Writing Fire Rush: Mixology, Samples, Rewinds - Books That Have Inspired Me and Been Through the Mix
By Jacqueline Crooks
Writing Fire Rush: Mixology, Samples, Rewinds - Books That Have Inspired Me and Been Through the Mix
By Jacqueline Crooks
Collaboration with other writers is an important part of my process and this includes reading books by diverse writers of prose, poetry, and music - always music because I consider literature and music to be inseparable. I also believe that poetry and prose intersect. My list therefore contains novels, poetry collections as well as some obvious books on dub-reggae.
The supra-watt energy, ideas, styles, and alchemy of these writers were markers of excellence that I aimed for. For example, when deciding on the dub-plate-style structure for Fire Rush, I studied the structure of the English Patient and how it casts a spell through its movement between different times and spaces. It has taken me sixteen years to write Fire Rush and during that time I have read a lot of books - this list could easily be a lot longer. I think of the novels and poetry collections in this list as masterclasses in writing. The books on dub-reggae and sound were helpful in writing about how music connects us to people, communities, histories, ancestors, and ourselves.
People Funny Boy: The Genius of Lee 'Scratch' Perry
David Katz
£25.00 £23.75This was a great book for getting an insider view of the world of the dub reggae music producers and the processes of the genius of Lee Scratch Perry. This is a fantastic archive of a book
Bageye at the Wheel: A 1970s Childhood in Suburbia
Colin Grant
£10.99 £10.44Personal experience is the starting point for all my stories and this memoir is one I return to every few years as a lesson in life writing and character-driven narrative that captures the over desires and aspirations as well as the ones that unspoken. Bageye is unforgettable.
Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica
Zora Neale Hurston
£11.99Insight into the underground world of Caribbean sorcery and magic
Natural Mysticism: Towards a new Reggae Aesthetic
Kwame Dawes
£14.99 £14.24Reggae consciousness and its impact on the writer, a compelling reggae aesthetic
The English Patient: Winner of the Golden Man Booker Prize
Michael Ondaatje
£9.99 £9.49Beautifully crafted intersecting prose and poetry, landscape as character, captivating storytelling.
Portable Paradise
Roger Robinson
£9.99 £9.49Shining a light and turning up the bass on everyday spirited people in this exquisite collection.
Nudibranch: the collection from MBE for Literature recipient Irenosen Okojie
Irenosen Okojie
£9.99 £9.49Brave, experimental, unique. Dared me to go all out on trying new styles and structures.
The Museum of Disappearing Sounds
Zoe Skoulding
£9.99 £9.49The sound poetry in this book comes off the page. I wanted the same for Fire Rush.
Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women and Queer Radicals
Saidiya Hartman
£12.99 £12.34Bringing lost worlds to life, vivifying, acknowledging, and celebrating women who were voiceless.
Jazz
Toni Morrison
£9.99 £9.49Michel Butor says music and the novel shed light on each other and this book is a great example of this.
The Old Slave and the Mastiff
Patrick Chamoiseau
£10.99 £10.44A tense, riveting chase through the rainforest, through history and memory - everything I needed for ideas for the chase scenes in Fire Rush.
The Book of Sand and Shakespeare's Memory
Jorge Luis Borges
£10.99 £10.44Borges labyrinth of non-linear time draws you in and doesn’t let you go.