our favourite new book

These Foolish Things by Dylan Jones

Few people can say they have shaped the cultural landscape of the last four decades while crossing paths with some of the most extraordinary personalities on the planet. But then, of course, Dylan Jones isn’t just anyone.

The New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author has written or edited over twenty-five books. In the eighties, he was one of the first editors of i-D, before becoming a Contributing Editor of The Face and Editor of Arena, while he is now Editor-in-Chief of the Evening Standard.

‘These Foolish Things’ takes you on a journey to places and encounters with people who have (re-)invented pop culture until today. His personal Magical Mystery Tour, so to say …

Deep in Vogue House (2001)
A boy with a book (Malta 1963)

These Foolish Things captivatingly charts Dylan’s life: from his peripatetic childhood and late adolescence in 1970s London – a city then alive with possibility – to his award-winning tenure at what would become one of the most dynamic magazines of its era, GQ.

It details how he came to be in that hot seat: a journey through the Swinging London slipstreams of punk and new romanticism, and through i-D, The Face and Arena, which created the platform on which GQ was based, with Dylan as a common denominator.

On his way to the Groucho?

Littered with a gold-star cast of characters – including a who’s who of celebrity from David Bowie and Bryan Ferry to Alastair Campbell and Prince Charles, via Samuel L. Jackson, Piers Morgan and Rihanna – this memoir reflects on how GQ became an established style and how Dylan sought to stir up music, politics and fashion.

Witty, perceptive and deliciously entertaining, but by turns bravely vulnerable, These Foolish Things is a memoir like no other: a dazzling retelling of the start of the twenty-first century from one of the world’s most fascinating media giants.

“These Foolish Things” is definitely our favourite book of the summer and we hereby issue the official “Educated”-Reading-Order.

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