Base Notes
Scenes from a Northern Girlhood
$32.05
- 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: | 196mm x 128mm x 26mm |
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What They're Saying
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 *
About The Author
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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