100 Books Like England's Dreaming

DIY. Do-it-yourself. An ethos that seems simple enough now, but it was a revolution that started in underground music and eventually changed popular culture.

These in-the-trenches perspectives by bands that were immensely influential spoke directly to the eco-system of clubs, stores, bands, labels, and artists that I later tapped into with my label.

An almost inadvertent “How-To” primer for someone like me, who was disinterested in what the arbiters of popular culture were trying to sell.

The gold standard of rock and roll oral histories. Two authors, years and years in the making, chronicling one of music's most incendiary eras. "Will you die for the music?" Lou Reed asks in the early pages. In other words, how many knife fights, sleepless nights, and dead friends would it take to stop you from chasing artistic salvation?

Reading this book while I wrote my own made me realize just how sterilized my scene (like much of America) had gotten by the turn of the millennium. Third-wave emo wasn't famously dangerous or gritty, but many of its icons grappled with life-threatening addiction and mental health issues (even more than I expected going in). Yet, thankfully, almost all of those band members are still with us. Please Kill Me illuminated this. It's no accident the final word in my book is "survive."

Tells the story of the further development of punk in Washington DC, and the birth of a thousand subgenres, from emo to post-hardcore and beyond, and punk's embracing of a more aware political consciousness, as well as a broader musical spectrum.

This book has been my bible for most of my adult life - reading it as a teenager changed everything. Rollins' diaries from the gruelling years of grunt level touring with arguably the most important punk band of them all (Black Flag), it has to be read to be believed, and will make you grateful for everything you have in life, whilst also tweaking your hunger for the road.

As a fantasy lover with strong interest in humanity’s relationship with religion and our gods, I was blown away by this book. Gaiman is the proven master at fusing our lore, myths, and legends with uniquely powerful characters, themes, and story arcs to create brilliant literary works.

In this book, Gaiman examines American identity and the extremes of our obsessions while seeking to answer the questions of what it means to be ‘god’ and who is deserving of worship. The novel is a chilling allegory of human civilization’s extremes told within the context of a struggle between the ‘old gods’ and the ‘new gods’ of the modern Parthenon, represented by the likes of Technology and the Media.

WARNING: This book may change how you look at America forever!

I have a brother who is fifteen years my junior. When he was small, I often read him stories. One of our shared favourites, read over and over, was Sendak’s Wild Things. It’s a masterpiece.

He usually wrote the text, as well as making the wonderful pictures, and the text is short, simple, rhythmic, and beautiful. Sendak was a poet as well as an artist.

Think about it: a child of five and a young woman of twenty, reading the same book, poring over the illustrations together, and both having a whale of a time.

If you know a child of picture-book age who doesn’t own Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are—buy it for them!

A formative book from my childhood, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen kick-started my love of all things magic, heroic, and fantastical. Not only that, but the setting was close to where I grew up – these were locations I knew but viewed through a mythic lens. Loosely based on the legend of the Wizard of Alderley Edge, Alan Garner creates a fantasy world that feels so real as two children are pulled into an adventure where the very future of the world of men is on the line. It remains so influential on my own writing that I still return to the old dwarf caves of Fundinvale as an adult and enjoy the tale every bit as much as I did when I was a ten-year-old reading by torchlight under the duvet.

What on earth would possess you to burn a million quid? And if you’re going to, why travel to the small Scottish island of Jura to do it? Was this some ill-conceived publicity stunt, a cry for help, or a ceremony born of chaos and magic? John Higgs takes the reader on a deep dive into the fractured psyche of a couple of musicians that were briefly the most successful singles band in the world, and attempts to unravel the reasons behind what many people felt was either a self-absorbed, utterly insane, or obsessively destructive act. Along the way we dip into the philosophy of Discordianism, the influence of Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea’s Illuminatus! trilogy and the significance of darkly magical rabbits, as we’re provided with enough clues to draw our own conclusions. 

American Hardcore is like the more aggressive cousin to Please Kill Me. While the latter is more of a narrative, American Hardcore is an audiophile’s masterpiece. It catalogs the evolution of hardcore music from coast to coast: its code of ethics, bloody brawls, and unrelenting spirit. It is as much a compilation of photographs and shows flyers as it is in interviews, providing a bird’s-eye view of the subculture. I appreciate this book for its scope and its commitment to documentation. 

Albeit about Britain more than America, the authors collected together here show how easy it was for young punks to move from just listening to music to political engagement. Most of it being direct action: squatting abandoned buildings or civil disobedience against the nuclear arms race. The most accomplished band here was Crass who had an immense impact in the United States and who drew from different sources, including, I quote, “Ghandian principles, radical philosophy, the aesthetic of the Beat and Bohemian poets, and the words of Rimbaud and Baudelaire, as much as… the formal anarchist tradition.” It’s unfair that many believe punk just to be nihilistic and violent – and the authors here show why (it should be pointed out that Worley has his own book on this, which is also quite good: No Future)