The Boy with the Perpetual Nervousness
The Boy with the Perpetual Nervousness

Author: Graham Caveney

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2018-07-03

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1501165976

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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).

The Boy with the Perpetual Nervousness
The Boy with the Perpetual Nervousness

Author: Graham Caveney

Publisher: Picador

Published: 2018-05-03

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 9781509830688

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A Sunday Times Book of the Year'Passionate and courageous, insightful and humane, funny and moving, this is a wonderful book' David Nicholls, author of One DayGraham Caveney was born in 1964 in Accrington: a town in the north of England, formerly known for its cotton mills, now mainly for its football team. Armed with his generic Northern accent and a record collection including the likes of the Buzzcocks and Joy Division, Caveney spent a portion of his youth pretending he was from Manchester. That is, until confronted by someone from Manchester (or anyone who had been to Manchester or anyone who knew anything at all about Manchester) at which point he would give up and admit the truth. In The Boy with the Perpetual Nervousness, Caveney describes growing up as a member of the 'Respectable Working Class'. From aspiring altar boy to Kafka-quoting adolescent, his is the story of a teenage boy's obsession with music, a love affair with books, and how he eventually used them to plot his way out of his home town. But this is also a story of abuse.For his parents, education was a golden ticket: a way for their son to go to university, to do better than they did, but for Graham, this awakening came with a very significant condition attached. For years Graham's headteacher, a Catholic priest, was his greatest mentor, but he was also his abuser. As an adult, Graham Caveney is still struggling to understand what happened to him, and he writes about the experience - all of it - and its painful aftermath with a raw, unflinching honesty. By turns, angry, despairing, insightful, always acutely written and often shockingly funny, The Boy with the Perpetual Nervousness is an astonishing memoir, startling in its originality.

On Agoraphobia
On Agoraphobia

Author: Graham Caveney

Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Published: 2022-04-28

Total Pages: 135

ISBN-13: 1529057736

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‘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

Are We Not New Wave?
Are We Not New Wave?

Author: Theo Cateforis

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 2011-06-07

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 0472034707

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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.

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle (Scholastic Gold)
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle (Scholastic Gold)

Author: Avi

Publisher: Scholastic Inc.

Published: 2015-10-27

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 054592247X

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Avi's treasured Newbery Honor Book now in expanded After Words edition!Thirteen-year-old Charlotte Doyle is excited to return home from her school in England to her family in Rhode Island in the summer of 1832. But when the two families she was supposed to travel with mysteriously cancel their trips, Charlotte finds herself the lone passenger on a long sea voyage with a cruel captain and a mutinous crew. Worse yet, soon after stepping aboard the ship, she becomes enmeshed in a conflict between them! What begins as an eagerly anticipated ocean crossing turns into a harrowing journey, where Charlotte gains a villainous enemy . . . and is put on trial for murder!After Words material includes author Q & A, journal writing tips, and other activities that bring Charlotte's world to life!

Plot 29: a Memoir: LONGLISTED for the BAILLIE GIFFORD and WELLCOME BOOK PRIZE
Plot 29: a Memoir: LONGLISTED for the BAILLIE GIFFORD and WELLCOME BOOK PRIZE

Author: Allan Jenkins

Publisher: Fourth Estate

Published: 2018-05-03

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 9780008121952

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AUTOBIOGRAPHY: GENERAL. 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. When I am disturbed, even angry, gardening has been a therapy. When I don't want to talk I turn to plot 29, or to a wilder piece of land by a northern sea. There, among seeds and trees, my breathing slows; my heart rate too. My anxieties slip away. I nurture small plants from seeds, like when I was small and needed someone to care for me. I offer protection from danger, as I tried to for my brother. It's not all about healing, though it's there in abundance, like summer beans. Sometimes it's just the joy of growing food and flowers and sharing with people you love. A personal narrative blended with beautiful descriptions of gardening and the pleasures of losing yourself in the horticultural, Plot 29 weaves together memoir and memory, from the author's childhood to the present day.

