Rock 'n' Roll Dreams in a Northern Town

'Extremely funny' Sunday Telegraph 
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A poet is a rock star without the sex'n'drugs, or the rock'n'roll. But that never stopped Simon Armitage dreaming, and in Gig, he explores how music and the muse intertwine in work and in life. Crammed with stories, anecdotes, jokes, absurdities, the odd informal homily, pitfalls and pratfalls (not all the author's own), Yorkshire life and death, Gig is about the dream and reality of what you are, and what you might have been. 
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'One of our most entertaining authors' Independent 
 
'Very, very funny' GQ 
 
'Witty, terrific, stupendously funny' Daily Telegraph 
 
 
Simon Armitage, Sunday Times bestseller, April 2024

I read this book in one sitting. It moved me to tears, to shouts of laughter, and made me look at even the most mundane things in a different way

Engaging, eccentric, hilarious, incredibly good company. A wonderwall of moments and memories . . . one of our most entertaining authors

Very, very funny . . . the kind of book you'll want to press on your friends

Witty, terrific, stupendously funny

Warm, funny . . . wonderfully accurate and evocative . . . we close the book wanting more

Funny, perceptive, thought-provoking. Armitage has a poet's eye for the poignant detail and the bigger theme

Simon Armitage was born in West Yorkshire in 1963, and continues to live near Huddersfield. He is one of the leading writers of his generation. He has won the Sunday Times author of the year, the Forward Prize, a Lannan Award, and an Ivor Novello Award for his song lyrics in the Channel 4 film, Feltham Sings

A poet is a rock star without the sex'n'drugs, or the rock'n'roll. But that never stopped Simon Armitage dreaming, and in Gig, he explores how music and the muse intertwine in work and in life. Crammed with stories, anecdotes, jokes, absurdities, the odd informal homily, pitfalls and pratfalls (not all the author's own), Yorkshire life and death, Gig is about the dream and reality of what you are, and what you might have been.

the bestselling memoir from the new Poet Laureate

All Points North

'A joy. Celebrates the real world and revels in its mad glory' Sue Townsend, Sunday Times 
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All Points North is part-memoir and part-excursion. Charting the rugged and uneven terrain of a writer's formative years - from tax problems to probation to American tours, football to family to running away to Iceland - Simon Armitage explores growing up and being Northern. It's about humour, language, writing, film, houses, homes, time wasters, one loose tyre, you, me and all points in-between. 
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'Laugh-out-loud funny' Independent 
 
'A delight' Jonathan Raban, Times Literary Supplement 
 
'A perfect holiday dipper' Scotsman 
 
'An Alan Bennett-style diary' Daily Telegraph

A joy. Celebrates the real world and revels in its mad glory

I was irresistibly reminded of Alan Bennett - there is the same wry humour, wonderfully telling selection of detail or remark . . . a fine balance of humour and poignancy

The salty prose of an original poetic voice

A thoughtful, witty combination of travel writing, autobiography and Alan Bennett-style diary

Laugh-out-loud funny . . . has all the resonant precision of a poet's ear and eye

An original and talented writer . . . highly entertaining and there are flashes of wit and moments of tenderness and brilliantly accurate observation

The best book I have read in a long time on what he insists is the true North of England

I was irresistibly reminded of Alan Bennett - there is the same wry humour, wonderfully telling selection of detail or remark... a fine balance of humour and poignancy

The salty prose of an original poetic voice

Laugh-out-loud funny... has all the resonant precision of a poet's ear and eye

A delight - high-spirited, light-footed, very funny and wickedly observamt

A joy. Celebrates the real world and revels in its mad glory

Simon Armitage was born in West Yorkshire in 1963. In 1992 he won one of the first Forward Prizes for poetry, and a year later was the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year. His Selected Poems appeared in 2001, and in 2007 he published a highly praised translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. He received an Ivor Novello Award for his song lyrics in the BAFTA-winning film Feltham Sings. 
 
Simon Armitage works as a freelance writer, broadcaster and playwright, and has written extensively for radio and television. He was made Poet Laureate in 2019.

All Points North is part-memoir and part-excursion. Charting the rugged and uneven terrain of a writer's formative years - from tax problems to probation to American tours, football to family to running away to Iceland - Simon Armitage explores growing up and being Northern. It's about humour, language, writing, film, houses, homes, time wasters, one loose tyre, you, me and all points in-between.

The White Stuff

Simon Armitage's adaption of his first novel Little Green Man will be broadcast by the BBC in Spring 2005.

Simon Armitage was born in West Yorkshire in 1963, and is regarded as one of the leading poets of his generation. After university he worked as a probation officer in Manchester; he also presented Radio 4's poetry series Stanza for five years. His first prose book ALL POINTS NORTH was published by Viking in 1998. His first novel LITTLE GREEN MAN was published by Viking in 2001. His most recent projects include a translation of THE ODYSSEY for Radio 4, and a screenplay for the BBC. He lives near Huddersfield.

Abbie Fenton wants a baby. Her husband Felix, not unaware of the thunderous ticking of Abbie's biological clock, wants to oblige but their home has still to be blessed. Cue the usual round of doctors, tests, probes and scans - all to no avail. 
 
 
 
So Abbie - adopted at birth - decides that if she can't have a child then she must at least discover whose child she is. Soon, she and Felix are caught up in a make-or-break search for family, identity and meaning. And little do they know quite where the journey will take them ...

Simon Armitage

Tim Dee

Powerful. A rich and sustaining larder, a marvellously realized sourcebook of flights of feathered fancy

Some of the most ethereal verse ever written

A glorious collection of works old and new

Compendious . . . offers many pleasures

The poems gathered here celebrate our tenuous connection to something timeless and sublime. A truly inexhaustible collection . . . to be read again and again

A wonderful, generous anthology. A life-affirming celebration of the commonplace yet enduringly mysterious creatures we share this world with and the poetry they have inspired

edited by Simon Armitage and Tim Dee

Birds are the most obvious wild things we have around us. They are much watched and much loved. A remarkable number of poets have noticed birds and British bird poetry is as old as British poetry. Some of the best known, and most loved, poems in English are bird poems. Here poet Simon Armitage and amateur ornithologist Tim Dee gather the best of the past and the most promising of the present, as well as some overlooked gems. Poems are organised according to ornithological classification, and there are detailed ornithological notes which illuminate the poems and provide fascinating information on the birds.  Altogether this is a truly original anthology.

Simon Armitage

Praise for The Poetry of Birds

Powerful. A rich and sustaining larder, a marvellously realized sourcebook of flights of feathered fancy

Some of the most ethereal verse ever written

A glorious collection of works old and new

Powerful. A rich and sustaining larder, a marvellously realized sourcebook of flights of feathered fancy

Some of the most ethereal verse ever written

A glorious collection of works old and new

Powerful. A rich and sustaining larder, a marvellously realized sourcebook of flights of feathered fancy

Some of the most ethereal verse ever written

A glorious collection of works old and new

Books by Simon Armitage

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