THE BEST SELECTION OF BRISTOL BOOKS
Since 2004, Tangent Books has been publishing books about Bristol and by Bristol authors. Our list is the most comprehensive contemporary archive of Bristol history, reference, fiction, poetry and counter-culture.
By Steve Wright and Richard Jones
Now in its fifth edition, Home Sweet Home has been fully revised and updated.
The book explores Banksy’s early years with the DryBreadZ/Bad Apples crew and follows his escapades around Bristol and far beyond.
Banksy’s Bristol includes interviews with some of the artists who worked with Banksy in his early years as well as in-depth pieces (with pictures) on…
• Banksy vs Bristol Museum
• Banksy and the Easton Cowboys
• Dismaland
The Banksy timeline traces his work from his first stencil in Windmill Hill to his latest exploits.
Compiled by Bristol music expert Richard Jones, Bristol Music: Sounds Of The City It is an essential guide to Bristol music with a timeline of the key moments in the city’s music history from 1955 to the present day.
The book includes profiles of more than 100 bands, musicians, DJs and producers who have made a significant impact on the sound of the city from Russ Conway to Massive Attack.
The book includes iconic images of the early days of the Bristol Sound by photographer Beezer.
It was originally published in 2018 to accompany the Bristol Music: Seven Decades Of Sound exhibition at M Shed and includes a section on some of the items displayed at M Shed.
The title has been fully revised and updated.
The memoir of Milo Johnson (Aka Dj Milo) is both a fascinating insight into the life of one of the pioneers of what became known as the Bristol Sound and a harrowing personal story.
Milo was one of the founder members of Wild Bunch, the Bristol multi genre sound system that spawned Massive Attack, Tricky and super-producer Nellee Hooper. It’s a no holds-barred account of Milo’s personal life – a story of abuse and abandonment and how that journey helped redefine the musical landscape.
His childhood and adolescence, was one of extremes and opposites. He was born and raised in Bristol’s West Indian community in the Sixties but attended school in the affluent white neighbourhood of Cotham. Fatherless and abandoned by his mother at the age of 12, he was forced into the care-to-prison pipeline.
Music, which had always been an important part of Milo’s life, turned out to be his salvation, enabling him to escape a dark destiny that seemed already mapped out and taking him from Bristol to a life-changing time in Japan. Later, Milo moved permanently to New York City, eventually living in Harlem for 25 years, where his appetite for consciousness was fed.
This is the definitive history of Sarah Records; the Bristol-based label that signed the acts no major label would touch but who you wanted to hear.
Sarah put out a board game, produced cut 'n' paste fanzines and stuck two fingers up to the mainstream music industry. Sarah was your secret world and it was located in the heart of Bristol. Sarah Records lasted for seven years, nine months and 11 days.
In These Things Happen, those who were there at the beating heart of the indie-pop world reveal the deepest, darkest secrets of what really went into making Sarah’s pop masterpieces. Featuring almost 130 interviews, including at least one member of every single band (as well as the world exclusive first interview with Christine of Christine’s Cat fame), this book is an oral history of a defining moment in pop history.
Who stripped naked on stage to another band’s drum solo? Why did Julian Knowles sleep with his boots on his stomach in Hull? Whatever happened to Mr James C Urchin? All of these burning questions and more will be answered in this book. With no tatty old gig flyer left unturned in the pursuit of exposing the true political pop pandemonium that went on in the wonderful world of Sarah Records.
This is a story about a boy who hears angels singing…
A teenager who falls in love with music and who trips and falls into a
band called Strangelove…
The story of a young man who sings songs about dust and stars…
The story of a singer who flies to the top of the skies and falls to earth
and finds his way home…
“The Singer is by far and away the best rock ’n’ roll autobiography
that I have ever read. Absorbing and entertaining throughout, it gives
a headlong account of a life lived on the edge. Honest, bitter-sweet,
perceptive and very funny.”
Thomas Brooman CBE, co-founder of WOMAD
“Patrick Duff… a brilliant performer, confrontational and utterly engaging.”
Brett Anderson
“Radiohead are definitely post-Strangelove. We toured with them for Pop
Is Dead and we changed quite a lot after that. They were inspirational.”
