Rare Singles

A warm, tender and funny story about unlikely friendships, second chances, and the magic of soul music - perfect for fans of Nick Hornby, David Nicholls and Jonathan Coe *Selected as a book of 2024 by the Guardian and New Statesman** Dinah has always lived in Scarborough. Trapped with her feckless husband and useless son, her one release comes at her town’s Northern Soul nights, where she gets to put on her best and lose herself in the classics. Dinah has an especial hero: Bucky Bronco, who recorded a string of soul gems in the late Sixties and then vanished off the face of the earth. When she manages to contact Bucky she can’t believe her luck. Over in Chicago, Bucky Bronco is down on his luck – and has been since the loss of his beloved wife Maybelle. The best he can hope for is to make ends meet, and try and stay high. But then an unexpected invitation arrives, from someone he’s never met, to come to somewhere he’s never heard of. With nothing to lose – and in need of the cash – Bucky boards a plane. And so Bucky finds himself in rainy Scarborough, where everyone seems to know who is – preparing to play for an audience for the first time in nearly half a century. Over the course of the week, he finds himself striking up new and unexpected friendships; and facing his past, and its losses, for the very first time. Wise, hilarious and profound, Rare Singles is an unforgettable story about the power of music and friendship to bring us back to ourselves.Review QuoteFollowing the Goldsmiths-winning Cuddy, a tale of soul music and second chances, as a washed-up American singer meets a Scarborough womanReview QuoteScarborough’s Northern Soul scene is the setting for Rare Singles by the Durham-born Benjamin Myers, who won the 2023 Goldsmiths PrizeReview QuoteReturns Myers to his past as a music journalist, telling a warmly nostalgic tale of northern soul and unlikely friendship in Scarborough. The great but forgotten Bucky Bronco’s visit to the Yorkshire coast is handled with Myers’s customary humour and generosity of spirit.Review QuotePraise for Benjamin Myers: One of our finest, and most deftly imaginative, writersReview QuoteWhat a radical thing, these days, to have written a book so full of warmth and kindness ... GorgeousReview QuoteA writer of extraordinary and incandescent talentReview QuoteHere is a strong, spiritual writer who sees and loves every dewdrop, old oak, soft little animal and buried sword, and offers them up to us like the precious treasures they areReview QuoteBook by book, over the past decade, Ben Myers has proved himself to be one of the most singular, moving and crucial voices of our timesBiographical NoteBenjamin Myers was born in Durham in 1976. He is the author of ten books, including The Offing, which was an international bestseller and selected for the Radio 2 Book Club; The Gallows Pole, which won the Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction and was adapted for a BBC series by Shane Meadows with A24; Beastings which was awarded the Portico Prize for Literature, and Pig Iron which won the inaugural Gordon Burn Prize. He has also published non-fiction, poetry and crime novels and his journalism has appeared in publications including the Guardian, New Statesman, TLS, Caught by the River and many more. He lives in the Upper Calder Valley, West Yorkshire. benjaminmyerswriter.com / @BenMyers1An ingenious, funny and moving novel about love, loss and second chances - and the power of music to bring us together. By the award-winning author of The Offing and The Gallows PoleA bookseller favourite, Myers' work has now sold over 130,000 copies TCM; Bloomsbury have put over 200,000 units of his works across all editions into the marketMyers' novel The Gallows Pole adapted for a TV series by Shane Meadows, produced by the BBC and A24 and aired in 2023. His novel The Offing is also being developed for film by Helena Bonham-Carter, and Myers is at work on a film adaptation of Rare Singles