Books of the Year 2024 - Number 17

Discover the full list on our blog.

Nothing short of dazzling – Alex Turner

Dr John Cooper Clarke's dazzling, scabrous voice has reverberated through pop culture for decades. His influence on generations of performance poets and musicians is plain for all to see. In WHAT, the original 'People's Poet' comes storming out of the gate with an uproarious new collection, reminding us why he is one of Britain's most beloved writers and performers.

James Brown, John F. Kennedy, Jesus Christ: nobody is safe from the punk rocker's acerbic pen – and that's just the first poem. Hot on the heels of The Luckiest Guy Alive and his sprawling, encyclopedic memoir I Wanna Be Yours, the good Doctor returns with his most trenchant collection of poems yet.

Vivid and alive, with a sensitivity only a writer with a life as varied and extraordinary as Cooper Clarke's could summon, WHAT is an exceptional collection from one of our foremost satirists.