The books page
Suggestions for books to add to this list are welcome. Content should be relevant to Merseyside in the 1970s/1980s.
Working for Ford
Huw Beynon
EP Publishing, 1975
An account of life in a car factory, often in the words of the workers themselves. It also discusses industrial relations and the effects of the 1973 oil crisis on the British car industry.
Liverpool: Gateway of Empire
Tony Lane
Lawrence & Wishart, 1987
(Revised second edition: Liverpool: City of the Sea, Liverpool University Press, 1987)
Littlewoods Pools Girls
Joan Boyce
Writing on the Wall, 2021
In its heyday the Littlewoods pools firm was a major employer of women. This is an account of what it was like to work there.
Liverpool on the Brink: One city’s struggle against government cuts
Michael Parkinson
Policy Journals, 1985
The economic, political and social crisis that brought Liverpool to the brink of bankruptcy in the 1980s. (Available online as downloadable PDF)
Merseyside in Crisis
Merseyside Socialist Research Group
Manchester Free Press, 1980
The New Savages
Timeri Murari
Macmillan, 1975
The lives of four boys growing up in Liverpool.
Roll the Union On!
Sylvia Hikins (ed)
Toulouse Press, 1973
An anthology of Merseyside sights and sounds celebrating the 15th anniversary of the Liverpool Trades Council,
Ghost Town: A Liverpool Shadowplay
Jeff Young
Little Toller Books, 2020
A memoir including growing up in the North End
Loosen the Shackles
Lord Gifford, Wally Brown, Ruth Bundey
Karia Press, 1989
First report of the Liverpool 8 inquiry into race relations
Liverpool 8
John Cornelius,
John Murray, 1982 (plus LUP reprint)
Liverpool and the Unmaking of Britain
by Sam Wetherell
Bloomsbury Publishing, 2025
“The story of a city fighting against a descent into obsolescence”
View from the Boys: A Sociology of Down-Town Adolescents
Howard J Parker
David & Charles, 1974
People of the Lane: Living in and around Lark Lane, 1880-2020
Kay Flavell (ed)
New Pacific Studio, 2021
An oral history focusing on interviews conducted in the early 1980s.
Toxteth 1979-1982
Mike Abrahams
Café Royal Books, 2020
A collection of photographs
Back in the Day Vol 1: Liverpool 8 Social History 1984-89
Leroy Cooper
Capstone Media, 2019
Photographs and commentary
Liverpool photographs 1972-74
Tricia Porter
The Bluecoat, 2015
Focusing on Liverpool 8
A Recollection of Delado
Elliss Eyo-Thompson,
(self-published, 2024)
Reflections on Liverpool’s African dance and drum group
In Context: Jazz Poems
Mohammad K.E. Lange
(self-published, late 1980s)
Poetry
Urban Dervish
Eugene S Lange (Mohammad K E Lange)
(self-published, 2022)
‘Ramblings’ including 1970s/80s Liverpool
City Politics and the Press
by Harvey Cox and David Morgan
Cambridge University Press, 1973
A study of daily and weekly newspapers on Merseyside and their role in the community.
Liverpool Experience
Levi Tafari
Michael Schwinn, 1989
Poetry
1981 – Black Liverpool Past and Present
Jimi Jagne and Stephen Small,
Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage, 2022
Deaf School: The Non-Stop Pop Art Punk Rock Party
Paul Du Noyer
Liverpool University Press, 2013
Liverpool Explodes!
Mark Cooper
Sidgwick & Jackson, 1982
An account of Eric’s club, The Teardrop Explodes and Echo and the Bunnymen
Liverpool Eric’s
Jaki Florek and Paul Whelan
2009
A large compendium of interviews, photos and ephemera
Revolutionary Spirit A Post-Punk Exorcism: The Teardrop Explodes, Care, The Wild Swans, And Beyond
Paul Simpson
Outline Press, 2023
Memoir by a musician from the Eric’s scene
Did you know?
An easy way to track down out-of-print books is through a search at Just Books which will show links to secondhand dealers listing it on their websites.