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At Your Own Risk
At Your Own Risk
Oct 6, 2024 5:14 AM

Author:Derek Jarman,Matthew Todd

At Your Own Risk

Impassioned, witty and polemical, At Your Own Risk is Derek Jarman's defiant celebration of gay sexuality.

In At Your Own Risk, Derek Jarman weaves poetry, prose, photographs and newspaper extracts into a rich tapestry of gay experience in the UK. The buttoned-up repression of the fifties and sixties makes way for liberation and free love in the seventies, only to be chased by the terror and pain of HIV/AIDS. This is Jarman at his passionate best, written when he was already ill with HIV and in the midst of the moral panic surrounding the AIDS crisis. Defiant and furious, he not only celebrates his own sexuality but skewers wider society for its brazen homophobia.

Reissued here 25 years after Jarman's death, with an introduction by Straight Jacket author Matthew Todd, At Your Own Risk remains a singular work. It is a powerful reminder of how far we have come and how much further we have left to go.

'It blew my mind quite honestly !', It's A Sin star Olly Alexander via Twitter

Reviews

If there is any such thing as the literary equivalent of an incendiary bomb, then this is it... His semtex-packed sentences are welcome thunderflashes of dissent in the grey drizzle of a dispirited political climate

—— New Statesman

At Your Own Risk gives the reader access to something that is hard to articulate, the near asphyxiating pain, anxiety and rage which many gay people have felt living under the physical, legal and cultural attacks of the last few years

—— Observer

For all his anger, Jarman never seems brutalised. He retains his humanity and good humour. His is a wonderfully garrulous, mercurial, polymathic daemon

—— Literary Review

This memoir will give you that warm glow of finding a friend who shares your passions . . . In this loving slice of social history, he beautifully mixes that passion with the story of a young man growing up and succeeding in post-war Britain.

—— DAILY EXPRESS

In prose and in person, Johnson has always had an everyman likeability . . . his take on the "good old days" is sparely unsentimental . . . very readable.

—— Stuart Maconie , NEW STATESMAN

This book is a joy from the opening track to the closing cut.

—— Hot Press

A joyous and nostalgic celebration of the golden age of the LP

—— Daily Mirror

An enlightening spin through the golden age of the album ... complex and poignant

—— Mail on Sunday

Hepworth has more insider knowledge and knows more rock anecdotes than any man alive

—— The Herald

Fascinating

—— The Week

A love letter to the LP

—— The Sun

An enthusiast’s account of the golden age of vinyl

—— Culture, The Sunday Times

A preturnaturally gifted writer with a voice that's street-smart and learned, sassy and philosophical all at the same time

—— The New York Times

Shakespeare pulled from his pedestal and made contemporary...this book is terrific...informative and, more importantly, very enjoyable

—— This England

Smith salvages Shakespeare from the status of isolated genius, and reveals him as an active participant in his own time and place. In turn, we the audience become active participants in the remaking of Shakespeare...This book puts the pleasure back into the plays, and there is no better reason to read about Shakespeare than that

—— Sarah Ditum , The Lancet

Packed with sharp observations and illuminating commentary on the works and their afterlives...acute on the plays' modern resonances and how today's theatre troupes handle Will's less woke moments, such as The Taming of the Shrew. They won't cancel Shakey yet!

—— The Times Books of the Year 2019

A brilliant and accessible tour of Shakespeare's plays that is also a radical manifesto for how to read and watch his work. Witty, irreverent and searching, this book shines dazzling new light on the oeuvre of the world's greatest literary genius.

—— Economist Books of the Year

A tonic ... This Is Shakespeare will, for some time to come, remain required reading for all those with more than a passing interest in Shakespeare ... ['Gappiness' is] a compelling way of evaluating afresh an author about whom we are often told that everything has been said ... Outstanding ... A model for almost everything that Shakespeare criticism for the general reader should be striving to achieve

—— Rhodri Lewis , Prospect

Consistently fascinating [...] there's no denying the wit and intelligence [...] nor the dangerous readability of this thoughtful study.

—— Alexander Larman , Observer

This is a beautiful book and a must-have for Prince completists

—— Daily Express

A ghostly memoir of a pop legend

—— i

The Beautiful Ones is not a traditional memoir of the trailblazer, more a collage of stories, notes, and pictures, […] a fascinating document.

—— Irish Examiner

Prince’s deeply personal memoir, that includes never-seen photos, scrapbooks and lyric sheets. It’s a must for all fans.

—— Choice Magazine

Other books will surely dig deeper into the life and the music, but his glows with a special allure, gilded as it is by the touch of the creator himself.

—— Q Magazine

If you adored the amazing performer […] then you should get your hands on this amazing memoir, written by the artist himself in The Beautiful Ones. Prince provides incredible anecdotes about his meteoric rise to stardom, sharing photos and memorabilia that have never been seen before.

—— Essential Marbella Magazine
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