My Life And The Beautiful Music

Long before Coldplay went vegan, there was another way: Sex. Drugs. And Rock 'n' roll.

Here's a book you just want to be true... A heady slice of disturbing joy.

An off-kilter, part-autobiographical account of the hedonistic Hollywood rock scene... An odd book, then, but weirdly compelling all the same.

Brilliantly orchestrated... Hotten is a natural-born journalist and excels in telling such stories in controlled, compelling prose – as anyone who has read his superb non-fiction book The Years of the Locust can attest.

Jon Hotten is the author of four books, including Muscle and The Years of the Locust, and writes the popular cricket blog The Old Batsman. He co-wrote the award-winning documentary Death of a Gentleman, and his collaboration with the former England bowler Simon Jones, The Test, won the Wisden Almanack's Book of the Year award in 2016.

Los Angeles, 1988. In a summer of hedonism, everyone wants their share. 
 
On Sunset Strip, undiscovered bands dream of emulating their heroes: Mötley Crüe, Van Halen, Poison and all the other chancers who got lucky... Above them in the canyons, the city’s privileged youth already live like rock stars. Drifting between these separate worlds is a journalist on the trail of stories that grow darker by the day: a rock star wannabe who may or may not be who he says he is, a guitar player who will do anything to succeed, crossing the line between reality and fantasy. 
 
Then comes beautiful Iris, distant Brenna, ambivalent Blair, Lana the singer - taking their chances, losing their way, doing whatever it takes… 
 
Set in the glory days when the music business was a vast and amoral empire where stardom seemed arbitrary and sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll were the lifestyle of choice, My Life and the Beautiful Music blurs memoir, myth and reality to recreate the last, lost era of a now-vanished world.

A True Story of Murder, Money and Mayhem in the Last Age of Boxing

The Years of the Locust

A remarkable true-crime story of intrigue, violence and two men who never should have met.

The Years of the Locust is criminally good...Jon Hotten charts the corruption and shattered lives this low-rent Machiavelli left in his wake in this gripping look at the dark heart of the noble art

Hotten tells a terrific story, a real-life tale that will appeal to anyone who enjoys the darkly comic Florida-based thrillers of Carl Hiaasan

A brilliant feat of research and reportage

The Years of the Locust stands in the tradition of great boxing writing

John Hotten is the author of Unlicensed: Random Notes from Boxing's Underbelly and Muscle: A Writer's Trip Through a Sport With No Boundaries, which was longlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award. A former editor of Kerrang!, he has written for the Guardian, the Sunday Times, Esquire and Punch.

The Years of the Locust is a true story of intrigue, paranoia, murder and money set in the shimmering cities of America's South in the 1990s. It's the story of two men who never should have met, and when they did, one killed the other. There are walk-on parts for Don King, George Foreman, the FBI and a fallen NFL hero, yet it's the two central characters - sociopathic door-to-door-sales-king-turned-boxing-promoter Rick 'Elvis' Parker and his loyal, naive and ultimately incorruptible fighter Tim Anderson - that make this story extraordinary and unforgettable. 
 
It would be impossible to invent a man like Rick Parker, a freakishly fat ginger-haired giant who modelled his personal style on Elvis Presley and wanted to become the next Don King. Don himself told Rick how to do it - find a white man who could become the heavyweight champion of the world. Then Rick met Tim Anderson, a handsome, funny former baseball pro - was he the fighter to take Parker all the way? Rick left a trail of fixed fights and violent mayhem all across the South, but his dream stayed out of reach. By the end of his reign of terror Tim would be broke, poisoned and facing the hardest choice of all. And now Tim is doing life without parole in a state prison, and Rick - well, Rick's dead. 
 
By juxtaposing the lives of these two extraordinary men, The Years of the Locust turns a remarkable, riotous true-crime story into a profound examination of chance, choices and remorse - one that's scary, sad and blackly, bleakly funny.

A Writer's Trip Through a Sport with No Boundaries

Muscle

Jon Hotten journeys deep into domain of bodybuilding, meeting ab obsessives, 'roid boys, and other equally bizarre characters in a book that offers an hilarious and at times disturbing insight into the world's weirdest sport.

