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
Here's some - bonus pulp fiction above!
July 2, 2025 at 6:29 PM
Here's some - bonus pulp fiction above!
Heatwave news from June 1976
June 20, 2025 at 5:29 PM
Heatwave news from June 1976
Not from Exeter are you?
June 20, 2025 at 5:27 PM
Not from Exeter are you?
Thank you Faber & Faber for sending me this on, um, May 29. Never too early!
May 29, 2025 at 5:57 PM
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!
May 17, 2025 at 6:14 PM
Hey! Heatwave is book of the week in the Times!
Thank you Robin Askwith for the kind words re Heatwave!
May 8, 2025 at 9:04 PM
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!
'An absolute joy' said @petepaphides.bsky.social very kindly. Also available in non- chain bookshops!
May 8, 2025 at 7:05 PM
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!
'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
April 30, 2025 at 6:29 PM
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.
April 14, 2025 at 1:44 PM
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...
April 11, 2025 at 6:36 PM
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!
March 24, 2025 at 6:07 PM
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!
Great stuff - just pulled this off the shelf...
March 14, 2025 at 3:17 PM
Great stuff - just pulled this off the shelf...
Excellent - great thing about Blake he's still a real cultural enthusiast - he came to the festival I run in Laugharne and went to lots of talks, bought loads of books. Hardback cover of City of Spades is pretty good too
March 7, 2025 at 1:48 PM
Excellent - great thing about Blake he's still a real cultural enthusiast - he came to the festival I run in Laugharne and went to lots of talks, bought loads of books. Hardback cover of City of Spades is pretty good too
Belated book day post of attractive jacket art - Peter Blake's quartet of Colin MacInnes Penguins. @andrewmale.bsky.social
March 7, 2025 at 12:25 PM
Belated book day post of attractive jacket art - Peter Blake's quartet of Colin MacInnes Penguins. @andrewmale.bsky.social
Here's some nice ones
March 6, 2025 at 12:40 PM
Here's some nice ones
Great thread. How about some drone-adjacent vocal music
February 20, 2025 at 12:30 PM
Great thread. How about some drone-adjacent vocal music
Actually on quick check the autobiography is by Pan- Africanist Ras Makonnen - but here's a great bit I quoted about Monolulu
February 14, 2025 at 7:40 AM
Actually on quick check the autobiography is by Pan- Africanist Ras Makonnen - but here's a great bit I quoted about Monolulu
Saw Lyle Lovett in Cadogan Hall last night. He was clearly suffering with the flu but still a fantastic 2hr+ set. Extraordinary band (Leland Sklar & Russ Kunkel!), great songs, honest and moving chat. Opened with Flyin' Shoes, encored with North Dakota...
January 25, 2025 at 10:19 AM
Saw Lyle Lovett in Cadogan Hall last night. He was clearly suffering with the flu but still a fantastic 2hr+ set. Extraordinary band (Leland Sklar & Russ Kunkel!), great songs, honest and moving chat. Opened with Flyin' Shoes, encored with North Dakota...
Just read this for first time in decades. God, George V Higgins was good. Okay, he's reliant on long swathes of dialogue, but why wouldn't you be if you did it this well? This book is basically nine long conversations and one action scene, and has so much tension, intrigue and insight. Triff.
January 7, 2025 at 5:09 PM
Just read this for first time in decades. God, George V Higgins was good. Okay, he's reliant on long swathes of dialogue, but why wouldn't you be if you did it this well? This book is basically nine long conversations and one action scene, and has so much tension, intrigue and insight. Triff.
This chain of semi-derelict stores for sure. No customers in decades...
December 17, 2024 at 1:22 PM
This chain of semi-derelict stores for sure. No customers in decades...
100 excellent minutes of Euros Childs, last night at the Lexington.
December 16, 2024 at 11:58 AM
100 excellent minutes of Euros Childs, last night at the Lexington.
My teenage bookshelf is always lying in wait when I visit my mum. Some unlikely titles amongst them. Nikki Giovanni RIP
December 13, 2024 at 10:53 PM
My teenage bookshelf is always lying in wait when I visit my mum. Some unlikely titles amongst them. Nikki Giovanni RIP
A little while ago I wrote a piece about the ill-starred life of CLR James Jr, the talented and troubled musician son of the Trinidadian polymath - responsible for Odyssey's Our Lives Are Shaped By What We Love. It appeared in Maggot Brain but it's not online, so here it is...
December 2, 2024 at 8:17 PM
A little while ago I wrote a piece about the ill-starred life of CLR James Jr, the talented and troubled musician son of the Trinidadian polymath - responsible for Odyssey's Our Lives Are Shaped By What We Love. It appeared in Maggot Brain but it's not online, so here it is...
White City by Dominic Nolan - best crime novel I've read in a long while. Great characters and thoroughly convincing* portrayal of London gangland and Notting Dale in the 50s.
*Except for a gangster being referred to as 'CEO of the Underworld'. In 1952! How did no one pick that up? #editorstoday.
*Except for a gangster being referred to as 'CEO of the Underworld'. In 1952! How did no one pick that up? #editorstoday.
November 21, 2024 at 6:44 PM
White City by Dominic Nolan - best crime novel I've read in a long while. Great characters and thoroughly convincing* portrayal of London gangland and Notting Dale in the 50s.
*Except for a gangster being referred to as 'CEO of the Underworld'. In 1952! How did no one pick that up? #editorstoday.
*Except for a gangster being referred to as 'CEO of the Underworld'. In 1952! How did no one pick that up? #editorstoday.
Four CDs (check em out, they're the new vinyl) I've been listening to this past month. The Gillian Welch & David Rawlings is straight-up wonderful. Georgia Ruth works the same seam with a Welsh inflection. Jake Fussell has has such a way with trad songs and Alex McMurray is a proper N'Awlins auteur
November 18, 2024 at 8:08 PM
Four CDs (check em out, they're the new vinyl) I've been listening to this past month. The Gillian Welch & David Rawlings is straight-up wonderful. Georgia Ruth works the same seam with a Welsh inflection. Jake Fussell has has such a way with trad songs and Alex McMurray is a proper N'Awlins auteur