James Bailey

@drjamesbailey

Writer from Manchester. LIKE A CAT LOVES A BIRD, my biography of Muriel Spark, out now! 🐈‍⬛ Instagram.com/drjamesbailey

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James Bailey@drjamesbailey· 28d

VAR (Virulent Authorial Ruthlessness)

James Bailey@drjamesbailey· Jul 8

Ticket sales have nudged up a fraction, which is great. I’d really love for next week to go ahead, so do snap up a ticket if you’re dithering. I do a pretty decent signature, too, if you like that sort of thing… www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/waterstone...

A signed copy of Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark. Next to my signature is a doodle of a cat, alongside a cat-shaped badge which has ‘Muriel Spark Fan Club’ on it.

James Bailey@drjamesbailey· Jul 8

Thanks for boosting this! When I first posted it, we’d sold a grand total of 5 tickets. I’m hoping that’s climbed since… Anyway, here’s a picture of Spark at her book launch for Memento Mori in 1959. I promise to recreate this pose if my event goes ahead.

Muriel Spark, photographed beside a table display of copies of Memento Mori

James Bailey@drjamesbailey· Jul 6

Hello, I’ve an event for my Muriel Spark biography next Weds (15th) at Waterstones Liverpool. We’ve sold barely any tickets, however, and it might be cancelled as a result. Please get a ticket if you’re nearby - it’ll be a lot of fun, and I’ll bring badges! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/waterstone...

A picture of me, accompanied by the text: JAMES BAILEY
IN CONVERSATION WITH JESS WHITE AT WATERSTONES LIVERPOOL
WEDNESDAY 15 JULY 6.30PM
The Nine Lives of Muriel Spork

5 cat-shaped badges, with text reading Muriel Spark Fan Club, pinned to a shirt

James Bailey@drjamesbailey· Jun 28

Here I am at my most debonair (unshowered and surrounded by curtain hooks and puncture repair kits), holding a copy of the Sunday Times' Best Books of the Summer list, which includes my ‘witty, stylish' LIKE A CAT LOVES A BIRD: THE NINE LIVES OF MURIEL SPARK! 🐈‍⬛💘🐦‍⬛

Photo of me, holding a copy of The Sunday Times in a newsagent

James Bailey@drjamesbailey· Jun 26

Ah, how funny - I did the very same thing a few months back. Rather underwhelming! (I did enjoy visiting Muriel Spark Walk, however!)

James Bailey@drjamesbailey· Jun 26

Here’s something - LIKE A CAT LOVES A BIRD: THE NINE LIVES OF MURIEL SPARK has been chosen as one of The Times’ best books to read this summer. So that’s nice, isn’t it!

The best books to read this summer
Novels, memoirs and history, paperbacks and hardbacks — plus something for the children. Here's our guide to this summer's finest reads. Use the save button to create your own reading list

Muriel Spark is unusual among modern writers in having had two recent (and first-class) biographies about her. Last year was Frances Wilson's excellent Electric Spark, which focused on her early life and career (it's particularly strong on the awful, groping beta-talents she endured running the Poetry Society). James Bailey's book covers her whole life, or rather nine lives. She was a shape-shifting, slippery character, a woman of many parts (a wartime black propagandist, a high-spending grande dame in Rome, a poverty-stricken single mother, a religious convert). A witty, stylish read that does justice to one of British fiction's most original talents.

James Bailey@drjamesbailey· Jun 18

An extract from the book was published on the Lit Hub website last week, and things have gone slightly bonkers on Instagram. Lots of twenty- and thirty-something women sharing this particular quote in their stories and declaring themselves “intellectual monsters” 💜 lithub.com/an-intellect...

‘I have a calling. Writing is a thing I have to do. Not many men will suffer for that and people do come before books, so it's best not to have people in your life—I'm willing to subordinate an enormous amount for my work. They say sacrifice, but sacrifice for a pleasure makes it more pleasurable. If you took away the writer from me, I believe I would not exist at all.’

James Bailey@drjamesbailey· Jun 16

On Tues 25th August, I’ll be unravelling Spark’s terrifying ‘whydunnit’, THE DRIVER’S SEAT, as part of the Close Read series. Join me for a trawl through Spark’s notes and letters, as we piece together how she wrote the book she called her ‘best… and creepiest’. www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/close...

