This is the official website of the British novelist and historian Jim Powell.
In 2010, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (UK) and Penguin (USA) published Jim’s first novel, The Breaking of Eggs. The novel dealt with the impact of fascism and communism on 20th century Europe and was translated into seven languages. In 2011, Jim was amongst the ‘12 of the Best New Novelists’ chosen by BBC2’s ‘The Culture Show’ in March 2011.
His second novel, Trading Futures, was published by Picador in 2016 and related the desperate, and sometimes hilarious, mid-life crisis of 60-year-old City trader, Matthew Oxenhay. In 2018 Picador published his third novel, Things We Nearly Knew, set in a bar in an unnamed American small town, at an unspecified time, with the story told by an unidentified narrator.
In January 2021, Jim’s PhD thesis for the University of Liverpool was published as a book by Liverpool University Press under the title of Losing the Thread: Cotton, Liverpool and the American Civil War.
Jim began writing his fourth novel, While the Music Lasts, in 2019, producing a final draft ready for editorial work in early 2023. He died in May 2023. The edit was completed by November 2023 and was submitted for publication.
The editorial work on While the Music Lasts was undertaken by Jim’s wife, Kay, whose career was in book publishing. Kay is also the author of What Not to Write, a bestselling guide to written English, and Then a Wind Blew, a novel set during the 1970s Rhodesia/Zimbabwe war and focusing on the effects of war on women.
While the Music Lasts is scheduled to be released in autumn 2025, in hardback, paperback and epub formats. It can be pre-ordered from Chiselbury Publishing, Amazon, Waterstones, WH Smith, Barnes & Noble and other leading bookshops.
Jim Powell 