Notes from the road

A book tour, some songs, some lists.

Hello and welcome to Friends in Common.

Its been a hectic few weeks since our last post. On June 20th we officially released Friends in Common in a sweltering room in Glasgow, followed by a night of friendship themed kareoke (including a faultless Spice Girls ‘Wannabe’ Rap, Placebo, Randy Newman, Carole King, Sondheim and us both doing the Friends theme song). We then piled into Joel’s Berlingo for a small tour around the country, taking in Newcastle, Todmorden, Bradford, Leeds, Sheffield, Bristol and London.

We had some amazing and expansive conversations throughout, and want to extend a huge thanks to everyone who helped host, promote and attend the various dates. The whole idea of the tour was to try and recreate some of the ideas about making connections and sharing political analysis through touring that we explore in the book, and it was incredibly heartening to experience this together and see people engaging with Friends in Common as both text and practice!

We have collated a few pictures below, along with some lists of books we were recommended, and that we found ourselves referencing a lot from our own bibliography. Various people mentioned how they’d struggled to find books about friendship (beyond the often shallow and individualised set of self-help writing on the topic), so hopefully this can help a bit.

Joel also did a special edition of the folk and trad radio show his does with his friend Lilí Ní Dhomhnaill, HOW SERENE, focused on songs about friendship - you can listen back to that here.

Finally, before the lists - we’ve got a few more upcoming things to shout out too. Joel is at the Woodcraft Folk’s Camp 100 today and tomorrow (spanning the world with friendship indeed!) for anyone who is there, with a workshop on Queer Family Trees at the MEST-UP tent today at 16:30, and a book reading at the Central Cafe tomorrow 11:00.

We are then both back in Newcastle on Thursday at the The NewBridge Project for a free (but ticketed) workshop, chat and delicious dinner as part of their Reading Room Programme, 6-8pm, tickets here.

We are then both in Edinburgh on August 13th at the fabulous Lighthouse Books for a lunchtime (1pm) Book Fringe event, tickets for that here.

OK, we’ll back soon with more posts and interviews. For now though, here’s some pictures of us looking sweaty and excitable at various locations around Britain, and some book recommendations:

Some books we kept recommending:

• Dean Spade – Love In a Fucked Up World

• Anahhit Behrouz - BFFs

• M.E. O’Brien - Family Abolition Capitalism and the Communizing of Care

• Anonymous - ‘Friendship as a Form of Life’ Zine

• Nick Montgomery and clara bergman - Joyful Militancy: Building Thriving Resistance in Toxic Times

• Hannah Proctor - Burnout: The Emotional Experience of Political Defeat

• Vincent Bevins - If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution

• Saidiya Hartman - Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval

• Pinko Collective - After Accountability: A Critical Genealogy of a Concept

• Jodi Dean - Comrade

• Jenni Keasden & Natalia Szarek - Worth Fighting For: Bringing the Rojava Revolution Home

• David Scott - Stuart Hall’s Voice: Intimations of an Ethics of Receptive Generosity

• Alan Bray - The Friend

• Robyn Maynard & Leanne Betasamosake Simpson - Rehearsals for Living

Some books we were recommended (but haven’t had a chance to read yet!):

• Victoria Law and China Martens - Don't Leave Your Friends Behind: Concrete Ways to Support Families in Social Justice Movements and Communities

• Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman - Big friendship: how we keep each other close

• Sheila Rowbotham - Friends of Alice Wheeldon: the Anti-War Activist Accused of Plotting to Kill Lloyd George

• Benjamin Heim Shepard - On Activism, Friendships, and Fighting: Oral Histories, Strategies and Conflicts

• Isabelle Graw – On the benefits of friendship

• Christophe Camus – ‘An essay on radical friendship’