A note from Muriel Spark’s archive, titled ‘Motifs’. Motifs mentioned include: ‘pinewood’; ‘laughs when alone’; ‘material of dress - doesn’t stain’

An owl paperweight is on top of the note.

James Bailey@drjamesbailey· Jun 13

The book is now out all over the place - go and get a copy, in time for summer! Look chic holding it in a hotel lobby! Read it in a caravan, maybe! Get sun cream and Cornetto all over the cover!

A round wooden table, on which three copies of Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark are arranged

James Bailey@drjamesbailey· Jun 13

Argh, so pleased that LIKE A CAT LOVES A BIRD: THE NINE LIVES OF MURIEL SPARK has been selected as one of the Guardian's best books to read this summer. And recommended by William Boyd, no less!

James Bailey's Like a Cat Loves a Bird:
The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark is both remarkably shrewd and surprisingly amusing
WILLIAM BOYD

Cover of Guardian’s Books section. Issue is titled ‘Adventures in summer reading’: ‘From dynamite debuts to must read memoirs and magical children's fiction, here's our selection of the best books to dip into this summer. Plus leading authors share their favourites’

James Bailey@drjamesbailey· Jun 12

Just back from the Portico Library, where Professor Andrew Biswell discussed Christopher Isherwood, Don Bachardy, Stockport, California, and of course David Hockney 💛

Professor Andrew Biswell, next to a photograph of Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy

Professor Andrew Biswell, next to an image of David Hockney’s painting of Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy

James Bailey@drjamesbailey· Jun 12

DAVID HOCKNEY We Two Boys Together Clinging (1961)

James Bailey@drjamesbailey· Jun 10

Go on, treat yourselves… 🐈‍⬛

A round wooden table, upon which three copies of Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lived of Muriel Spark are displayed

James Bailey@drjamesbailey· Jun 9

If you need further persuasion that LIKE A CAT LOVES A BIRD: THE NINE LIVES OF MURIEL SPARK is the book for you, here’s an extract from a review which not only calls me a ‘young author’ (!) but likens its weight to that of a small chicken Full thing here: openlettersreview.com/posts/like-a...

Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark, comes at the reader slightly aslant, stealthy in its insights, lightweight in page-count, playfully acerbic, overly fond of cats. It's a smart, bantam weight (100 pages shorter than the next-shortest Spark biography, although still 100 pages longer than Spark's own baffling memoir, Curriculum Vitae), savagely assessing, and ultimately memorable; in other words, young author James Bailey has written very first truly Sparkean biography of Muriel Spark.

James Bailey@drjamesbailey· Jun 9

Oh hi there! Just me, casually appearing from a behind a big stack of US editions of LIKE A CAT LOVES A BIRD: THE NINE LIVES OF MURIEL SPARK, because the book's out in America today! A huge thank you to @princetonupress.bsky.social 🐈‍⬛ Buy it here! press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

Me, standing behind a large stack of copies of Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark. The book has a red cover and pink spine, and features a photograph of Muriel Spark holding a black cat.

James Bailey@drjamesbailey· May 20

To mark Grace Jones’s 78th birthday, please enjoy her insisting that ‘Pull Up to the Bumper’ is simply a pleasant song about the joys of manoeuvring a long, well-waxed limousine into a very tight space, and ‘shame on you’ if you think otherwise! 🚘

Later I would mature more and tell the truth about how I was feel. ing, but when I wrote that, I was still hiding away from what I really felt. There was nothing personal about it; it wasn't about anyone. It was a way of having fun with some words that suited a track that sounded like you were having fun. So we have a car, and it's long, because it's a limousine, speeding down a Manhattan avenue, all the lights on green, through the steam pouring into the night, and you want to keep it clean, so you wax it and rub it, giving it a shine, and it's hard to park, because we're in the city, and it's so big, so you have to squeeze it into tight spaces, between certain obstacles, and nudge up against the car in front of you or behind you or both. You make it fit, and it is such a great feeling. Obviously, this could sound like you were talking about something else. If you wanted, you could imagine that I am not singing about a car at all. But that's up to you. If you think the song is not about parking a car, shame on you.

James Bailey@drjamesbailey· May 20

Hello, some book news! On 15th July, I’ll be at Waterstones Liverpool, talking all about LIKE A CAT LOVES A BIRD: THE NINE LIVES OF MURIEL SPARK with the one and only @jesswhite.bsky.social - come along if you’re nearby! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/waterstone...

