Meles Meles Marks
A NEW PUBLISHING VENTURE
Meles Meles Marks Books is a venture launched in 2023 by Jad Adams and Julie Peakman. It aims at high quality paperback publishing of new works by Jad and Julie and republishing their back catalogue out of print works. The first book to be published is Jad's Cafe Europa.
Cafe Europa aims to catch the excitement of European travel and settlement in the days before Brexit. Set in 2015, it tells the story of the Greek island experience of four young people who are working abroad for the first time.
While there they encounter Malik, a refugee from Afghanistan whose expectations and experience of Europe are very different from their own.
The book is borne out of Jad's interest in the European experience and his sympathy with young British people who are now denied the ease of work and settlement in the EU which used to be taken for granted.
Cafe Europa retails at £7.99. Copies available from Meles Meles Marks Books via email - write giving your address and bank details will be sent by return. Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/2p9y4r6w
Madder Music, Stronger Wine: The Life of Ernest Dowson is an updated edition of Jad Adams’ classic biography of the ultimate decadent poet who wrote some of the most quoted lyrics in English verse but died penniless at the age of 32.
It is re-released for the 125th anniversary of Dowson’s death (23 February 2025). A final chapter now includes details of the rise of Decadence Studies in the 21st century, bringing Dowson references up to date with The Cure’s 2024 album Songs of a Lost World including lyrics by Dowson.
'Dowson composed poems which can be considered the finest expression of the fin de siècle…Adams is an admirably sympathetic but honest biographer' – THE TIMES
'the approach is exemplary: neither censorious nor adulatory…Jad Adams has breathed new life into the fading legend of this greatly gifted, sadly dissolute ‘Decadent’ poet' – LOS ANGELES TIMES
'Adams’ artful, assured biography is a moving evocation of the sadly prophetic truth of one of Dowson’s most quoted lines: ‘They are not long, the days of wine and roses’' – NEW YORK TIMES
'in his short life he sampled every form of good and evil: and in Jad Adams he has found his ideal biographer…he has written a book that is full of alcohol, art and unrestrained sexual intercourse' – DAILY TELEGRAPH
Madder Music, Stronger Wine retails at £15.00. Copies available from Meles Meles Marks Books via email - write giving your address and bank details will be sent. Amazon link to follow
