Ana M’s Imperfect 10: Ultimate Club Reading List

In need of some serious inspiration to spruce up your reading list? Take a romp through the stories behind the world’s most iconic clubs and the characters that made them, as well as the origins of some of the most important movements in clubbing history with Ana Matronic’s ultimate clubbing reading list.

1. Love Saves the Day/Life and Death on the New York Dance Floor 1980-1983 by Tim Lawrence — I’m cheating and putting two books here in the top spot, but they are companions in every sense. Tim Lawrence’s meticulously researched, 360 degree tellings of culture and history of New York City and the rise of DJ culture are hands down my favorite books about music EVER. They also contain playlists in every chapter from some of the titans of DJ culture including Larry Levan, David Mancuso, Francois K. and Afrika Bambaataa. Everything I know starts here.

2. Hot Stuff by Alice Echols — Feminist scholar Alice Echols was, during disco’s heyday, a DJ in Michigan, so she’s able to break down the larger sociological effect disco had on American culture at large but does it from within. There is no better book about what disco did to culture as a whole than this one. There are concepts discussed about how disco reframed masculinity, freed the queer, female and femme to explore and express their sexual desires, and created aspirational images of Black upward mobility and prosperity. A personal favorite and after Love Saves the Day, it’s the next most recommended book in my collection.

3. The Fabulous Sylvester by Joshua Gamson - if you love Sylvester, read this book. Joshua Gamson brings Sylvester’s glitter-encrusted world to life and is a lovingly told portrait of gay life and culture. Along the way you meet Sylvester’s original “girl gang” The Disquotays, drop out with The Cockettes in San Francisco and climb to the heights of pop stardom with Syl and his Two Tons o’ Fun, Izora Rhodes and Martha Wash. It also expresses the hardship of life Sylvester felt as a Black, gender non-conforming person, his struggles with being a dance artist, and his unique love of 1920s jazz and blues singers, who were his primary musical and fashion inspiration.

4. Energy Flash by Simon Reynolds - the ultimate guide to Rave culture, this is a comprehensive overview of electronic music starting with The Belleville Three and ending just after the turn of the 21st Century. A great book to learn about how dance music took off in the UK and beyond, especially for the 1990s.

5. Last Night a DJ Saved My Life by Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton - a book specifically about the figure of the disc jockey, from the very first recordings and transmissions to the advent of the digital age and laptop DJ’ing. This book shows the continuum between broadcast and live DJs and makes a very convincing argument for why they are important and needed, relevant in the digital age more than ever. Nerdy and extensive, made accessible in Broughton and Brewster’s totally readable style.

6. Hacienda: How Not to Run a Club by Peter Hook — leave it to Hooky to give you the straight shot, no chaser, in the story of the iconic Manchester venue. This has all the stories of legend (like the time Einsturzende Neubauten took a pneumatic drill to the supporting pillar during a show) and contains Top Ten lists of the most popular tracks each year it was open. From exhaustive rundowns of who was on which night in what year to complete set lists for every band that played (and many of the DJs) to actual excerpts from the company accounts, this book may show you “how not to run a club”, but it might just be the key to creating the most perfect nightspot ever. If you own or run a club, pub or ever want to, READ THIS BOOK.

7. Leigh Bowery: The Life and Times of an Icon by Sue Tilley — NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART. Leigh Bowery was a bon vivant and enfant terrible in equal measure, and his mate Sue does a bang up job in portraying the total tornado this living art sculpture was. Bowery elevated street and nightlife fashion to an art form, and added an arch intellect and wit to what often is portrayed as mindless and empty frivolity — nobody did it like Leigh, and so many have tried. And keep trying!

8. Party Monster by James St James —in the most succinct way I can describe it, this book is the totally true, queer version of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. It reads like gonzo journalism, but the embellishment there is all true to the late 80s and early 90s glitter-encrusted life of the club kid, all told from the razor-sharp perspective of someone who was there, and not there, in equal measure. James St James recounts with breakneck relish the manic fun of the nightlife world and the tragic tale of Angel Melendez and his murderers, Michael Alig and Freeze. It is the very definition of a page turner, and is one of the most honest portrayals of drug abuse and the mania that comes with addiction. Miles better than the film and 100 times more immersive, entertaining, and shocking.

9. DJ Culture by Ulf Poschardt — if you want a heady examination of DJ culture, to really unpack the Hows and Whys of dance music along with your history, if you’re ready to get theoretical and go DEEP, then this is the book for you. Reading this book is like being at a college-level lecture, with references to art throughout history (Botticelli and Bach anyone?) in making the case for the DJ to be considered an artist with the potential to be as genius as any Leonardo. Intelligent and enlightening, this a book you read with a pen, taking copious notes as you read every paragraph twice.

10. The Last Party by Anthony Haden Guest — a dishy and salacious celeb-focused book about Studio 54 and some of the more notorious venues and Disco Dollys of the 80s and early 90s NYC. Studio 54 is often credited as sparking the Club Kid phenomenon (i.e., the more outrageous you were dressed, the more likely you were to gain entry), and this book demonstrates the phenomenon indirectly. This is the most “beachy” of all the reads here, a great one to take on holiday and read the most scandalous bits aloud to your friends.

Honorable Mention: Brickwork: A Biography of the Arches by David Bratchpiece & Kristin Innes — this gets honorable mention because I have not read it yet. But I read an excerpt and can’t bloody wait to read the whole thing, and it’s a must mention when discussing nightlife in the UK — Glasgow now has its own tome to stake a claim in club history with this loving portrait of an important and iconic venue.