Music

A good book about popular music will always give you a new appreciation of the records. Joy Division bassist Peter Hook’s Unknown Pleasures, just published in paperback by Simon & Schuster, might do just that, though perhaps not in the way the author intended: Joy Division’s music, never an easy listen, becomes almost unbearably intense once you fully understand the mental and physical suffering endured by vocalist Ian Curtis during its creation. By the last few months of the group’s career, in 1980, Curtis was balancing band life with the demands of a wife and baby daughter, conducting an unconsummated affair with a Belgian journalist and frequently having epileptic fits on

Doesn’t it all seem a long time ago? For years, the 1960s remained a key cultural reference, universally understood. But then, at some point, probably around the turn of the millennium, the Eighties took over and the Sixties began to fade into a psychedelic version of 1920s sepia. The two periods, separated by the shame and loon pants of the Seventies, were both about being young and “cool”. They were also about being bang up-to-date and liberated from “old” thinking. And, in the way of things, both have aged badly. The Mods of 1960s Britain were a social movement wrapped up in a fashion statement. Modernism, by contrast, is timeless.

Kate Tempest started out as a 16-year-old rapper in London. Now she performs the spoken word, reading her poetry, rhymes and prose to stage audiences across the world. She has also written a play called ‘Wasted’, which toured Britain earlier this year. She is involved in a spoken word project at the Battersea Arts Centre. You can find more details by visiting her website, katetempest.co.uk. 1). What are you reading at the moment? I’m reading Robert Walser Selected Stories and a book of plays by Martin McDonagh. Also Christopher Logue’s War Music. 2). As a child, what did you read under the covers? The Wizard of Earthsea trilogy by Ursula Le Guin

It is lit-fiction season: that time of the year of when the premier novelists of the age dominate the market. Ian McEwan, Pat Barker, Zadie Smith, Sebastian Faulks and Rose Tremain all have new books out, and Salman Rushdie’s much anticipated memoirs are to be launched this week, so many newspapers are devoting themselves to regurgitating stale observations about The Satanic Verses ahead of the main and keenly guarded event. Of the new books, Zadie Smith’s NW is garnering the most plaudits, or at least that seems to be the case. Philip Hensher awarded the ‘rich and varied’ book 5 stars in his Telegraph review, marking the ‘virtuosity of Smith’s technique’

As Roger McGough approaches 75, his latest collection of poems As Far As I Know shows him writing with the same blend of mischievous word play, subversion of cliché and distinctive sense of humor that makes him one of Britain’s most popular poets. McGough became a prominent force in the late 1960s when his poems were included in ‘The Mersey Sound’: a Penguin anthology that has since sold over a million copies. To date, McGough has published over fifty collections of poetry for both adults and children. His work has always reached a wide audience due to its incredible accessibility. Along with Mike McGear and John Gorman, McGough, was a