Is there not something heroic in the single-minded pursuit of the maximally developed human body? Jon Hotten's superb book offers some answers

When it isn’t alarming, [it’s] merely amazing... Balanced, respectful, non-judgmental and rendered in an admirably muscular, entirely fat-free prose

A compelling and often alarming through the darker side of gym culture

Like a hardboiled detective story... The first must-buy book on its subject

John Hotten is the author of Unlicensed: Random Notes from Boxing's Underbelly and The Years of the Locust: A True Story of Murder, Money and Mayhem in the Last Age of Boxing, which was longlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award. A former editor of Kerrang!, he has written for the Guardian, the Sunday Times, Esquire and Punch.

Bodybuilding is the wildest, wierdest sport in the world, but it's more than just a sport. It's a whole way of life for the supermen who scale its Olympian heights. Muscle is a journey through a land of giants, men for whom life is given meaning by the pursuit of the perfect pec and who worship at the shrine of Schwartzenegger. 
 
Jon Hotten has a 40-inch chest and 12-inch arms. Undaunted, he fights his unpromising genetics to hitch up with the bodybuilding circus, hanging out with the stars and legends, the casualties, gym rats and iron junkies. As his forbidding subjects open up, he discovers a story of unregulated excess, chemical mayhem and hard-won glory, a story for anyone who's ever looked in the mirror and wanted more...

Jon Hotten

A beautifully written meditation on the joys of summer

Hotten is not just good, he is one of the best... He has the eye for a beautifully judged phrase

Hotten has emerged as a worthy addition to the lineage of writers who adhere to C L R James’s aphorism: “What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?”… This will be a worthy addition to any cricketing bookshelf

For those dreaming of summer, The Meaning of Cricket is accessible, fun and elegantly written.

Simultaneously playful and packed with insight … All cricketing life is here... Hotten’s writing is accessible and often moving

Memory and meditation twirled into a lovesong: Jon Hotten hits it out of the park

A collection of Jon Hotten's writing that is lively with insight and anecdote, and informed by the persona of the knowledgeable and fascinated practitioner… On amateur cricket Jon is alternately hilarious and poignant, but it's when he's in his almost-a-pro-yet-somehow-not-quite vein that he truly breaks out. He considers cricket's capacity for revealing us to ourselves.

An eccentric mix of anecdote, personal memoir, historical observation, technical analysis and psychological insight.

Hotten is among the best in the business, as this vivid love letter to the sport proves.

Engrossing book… Hotten explores what it is about cricket that so takes hold of the imagination… Reveal[s] the funny, moving and transformative impact the game can have on life.

[Hotten’s] witty commentary on the great names, absurdities and realities of cricket will give heart to its many mad devotees.

A thoughtful paean…to a beautiful game.

Cricket is a strange game. It is a team sport that is almost entirely dependent on individual performance. Its combination of time, opportunity and the constant threat of disaster can drive its participants to despair. To survive a single delivery propelled at almost 100 miles an hour takes the body and brain to the edges of their capabilities, yet its abiding image is of the gentle village green, and the glorious absurdities of the amateur game. 
 
In The Meaning of Cricket, Jon Hotten attempts to understand this fascinating, frustrating and complex sport. Blending legendary players, from Vivian Richards to Mark Ramprakash, Kevin Pietersen to Ricky Ponting, with his own cricketing story, he explores the funny, moving and melancholic impact the game can have on an individual life.

Jon Hotten

Praise for The Meaning of Cricket

A beautifully written meditation on the joys of summer

Hotten is not just good, he is one of the best... He has the eye for a beautifully judged phrase

Hotten has emerged as a worthy addition to the lineage of writers who adhere to C L R James’s aphorism: “What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?”… This will be a worthy addition to any cricketing book ...

A beautifully written meditation on the joys of summer

Hotten is not just good, he is one of the best... He has the eye for a beautifully judged phrase

Hotten has emerged as a worthy addition to the lineage of writers who adhere to C L R James’s aphorism: “What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?”… This will be a worthy addition to any cricketing book ...

A beautifully written meditation on the joys of summer

Hotten is not just good, he is one of the best... He has the eye for a beautifully judged phrase

Hotten has emerged as a worthy addition to the lineage of writers who adhere to C L R James’s aphorism: “What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?”… This will be a worthy addition to any cricketing book ...

Books by Jon Hotten

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