Liverpool A Memoir Of Words

Written by an author brought up in working-class Liverpool in the 1960s and 1970s, Liverpool: A Memoir of Words is a work of creative non-fiction that combines the study of language in Liverpool with social history, the history of the English language and personal memoir. A beautifully written book, based on a lifetime’s academic research, it explores the relationship between language and memory, and demonstrates the ways in which words are enmeshed in history and history in words. Starting with ‘Ace’ and weaving its way alphabetically to ‘Z-Cars’, the work illustrates the deep relationship that has been forged in the past two hundred years or so between a form of language, a place and a social identity. The account is funny, sad, full of surprises and always illuminating. It tells the real history of ‘Scouse’, details the multicultural complexity of Liverpool English, examines the common use of ‘plazzymorphs’, and shows how Liverpudlian words exemplify standard processes of change and development. Neither a memoir, dictionary or history book, this work crosses different fields of knowledge in order to weave an engaging and fascinating story. It is a book that will educate and delight Liverpudlians, students of language and social historians alike.

Written by an author brought up in working-class Liverpool in the 1960s and 1970s, Liverpool: A Memoir of Words is a work of creative non-fiction that combines the study of language in Liverpool with social history, the history of the English language and personal memoir. A beautifully written book, based on a lifetime's academic research, it explores the relationship between language and memory, and demonstrates the ways in which words are enmeshed in history and history in words. Starting with 'Ace' and weaving its way alphabetically to 'Z-Cars', the work illustrates the deep relationship that has been forged in the past two hundred years or so between a form of language, a place and a social identity. The account is funny, sad, full of surprises and always illuminating. It tells the real history of 'Scouse', details the multicultural complexity of Liverpool English, examines the common use of 'plazzymorphs', and shows how Liverpudlian words exemplify standard processes of change and development. Neither a memoir, dictionary or history book, this work crosses different fields of knowledge in order to weave an engaging and fascinating story. It is a book that will educate and delight Liverpudlians, students of language and social historians alike.

A New York Times Editors' Choice "[T]he stuff of great literature." —The New York Times | "Red or Dead is a winner." —The Washington Post The place where the swinging sixties started – Liverpool, England, birthplace of the Beatles – wasn’t so swinging. Amid industrial blight and a bad economy, the port town’s shipping industry was going bust and there was widespread unemployment, with no assistance from a government tightening its belt. Even the Beatles moved to London. Into these hard times walked Bill Shankly, a former Scottish coal miner who took over the city’s perpetually last-place soccer team. He had a straightforward work ethic and a favorite song – a silly pop song done by a local band, “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” Soon he would have entire stadiums singing along, tens of thousands of people all dressed in the team color red . . . as Liverpool began to win . . . And soon, too, there was something else those thousands of people would chant as one: Shank-lee, Shank-lee . . . In Red or Dead, the acclaimed writer David Peace tells the stirring story of the real-life working-class hero who lifted the spirits of an entire city in turbulent times. But Red or Dead is more than a fictional biography of a real man, and more than a thrilling novel about sports. It is an epic novel that transcends those categories, until there’s nothing left to call it but – as many of the world’s leading newspapers already have – a masterpiece.

This major best-selling memoir of a poverty-stricken childhood in Liverpool is one of the most harrowing but uplifting books you will ever read.

The complete four-volume collection of classic memoir recounting a poverty-stricken childhood in 1930s Liverpool that started with Twopence To Cross the Mersey.

'A love letter to the great man himself.' The Times 'Immensely readable.' Observer 'Delightful.' Mail on Sunday 'Highly enjoyable.' Guardian 'Informative and emotive.' This Is Anfield In the first book by a British writer about this extraordinary football manager, lifelong Liverpool fan Anthony Quinn has crafted a memorable love letter to Jürgen Klopp. Taking in all the drama of LFC's disrupted, but ultimately triumphant, 2019-20 season, it offers unique insight into one of football's most charismatic figures. 'Klopp isn't just for Liverpool, Quinn writes in his final pages. He is for all of us. I reckon this book can be too.' Hannah Jane Parkinson, Observer 'Klopp has worked his way into Liverpool's big sentimental heart like a German love bomb. And Quinn couldn't resist writing an ode, an unabashed fan's note: to Klopp and his boyhood city and the ghost of Shankly.' Irish Times

The #1 New York Times Bestseller One-half of the celebrated Men in Blazers duo, longtime culture and soccer commentator Roger Bennett traces the origins of his love affair with America, and how he went from a depraved, pimply faced Jewish boy in 1980’s Liverpool to become the quintessential Englishman in New York. A memoir for fans of Jon Ronson and Chuck Klosterman, but with Roger Bennett’s signature pop culture flair and humor. Being a teenager isn’t easy, no matter where in the world you live or how much it does or doesn’t rain in your hometown. As an outsider—a private-schooled Jewish kid in working-class, heavily Catholic Liverpool—Roger Bennett wasn’t winning any popularity contests. But there was one idea, or ideal, that burned bright in Roger’s heart. That was America— with its sunny skies, beautiful women, and cool kids with flipped collars who ate at McDonald’s. When he embraced American popular culture, the dull gray world he lived in turned to neon teal—a color which had not even been invented in England yet. Introduced first through the gateway drug of The Love Boat, then to Rolling Stone, the NFL, John Hughes movies, Run-DMC, and Tracy Chapman, Roger embraced everything that would capture the imagination of a teenager growing up Stateside. When he made a real, in-the-flesh American friend who invited him over for the summer, he got to visit the promised land. A month in Chicago, and a life-changing night spent in the company of the Chicago Bears, was the first hit of freedom, of independence, of the Roger Bennett he knew he could be. (Re)Born in the USA captures the universality of growing pains, growing up, and growing out of where you come from. Drenched in the culture of the late ’80s and ’90s from the UK and the USA, and the heartfelt, hilarious sense of humor that has made Roger Bennett so beloved by his listeners, here is both a truly unique coming-of-age story and the love letter to America that the country needs right now.