Dear comrades,
We are experiencing the full heat of the blast furnace that is our Spring 2026 publishing, whilst also announcing our autumn list and editing titles for Spring 2027. Such is a publisher’s lot. But it’s better than having a real job. We thought, on a momentous day for reflection (21 April 2026: the tenth anniversary of the passing of the greatest musician that ever lived) we should share an update.
Earlier this month we celebrated the (This is Not a Book Launch) launch of David Keenan’s seventh novel, Boyhood at The Social. Seven novels in ten years – and this one has landed with the biggest fanfare of them all. Two truly monolithic rave reviews just dropped in the space of 24 hours in the Scottish literary press: Alastair Mabbot in The Herald said, ‘In prose that hums with the thrill of exploring uncharted waters, Boyhood is a novel steeped in symbolism and informed by the occult, in which events from the present trigger echoes in the past and debates about revenge and sacrifice ripple across decades.’ Meanwhile, David Robinson in The Scotsman said of ‘this love letter to Glasgow’: ‘if you ever feel like swapping the predictable certainties of the social realist novel for a vertiginously wild ride from one of ScotLit’s most unfettered imaginations, you should consider saddling up.’
Listen to the Boyhood playlist compiled by the author himself here and immerse yourself in one of the most celebrated literary novels of the year and pick up a copy here.
On 16 April we published Jim Windolf’s comparative biography (Where the Music Had to Go) of the two pop culture titans that will always bestride the twentieth century, Bob Dylan and the Beatles. There was a five star review in the Daily Telegraph, and you can read an exclusive extract from the book on our website. Windolf’s debut is the first to trace the back and forth – sometimes playful, sometimes wildly competitive – complexities of the relationship between these artists and it will make you look at their parallel careers in new and unexpected ways. Grab a copy here.
Our next gig at The Social brings the South Yorkshire underground to London in the form of an evening celebrating Daniel Dylan Wray’s Groovy, Laidback & Nasty, a book which makes a case for Sheffield as the true lodestar northern city for music, spanning seven decades and including over 150 new interviews with Richard Hawley, Arctic Monkeys, Self Esteem, Pulp, The Human League, Cabaret Voltaire, Warp Records and many more.
Daniel’s book is the definitive musical history Sheffield so richly deserves and he will be in conversation with the Guardian’s Ben Beaumont-Thomas on 11 May with a fabulous line-up of DJs - including Sheffield great Toddla T. We hope to see you there, where Real Magic Books (as ever) will be selling signed copies. Tickets for all of Daniel's events - including a massive hometown event at Crookes Social Club - are available here.
Sitting right at the centre of 2026, given the reverence it so deserves, is the book Simon Reynolds was surely born to write: Still in a Dream: Shoegaze, Slackers and the Reinvention of Rock 1984-94. Part sequel to his masterpiece account of postpunk, Rip it Up and Start Again, part memoir, Still in a Dream maps the landscape of British and American underground guitar music in this period. I can’t imagine if you’re reading this you are not a fan of Spacemen 3, My Bloody Valentine, Cocteau Twins, Loop, Seefeel, Pixies, Sonic Youth etc so this book is for literally anyone who reads the books we publish. Simon will be over from LA and there will be events announced imminently. For now, pick up a signed copy from our friends at Rough Trade here with an exclusive fanzine which documents ’Fifty Lost Treasures’ from the era. This is unquestionably one of the books of the year by one of the greatest writers of our generation.
Our biggest announcement of the past month was for a title we publish in August by Kimon de Greef: The Ego Trip: Psychedelic Toads, A Trail of Deaths and The Guru Who Peddled Transcendence. An exposé of the darker side of psychedelic tourism and the narco-trade in an existentially threated species of toad in the Sonoran desert in Mexico, you’ll never look at an amphibian in the same way again. The advance praise for this book is flooding in, most recently this endorsement from the international bestseller, Patrick Radden-Keefe: ‘Entirely mesmerizing, a tale of psychedelic tourists, shamanistic grift, chemistry, chicanery, tribal history, a chemical gold rush in the Sonoran desert and, above all, the enduring human quest for transcendence. Richly reported and written with humour and flair, The Ego Trip is itself a trip -- and Kimon de Greef is a major talent'. Much more to come on this one, but you can find copies here.
To conclude this latest missive I refer you back to our first paragraph above. On 21 April 2016 we lost the musician who defined the late twentieth century – as both studio innovator, songwriter, and incendiary live performer – Prince. My life would have been very different without my love for and dedication to Prince (and I’m proud to have published one of the enduring biographies of the man by White Rabbit author Matt Thorne) so I thought I would mark the moment with a new playlist of 40 tracks and 4 hours 20 minutes which celebrates his deep cuts, rarities, obscurities, live tracks and some personal favourites. In a world fraught with conflict and worry, we can take some solace in the fact that the same world also created Prince – and left us these gifts.
Abrazos,
Lee & Tom x