What is the myth of responsibility, and what could we gain by challenging it? Watch this wonderful short RSA video, with Raoul Martinez, author of Creating Freedom.
“Rolling Stone began in November 1967, with a photo of John Lennon on the first page and a subscription offer that included a roach clip. In his biography of its founder, Jann Wenner, Joe Hagan writes that the first issue “arrived on newsstands like a handshake”. Fifty years later, as the magazine industry continues to shrink, this excellent biography arrives like a eulogy – not for Wenner, who is 71 and still at it – but for the days when magazine journalism was adventurous and irreverent, muscular and confident rather than plagued by evidence of its own doom.”
Emily Witt
Guardian
“An absolute tour de force about old age and dying” – Linda Grant picks Margaret Drabble’s The Dark Flood Rises as one of the best books of the year in the Guardian.
How Jean-Michel Basquiat met his muse. A short extract from the audiobook of Widow Basquiat by Jennifer Clement, narrated by Noma Dumezweni.
Take a look around in this 360° video with Mark Cousins, writer of The Story of Looking. “We know that we’ve got love lives, we know we’ve got working lives—but what if we think of our looking life? What does that mean?”
“Terrifically smart and full of anecdotes that anyone remotely interested in rock and roll, publishing, or the legacy of the nineteen-sixties will find engrossing.”
New Yorker
“This novel captivates, despite the grimness of its preoccupations. Weiner has a knack for writing sentences that grab and grip, and he knows a lot about pacing and structure. Although it has none of Mad Men’s surface glamour, Heather, the Totality offers its readers a not dissimilar pleasure: that of an addictive, even thrilling, nihilism.”
Observer
“The relationship between biographer and subject can be notoriously tricky, filled with undefined expectations. But rarely does it come apart as dramatically as it has between Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner and the writer of his life, Joe Hagan… Sticky Fingers offers a fascinating insight into the relationship between Wenner, his writers and some of the most storied musicians and celebrities of the late 20th century.”
Guardian