Most Popular Books by Tom Leonard

Highlights the life and achievements of the eighteenth-century German composer and musician, and examines the development of his most important compositions.

The poet James Thomson was author of the pessimistic masterpiece The City of Dreadful Night, which Hermann Melville described as a modern Book of Job. Born into a millenialist family, reared in a London Scottish orphanage, Thomson was an early member of the Corps of Army schoolmasters. Expelled from the Army for insubordination, he wrote for the weekly freethought National Reformer where he published pioneering translations of Leopardi, versions of Heine, prose satires on Church affairs and biting criticism of the narrowness of contemporary British literature.

Described as a writer of savage indignation and uncomfortable humour, Leonard's concerns are with language, power, class and politics. This collection of his poetry and prose is taken from the past dozen years and includes a series of pieces he wrote on the Gulf War.

Hamilton, A. Gallus, did you say? Our Merry. Birthday.--Leonard T. Unrerelated incidents. Granny's. Honest.--Kelman, J. Young Cecil. No longer the warehouseman. The City slicker and the barmaid. Where I was. Fifty pence. Jim Dandy

Unquestionably, Tom Leonard remains one of the most influential, innovative, and courageous artists in our history. From the publication of Six Glasgow Poems in 1969 until his death in 2018, Leonard changed the course of literary art in Scotland and beyond, producing poetry, prose, and criticism that would develop, challenge, and illuminate the way his readers conceived of subjects such as language, politics, literature, and class. passing through is, by any standard, a major book - a compilation of work previously uncollected or unpublished, including characteristically beautiful poetry, powerful essays, and perceptive review pieces on artists such as Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, and Norman MacCaig. It is a volume which presents the range of Tom Leonard's artistry: his deep insight, but also the remarkable subtlety, humour, and empathy that permeates all of his writing. This is a reprint of the first edition, produced and edited by Brian Hamill through his publishing imprint the common breath. Brian died soon after the book was published. The original publication would not have been possible without Brian's input and this edition is dedicated to the memory of Brian Hamill.

A true coming-of-age story of the 1960s: two mid-teenage boys undertake an eight-hundred-mile bicycle travel adventure through northern Michigan wilderness. They visit all three of the upper Great Lakes. They encounter, now vanished, remnants of Michigan history and view firsthand the changing face of their home state. When they return home they have learned powerful lessons about friendship, self-reliance, and the world they live in.

Radical Renfrew challenges the view of nineteenth-century West of Scotland literature which sees it as a desert in which a few 'minor figures' bloomed: it asserts that people have been deprived of a whole literature of what they once held to be valid poetry. The introduction closely argues why and how this has come about.Nearly four hundred pages of poetry are brought back into print, all from the extensive archives of Paisley Central Library where Tom Leonard worked as writer-in-residence during the book's compilation.Besides known Renfrew poets such as John Davidson and James Thomson of Port Glasgow, over 60 other writers are featured, including the forgotten radical feminist Marion Bernstein, and the pungent Chartist satirist Edward Polin. For the reader's help, a guide to some of the main themes supplements the contents list.The aim of the book, Leonard stated, was to be pan of that process by which anyone can use the public library to reclaim and reconstruct their own past.TOM LEONARD was born in Glasgow in 1944 and died in 2018. This book is published by his surviving family, thirty years after it was first published.