Continue reading
Filming Bernard O’Donoghue Read ‘Connolly’s Bookshop’
Bernard O’Donoghue’s poetry collection The Seasons of Cullen Church (Faber, 2016) is lyrical and observant, an elegiac lament, beautiful so often, riddled with memories of a childhood spent near Cork. … Continue reading
The Moving Toyshop & the Awkward Hour Between Evensong & Cocktails
EDMUND CRISPIN’s The Moving Toyshop is one of the classic Oxford novels. Crispin was the pseudonym of Robert Bruce Montgomery, a composer of vocal and choral music which included An Oxford … Continue reading
Orwell & Top Cat
GEORGE ORWELL is the twentieth century Shakespeare, for so much of his writing has strayed into common parlance. Orwellian is a control of policy by a Liquorice Allsorts of disagreeable … Continue reading
Kerouac & the Sputnik
Whilst living a fairly dissolute life – a university drop out, a naval honourable discharge, arrested as an accessory to murder – Jack Kerouac wrote constantly throughout the turmoil in … Continue reading
Opening Lines
I recently posted online my two favourite opening lines from novels: Earthly Powers, Anthony Burgess: “It was the afternoon of my eighty-fifth birthday, and I was in bed with my … Continue reading
Fettled Hands: You Can Call Me Hal
Pianists each have a distinct touch and each have fettled hands. My pick of the best is displayed below. Dinu Lipatti could stretch an octave and five, brittle and perfect, fluttered his fingers … Continue reading
Catgut & Chopsticks: Chris Garrick & David Gordon
The Bookstore is christened the Beatnik because of Kerouac and Ginsberg’s association with jazz. The shop has a wholesale stash of jazz literature, a wonderful jazz CD cupboard painted (in fact on both … Continue reading
Let’s Talk of Graves, of Worms, & Epitaphs; Make Dust our Paper…
So here’s a nice little copy sold yesterday of George Herbert’s The Temple & A Priest to the Temple, Everyman edition, the binding slightly shaky but from a time when … Continue reading
Stig of the Dump, Ardizzone, Go-karts & Girlies
So I met someone last night who is known as Stig (he’s got an otherwise posh name). He’s nicknamed after Clive King’s hero, Stig of the Dump, the now classic … Continue reading
Table Talk: Arthur, Brexit & Presidential Hacking
Arthur, occasional shop dog, spent another week curating the shop floor, guarding it with the speed of a soft-shelled tortoise in need of a shave on speed. He settled in … Continue reading
Ulysses, a Hundred Visions & Revisions, Before the Taking of a Toast & Tea
I never thought I could announce that because of the Christmas rush… well the Beatnik has sold out of James Joyce’s Ulysses. The modernist vade mecum, a stream-of-consciousness experimental prose, full … Continue reading
Tea & Scone with Barbara Pym
If you buy a BARBARA PYM book from the shop before Christmas, you’ll get a free pot of tea with scone, butter, jam and cream. That’s better than any discounted … Continue reading
Bobby Fischer’s My 60 Memorable Games
The great chess players of the past are fascinating characters. Even if long dead and with an afterlife only of algebraic notation, they can impose themselves upon our imagination still. … Continue reading
Julian MacLaren-Ross: Squandered Daylight, Neon-moonlight
JULIAN MacLAREN-ROSS (1912-1964) delineated with brilliance and acuity the sleazy bohemian atmosphere of post-war Soho through a series of amusing short stories and eight novels. His writing style is lively, … Continue reading
Things that Annoy Booksellers, part 1
Odd that as the Kindle and the computer are so efficient – I am told we no longer need books or paper – that any bog standard academic these days … Continue reading
Gerald Kersh Died with His Boots Unclean
One of the great chroniclers of London’s metropolitan life was the versatile GERALD KERSH (1911-1968), although he came to settle in Barbados (where his house burnt down), then Canada, and in … Continue reading
Hans Fallada & Despair at Brookfield Farm
HANS FALLADA was published by Melville House only in 2009, Penguin thereafter (translated by Michael Hofmann), so he is a recent invention in the English-speaking world, and a surprising commercial … Continue reading
Colin MacInnes & London’s Jazz Age