Jittery White Guy Music
Jittery White Guy Music

Author: Marc Fagel

Publisher:

Published: 2020-01-29

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 9781677301744

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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.

To Be Someone
To Be Someone

Author: Ian Stone

Publisher: Unbound Publishing

Published: 2020-06-25

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 1783527684

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'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.

Julie Hesmondhalgh: A Working Diary
Julie Hesmondhalgh: A Working Diary

Author: Julie Hesmondhalgh

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2019-01-10

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 1350025712

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Actor Julie Hesmondhalgh's working diary begins in November 2016 at the end of a full and exciting year of theatre-making with her company, Take Back. The company is a northern-based collective creating immediate script-in-hand responses to social and political events (of which there were many in 2016). Her work with Take Back fell between filming the third series of Broadchurch for ITV and starring in the award-winning play Wit at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester. She kicks off as she prepares to start rehearsals for Mike Leigh's epic film about the Peterloo Massacre of 1819; visits schools and colleges representing Arts Emergency - an organisation set up to promote opportunities for young working-class actors; and awaits news of a possible London transfer of Wit. The book takes in Hesmondhalgh's unique experiences of working in film, theatre, TV and radio drama, and through the ups and downs of life as a working actor and producer, while balancing family life. The events described throughout take place against the backdrop of the huge political change and upheaval as Britain votes in favour of Brexit and Donald Trump is elected as US president. Throughout, Julie Hesmondhalgh considers the impact and challenges of starting a brand new chapter of her career after 16 years in Coronation Street; growing older as a woman in an industry preoccupied by youth and appearance; working with a legend of British film making; running a company; being a parent; experiencing first-hand the huge changes and pressures in the creative industries and arts education; and the lesser-known aspects of an actor's life post-production and publicity. All the while, she attempts to pass on any knowledge or experiences she might have accrued to people starting out in the business in this fascinating year-long journal.

White Boys, White Noise: Masculinities and 1980s Indie Guitar Rock
White Boys, White Noise: Masculinities and 1980s Indie Guitar Rock

Author: Dr Matthew Bannister

Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Published: 2013-01-28

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 1409493741

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To what extent do indie masculinities challenge the historical construction of rock music as patriarchal? This key question is addressed by Matthew Bannister, involving an in-depth examination of indie guitar rock in the 1980s as the culturally and historically specific production of white men. Through textual analysis of musical and critical discourses, Bannister provides the first book-length study of masculinity and ethnicity within the context of indie guitar music within US, UK and New Zealand 'scenes'. Bannister argues that past theorisations of (rock) masculinities have tended to set up varieties of working-class deviance and physical machismo as 'straw men', oversimplifying masculinities as 'men behaving badly'. Such approaches disavow the ways that masculine power is articulated in culture not only through representation but also intellectual and theoretical discourse. By re-situating indie in a historical/cultural context of art rock, he shows how masculine power can be rearticulated through high, avant-garde, bohemian culture and aesthetic theory: canonism, negation (Adorno), passivity, voyeurism and camp (Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground), and primitivism and infantilism (Lester Bangs, Simon Reynolds). In a related vein, he also assesses the impact of Freud on cultural theory, arguing that reversing binary conceptions of gender by associating masculinities with an essentialised passive femininity perpetuates patriarchal dualism. Drawing on his own experience as an indie musician, Bannister surveys a range of indie artists, including The Smiths, The Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine and The Go-Betweens; from the US, R.E.M., The Replacements, Dinosaur Jr, Hüsker Dü, Nirvana and hardcore; and from NZ, Flying Nun acts, including The Chills, The Clean, the Verlaines, Chris Knox, Bailter Space, and The Bats, demonstrating broad continuities between these apparently disparate scenes, in terms of gender, aesthetic theory and approaches to popular musical history. The result is a book which raises some important questions about how gender is studied in popular culture and the degree to which alternative cultures can critique dominant representations of gender.