BOOKS
A Fan for all seasons
My debut book, A Fan For All Seasons, is out now (published by Vintage). It’s a memoir about sport, grief and my brother Dan, who passed away suddenly in 2015, aged 43. Dan was a huge sports fan and in his memory I undertook an unexpected journey to see as many great sporting events as I could in a single year, to create the ultimate season ticket: from football to handball, Wimbledon tennis to Wimbledon Greyhounds, and from rugby to Rubik’s Cubes. In doing so it deals with issues of mental health, bereavement and how we express ourselves through sport - one of our greatest inventions, and what Stephen Fry calls ‘the most important unimportant thing in the world’. Hopefully you’ll find it’s all wrapped up with warmth, sensitivity and humour.
It’s had rave reviews in The Sunday Times and The Daily Mail, and I’ve written exclusive features for The Evening Standard, The Big Issue and The Times.
IN PRAISE OF ‘A FAN FOR ALL SEASONS’
“Such a good story. Touching, heartfelt, funny, informative and beautifully written too.”
“Acute, funny and moving.”
“This is important. Warm, sad and funny. CS Lewis’s ‘A Grief Observed’ for the Fever Pitch set.”
“The book... [has] honesty and passion at its heart. Jon Harvey is an excellent recreator of the atmosphere at a packed stadium or a hushed theatre... Most affectingly of all, he shows how sport can sport can play its part in grieving.”
“A heartfelt memoir through grief, family and a very funny, obsessive love of sports.”
“A lovely, funny, sad and happy book about sport, life, death and remembrance.”
“The writing is vivid and funny. A wonderfully touching book.”
“Brilliant. Most men use sport as a way of avoiding having to talk to each other about their feelings. Jon Harvey has turned this idea on its head and used it as a way of understanding his own loss and grief. ”
COUNT BINFACE: WHAT ON EARTH
My very close friend Count Binface beat me to it and had his first book published in 2022. It’s part intergalactic memoir, part diagnosis for what’s wrong with the United Kingdom (TLDR, a lot), and part manifesto for how to put it right.
It received rave reviews, including from The Spectator, which called it the political humour book of the year! (Even outstripping the omnibus edition of The Spectator.
IN PRAISE OF COUNT BINFACE: WHAT ON EARTH
“Count Binface in his steely, glimmering, elusiveness is both a galactically intimidating - and curiously heartening symbol of the future of British politics - #believeinthebin’”
“Count Binface is out of this world.”