Ed O’Brien, Radiohead
THE SINGER will be launched at Waterstones, The Galleries, Bristol on Saturday November 26 with a reading and performance by Patrick. Tickets for the event are available here.
If you are unable to attend, order your signed copy now from Tangent Books with a pre-order discount of £5. Books will ship on Monday, November 28.
BRISTOL CLASSIC BACK IN PRINT!
1973 was a big year for Bristol. It marked 600 years as a city and county. The thunder of civic self-congratulation was deafening.
But Derek Robinson didn’t buy it. Not all of it, anyway. The born-and-bred Bristolian knew that during the past 600 years, the city and county had generated its fair share of blood and thunder.
So he wrote this book, first published in 1973, to help balance the story.
The result was a book that inspired a generation of young Bristolians. Robinson challenged the establishment narrative taught in the city’s schools that Edward Colston was a benefactor, that the slave trade wasn’t really that bad and that over the centuries the city had been run for the benefit of its people under the benign patronage of the Corporation and the Society Of Merchant Venturers.
Tangent Books is proud to introduce A Shocking History Of Bristol to a new generation.
'Riot!' illuminates a darker moment in Bristol's history. Set against a backdrop of massive social and political change 'Riot!' vividly recreates the dreadful sequence of events that led to the Bristol Bridge Massacre of 1793.
A fantastic and long-awaited tome that chronologically plots the influence that a selection of amazing women have had on Bristol!
Containing 250 inspiring women, three sheroic dogs and one heartbroken barmaid from Easton, this is a bursting compendium of brilliant women from pin makers to police chiefs, from workhouse inmates to secret agents who helped to shape Bristol into the vibrant city it is today.
Behind every strong city, there is an even stronger army of women creating the bricks with which to build it. Following the success of Volume One, in Volume Two of The Women Who Built Bristol, we meet a further 250 inspiring females who fought tooth and nail to shape our city and the wider world. Olympians rub shoulders with boot makers; suffragists stand beside grocers; scientists are as one with artists. Includes one washed up whale, two plucky daredevils, 38 women called Mary and 1,955 donated eggs. And much, much more besides.
SHIPS WEEK BEGINNING JUNE 8
The Bristol Short Story Prize makes a habit of finding writers a little before the rest of the world does. Gathering fourteen exceptional voices, Volume 18 takes us from a Brighton night shelter to a Mumbai flat to the queue at the dystopian Happiness Deposit Centre. Here is the short story at its most exacting, and its most alive.
Featuring:
Hussani Abdulrahim, Christian Anthony, Erika Banerji, Avantika Chilkoti, Timothy Collyer, Sarah Cotton, Kate Dalby, John Doble, Sharon Marie Hier, Laura Kyle, Jonathan Page, Eliza Robertson, Shabnam Shokoohi, William Weightman
‘Heartwood is a love letter to trees, a cry of pain, a call to arms, A tender and precise telling of one woman’s relationship with trees, it engages with the life of trees as precisely and insightfully as the lives lived alongside them, Through subjects and forms as varied as woodland, she shows us not just how much we have to learn about trees, but how much they can teach us about ourselves, and about the world we could live in if we turn our attention to nature.' Clare Shaw, author and poet
This poetry collection by Pete Weinstock is dedicated to the memory of Maggie Telfer (March 23, 1959-January 12, 2023) co-founder and Chief Executive of Bristol Drugs Project.
All profit from sales of this collection will be donated to Bristol Drugs Project to provide drug and alcohol treatment services.
Pete Weinstock is a poet and writer who has worked for nearly half a century with ‘people in crisis’. He trained in Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes to enable him to use writing in his work with others.
A surprisingly mixed collection that combines years of experience and frustration with the status quo and the pain that comes with the huge task of working with addiction. These poems are a way to remove a little of that pain.
Rich Harper, poet, ex-soldier and BDP service user
Between The Cracks is a generous, vivid and inspirational collection which uses the emotional heft of poetry to expose trauma, grief and loss.
Pauline Sewards, poet and specialist drug treatment nurse
There is beauty to the writing... I find it comforting to read an expression of deep emotion.
