Bookshelves

 

So, Christmas has been and gone, and you’re left with book tokens you don’t know what to buy with or, far, far worse, the dreaded One4All card that allows you to spend in hundreds of different stores but none of which seem to allow you to or have anything remotely worth buying.

This is where I come in.

Maybe.

You see, I’ve got books for sale. Not the ones in the photo above; technically they are mine, because I own them, but they’re not my books.

You can buy my books from any bookshop, online or physical, including Waterstones for whom the One4All card is acceptable. You may need to wait a week or so as they may not be in stock, but you can still buy them. 

But which to buy?

Well. 

‘The Broken Bottle’, ‘How Green Are Your Eyes’ and ‘This Is Not The End’ are a trilogy of books aimed at readers from 12 to adult. Indeed, most of the readers seem to be adults, so you’ll be in good company. They tell the story of Wilf, a teenager in Croalworth, near Manchester, as he goes to school, forms a band, falls in love, gets scammed, gets involved in gun and drug crime, goes to Ireland, searches for an awol alcoholic, stumbles across an arms dump, is befriended by a mysterious girl, meets the most drunk stop/go sign holder in the world, goes home, goes to university, makes some new friends, finds his flatmate is a bit weird and unhinged, finds his bag mistaken for an unattended package by the bomb squad, is the victim of mistaken identity and rings his sister to take him home. 

https://books2read.com/b/3nBzEP

https://books2read.com/b/bPGOPl

https://books2read.com/b/m00DAA

‘Capturing the Wry’ and ‘Welcome To The Underachievers’ are memoirs of my time in actual real bands writing and recording actual real music and playing actual real gigs. Across the two you can read the trails and tribulations of nearly being signed to record labels, the highs and lows of playing in youth clubs, restaurants and universities, and marvel at just how many venues I have played gigs in which have now closed down and become housing developments.

https://books2read.com/b/3LVWp1

https://books2read.com/b/b5JlqO

‘Seasonal Adjustments’ is a poetry anthology. I once wrote a poem that came in the top 0.17% of a national competition, and still didn’t win. But it shows the potential quality, even if it is up to you to decide the actuality of it. ‘Out of Tune’ meanwhile is the cleverly-titled collection of lyrics presented without their tune. Do you see what I did there?

https://books2read.com/b/49LEaw

https://books2read.com/b/b5W5wk

‘The View From Orlando Bridge’ is another memoir, this time about supporting Bolton Wanderers in the 1980s and 1990s. Yes, it’s that bleak.

https://www.lulu.com/shop/john-hartley/the-view-from-orlando-bridge/paperback/product-m5z964.html?srsltid=AfmBOopiLnNATy_RPJS1AEiE2eEbyl3Ghqjk84MvuYSWnweTsQmh8kgm&page=1&pageSize=4

You can get all of these anywhere, really, including Amazon. You can also get signed copies of most of the titles directly from me at www.brokendownrecords.bandcamp.com/merch

So come on, don’t be shy. Spend those vouchers, or just your hard earned cash, and you too can have my books on your bookshelves (but not the ones in the photograph for reasons already established).

Welcome to the Underachievers

So, here we have it: the follow-up to 'Capturing the Wry'. It's taken a long time to get this out into the big wide world - not that it is completely there yet - and even after the pre-sale launch I've been correcting errors so you get the best possible reading experience. That said, I refuse to rule out any more errors being discovered, but like wrong notes in a piece of recorded music and heavier-than-intended brush strokes on a painting, we'll just have to live with them. I am human after all, and if there's one thing humans are good at it is making mistakes.

I feel privileged to be including a foreword written by Richard Blackborow of the band BOB. BOB have been a source of continual musical pleasure for me since I first stumbled upon them in a 1989 Peel Session. I was lucky enough to write the band's official biography, and very much appreciate Richard taking the time to write the introductory words to  'Welcome to the Underachievers'.

'Welcome to the Underachievers' picks up from where 'Capturing the Wry' left off. Meeting Jacques Cachecarte was a significant marker in my social life; he was the first person I can remember sharing the love of similarly obscure bands as I did, other than my newly-acquired extended family. He could (and still does) write terrific songs and was (and still is) a really talented musician. I may have written the songs, made the videos, done the posters, written this book, but his role in the story cannot be underestimated.

In keeping with its predecessor, 'Welcome to the Underachievers' is being published with an accompanying CD. This time, however, you will have to be quick to get a copy, as only the earliest purchasers from the pre-sale at Bandcamp will get one. 

Here's the link

Beyond ‘Capturing the Wry’

 ‘Capturing the Wry’ is a musical memoir of being in an indie band in the early to mid 1990s. At the time it felt like came and fortune were both a single song and a million miles away. I mean, who would really be interested in the songcraft of an unemployed twenty year old from the periphery of Bolton? Would the bass guitarist really find his golden ticket away from the Royal Mail in a jangly indie band as lacking in confidence as they were riddled with daydreams? Would the band be enough to keep my cousin away from a proper career? Would it be sufficient to persuade one of my best friends to put his profession on hold?

In 1995 I moved to the outskirts of London and began a new life. It took me a couple of years to find a kindred musical spirit again, and when I did it was in a unit of an industrial estate in the darker reaches of Southall, where a day service for adults with autism and extremely challenging behaviour was located. I didn’t really want to form a band again; my heart was still wrapped up in the Irony Board even though we had been out of commission for a good while by then. However, once you push a cartoon snowball down a cartoon mountain it quickly gathers animated pace and ends up chasing Yosemite Sam through a canyon or something daft like that. And that’s sort of what happened with Echolalia.

The sequel to ‘Capturing the Wry’ will be published shortly. It tells the story of Echolalia, and how I got even closer to the dream of one day holding in my hand a 7”single of my musical wares. ‘Welcome to the Underachievers’ - for that is the title - will be published in early summer. A strictly limited edition print run will be accompanied by a CD containing the songs that soundtrack the story. An ebook version will also be available. Advance orders coming soon.

In the meantime, here’s a video for one of the songs…

 

Capturing the Wry

Paperback published by i40Publishing via Biddles, 2018 ISBN 9781999582784

ebook published by Broken Down Books via Draft2Digital 2022 ISBN 9798215725719

Order copy (ebook only)

Order copy (ebook with digital soundtrack)

This was the first book published by the micropress i40Publishing, an offshoot of the Everything Indie Over 40 social media community, and the first book I had written to be formally published. Telling the factual story of Bolton-based indie band the Irony Board between 1993 and 1995, the book was accompanied by a 15-song CD containing all the band's studio recordings. 

I launched the book with readings and live song performances at the LP Cafe in Watford. 100 copies of the paperback were printed and the edition sold out within weeks. I say 100 copies were sold, one was given away in a competition, and another was left out in the wild to be read and then passed on. Who knows where that one resides now?

Due to subsequent popular demand, an ebook version was published. This is available to buy via the links above, with or without the songs.