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These Foolish Things

A Memoir

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These Foolish Things

By: Dylan Jones
Narrated by: David Thorpe, Dylan Jones
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About this listen

 Few people can say they have shaped the cultural landscape of the last four decades while crossing paths with some of the most extraordinary personalities on the planet. But then, of course, Dylan Jones isn't just anyone.

These Foolish Things captivatingly charts Dylan's life: from his peripatetic childhood and late adolescence in 1970s London - a city then alive with possibility - to his award-winning tenure at what would become one of the most dynamic magazines of its era, GQ. It details how he came to be in that hot seat: a journey through the Swinging London slipstreams of punk and new romanticism, and through i-D, The Face and Arena, which created the platform on which GQ was based, with Dylan as a common denominator.

Littered with a gold-star cast of characters - including a who's who of celebrity from David Bowie and Bryan Ferry to Alastair Campbell and Prince Charles, via Samuel L. Jackson, Piers Morgan and Rihanna - this memoir reflects on how GQ became an established style and how Dylan sought to stir up music, politics and fashion.

Witty, perceptive and deliciously entertaining, but by turns bravely vulnerable, These Foolish Things is a memoir like no other: a dazzling retelling of the start of the twenty-first century from one of the world's most fascinating media giants.©2024 Dylan Jones Art & Literature Career Success Journalists, Editors & Publishers Words, Language & Grammar Writing & Publishing Funny Witty Memoir England

Critic reviews

He is always in the room where it happens (Hadley Freeman)
An insider's take on a wild world of egotistical celebrities, wayward columnists, tricky cover pop stars and, oh yes, the parties
A glittering career, on paper
Transported to a world of scarcely imaginable glamour, of sybaritic indulgence unrivalled since the days of Rome
These Foolish Things is the glittering chronicles of [Dylan's] adventures in media, music, politics and fashion
An absorbing and unstintingly entertaining memoir
Hilariously indiscreet (Nick Duerden)
From the heart of punk and the New Romantic Movement, he would eventually end up at the centre of Britain's shifting political discourse
An extraordinary trip through modern British culture taking in some of the biggest names in pop, rock, media and art (Matthew d’Ancona)
A very personal memoir
Absolutely extraordinary
Dylan has run some of the most important newsrooms and magazines in the country. The story is anything but foolish (James Harding)
All stars
Most relevant
Nothing less than amazing and what I would expect from Mr D Jones and very funny in places!!

Soo good and can’t recommend enough

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London music and fashion of the last 40 years wrapped around one man's amazing life and career. L oved it

London music and fashion

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A promising start detailing his fascinating experience of late ‘70s London. By half way through, it quickly descends into a neverending list of half-baked anecdotes. It seems like a tale is going somewhere and then he’ll say something like ‘I’d sometimes drive there from my hotel for a coffee and to check my emails’. And then start another one.

The book lacks the humour of James Brown’s effort, and of course for true anecdotes and context of the period, it offers little against the likes of Stephen Fry or even Boris Johnson. It seems like a lost opportunity overall. It may have helped if Jones included more personal detail, but much of the later content is either already in the public domain, or inconsequential.

And of course, he didn’t read it himself, which probably doesn’t help either.

And then, and then.

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