Archived News
2022
June
Just received the final artwork for the cover of The Longest Winter.
Pitch has done a great job:
June
The success of ‘No One Round Here…’ has led to many checking out my previous books. Most have now sold out on Amazon but are still available (and cheap!) via Pomona. Anyone ordering a copy of any of my books will also be sent a free copy of my last CD album, Adventure Lit their Star. While stock lasts! I will also sign copies of the books, on request.
June
Thank you, the good people (organisers and attendees) of Stratford-upon-Avon, Glasgow, Bath and Hexham for inviting me to talk at their festivals. It was my first time at such forums and I found it surprisingly enjoyable, mainly because everyone was so supportive and enthusiastic. Book lovers are the best gang, ever. Coming up: Ilkley and Cheltenham in October.
I’ve had a lot of emails since publication (and good reviews) of ‘No One Round Here…’ and plan to make a determined effort to put more info out there, via this site and tweeting (@markhod70), and possibly a regular (ish) round-robin email posting.
2021
August
The cover of No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy (unless there are any late changes) will be:
July
My memoir, No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy, will be published by Canongate in February 2022. The blurb is:
Mark Hodkinson grew up among the terrace houses of Rochdale in a house with just one book. His dad kept it on top of a wardrobe with other items of great worth – wedding photographs and Mark’s National Cycling Proficiency certificate. If Mark wanted to read it, he was warned not to crease the pages or slam shut the covers.
Today, Mark is an author, journalist and publisher. He still lives in Rochdale, but is now snugly ensconced (or is that buried?) in a ‘book cave’ surrounded by 3,500 titles – at the last count. No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy is his story of growing up a working-class lad during the 1970s and 1980s. It’s about schools (bad), music (good) and the people (some mad, a few sane), and pre-eminently and profoundly the books and authors (some bad, mostly good) that led the way, and shaped his life. It’s also about a family who just didn’t see the point of reading, and a troubled grandad who, in his own way, taught Mark the power of stories.
In recounting his own life-long love affair with books, Mark also tells the story of how writing and reading has changed over the last five decades, starting with the wave of working-class writers in the 1950s and ’60s, where he saw himself reflected in books for the first time.
January
So sad to hear of the death of Colin Bell who I interviewed for The Times back in 1999.
2020
August
In a few weeks I will be delivering the manuscript to Canongate, ahead of publication in August 2021. I have worked on the book for the best part of a year. More details below.
2019
November
* ‘So Many Books, So Little Time’, a documentary I have presented and co-produced (with Kellie While) will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 at 11.30 am on Thursday 28 November: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000bp3s I have also been commissioned by Canongate to write a book on a similar theme, which I have to deliver by May 2020.
October
I called in at BBC Radio Manchester with the two Overcoat Men from the book, David Kilpatrick and Graham Morris (pictured), and we appeared on the Mike Sweeney Show, 30 October.
The hour-long documentary I made on Ralph McTell, ‘Ralph McTell at 75’ was broadcast on BBC Radio 2 on Saturday 12 October. The programme featured an in-depth interview I did with Ralph at his home in Cornwall. Details here
September
I’ve written a piece about The Overcoat Men book and Rochdale AFC’s match at Old Trafford against Manchester United on the BBC website: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/49787539
August
* My football book, The Overcoat Men, is published by Pitch (https://www.pitchpublishing.co.uk/shop/overcoat-men). It is available from: https://www.pomonauk.com/shop/store.php
February
Thirty-one years after the event, someone has forwarded me the ticket from The Stone Roses/Monkey Run (https://www.mdmarchive.co.uk/artefact/4874/MONKEY_RUN_PROMOTIONAL_ITEM_1988) gig held at The International, Manchester in 1988. I wrote about the night in The Times when reviewing Simon Spence’s book, ‘The Stone Roses: War and Peace’: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-stone-roses-war-and-peace-by-simon-spence-p0mx9dzml5x
2018
October
I wrote a (very!) hard-hitting piece for the trade website BookBrunch about the current state of mainstream publishing: http://www.bookbrunch.co.uk/page/free-article/the-book-industry-needs-a-shakeup-and-a-wake-up/
August
My second novel, That Summer Feeling, published by Pomona. Available here for just £5: https://www.pomonauk.com/shop/store.php
July
The Black Sedan album, Adventure Lit Their Star, is released on Pomona (via Shellshock). Love on Love (the track featuring Charlie Chaplin’s speech from The Great Dictator) is released as a single and receives airplay on BBC 6Music (Mark Radcliffe and Gideon Coe). The video was shot at The Growth Project in Rochdale and in and around the town centre: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwHl6E7mfMo The album is available here for £8: https://www.pomonauk.com/shop/store.php
February:
The Sound of Leamington Spa Vol. 8 is released on Friday 23rd February on CD and double vinyl. Two of my former groups, The Last Peach and The Monkey Run, are featured among the 20 bands, with the tracks Golden Showers and Bats, respectively. More details: http://www.firestation-records.de/CAT/fst155-soundofleamingtonspa.html
2017
September:
Just had the great news that the documentary I made last year for BBC Radio 4, Still Loving Thy Neighbour?, has been long-listed (with seven others) by the Association for International Broadcasting (AIB) as documentary of the year in its ‘Arts and Culture’ section.
I have contributed 3,600 words of sleeve notes to the re-issue (by Cherry Red) of The Mock Turtles album, Turtle Soup. Details here.
To coincide with the 10th anniversary of the murder of Sophie Lancaster, Pomona is reprinting Black Roses which has been out of print for some time. Available here
A track by my first ever band, Untermensch, is featured on Greater Manchester Punk Vol 2 – Now We Are Heroes. https://www.vinylexchange.co.uk/products/various-greater-manchester-punk-two-now-we-are-heroes-1978-82
The Monkey Run song, Falling Upstairs, is included in the 7CD boxed set Manchester North of England: A Story of Independent Music Greater Manchester 1977 – 1993. Details https://www.cherryred.co.uk/product/manchester-north-of-england-a-story-of-independent-music-greater-manchester-1977-1993/
