James Bailey
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drjamesbailey.bsky.social
James Bailey
@drjamesbailey.bsky.social
6.1K followers 10K following 310 posts
Writer who lives in Manchester. Rep’d by Creative Artists Agency. LIKE A CAT LOVES A BIRD, my biography of Muriel Spark, is out in April 2026 🐈‍⬛

https://lnk.to/LikeaCatLovesaBird

Instagram.com/drjamesbailey
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drjamesbailey.bsky.social
And today I’m in The Scotsman’s list of ‘cracking page-turners’ for 2026.

(Incidentally, I once met a drag queen called Paige Turner. Hope she’s doing well, wherever she is these days ✨)
Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark By James Bailey "Spark's own story," writes Bailey, "is every bit as strange, slippery, and rife with contradictions as the ones she wrote." True enough - and pinning down one of literature's greatest shapeshifters is a challenge for any biographer.
December 27, 2025 at 9:04 PM
drjamesbailey.bsky.social
Well here’s something: the BBC has included LIKE A CAT LOVES A BIRD: THE NINE LIVES OF MURIEL SPARK in a round-up of the must-reads of 2026. I’m sandwiched between Liza Minnelli and Cher - a big camp old Merry Christmas to me! ✨
Text from BBC article about 2026 must-reads: ‘Expect nuggets from her younger days growing up in the shadow of her famous mum, Judy Garland, before she reveals all on her meteoric rise to fame, struggles with addiction, high-profile marriages and friendships, and heartbreaking miscarriages. It's going to be one hell of a ride. Other memoirs out next year worth checking out are Starchild: My Life Under the Night Sky by space scientist Maggie Aderin-Pocock (Ebury), My Truth, My Story: Part 2 from Cher (HarperCollins), Gisele Pelicot - A Hymn to Life: Shame has to Change Sides (Vintage), Lena Dunham's Fame Sick (Fourth Estate) and James Bailey's biography, Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark (Sceptre).’
December 25, 2025 at 5:30 PM
drjamesbailey.bsky.social
Rereading Sinéad O'Connor’s autobiography - here she is, as a teenager, giving Yeats a bit of a kicking
Yeats has made me wanna write songs but I ain't ready yet. I haven't fallen in love as many times as him, the silly old bugger. Always asking a woman to marry him and not getting the message when she said no and then asking her daughter, which makes you know why the mother said no so many times. He's a freak. He looks a bit like a walrus. He's quite off-putting. But his poems are paintings. My favorite is "No Second Troy," although I get fed up with people rhyming desire with either fire or pyre. There's got to be some other option.
December 21, 2025 at 9:59 AM
drjamesbailey.bsky.social
Once again thinking about the time Sinéad O'Connor attended an anti-Sinéad O'Connor demonstration in disguise 💛
Sinéad O'Connor in a black wig, at an anti-Sinéad O'Connor demonstration Sinéad O'Connor in a black wig, at an anti-Sinéad O'Connor demonstration
December 20, 2025 at 7:51 PM
drjamesbailey.bsky.social
In case you were wondering about the Sparkian connection:50 years ago, Miriam Margolyes starred in the BBC adaptation of The Girls of Slender Means. She also narrated The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie audiobook. I hope she finds lots to love about Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark!
Miriam Margolyes in the 1975 BBC adaptation of The Girls of Slender Means. Miriam is on a sofa, in 1940s garb, looking incredulously at another actor. A stack of proof copies of Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark on a round wooden table. There is also a candle-holder, shaped like a mouse.
December 4, 2025 at 8:26 AM
drjamesbailey.bsky.social
Well this is ridiculous.
Miriam Margolyes, holding a copy of Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark
December 3, 2025 at 8:00 PM
drjamesbailey.bsky.social
Side-profile, for all you fans of side-profile photos of pie dishes
Side-profile photo of a pie dish, which looks like it is full of a cooked raspberry filling, on a wooden table
December 1, 2025 at 8:34 PM
drjamesbailey.bsky.social
A moment of appreciation for the pie dish I bought from the charity shop for a grand total of £3.50 🥧
A pie dish, which looks like it is full of a cooked raspberry filling, on a wooden table
December 1, 2025 at 7:23 PM
drjamesbailey.bsky.social
I am once again thinking about Cher’s author bio.
Dust jacket bio for Cher’s autobiography: ‘Cher is a global icon.’
November 29, 2025 at 6:28 PM
drjamesbailey.bsky.social
Great big news!

My book, LIKE A CAT LOVES A BIRD: THE NINE LIVES OF MURIEL SPARK is coming to America! I'm so pleased that @princetonupress.bsky.social will be publishing my strange, slippery take on Spark's life and work. It'll be out in spring!

🐈‍⬛💘🐦‍⬛
A note in Publishers Marketplace, which reads ‘LIKE A CAT LOVES A BIRD by James Bailey: Imprint: Princeton University Press, Sceptre James Bailey's LIKE A CAT LOVES A BIRD: THE NINE LIVES OF MURIEL SPARK, a perspective on the life and career of the writer Bailey calls "one of literature's great shapeshifters", to Anne Savarese at Princeton University Press, for publication in spring 2026, by Amelia Atlas at CAA, on behalf of John Ash. Rights also to Charlotte Humphery at Sceptre (UK).’
November 25, 2025 at 8:28 PM
drjamesbailey.bsky.social
Some trivia: The cat Spark’s holding on the cover was named Spider; she’d adopted him from Patricia Highsmith. Spider was a fan of fireworks - he found that their booms tended to stun the nearby lizards, making them easy for him to hunt down and kill. I imagine Spark admired this display of cunning…
Muriel Spark, holding a black cat and smiling at the camera Patricia Highsmith, holding the same black cat, and smiling at the camera
November 2, 2025 at 8:54 PM
drjamesbailey.bsky.social
Spoiler: obeying the “queer dictatorial” voice in your head leads to you getting up to all sorts in South Africa, London, New York, Rome and Tuscany, writing 22 wild and uncompromising novels, meeting several useless men, adopting innumerable stray cats, and sporting some really enormous hairdos ✨
Muriel Spark, looking quite glamorous in a white dress with coiffed hair. She’s posing next to a table, on which jewellery is displayed
November 2, 2025 at 8:06 PM
drjamesbailey.bsky.social
“I am paralysed as a writer”, Spark once said, “unless I write according to this queer dictatorial sense I have”.

