Brix Smith Start: ‘Mark E Smith? He’s complicated’

Ex-Fall guitarist Brix Smith Start endured wild and colourful marriages with both Mark E Smith and Nigel Kennedy. Now she’s written her memoir… In May 1983, Brix Smith, then aged 20, arrived in Manchester. A Californian by birth and disposition, her first impressions of the city were not favourable. The buildings, she writes in her […]

Take two chapters, daily – how to prescribe fiction

GPs are to going to give books to help teenagers with mental health issues. It’s a great idea – but not a new one. Aitken Alexander Authors Ella Berthoud and Susan Elderkin discuss the power of novels-as-therapy

Sara Baume talks dogs, art and Spill Simmer Falter Wither

  Before she was a writer, Sara Baume set out to be a visual artist. “First and foremost I see; I see the world and then I describe it …” she says. “I don’t know another way to write. I always anchor everything in an image.” Baume’s process works — a review in The Irish Times called her debut […]

How Phil Lynott Became Rock’s Most Notorious Hellraiser

  Rock star Phil Lynott was recording his second solo album in a studio in Soho and, as usual, the control room was overflowing with hangers-on. Lynott made a show of conducting a headcount – 12 people. Gazing at the expectant entourage, he carefully prepared 12 lines of cocaine. And then he snorted them all himself. “He […]