Picture of Muriel Spark in a graveyard, accompanied by the text: Sometimes, I like to go to Waterstones Liverpool to plug my book

James Bailey@drjamesbailey· May 15

This is where I not-at-all-shamelessly tell you both about my book…

James Bailey@drjamesbailey· May 13

I suppose I’d be prepared to settle for either of these instead:

Billboard for Joni Mitchell’s album, Hejira

Billboard for Joni Mitchell’s live album, Miles of Aisles

James Bailey@drjamesbailey· May 13

How much effort, do you think, would it take to retrieve this 1971 Joni Mitchell billboard and have it fitted to the roof of my house? Interviewer: we meant do you have any questions about the job.

Billboard for Joni Mitchell’s album, Blue

James Bailey@drjamesbailey· May 7

Do try to get your paws on a copy of LIKE A CAT LOVES A BIRD if you can. It’s out as an audiobook, too! Other events coming up include: • @urmstonbooks.bsky.social (12th May) • @serenitybookshop.bsky.social (22nd May) • Books on the Walls in Chester (4th June) • @junobooks.bsky.social (10th June)

Ad for the audiobook of Like a Cat Loves a Bird, featuring a photo of the voice actor, Harley Viveash

James Bailey@drjamesbailey· May 7

And last but not least, Manchester! Thanks, @blackwellsmcr.bsky.social, for holding a launch, and to @jennashworth.bsky.social for chatting to me. Lots of friends and family attended - including my mum!

Me and Jenn Ashworth: I’m holding a copy of my book and smiling

James Bailey@drjamesbailey· May 7

London, too! Thank you, @hatchards.bsky.social, for an amazing sold-out (despite a tube strike!) launch with @sophiehaydock.bsky.social Thanks, too, to @qpbooks.bsky.social, @foylesforbooks.bsky.social and @londonreviewbookshop.co.uk and various Waterstoneses for letting me sign some copies.

Me signing copies at Gower St Waterstones

The audience at the Hatchards launch, who are all applauding which is nice

James Bailey@drjamesbailey· May 7

And here I am signing copies of my book in various bookshops around Edinburgh - a huge thank you to @edinburghbookshop.bsky.social, @lighthousebks.bsky.social, @argonautbooks.bsky.social, Blackwell’s, Topping & Co, @portybooks.bsky.social and @goldenharebooks.bsky.social for making me so welcome

Signing, seated at a table, at Blackwell’s in Edinburgh

Holding my book with two of the staff at Portobello Bookshop

James Bailey@drjamesbailey· May 7

LIKE A CAT LOVES A BIRD: THE NINE LIVES OF MURIEL SPARK has been out for a month, and it’s been a hoot and a half. Some fun photos to follow, but I had to start with the best of all - my own window display at @edinburghbookshop.bsky.social!

Me, dressed in a blue jacket and green cap, posing in front of the window of The Edinburgh Bookshop. Copies of my book are in the window, which is decorated with the title of my book, Like a Cat Loves a Bird.

James Bailey@drjamesbailey· Apr 23

Had a lovely chat about LIKE A CAT LOVES A BIRD: THE NINE LIVES OF MURIEL SPARK on BBC Radio Scotland’s Arts Mix. Listen here! 🐈‍⬛ www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Me, behind a microphone in the BBC Radio Scotland studio. I’m holding a copy of my book, Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark

James Bailey@drjamesbailey· Apr 17

YouTube recommended I watch this, for some reason, and for a brief moment I thought Dick & Dom were in the Criterion Closet

YouTube clip called ‘Dick & Dom - The Best of Bogies’, showing the pair in a library

James Bailey@drjamesbailey· Apr 15

I’m once again thinking about how Barbra Streisand saw fit to install an entire DICKENSIAN STREET, including several fully-staffed ‘shops’, in the basement of her house, to show off her favourite antiques.

Shop with a sign saying ‘sweet shop’, which is part of a little street in Barbra Streisand’s basement

Antique shop in Barbra Streisand’s basement

James Bailey@drjamesbailey· Apr 13

Thanks for sharing! And a reminder to anyone who enjoys the guide that my book, LIKE A CAT LOVES A BIRD: THE NINE LIVES OF MURIEL SPARK, is out right now! I’m also launching the book at Topping & Co. on Thursday 23rd April, if anyone fancies coming along. All info here: lnk.to/LikeaCatLove... 🐈‍⬛