Colin MacInnes, who died in 1976, is a fascinating novelist. He identified both the rise of the rebel teenage generation and an emergent multicultural London. He was openly gay at … Continue reading
Onanism Fleshed Out: Dan Holloway’s Evie & Guy
I so often go on and about Dan Holloway’s onanistic novel Evie and Guy, and am pleased to have heard that Dan is preparing a second edition. It is a … Continue reading
The Limits of Nostalgia
I went to Brighton recently, not a first call for bucket and spade for it’s all shingle and, this time of year, freezing cold. In my childhood, news consisted of Francis … Continue reading
Matchbox Stories from Book Ex Machina
In stock is the tiniest literary magazine in the world: Matchbox Stories from Book Ex Machina, an original publishing initiative from a writer and photographer in Cyprus. Each issue is a … Continue reading
Judge a Book by its Cover
The earliest surviving dust jacket dates from 1833: a plain buff-coloured paper with the title overprinted in red. In the twentieth century the potential for the dust jacket as a … Continue reading
The Shop Corner of Shame
The latest book in the shop Corner of Shame – that is the resting place for books rejected by customers because considered too expensive – is The Death and Letters … Continue reading
Malcolm Saville’s Yard Broom
Malcolm Saville was born in Hastings in 1901 and educated there. His first job was as a clerk with the Oxford University Press, and the rest of his working life … Continue reading
Three Doorbells in Search of a Door
It took an act of generosity from a Portuguese friend to deliver the rooster, an ornament as fine as a Botticelli angel. But it took my brilliance with a drill to … Continue reading
A One-Night Stand with Erroll Garner
I am reminded by the recent release of lost studio takes by Erroll Garner, Ready Take One, that my eyes have been thrown always to the heavens with wonderment at … Continue reading
Spiritual Synaesthesia: John Coltrane at Ninety
In a brief and urgent career, John Coltrane transformed jazz and became a beacon for much else; he died aged only forty in 1967. A spiritual awakening in 1957 removed from him … Continue reading
She’s Leaving Home
She’s Leaving Home, a sublime and yet sorrowful song, is one of the more unusual in the Beatles’ catalogue. Like Eleanor Rigby from the earlier Revolver LP it did not include any band … Continue reading
Salzburg: Mozart & Lot’s Wife
Salzburg on a clear day is an impressive city to fly into. The city is stockaded by mountains, mainly southward, but when the stockade appears to consist of both mountain and … Continue reading
Buy One Get One Free
This decade’s Beatnik BOGOF (Buy One Get One Free) offer: a cup of tea, a free piddle, in any order. All for £2. Usually over seventy types of tea, loose leaf mainly. … Continue reading
Gloves & Swing: King Joe & Count Basie
Joe Louis is held often to be the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time. He held the world title from 1937 to 1949, and he was perhaps the first African American to … Continue reading
Ten Books to Make You See a Big Picture
This selection is made from the Albion Beatnik Press’ book Fifty Shades of Re(a)d (an attempt to curate a vital book collection). These books attempt to take us outside of … Continue reading
Arthur Does Casablanca
Arthur, a finalist in last year’s Canine Halitosis World Championship, stumbled through my life again for two weeks this summer. His boundless lackadaisical posture, his turbulent sangfroid nature and his … Continue reading
Arthur on the Rocks
I wrote some time ago about Arthur, scruffy dog with boundless enthusiasm ultimately for being himself, for whom I became a temporary carer. Even my inability to remember his name … Continue reading
Miles and Muhammad Ali: the Momentum of the Moment
The personas of Miles Davis and Muhammad Ali have fascinated the world always. Both men are iconic: you would expect to see them in any poster shop in any far-flung corner of the world … Continue reading
Miles, Boxing & Jack Johnson
“Boxing’s got style like music’s got style,” said Miles Davis. “Joe Louis had a style… and Sugar Ray Robinson had his style – as did Muhammad Ali… But you’ve got … Continue reading
Shrödinger’s Piece of String or How Long Is a Cat?
