My name is Paul Kingsnorth, and I'm a writer, environmentalist, journalist and poet. My new book, Real England, is published on 10th April, and this site is its cyberspace companion.
The book is an account of a journey I took through my home country - a country that is being colonised and homogenised by corporate power, an over-centralised state, money and indifference. It's a nation of clone towns, second homes, superstores, privatised streets and disintegrating local cultures. But it's also a nation of people resisting these trends, and of places that stubbornly refuse to have their character erased in the name of progress. I went searching for the real England: I found it, and my book is about how it can survive and why it should.
I'll be updating this blog regularly - not just with news about the book itself and accompanying events and articles, but with discussions, arguments, links and doubtless a few rants relating to the issues covered in the book. I'd like it to turn into a place to talk about all things English: political, cultural, geographical, historical. Come and help make it happen.
In the meantime, the links on the left allow you to read an extract from the book, have a look at some of the early reviews (many more to come I hope), catch up with events planned around it (ditto) - and, of course, buy it (which is obviously the most important bit).
More from me soon as this blog gets up to speed.
4 comments:
Dear Paul,
I'm looking forward to this book - the theme seems to resonate strongly with what's happening in Oxford right now. As I'm sure you know, the Council has approved a plan to triple the size of the Westgate Shopping Centre, creating a monstrous mega-mall in the middle of a historic University town.
However, local resistance has been building fast ever since the Council starting hacking down city centre trees in January - see http://westgatewatch.wordpress.com for the full story, which includes tree-sitting, forced evictions, sham consultations, floods, tree-spiking, legal challenges, crap arrests and spontaneous demonstrations by emo kids with skateboards. We're coming up with alternative proposals for the site, and there's a chance that we might even win...
It'd be great if you felt like getting involved and maybe blogging about it at some point - let us know (via the westgatewatch website) if you want more info.
Good luck with the book!
Danny
I'm also looking forward to your book. I think it's great you have taken the time to write this and highlight the plight of our culture and environment.
Good luck with your project!
Glad to hear it's out, I will go and order it in my library.
I look forward to reading it.
Would love to Danny - have mentioned the Westgate in passing in the book, in fact, and plenty of other Oxford-related horrors too. It's happening everywhere.
Sarah and Englisc - I hope you enjoy it! Do spread the word if you do.
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