James Bailey

MEDIA REVIEWS Bailey's slippery Spark is chaotic, complex, often hilarious, and constantly shapeshifting. His kaleidoscopic portrait illuminates Spark's life and work from every angle, yet - crucially - allows her the freedom she craved to confound and elude those who would try to pin her down. This is a deeply stylish, astute and illuminating biography of a fascinating writer - Francesca Wade, author of SQUARE HAUNTING

The first blurb for my book is in!

I’m so delighted that the brilliant Francesca Wade (whose new Gertrude Stein biography is amazing) had this to say about LIKE A CAT LOVES A BIRD

Photo realistic illustration of a green trimphone on a beige background.

Beautiful everyday Ladybird things.
The Trimphone
(How it Works: The Telephone, 1972)
Artist: BH Robinson

A blue-grey staffie, placing his paw on my arm and wearing a look of grave concern

He has something very grave to impart.

I love this photo because it looks like it belongs in a life insurance brochure, which is all I’ve ever really wanted, to be honest.

Now I’m falling asleep and she’s calling a cob

Inventing Gertrude Stein, Literary Cubist Near the beginning of The Making of Americans, Gertrude Stein breaks off abruptly to address her reader—“but truly,” she adds, “I never feel it that there ever can be for me any such a creature, no…

Francesca Wade examines how Gertrude Stein’s “desire to wring every ounce of meaning from a limited set of words” made the expatriate writer famous in her own country.

Pages from Hyacinth Bucket’s Book of Etiquette, titled ‘The Art of the Telephone’ and featuring several pictures of Patricia Routledge on the phone

Update: a thoroughly demented read, 10/10

This is how I find my people

Index, which contains items including: ‘animal kingdom, proper place for’, ‘chimpanzees, avoiding teabags recommended by’ and ‘hands, importance of ensuring cleanliness of in tradespersons’

Curiosity got the better of me and I had to see what was in this book. The Index alone is really quite something.

Ah it’s so brilliant and heartbreaking

A copy of Hyacinth Bucket’s Book of Etiquette: For the Socially Less Fortunate

Very sad to hear of the death of Patricia Routledge, although I’m now laughing at the memory of first moving in with my boyfriend, and finding out that he owned a copy of Hyacinth Bucket’s Book of Etiquette: For the Socially Less Fortunate 💜

Brilliant! May I message you so that I can get a contact detail for the publisher?

Like a Cat Loves a Bird by James Bailey | Waterstones Buy Like a Cat Loves a Bird by James Bailey from Waterstones today! Click and Collect from your local Waterstones or get FREE UK delivery on orders over £25.

Hello Robin, I’d love to get a proof of my book on Muriel Spark to you, if you’re interested in reading it? www.waterstones.com/book/like-a-...

Just drop me a message if so and I’ll let the publisher know!

This may shock you, but I did not even get an interview

I was, unbelievably, not invited to an interview

Would you like to have a guess

Some days I’m doing okay, but on others I recall the time I accidentally submitted a recipe for orange-scented peach cobblers instead of my CV when applying for my first graduate job

Beautiful!

Little cottage with old castle walls behind and misty trees beyond

Mist over hills and trees as the sun rises

Two trees in a misty field before the sun rises

Morning! And what a beautiful one it is. Here are a couple of #iPhone15Pro shots takes from the moving train :)

Appreciate it! 🐈‍⬛

🐈‍⬛🖤

A young Staffordshire bull terrier, with a blue-grey coat, wearing a bucket hat

He thinks he’s a member of the Happy Mondays.

A young Staffordshire bull terrier, with a grey-blue coat, looking intently at a bee.

He thinks he’s a bee.

A young Staffordshire bull terrier, with a grey-blue coat, who has gotten into a trolley used to store vegetables.

He thinks he’s a potato.

Grey cat curled up fast asleep on a shelf amongst files.

He's filed himself

Monochrome photograph featuring a white woman in a long dark skirt, white shirt and black hat, walking with back to the viewer carrying a large canvas on rocky ground with shrubs

Georgia O'Keeffe carrying her canvas in the desert, c.1920
(via FB) #WomensArt

Thank you! That means a lot!

That was my runner-up!