I can’t tell you how good this book is. Incredibly, it’s Paphides’s first – I’d be amazed (and disappointed) if it’s his last. The parents miss their homeland terribly. That two-month holiday makes them work even harder so that one day they will be prosperous enough to return for good. An exceptional coming-of-age story […] Pete Paphides may very well have the biggest heart in Britain’– Marina Hyde And yet Santa Esmeralda’s debut hit – in particular, the full 15-minute version – is an astonishing synergy of handclaps, keening mariachi trumpets and deeply funky flamenco guitars, piloted to stratospheric heights by vocalist Leroy Gomez.

Broken Greek by Pete Paphides review – a smash hit

you’ll be enthralled by Paphides’ funny, warm and sometimes heartbreaking account of how life-affirming music can be.” I ADORE this utterly wonderful coming-of-age memoir. Joyful, clever, and a bit heartbreaking’– Nina Stibbe In appraising the 1979 Abba album Voulez-Vous, for example, he points out what he feels the critics at the time missed: that the wildly contrasting state of the relationships between the band’s two couples – one married and in love, the other heading towards divorce – had a great impact on the music. His lengthy thesis is so quietly profound that you will never listen to the Swedish supergroup quite so lightly again.You pretty much debunk the whole idea of ‘guilty pleasures’. What is there to feel guilty about celebrating pop music that makes your day immeasurably better? you’ll be enthralled by Paphides’ funny, warm and sometimes heartbreaking account of how life-affirming music can be.” ★★★★★ BBC Inside Science — Should the public wear face masks? Did SARS-Cov-2 escape from a laboratory in Wuhan? A key moment in Pete Paphides’s memoir Broken Greek takes place when our young protagonist hears The Rubettes’ Sugar Baby Love for the first time and realises that, more than any other song in the world, this slice of bubblegum pop totally reflects his inner turmoil. Judging by the response on social media, Broken Greek has really touched a nerve. You have become, to use the vernacular, a legend.

Broken Greek by Pete Paphides | Waterstones Broken Greek by Pete Paphides | Waterstones

Once availed of these facts, listen to it and it’s like you’re listening to the saddest Wombles song of all time.Composer Horace Ott came up with the melody and chorus lyric of Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood in 1964 after falling out with his wife-to-be Gloria Caldwell. Within a year, that argument had resulted in a song with which both Nina Simone and The Animals enjoyed huge success ( in 1986, Elvis Costello recorded a nice version too). This coming-of-age story set in the Great Western Fish Bar in a Birmingham suburb is wonderfully told, but the meat in this dish is his parents’ tale. I’ve never read anything that tells the immigrant’s story with such clarity and tenderness.