Base Notes
Scenes from a Northern Girlhood
$36.71
- Paperback
288 pages
- Release Date
26 May 2026
Summary
A Telegraph Book of the Year
Told with warmth, wit, and unflinching humour, Base Notes shares an alternative confessional of Northern working-class life in the 1980s.
“Candid and compelling” - Guardian “Deeply evocative” - Wendy Erskine “A small, bleak masterpiece” - Chris Power, Observer “Poignant and grimly hilarious” - Dazed
A bedroom dreamer with a head full of Warhol, Adelle Stripe’s formative years wer…
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781399608626 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 1399608622 |
| Author: | Adelle Stripe |
| Publisher: | Orion Publishing Co |
| Imprint: | White Rabbit |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 288 |
| Release Date: | 26 May 2026 |
| Weight: | 253g |
| Dimensions: | 26mm x 128mm x 196mm |
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Critics Review
A small, bleak masterpiece … the writing is immaculate * Chris Power, Observer *
Ingenious. A story of family in all its fractures and complexity… Its symphonic olfactory narration has a sharpness and depth of recollection which remains as vivid as their first experiencing
★★★★★
Candid and compelling * Guardian *
It’s the north of the 1980s that Stripe, a great noticer of telling details, perfectly captures * TLS *
Wistful, sad and funny … top notes of humour, insouciance and bravery lift the story into art * Suzi Feay, Spectator *
Working-class life pinned to the page – Teddy Jamieson * The Herald *
Poignant and grimly hilarious * Dazed *
It’s got both style and warmth and made me cry. I loved this rock and roll spirit coming out of small town Yorkshire – Amy Liptrot
Deeply evocative – Wendy Erskine
As the whiff of a past love’s perfume takes part of me back to a party in 1979, [her] memoir is further proof that through scent time travel is indeed possible for us mortals … scratch and sniff Proust – George Shaw
A fragrant and fabulous episodic memoir – Editor’s Choice * The Bookseller *
Adelle Stripe locates a seam of universal longing amidst a northern soul’s sundry particulars: epic drinking, Morrissey lyrics, embarrassing family, bedsit love, wayward journeys, and the recollected scents and songs of a lifetime’s pain, passion and loss – Rob Doyle
This is a beautiful book – Anna Wood
An addictive - frequently devastating - memoir of escape, immolation and reinvention – Fergal Kinney
Deeply personal and strikingly universal * Buzz Magazine *
Adelle Stripe
Adelle Stripe is an author, poet and journalist based in Calderdale, West Yorkshire. Her books include the Sunday Times bestseller Ten Thousand Apologies, and Black Teeth and a Brilliant Smile, a fictionalised biography inspired by the playwright Andrea Dunbar. She was shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize, Portico Prize for Literature and Penderyn Music Book Prize. As a journalist, she has contributed to The Quietus, New Statesman, Record Collector and Yorkshire Post. She is a recipient of Manchester University’s Anthony Burgess Fellowship.
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