Bliss to be Alive: The Collected Journalism of Gavin Hills Book

As The Face magazine's star writer of the 1990's, Gavin Hills was known and loved by a generation of club-kids, skaters, style fiends and starry-eyed, socially disaffected youth everywhere. His tragic death in 1997 denied British journalism one of its most original voices. Along with Sheryl Garratt, editor of the The Face, he was responsible for reinventing the magazine and shaking off its dated 80s poseur image. His writing spanned a breathtakingly eclectic range of topics, from El Salvador to ecstasy, football hooliganism to Sarajevo, but the uniting factor in everything he wrote was his compelling passion and involvement. In each of these pieces, Gavin's voice and personality loom large. You can feel the elation, irritation or excitement bursting through the words. His dreams and obsessions capture the zeitgeist of an age which already seems distant and nostalgic: those rose-tinted summers of the early 90s when it seemed as if the entire nation was waving their hands in the air and stomping their muddy trainers to acid house in a field somewhere outside the M25. But what sets Hills aside from the other euphoria merchants are his political and social convictions and the way he managed to get those same hands-in-the-air kids reading, and caring, about the war in Angola or famine in Ethiopia. Bliss to be Alive is a quirky, heartfelt record of an era. Read it wistfully and then parcel it for your kids.--Rebecca JohnsonRead More