Given the power of the live experience, MIK SABIERS recommends Jon Spencer’s new album
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Your first time in the north
PAUL FARMER recommends the perplexing realism of a working-class writer whose books are about far more than they appear to be
Creating a mass-ownership New Standard Sailing Dinghy, or not?
[Pic: MAEllis/CC]
Reviews of T.P. Orchestre Poly-Rythmo, Tamikrest, and Dub Colossus
The bard celebrates two other fine practitioners of the art, and laments a lost brewer
This right-wing conspiracy theory is used to justify the coercive measures against gender, race and labour rights that best serve capitalism, attests GAVIN O’TOOLE
KENNY MONROSE recommends a new exhibition that highlights the significance of Black British music
ANGUS REID is bowled over by an exuberant film about the making of Keith Jarrett’s legendary concert
The Encouragement of Others
Magnus Mills, Quoqs, £9.99
MAGNUS MILLS is on a roll. The Encouragement of Others is one of his finest books.
Mills is a working man, and he writes about workers. His first novel, The Restraint of Beasts, was about labourers who erect fences; The Scheme for Full Employment was about delivery vans; and The Maintenance of Headway was about bus drivers. These are all jobs Mills has done himself and the worlds he makes of them are enclosed and entire. But his books are about far more than they appear to be.
Or perhaps they aren’t.
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