It makes sense to save money and avoid exploitation from unscrupulous traders who overcharge. Yet discounted prices can sometimes involve moral deviance, zero hour contracts, for instance, and unfair, perhaps even … Continue reading
Call It Anything: Miles at the Isle of Wight
The third Isle of Wight Festival took place in August 1970. With Bob Dylan as headline act the previous year (returning from voluntary exile and turning his back on America’s … Continue reading
A Privy Culprit of Poetry Readings
What is the collective noun for poets? I was asked that recently and was rather stumped for an answer. It’s been like Radio 4’s Any Questions recently, and not so … Continue reading
Rebellion & Scar Tissue
I wonder what gives old guys like this, haphazard and without shirt and tie, an authenticity to their rebellion, because don’t we laugh normally at older people who flash their trendiness … Continue reading
The Bodleian Library
The Bodleian Library was refurnished by 1613, and the Old Schools Quadrangle extension was already under serious planning – to be measured in cubits rather than feet and inches, based on … Continue reading
Four Books to Visit a Shrink with
The book cover designs by Oxford based artist Stella Shakerchi for four of the titles from the forthcoming Oxfordshire Art Weeks exhibition (from 7th May), 50 Shades of Re(a)d, with … Continue reading
Fifty Shades of Re(a)d
It was Oxford based artist Stella Shakerchi who came up with the idea of hanging a collection of book cover design in the Albion Beatnik Bookstore windows, and the shop … Continue reading
This Is A Bookshop
The poster found often in the shop window did for a few golden days go viral and rampant on the internet. Its tale is told here by Dan Holloway in … Continue reading
The Tail of Arthur, Shop Dog with an Identity Crisis
Some shop customers here in Oxford may have noted that the Beatnik did have a guard dog for a few weeks. Woof, woof. He didn’t care for some customers too much … Continue reading
Father & Son
Compared to the likes of Bob Dylan, Carole King, Billy Joel and many other Americans – whose lyrics followed dramatically the contours of the melody and effortlessly displayed an emotional … Continue reading
The New Yorker
HISTORY The creation of The New Yorker is a true case of necessity being the mother of invention. In the early 1920s, a New York couple – Harold Ross and … Continue reading
Recommended Graphic Novels
Persepolis [2003] MARJANE SATRAPI This is the story of a young girl growing up in Iran. Illustrated by Satrapi’s deceptively simple and yet wonderfully expressive drawings, it is a fascinating coming … Continue reading
Recommended Historical Novels for Children
Historical fiction is a fabulous genre. It allows us all to empathise with someone from a different time with whom we would otherwise have no connection. It can illustrate historical points … Continue reading
Great Children’s Novels with Great Sequels
Books with sequels are ideal recommendations for children: if they are enjoyed, the quieter they are for longer. Here is a random selection:- The Borrowers by Mary Norton Mary Norton (1903-1992) … Continue reading
A Straight Line to Joy: a Choice of Jazz Books
There are only a few writers who are able to write well and with authority on all aspects of jazz. Philip Larkin pleaded for a “belle-lettriste of jazz, a Newman … Continue reading
Is There Anything to Read after Harry Potter?
It was often alleged that the craze for Harry Potter books throughout the 1990s fuelled an awakening in the art of reading. I was doubtful at the time, even more … Continue reading
In Search of Dinu Lipatti
The Romanian pianist DINU LIPATTI died in 1950 at the tragically early age of 33. He succumbed to complication arising from Hodgkins’ lymphoma. Yet for all its brevity and intensity, his … Continue reading
An Introduction to Charles Mingus, the Angry Man of Jazz
“He got so heavy that the bass was something he just slung over his shoulder like a duffel bag, hardly noticing the weight. The bigger he got, the smaller the … Continue reading
Novels Set in Oxford
This is a non-alphabetical list of novels set in Oxford, not necessarily recommended as some are a little bit toffee-nosed and derelict, but all are well regarded and all are … Continue reading
From Straight Lines We Make Curves… An Appreciation of Michael Garrick
English jazz pianist and composer MICHAEL GARRICK, a pioneer in mixing jazz with poetry recitations and large-scale choral works, died in November 2011. For the non-cognoscente his compositions could be overly complex, … Continue reading
Books for Christmas
A book is a wonderful gift because it incorporates both the intent and a flavour of the giver as well as, hopefully, the character and purpose of its recipient. The giver … Continue reading
A Love Affair with Libraries
Quite a few times on the internet recently I have stumbled across a collection of startling photographs taken of old Cincinnati Public Library, bulldozed in 1955: greyscale, razor sharp images of silhouetted and … Continue reading
Zizek & the Art of Powder Room Publicity
A special offer to flush away chic and incontinent communism: a free loo roll given away with every volume of Zizek bought in the Beatnik. Zizek is unrivalled at self-promotion; to … Continue reading
The Jazz Etiquette
Alternate Wednesday in term time, the likes of Gilad Atzmon, John Etheridge, Alan Barnes, Tim Whitehead and Chris Garrick play here. The shop space is quite a groovy atmosphere, lights turned low, … Continue reading
Maybe I’m Amazed
Here is the finest of Paul McCartney’s songs, the highlight of the album released to announce formally the break-up of the Beatles, the eponymous McCartney, the song of course being Maybe I’m Amazed; … Continue reading
Christopher Wren in Oxford
I think that Christopher Wren was a bit of a donkey aesthetically, an opinion likely to raise eyebrows. In the late seventeenth century most architectural roads led to Wren; he hovers … Continue reading
Miles as Engine Driver
Miles Davis battled various physical ailments throughout the last twenty years of his life until his death in 1991. He had spent five years sidelined in the late 1970s, holed up … Continue reading
The People’s Favourite Hamburger
In the Romanian mountains not so long ago I stopped at the roadside to taste melons the size of Goliath’s testicles and wild red berries sold by peasants. Then at table … Continue reading
Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli: Hobnail Boots & Angel’s Slippers
ARTURO BENEDETTI MICHELANGELI was notorious more for cancelling his own concerts than attending them, or for driving his Ferrari cars in the Mille Miglia road race rather than working in the recording studio. … Continue reading
The Discordant Who? Atzmon & Debate
I read the other day that Gilad Atzmon’s book The Wandering Who? has been taken off the virtual shelves of the Guardian book web site. My first reaction was to be … Continue reading
London Novelists 1930-1960
PATRICK HAMILTON’s father was a barrister, but an inheritance altered his perspective – drink, travel and mistresses then took precedence, his wife and three children ignored. When Patrick was twelve, … Continue reading
Louis Armstrong: “The Beginning & End of Music in America.”
