John L. Williams
@johnelwilliams.bsky.social
Writer, festival organiser, CLR James biographer, winner of 'most improved player' award Tilburg Regents CC 2023. New book Heatwave, on the summer of 76, out this May
This is such a good piece by Sunjeev Sahota. CLR James would absolutely have approved.
John Self@john-self.bsky.social · 2y ago"So the publishing workforce is getting more diverse, but no more equal. [...] We’ve also seen publishing begin to advocate for a politics of respect and celebration for working class lives, a kind of Pride for the working-classes." Sunjeev Sahota on class v identity in literature:
Thanks Matthew!
Matthew Sullivan@sulli864.bsky.social · 2mo ago“The long arm of history might incline toward justice, but the short arm of teenage life never did.” Best written pop history book I’ve read in an age. Been an admirer since ‘Into The Badlands’ a looong time back now. ‘Heatwave’ by @johnelwilliams.bsky.social
Delighted to appear on Mark Ellen and David Hepworth's Word in your Ear podcast, talking about Heatwave youtu.be/58_khItPpek?...
Joan Armatrading, Tom Robinson and the great music meltdown of Summer ‘76
YouTube video by Word In Your Ear
youtu.be
Guardian piece about Orson Welles' Don Quixote today - fact checking unmistakably the work of AI!
Proud to have got this piece of anti-fascist history on the radio this morning www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
BBC Radio 4 - Heatwave: The Summer of 1976 by John L Williams, June - Southall
A blistering account of the events 50 years ago that brought British life to boiling point
bbc.co.uk
Not saying it's all thanks to me but the paperback of my book Heatwave is out today! Available from all good bookshops etc, etc
I'm committing a Substack - two posts a week - all free! open.substack.com/pub/johnelwi...
Notes from the Week of May 4
A month in the country song
open.substack.com
In an annual tradition - here's the top ten crime novels of the year as selected by the keenest reader I know - my mum Gillie. No particular order. Stig Abell - The Burial Place Maz Evans - That'll Teach Her Rob Parker - The Troubled Deep @thestigabell.bsky.social @robparkerauthor.bsky.social
So sorry to hear about the death of Daniel Woodrell. Dan wrote one of the very finest novels of the last fifty years in Winter's Bone and another that's not far off in Tomato Red. And aside from that he was a really good guy.
Really looking forward to reading this today, seems appropriate given the weather! @johnelwilliams.bsky.social
You can hear me talking to Travis Elborough about the heatwave summer of 1976 here podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/r...
Radio Sohemia
Arts Podcast · Updated Biweekly · Radio Sohemia provides recordings of Q-and-As and talks hosted by the London-based Sohemian Society as well as interviews that aren’t staged in front of an audience. ...
podcasts.apple.com
32 years ago today, Charlotte Greig did this fine piece on Moe Tucker in the Guardian (1 June 1993). #MoeTucker #MaureenTucker #VelvetUnderground @robertrotifer.bsky.social
Really enjoyed this interview
The Bunker podcast – News without the nonsense@bunkerpod.bsky.social · last yr.☀️ NEW EPISODE ☀️1976 is burned into our memory as the Ultimate Summer – yet Britain was beset economic and political failure. @johnelwilliams.bsky.social takes @nndroid.bsky.social into the High Noon of the Dark 70s. 😎 Get yourself a Sky Ray lolly and a petrol bomb and listen… linktr.ee/bunker_pod
Thank you Faber & Faber for sending me this on, um, May 29. Never too early!
Hey! Heatwave is book of the week in the Times!
HEATWAVE: The Summer of 1976 – Britain at Boiling Point by John L. Williams is out today with Octopus. 'Scorching, seething and scintillating, Heatwave conjures a slow-burning collage of a country on the brink. ' - Simon Garfield @johnelwilliams.bsky.social www.waterstones.com/book/heatwav...
Heatwave by John L Williams | Waterstones
Buy Heatwave by John L Williams from Waterstones today! Click and Collect from your local Waterstones or get FREE UK delivery on orders over £25.
waterstones.com
Thank you Robin Askwith for the kind words re Heatwave!
New book is out today. Heatwave: The Summer of 1976. Britain at boiling point. Captured here in the wild. 'An absolute joy' said @petepaphides.bsky.social very kindly. Also available in non- chain bookshops!
New book out next week. Will be talking to Travis Elborough in the excellent Bookseller Crow on June 5. Come on down South London folks! @booksellercrow.bsky.social @andrewmale.bsky.social @martinmillar1.bsky.social
I have a new book coming out next month. Have to say I'm very happy with the cover.
Friday afternoon popped in Lorenzo's fine record shop in Brockley and came away with a scarcely credible thre albums for two quid. The Paul Brady is of course one of the finest albums ever made. Will have to consider who to give it to...
For my CLR James biography I talked to his closest living blood relatives (as of 2019), his niece and nephew Erica and Henno James, at the daycare center in Brooklyn where Erica worked. Charming people and I was dismayed when I couldn't find the photo of them I'd taken. Well it finally turned up!
