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Book Cover for: Absolute Beginners, Colin MacInnes

Absolute Beginners

Colin MacInnes

Paperback
Regular price$16.95With free membership trial$8.4850% off your first book+ Free shipping
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London, 1958. In the smoky jazz clubs of Soho and the coffee bars of Notting Hill the young and the restless - the absolute beginners - are forging a new carefree lifestyle of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll. Moving in the midst of this world of mods and rockers, Teddy gangs and trads., and snapping every scene with his trusty Rolleiflex, is MacInnes' young photographer, whose unique wit and honest views remain the definitive account of London life in the 1950s and what it means to be a teenager. In this twentieth century cult classic, MacInnes captures the spirit of a generation and creates the style bible for anyone interested in Mod culture, and the changing face of London in the era of the first race riots and the lead up to the swinging Sixties...

Book Details

  • Publisher: Allison & Busby
  • Publish Date: Aug 1st, 2011
  • Pages: 288
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 7.70in - 5.00in - 0.80in - 0.40lb
  • EAN: 9780749009984
  • Categories: • Literary• Historical - General• Sagas

About the Author

MacInnes, Colin: - A talented off-beat journalist and social observer, Colin MacInnes is best known for his trilogy of London novels which includes Absolute Beginners as well as City of Spades and Mr Love and Justice. He also wrote about the allied occupation of Germany in the aftermath of the Second World War, in June in Her Spring and England, Half English. He died of cancer in 1976. Since his death his best essays, fiction and journalism have been published in various collections.

More books by Colin MacInnes

Book Cover for: Absolute Beginners, Colin MacInnes

What people are saying

Mentioner image for: Jon Savage
Jon Savage
@JonSavage1966
2 years

'This Searing Light,The Sun and Everything Else', The Oral History of Joy Division published by Faber and Faber 4th April 2019

@gairdunlop @robnitm Love this portrait of Terry Taylor defining early Mod style. From the jacket of Barons Court All Change, 1961. I think they had a scene. @robnitm will know! Taylor also a friend of Colin MacInnes, who based the lead character in Absolute Beginners on him https://t.co/EiW86Bbatm

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Mentioner image for: Jon Dennis
Jon Dennis
@JonDennis
2 years

Books and records, mostly. I'm also shooting the breeze (I really hate the breeze) at https://t.co/9faICHxMfq and @jondennisesq@threads.net

Re-reading Absolute Beginners. I’m sure it’s been noticed before, but Colin MacInnes places Bayswater west of Wormwood Scrubs. https://t.co/GZKtIle0yA

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Mentioner image for: Helen Barrett
Helen Barrett
@helenbarrett
2 years

Journalist - arts, design, music. Financial Times, Telegraph Arts, The Critic and others. By the window, where the light is. @londonmodern23

Colin MacInnes-themed pub walk around Notting Hill, guided by @Chrisfoges, with a tatty old 80s edition of Absolute Beginners. https://t.co/sekcEnseB4

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Praise for this book

"The writing is breathtaking. Every word carefully selected to draw you further and further in. Occasionally it becomes reminiscent of A Clockwork Orange with the teenagers having their own language and their own world, only half understood by the adults they hold in so much contempt... Buy this book. And then buy a copy for all your friends as well."--The Bookbag

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