Hilarious, reflective and heartbreaking, The House Is Full Of Yogis is the story of a childhood turned upside down. Once upon a time in the 1980s, the Hodgkinsons were just like any other family. Liz and Neville lived with their sons, Tom and Will, in a semi-detached house in the suburbs of Southwest London. Neville was an award-winning medical correspondent. Liz was a high-earning tabloid journalist. Friends and neighbours turned up to their parties clutching bottles of Mateus Rose. Then, while recovering from a life-threatening bout of food poisoning, Neville had a Damascene revelation. Life was never the same again. Out went drunken dinner parties and Victorian decor schemes. In came hordes of white-clad Yogis meditating in the living room and lectures on the forthcoming apocalypse. Liz took the opportunity to wage all-out war on convention, from denouncing motherhood as a form of slavery to promoting her book Sex Is Not Compulsory on television chat shows, just when Will was discovering girls for the first time. While the laconic Tom took it all in his stride, the arrival of the Brahma Kumaris threw Will into crisis. And as if his Yogi father, feminist mother and the end of the world weren't enough, he was also hopelessly in love with his best friend's sister.

The House is Full of Yogis

Hodgkinson, Will

Blue Door

A witty memoir about the trials of adolescence, the tribulations of family life and the embarrassment that ensues from having larger-than-life parents
Neville and Liz Hodgkinson bought into the Thatcherite dream of home ownership, aspiration and advancement. The first children of their working class parents to go to university and have professional careers, they lived in a semi-detached house in Richmond, sent their sons Tom and Will to private school, and went on holiday to Greece once a year. Neville was an award-winning science writer and Liz was a high-earning tabloid hack.
Then a disastrous boat holiday, followed by a life-threatening bout of food poisoning from a contaminated turkey, led to the search for a new way of life.
Nev joined the Brahma Kumaris, who believe evolution is a myth, time is circular, and a forthcoming Armageddon will make way for a new Golden Age. Out went drunken dinner parties and Victorian décor schemes; in came large women in saris meditating in the living room and lurid paintings of smiling deities on the walls. Liz took the arrival of the Brahma Kumaris as a chance to wage all-out war on convention, from announcing her newfound celibacy on prime time television to writing books that questioned the value of getting married and raising children.
By an unfortunate coincidence, this dramatic and highly public transformation of the self coincided with the onset of Will’s adolescence. This is his story.

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

The Borough Press

The guitar is the iconic instrument of modern popular music. It is portable, it has history, and it will always be hip. But why has the guitar become such a classic? Will Hodgkinson, a wannabe guitar player, whose only experience was an afternoon's bashing on a friend's guitar at the age of sixteen, set out to find out. Along the way he hoped to teach himself a few chords too. His goal was to get good enough to play before a live audience in just six months--even if it threatened to drive his wife and family to the point of insanity. His trip becomes an odyssey: He chats with British folk legend Bert Jansch, ex-Smith's guitarist Johnny Marr, and reclusive folk guitar legend Davey Graham, as well as Sufjan Stevens, PJ Harvey, and Cat Power's chanteuse Chan Marshall. He travels to America and with a hurricane brewing visits Roger McGuinn from the Byrds. He travels to the Deep South, looking for the spirit of Robert Johnson, and drops in on T-Model Ford, an old bluesman living in Mississippi. Gloriously readable and highly amusing, Guitar Man is classic obsessional nonfiction for a nation of guitar freaks.

Guitar Man: A Six-String Odyssey, or, You Love that Guitar More than You Love Me

Da Capo Press

Song man is the endearing sequel to Will Hodgkinson's Guitar Man, wherein our hero, having learned to play guitar (badly) in six months, endeavors to unlock the process of songwriting and ultimately record a single. Featuring pithy, humorous, and illuminating one-on-one songwriting lessons with Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, Ray Davies of the Kinks, Andy Partridge of XTC, Arthur Lee of Love, Chan Marshall of Cat Power, Bob Stanley of Saint Etienne, Gruff Rhys of Super Furry Animals, and a host of others who run the gamut from unknown muses to cult icons to superstars-including Hodgkinson's lovable crew of ne'er-do-wells first introduced in Guitar Man-Song Man is at once an investigation into the most ephemeral of arts and a highly readable journey of discovery.

Song Man: A Melodic Adventure, or, My Single-Minded Approach to Songwriting

Arts & Photography

Music

Song man is the endearing sequel to Will Hodgkinson’s Guitar Man, wherein our hero, having learned to play guitar (badly) in six months, endeavors to unlock the process of songwriting and ultimately record a single. Featuring pithy, humorous, and illuminating one-on-one songwriting lessons with Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, Ray Davies of the Kinks, Andy Partridge of XTC, Arthur Lee of Love, Chan Marshall of Cat Power, Bob Stanley of Saint Etienne, Gruff Rhys of Super Furry Animals, and a host of others who run the gamut from unknown muses to cult icons to superstars-including Hodgkinson’s lovable crew of ne’er-do-wells first introduced in Guitar Man-Song Man is at once an investigation into the most ephemeral of arts and a highly readable journey of discovery.

Song Man: A Melodic Adventure, or My Single-minded Approach to Songwriting

BLOOMSBURY

Guitar Man

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

Song Man: One Man's Mission to Write the Perfect Pop Song

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hodgkinson, Will. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Hodgkinson, Will

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hodgkinson, Will. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The House is Full of Yogis

The House is Full of Yogis

Guitar Man: A Six-String Odyssey, or, You Love that Guitar More than You Love Me

Song Man: A Melodic Adventure, or, My Single-Minded Approach to Songwriting

Song Man: A Melodic Adventure, or My Single-minded Approach to Songwriting

Guitar Man

Song Man: One Man's Mission to Write the Perfect Pop Song