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Book synopsis

Calling Crows is a raw, unflinching collection of vivid, fiercely lived tales from three decades on the margins - the roads, squats, festivals, and the front lines of Britain, Ireland, and mainland Europe from the 1980s through the new millennium.

These are the stories of a generation who refused to accept "there is no alternative." From dangling off a hundred-foot crane at Temple Mills to the mud and barricades of the Pollok Free State road protest, from the sound-system chaos of J18 to the salvaged ship Das Motorschiff Stubnitz, Grant J. Riley takes readers inside bender tents, double-decker buses, and horse-drawn wagons - the everyday texture of a counter-culture built in open resistance to Thatcher-era Britain and beyond.

Reclaiming the streets, occupying the trees, riding out winters on windswept encampments, and dodging the Met at every turn, this is a world of chosen family, hard-won solidarity, and the occasional glorious disaster. Funny, elegiac, and defiantly unromantic about the cost of living this way, Calling Crows captures what it meant to be young, broke, and determined to build something better - whatever the price.

The fifth book from Grant J. Riley, author of Marginal and Handroid, Calling Crows is both a document and a love letter to the tribes who tried to live differently.

"Grant's stories are anchored in the strength of community - tribes-in-rebellion who chose to become a hated, vilified, targeted underclass. What starts as mundane, crusty kitchen-sink drama - cuppas, dogs, campfires - becomes, through his deft storytelling, a powerful panegyric to his counter-cultural comrades. A life well lived, gloriously rendered."

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Book details

• Full title: Calling Crows
• Subtitle: Traveller's Tales
• Author: Grant J Riley
• Language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 210
• EAN: 9781066807307
• ISBN: 1066807302
• ID: 53235167
• Publisher: Grant J Riley
• Weight: 204 g
• Dimensions: 203 × 133 × 13 mm
• Date of publishing: 09. July 2026

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