A trip back down memory lane to an era that I lived through. A book for reminiscing. Great! Many thanks to Netgalley for a copy of this ARC for which I have given my voluntary and unbiased review

Even if I found this book interesting and well researched I didn't like the style of writing and I struggled to read it
Not my cup of tea
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

I enjoyed this but then I'm old enough to remember quite a lot of the references. Matthews covers an awful lot of ground, but this means that there were lots of occasions when it wasn't entirely clear which film or TV programme he was referring to and the broad scope leads to rather too much generalisations. There are a few errors (the cover of Bowie's Heroes was a reference to Heckel, not Schiele; Alexei Sayle didn't co-write The Young Ones; Iain Sinclair is many things but hardly "another Ballardian style writer"). He's also too accepting of received wisdom about the 1970s with references to London being brutalised with concrete and the UK being "a sad place" in the 70s and 80s. More oddly, the book is rather old-school (or reflective of the 1980s) in its constant concern with whether films are in Halliwell's Guide or music made the charts - not the major concern of Throbbing Gristle, for example, about which Matthews is rather condescending. Good to see the importance of George Harrison's "one-man rescue mission in UK cinema" being highlighted and overall there should be enough accounts of almost-forgotten films and TV plays to maintain your interest.

My thanks to Netgalley and Oldcastle Books for a copy of “ Looking For A New England “ for an honest review.
With the subject of film, music and Tv from the Seventies and Eighties this should have been the perfect book for me. Unfortunately I didn’t like the way it was written as it didn’t flow well and became very ‘ clunky’ ,I soon lost interest and I ended up skimming through it.
Sorry I can’t recommend

A look at British film, TV and music from the mid 70s to the mid 80s which encompasses mass popular cultural icons and more marginal fringe work.

I felt that, although a lot of ground was covered, the narrative was extremely disjointed and lacked coherent flow. Pity