Ben Holden is a writer and producer, living in London. He has loved visiting bookshops and libraries for as long as he can remember and is fed up with them continually closing down.
Ben is co-editor of the bestselling anthologies Poems That Make Grown Men Cry, Poems That Make Grown Women Cry and writer-editor of Bedtime Stories for Grown-Ups.
His newest collection, My First Memory, was published by Scribner in partnership with The Refugee Council during June of 2019.
As a film producer and executive, his various credits include The Woman in Black movies and The Quiet Ones, as well as the music documentaries No Direction Home: Bob Dylan and Living in the Material World: George Harrison, directed by Martin Scorsese.
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Books by Ben Holden
MY FIRST MEMORY
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In My First Memory, Ben explores the transformative childhood epiphanies and most formative watershed experiences of some of the greatest figures of our age. Along the way, he lightly explores how memory and childhood merge to form identity. How, in the process, we not only create individual origin-stories but also, on a broader level, fashion human history.
The first memories of iconic figures – from Machiavelli to Freud, Einstein to Hawking, Churchill to Luther King, Pankhurst to Angelou, Pavarotti to Springsteen, and Pelé to Bolt – combine with exclusive, personal pieces by some of today’s greatest writers, scientists and thinkers: the likes of Sebastian Barry, Melvyn Bragg, David Eagleman, Susan Greenfield, Tessa Hadley, Javier Marías, Michael Morpurgo and the late Ursula K Le Guin.
The trip down memory lane is heightened by the remembrances of refugees: from heroic figures such as Madeleine Albright, Isabel Allende, Alf Dubs, Yusra Mardini, Elie Wiesel and Stefan Zweig to lesser-known but no less courageous voices. Many of these moving accounts tell of children being forced to leave home and family behind forever. They may have grown up to lead inspirational lives – but none ever forgot whence they came.
Published by Scribner, in partnership with the Refugee Council.
BEDTIME STORIES FOR GROWN-UPS
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The bedtime story: a comforting nightly ritual cherished by children and parents alike for centuries… and yet all-too-fast discarded by grown-ups throughout the world. This ground-breaking anthology challenges how we think about life, a third of which is spent asleep, via a literary treasure trove of timeless classics and contemporary gems.
Poems and short stories abound, fairy tales and fables, reveries and nocturnes – from William Shakespeare to Haruki Murakami, Charles Dickens to Roald Dahl, Rabindranath Tagore to Nora Ephron, PG Wodehouse to BJ Novak, Vladimir Nabokov to Phillip Pullman and Margaret Atwood to Neil Gaiman.
Along the way, some of today’s greatest storytellers reveal their own choice of the ideal grown-up bedtime story, contributors such as Billy Collins, Margaret Drabble, Ken Follett, Tessa Hadley, Joanne Harris, Robert Macfarlane, Patrick Ness, Tony Robinson and Warsan Shire.
Full of laughter and tears, moonlight and magic, BEDTIME STORIES FOR GROWN-UPS joyfully provides the dream way to end the day – and begin the night…
Published by Simon & Schuster, in partnership with charity Read for Good.
POEMS THAT MAKE GROWN WOMEN CRY
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Following the success of their anthology Poems That Make Grown Men Cry, with his father Anthony, and working with Amnesty International, Ben asked the same revealing question of 100 remarkable women: what poem has moved you to tears?
The poems chosen range from the eighth century to today, from Rumi and Shakespeare to Sylvia Plath, W. H. Auden to Carol Ann Duffy, Pablo Neruda and Derek Walcott to Imtiaz Dharker and Warsan Shire.
Their themes range from love and loss, through mortality and mystery, war and peace, to the beauty and variety of nature.
From Yoko Ono to Judi Dench, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to Elena Ferrante, Carol Ann Duffy to Meera Syal, and Joan Baez to Olivia Colman, this unique collection delivers private insights into the minds of women whose writing, acting and thinking are admired around the world.
Published by Simon & Schuster, in partnership with Amnesty International.
POEMS THAT MAKE GROWN MEN CRY
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In this bestselling anthology, one hundred men – distinguished in literature and film, science and architecture, theatre and human rights – confess to being moved to tears by poems that haunt them. Representing 20 nationalities and ranging in age from their early 20s to their late 80s, the majority are public figures not prone to crying. Here they admit to breaking down when ambushed by great art, often in words as powerful as the poems themselves.
75 per cent of the selected poems were written in the 20th century, with more than a dozen by women. Their themes range from love in its many guises, through mortality and loss, to the beauty and variety of nature. Three men have suffered the pain of losing a child; others are moved to tears by the exquisite way a poet captures, in Alexander Pope’s famous phrase, ‘what oft was thought, but ne’er so well express’d’.
From J.J Abrams to John le Carré, Salman Rushdie to Jonathan Franzen, Daniel Radcliffe to Nick Cave, Ian McEwan to Stephen Fry, Stanley Tucci to Colin Firth, and Seamus Heaney to Christopher Hitchens, this collection delivers private insights into the souls of men whose writing, acting, and thinking are admired around the world.
Published by Simon & Schuster, in partnership with Amnesty International.