Stuart Jeffries is a freelance journalist who worked on the staff of the Guardian for 20 years until taking voluntary redundancy in 2010. Since then, he’s pursued a freelance career, writing regularly for the Financial Times, Spectator, London Review of Books, Foreign Affairs, Mail on Sunday, but most frequently -- ironically enough -- the Guardian. Early in his career he was briefly the communist Morning Star’s jazz critic under the pseudonym Lew Lewis. At another even earlier point he edited the Walsall Observer’s children’s page under the unfortunate pseudonym Uncle Tom. He is currently writing A Short HIstory of Stupidity for Polity Press.

He has written three previous books:

Mrs Slocombe’s Pussy: Growing Up in Front of the Telly (Flamingo, 2000)

Grand Hotel Abyss: The Lives of the Frankfurt School (Verso, 2016)

Everything, All the Time, Everywhere: How We Became Postmodern (Verso, 2021)

for which he received much praise, of which these are some of the highlights:

Mrs Slocombe’s Pussy: Growing Up in Front of the Telly

‘The Fever Pitch of telly’ Scotland on Sunday

‘Jeffries' scintillating humour conveys serious and thought-provoking ideas in this hilariously Proustian, witty, entertaining and wholly idiosyncratic study of growing up with television.' Daily Mail

'This is as captivating an account of a life lived with television as one is likely to encounter.' TLS

'Often unnervingly clever and witty, uses the autobiographical form as a means of talking about how television influences our lives' Robert Hanks, Independent

'Enviably funny and original.' Evening Standard

‘Breezy, intelligent, yet irreverent… A joyous account, illuminating and quite brilliant’ Brian Boyd, Irish Times

‘Intense and very original’ Spectator

‘Deftly executed, clever and intuitive’ Kathryn Flett, Observer

***

Grand Hotel Abyss: The Lives of the Frankfurt School

“Marvellously entertaining, exciting and informative” John Banville, ‘Books of the Year’, Guardian

“This seemingly daunting book turned out to be an exhilarating page-turner ... Grand Hotel Abyss is an outstanding critical introduction to some of the most fertile, and still relevant, thinkers of the 20th century.” Michael Dirda, Washington Post

“A towering work of staggering scholarship” Irish Times

“A fractious Europe, a failing currency, a challenged economy, populist parties on the rise, a divided left, migration from the east, an atmosphere of fear combined with social and sexual liberalism. The parallels between Britain today and Germany in the 1920s may well make this a compelling moment to revisit those postwar German thinkers who gathered in what was known as the Frankfurt school for social research – something akin to a Marxist thinktank, though one whose policy papers and brilliant books fed future generations as much or more than their own ... Little wonder, given the history of the 20th century, that the Frankfurt school gave us intellectual pessimism and negative dialectics. Jeffries’s biography is proof that such a legacy can be invigorating.” Lisa Appignanesi, Observer

“Intriguing and provocative ... Jeffries has done a great service in producing such a readable, wry and detailed introduction.” Stuart Kelly, The Scotsman

“Stuart Jeffries has produced a compelling and politically pressing group portrait of the philosophers associated with the Frankfurt School. Their thinking has never seemed less forbidding and more inspiring.” Matthew Beaumont, author of Nightwalking

“Attempts something rather daring... An easily accessible, funny history of one of the more formidable intellectual movements of the 20th century... an easy, witty, pacy read” Owen Hatherley, Guardian

“A fresh perspective on the lives of some of the harshest critics of popular culture” TANK magazine

“An engaging and accessible history” New York Review of Books

“A step-by-step insight into what they thought... A lot of that stuff they wrote about still applies.” Jason Williamson of Sleaford Mods, Guardian

***

Everything, All the Time, Everywhere: How We Became Postmodern

"Jeffries is a rarity: a journalist with a serious interest in cultural theory ... who writes about it in a way that is both scholarly and welcoming to non-theorists ... entertaining and astute." Joe Moran, Times Literary Supplement

"In holding a mirror to a familiar world, Everything… looks to reveal hidden complexities. Eminently readable, without eliding the difficulties that are so key to its intrigue." Daniel Baksi, The Arts Desk

"Splendidly readable ... Jeffries packs a remarkable knowledge of postmodern culture into these pages." Terry Eagleton, Guardian

"A lively, sparky book." Michael Rosen, BBC Radio 4, Front Row

"Not only instructive, a pleasurable read ... brilliant and entertaining." Financial Times

"Stuart Jeffries’ animated and witty approach in Everything, All the Time, Everywhere is an exhilarating and even intoxicating look at the shambles the relationship between postmodernism and neoliberal capitalism has created." Ron Jacobs, Counterpunch