LOUIS ARMSTRONG transformed jazz in the 1920s and gave it a direction and purpose. He remains one of its most important figures, changing the nature of soloist and ensemble. He … Continue reading
Spot the Difference Between a Bookshop & Nostalgia (Not Everyone Can!)
http://www.cherwell.org/…/we-should-stop-fetishising-indepe… is one student journalist’s take on Oxford’s small bookshops… Lily is bright (and groovy): bookshops have been fetishised into a commercial vacuum and have become part of the National Trust’s … Continue reading
The Scottish Renaissance: Salt in Your Porridge, a Sporin & Scottish Accents
The early part of the twentieth century witnessed a growing cultural self-awareness in many places. The Harlem Renaissance explored black culture and radiated around urban America from its base in … Continue reading
Under an English Heaven: Michael Garrick’s Jazz Praises
MICHAEL GARRICK’s Jazz Praises, composed in the 1960s, is a unique creation. Critic Derek Jewell endorsed it enthusiastically in The Sunday Times and it was broadcast on both television and radio. It … Continue reading
Lists Galore: 1/ Favourite American Novels of the Early Twentieth Century
To make the autodidact completely at home in the Albion Beatnik, here’s a pointless list of twentieth century American novels we think you should have read. Sometimes they are even on … Continue reading
Anna Kavan: Addicted & Addictive
ANNA KAVAN was born Helen Emily Woods in 1901 in Cannes, France, and was raised and educated in Europe and California. Her wealthy English parents were cold and displayed scant … Continue reading
A Chameleon Chasing an Audience: the Musical Life of Miles Davis
“I’m always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up every morning . . . Every day I find something creative to do with my life.” Born in 1926, … Continue reading
The Legend of St Elmo: Elmo Hope & Bebop Piano
ELMO HOPE is seemingly a forgotten pianist of the bebop era. His unfulfilled musical life tells us much about the jazz experience of 1950s America, but much more about the … Continue reading
Joe Harriott: Fire in His Soul
JOE HARRIOTT is no longer a forgotten father figure of modern European jazz. An excellent new biography of this seeringly brilliant and individual saxophonist has been published… Since his death in … Continue reading
Interview with Verushka Byrow on the Australian Book Site editingeverything.com
The link for this interview is: http://editingeverything.com/interviews2/the-albion-beatnik-bookstore-interview/ VERUSHKA: The dictionary tells me that a beatnik is a usually young and artistic person from the 1950s and early 1960s who rejected the … Continue reading
Anais Nin & Henry Miller: Compendium of American Sexual Neuroses
ANAIS NIN was born in France, although when she was eleven her father, a Catalan composer, deserted the family and her Danish mother took the three children to America – it … Continue reading
The Beat Generation
As with many movements, the BEAT GENERATION began with a few like-minded friends, in this case writers Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, and Gregory Corso. Although they were sometimes … Continue reading
“Son, You Hot!” Hampton Hawes & the Fire Inside
HAMPTON HAWES (1928-1977) was one of the greatest jazz bebop pianists. But at the summit of his career, celebrated as New Star of the Year by Down Beat magazine in 1956, … Continue reading
A Bookseller’s Pompous Manifesto
Publisher John Murray wrote in 1842 that “I am very sorry to say that the publishing of books at this time involves nothing but loss.” The plights of publishing and … Continue reading