Music Sitting out 9/11 with Blink-182 After 9/11, I sought refuge at the California home of the manager of the band Blink-182. The third world war was inevitable and its soundtrack was… By Ben Myers
Books Black Car Burning: a mature and evocative debut novel exploring the ties that bind us By Ben Myers
Alan Trotter’s Muscle turns the noir crime novel on its head Trotter’s darkly comic writing comes so hard-boiled you need a knuckleduster to crack it. By Ben Myers
Slaughterhouse Prayer: John King’s new novel of working-class vegan vigilantism The author of The Football Factory charts the tribulations of a lonely, middle-aged animal rights militant. By Ben Myers
Malachy Tallack’s The Valley at the Centre of the World: an authentic novel of island life Having lived in Fair Isle, the most remote inhabited island in Britain, and edited the magazine Shetland Life, Tallack… By Ben Myers
Shaun Prescott’s debut The Town: gripping Australian existentialism The novel explores microcosmic Australia reduced to a town so drab it has no name. By Ben Myers
Patrick Langley’s debut novel Arkady crackles with energy Arkady explores an England wrecked not by obvious dystopian tropes, but by rent hikes, gentrification and the “decanting” of… By Ben Myers
If you don’t know who Willy Vlautin is, you should Vlautin is one of literature’s greats: so why is he still not a big-hitter in contemporary American fiction? By Ben Myers
Blood, blades and bitter: how ice hockey bloomed in 1980s Britain In ailing northern towns, amateur ice hockey brought violence and validation to a generation of young men. By Ben Myers
Nightmare on sea: a strange, once-forgotten history of the Kent coast is a cult favourite David Seabrook’s All the Devils are Here was first published in 2002 to relative indifference – but is beloved… By Ben Myers