The Bee

Quite rightly singled out by the Observer as one of the best debuts of 2026 – an empathetic evocation of the experience of learning disability, and a brilliant new voice for non-gentrified east London. Read our interview with Lucy Apps here: thebeemagazine.com/lucy-apps-ou...

Our interview with the poptastic memoirist Adelle Stripe, who asked if we could begin with some Smash Hits type questions as well as literary ones is here: thebeemagazine.com/adelle-strip...

In the 2000s I was asked to put together a panel gathered by a European phone network to predict what uses cameras on phones might be out to. We had successful artists, analysts, commentators etc, but looking back, the person who predicted how they'd be used was a 16 year old girl from Brixton.

Pagers being used to organise warehouse parties and raves in the 1980s and 1990s?

The difficulties with Starmer identifying as working class are obvious, but it’s interesting that the biggest objectors are clearly middle class right wing journalists. Most seems incapable of understanding you might base your identity on things other than job & money.

“Wuthering Heights” Review: Problems Aren’t Only About Race and Class The problem with Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights run deeper than its awful casting.

“Wuthering Heights is a story by and about people from below,” writes Richard Benson in a a short history of adaptations of the book. “Millions have identified with it as such for 150 years. Fennell's version takes the pretty bits, and made them into a film for people from above.”
bit.ly/wh26x

Seeing a possible Gruffalo scenario here

I’ve never heard this before and it’s beautiful. Music for a Large Ensemble sounds perfect today in the cold sunshine

I love photography work in which the photographer makes themselves parrndo the story, rather than just being the detached eye

His argument is that up to ww1 the church had more credibility do could call on the king/country model. After ww1, when churches of all countries were blessing the guns, a new idea/image of nationhood was needed & found in “the people”.

Yes it does have that, and the identity is defined in opposition to an invasion. But there is also the imagining of the industrial working class as the backbone of the nation - in contrast to the ww1-era patriotism which was about doing your duty to king and country.

In Richard Weight’s book Patriots he makes a very good analysis of how the current version of patriotism we live with now was devised and sold in World War 2. Most of what you’re saying follows from that. It’s worth reading just for that first section.

Dracula for me.

We look at books through a class lens, and when we did Dracula for a podcast episode, it was interesting to see what this brought out - especially the conflict between bourgeois faith in science and rationalism and working-class understanding of the irrational.

When We’re Smiling Do photographs of working-class people have to be sombre, serious and vaguely threatening? Not if Carmina Ripollès is taking the pictures, they don’t. Here’s her show of smiles from the past year to c...

The documentary photography of working-class people that gets published tends to show people looking pitiable and/or threatening.

We try to challenge that a bit, and Carmina Ripollés is one of the photographers who helps us. Here's her fabulous festive portfolio:
thebeemagazine.com/when-were-sm...

This is a genuine question - what evidence are you thinking of that shows a decline in reading comprehension? And over how many years?

That is a bit of genius, especially whwn you think about influence as a measure of class.

Looking forward to columnists exploring further class-related statistical anomalies, such as employed working-class people having to claim benefits to cover basic living expenses.

How I Ruined a Middle-Class Christmas Her family scoff sausage rolls, love a bit of tinsel, and open their presents when they get up. His eat tiny amounts of Thorntons, colour-co-ordinate, and – yes, we are in Hell – wait until after dinn...

Had a lot of fun working with Leesa Morris on this, a comic festive disaster story about a working-class woman's first Christmas with her fiancé's middle-class parents. Her observations of rituals and manners from sausage rolls eating to present opening are a yuletide delight 🐝🎄🐝🎄🐝🎄

My 15 year old daughter loves music and when I talk to her about Beyoncé’s albums, particularly Lemonade, I feel like Beyoncé did for a lot of girls what the past greats did for their fans - which probably included annoying fans of the acknowledged pop canon.

Phillip Bonosky’s Fight for the Working Class - Pittsburgh Review of Books Phillip Bonosky wanted to be a Catholic priest growing up during the Great Depression amid the slag heaps of a nearby steel mill in Duquesne, a gritty steel

Born in the Mon Valley, Phillip Bonosky transformed from a devout Catholic into a committed Communist writer, chronicling the struggles of working-class immigrants. Richard Gazarik tells his story.

pghrev.com/phillip-bono...

Shall I give you a shout in Jan?

Congratulations 🥂

I agree, and given this is about commercial copywriting, it represents a land grab by capitalism, ie assuming some of the power held by museums and academic institutions. Even if it is just a case of a copywriter looking up synonyms for “iconic”

Good lord is there more than one kind? This adds a whole new angle.

Anyone else noticing “canonical” replacing out “iconic” in ads? I have just watched an an advert for a canonical calendar.

The Working Class Library Episode 6: Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt Kevin Barry joins Claire Malcolm, chief executive of New Writing North, and Richard Benson, editor of The Bee, to discuss Frank McCourt’s 1996 memoir Angela’s Ashes.

The new episode of our Working Class Library podcast, in which Kevin Barry makes the case for Angela’s Ashes as a working class classic, is out now - on all platforms, and our site - see link here 🐝🐝

Awful! Perhaps partly explains why when the NHS was introduced, doctors were taken aback by women were presenting with horrific illnesses/conditions/injuries they had had to live with and conceal .

Waterstones and Barnes & Noble owner 'looks to list them on stock market' The owner of Waterstones and Barnes & Noble, a US hedge fund, is reportedly looking to list the booksellers on the stock market.

This doesn't sound good: www.thebookseller.com/news/waterst... (And it's already terrifying that such an important asset to the UK economy, cultural soft power and to generally making life better is owned by a US hedge-fund.)

Jacket of The Real East End by Thomas Burke

Just discovering Thomas Burke, a prolific early 20th c working class writer who joined London Bohemia, and then pointed out that most of the convention-challenging it was so proud of had been/was already being done by working-class Victorians decades earlier. Looking forward to reading more in 2026