Jenny Raynes, bereaved Mother
Stanley Donwood's second collection of short stories explores individuals rejected by and who reject mainstream society. Darkly humorous and existential in outlook, these morose tales are a must read.
Featuring a beautiful debossed cover of Stanley Donwood's London Views work.
Stanley Donwood’s pulp fiction novel written for a £5 bet. Augustus Blimfield challenged Donwood to write a novel in 30 days for a £5 wager. Donwood won. Cover design by Jackknife.
This is the story of a journey of discovery, following a mysterious report of a wild beaver on the River Avon near Bath. It describes intimate observations of life on the river and the ultimate discovery of a family of wild and free beavers and a revitalised environment. In the telling, it reveals how the river offered the author sanctuary and how immersion in the world of the beaver led to his own revival. The discovery of these free-living Avon beavers was heralded in the national news as a breakthrough moment for UK wildlife.
They thought art could change the world. Thousands joined in and things were never the same again.
Allana Raine King was born on June 4, 1999 and grew up in Bristol. She died on October 12, 2018 after contracting encephalitis (an inflammation of the brain).
At the time of her death, Allana was writing her first novel, a futuristic story set in a tribal homeland that follows Rocky as he struggles to break free of the oppression of traditional expectations.
After Allana’s death, her grandmother Lorraine Martin completed the novel, writing in the style of Allana – two writers connected by one extraordinary story. The result is Land Of The Free, a remarkable collaboration that takes readers on a journey of friendship, mindfulness and coming of age in a fantasy land of oppression and wonder.
Dallimore & O’Donnell in collaboration with Mark Stewart (RIP) created a poster for the 40th anniversary reissue of the Pop Group’s seminal album Y.
Y In Dub was given a heavyweight dub treatment by Dennis Bovell and released in March 2022.
This is a previously un-released first draft of the poster. Of note within the montage is the picture of Donald Trump with a Francis Bacon ‘screaming Pope’ mouth.
The A2 sized Giclee prints are on white satin heavy-duty archival quality paper.
The edition is limited to 10 numbered copies and one artist’s proof.
A cultural and photographic history of The Siop Newydd Girls – eight daughters whose parents ran Siop Newydd on Eldon Square in Dolgellau.
The book was compiled by the sons and daughters of the eight Siop Newydd girls and combines oral history with ancestry. The family tree goes back to Evan Evans (1799-1869) who was a hill farmer in the Rhinogs above the village of Ganllywd in Snowdonia to the north of Dolgellau.
The great granddaughters of Evan Evans lived at various times in Siop Newydd between 1923 and 1946, a painting and decorating and hardware shop in Dolgellau. The book explores their lives as they grew up and made their way in the world.
It contains many archive photographs and a 32-page picture section that includes a remarkable set of photographs from the hill farm of Penrallt above Porthmadoc where one of the girls (Nanw) spent her married life.
It also traces the family’s movements across North Wales and North West England from Birkenhead to the Rhinogs, Trawsfynydd, Bala, Llanfachreth, Wrexham and Dolgellau.
This twist-and-turn book is bilingual with the Welsh and English text separated by the picture section.
Barry Myers was nicknamed ‘Scratchy’ by Joe Strummer after he joined The Clash as tour DJ in 1978 and became and became one of the ’Gang of Seven’ as featured in the fanzine Armagideon Times alongside Strummer... Mick Jones, Topper Headon, Paul Simenon, drum roadie The Baker and tour manager Johnny Green.
In his memoir, Scratchy describes the music and politics of the 1970s that culminated in the punk counterculture. He paid his dues in the dancehalls of London, graduating from the Speakeasy to full-time resident DJ at Dingwalls in 1976. He joined up with the Clash in 1978 as their Tour DJ .
A must-read for Clash fans. The book contains 48 pages of colour pictures from Scratchy’s early years as a DJ and his time with The Clash.
“Barry Myers was the sonic alchemist who helped forge The Clash’s irrepressible vibe… He elevated their pre-show entertainment to an art form, injecting a live DJ’s energy into the mix, fostering an electrifying connection between band and audience.”
The Baker, Clash Drum Roadie