This is a book about restlessness, reinvention and the kind of life that can unfold when you choose to obey the “queer, dictatorial” voice in your head.
A black and white photograph of Muriel Spark, who is reclining in an armchair with a cigarette between her fingers.
November 2, 2025 at 7:01 PM
drjamesbailey.bsky.social
Here’s the cover for LIKE A CAT LOVES A BIRD: THE NINE LIVES OF MURIEL SPARK, out 16 April with @sceptrebooks.bsky.social

Preorder here: lnk.to/LikeaCatLove...

Please share! The book doing well means I can write another (and fulfil my dream of owning a pizza oven), so it’s pretty serious

🐈‍⬛ 🐈‍⬛ 🐈‍⬛
Orange and pink cover for Like a Cat Loves a Bird, a forthcoming biography of Muriel Spark, with a black and white photo of Spark holding a black cat on the cover
November 2, 2025 at 5:23 PM
drjamesbailey.bsky.social
We sent an early copy of Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark to Francesca Wade, whose books I love, and she wrote the blurb of my dreams. ‘Slippery’! ‘Chaotic’! ‘Often hilarious’! 🐈‍⬛
'Bailey's slippery Spark is chaotic, complex, often hilarious, and constantly shapeshifting. His kaleidoscopic portrait illuminates Spark's life and work from every angle, yet - crucially - allows her the freedom she craved to confound and elude those who would try to pin her down. This is a deeply stylish, astute and illuminating biography of a fascinating writer.’ Francesca Wade, author of Square Haunting
October 22, 2025 at 7:30 AM
drjamesbailey.bsky.social
More from the proof. Pink pages; one about Spark and cats, the other about ME!
A pink page on the inside cover of the book. The text reads: ‘Spark, like one of her many feline companions, came and went as she pleased. Forever on the prowl for her own kind of ‘mousing prospects’, she searched intently for freedom, intellectual stimulation, and the perfect conditions under which her writing could flourish. ‘When a cat voluntarily disappears from home,’ she once refl ected, it is merely because the whim has seized it to look for something less boring elsewhere.’ That was her, in her life and in her work: restless, preoccupied, and forever seeking a life less ordinary’ A pink page, on the inside cover of the book. There is a black and white photo of me, with an orange background. I am wearing glasses, and a shirt over a striped t shirt. There is an author bio, which reads: James Bailey is a writer and researcher from Manchester. He is a Doctor of Literature, and the author of Muriel Spark's Early Fiction (2021) and the co-editor of British Women Short Story Writers (2015). His day job involves working to support the development of other writers, as well as publishers, bookshops and literature festivals.
October 21, 2025 at 7:22 PM
drjamesbailey.bsky.social
This isn't the final cover, by the way - we just wanted to give the cat his time in the spotlight before Spark takes centre stage for the shop-bound version. And there are hours of fun to be had pretending to have half a cat head, let me tell you.
A round table, upon which 10 proofs of Like a Cat Loves a Bird sit in a pile. There is also a candle shaped like a mouse. The cover of the book features a black cat.
October 21, 2025 at 6:35 PM
drjamesbailey.bsky.social
Proofs are in! A huge thank you to @sceptrebooks.bsky.social for sending these my way. LIKE A CAT LOVES A BIRD: THE NINE LIVES OF MURIEL SPARK will be out in April, and these proofs will be going out into the world imminently. Terrifying! Exciting! Mostly terrifying!
A photo of me, holding a cover of Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of a Muriel Spark in front of my face. The book has a cat on the front cover, and has been positioned to look like the cat’s face forms half of my own.
October 21, 2025 at 6:14 PM
drjamesbailey.bsky.social
The first blurb for my book is in!

I’m so delighted that the brilliant Francesca Wade (whose new Gertrude Stein biography is amazing) had this to say about LIKE A CAT LOVES A BIRD
MEDIA REVIEWS Bailey's slippery Spark is chaotic, complex, often hilarious, and constantly shapeshifting. His kaleidoscopic portrait illuminates Spark's life and work from every angle, yet - crucially - allows her the freedom she craved to confound and elude those who would try to pin her down. This is a deeply stylish, astute and illuminating biography of a fascinating writer - Francesca Wade, author of SQUARE HAUNTING
October 7, 2025 at 7:24 PM
drjamesbailey.bsky.social
He has something very grave to impart.
A blue-grey staffie, placing his paw on my arm and wearing a look of grave concern
October 7, 2025 at 6:31 PM
drjamesbailey.bsky.social
I love this photo because it looks like it belongs in a life insurance brochure, which is all I’ve ever really wanted, to be honest.
October 7, 2025 at 5:19 PM
drjamesbailey.bsky.social
Update: a thoroughly demented read, 10/10
Pages from Hyacinth Bucket’s Book of Etiquette, titled ‘The Art of the Telephone’ and featuring several pictures of Patricia Routledge on the phone
October 3, 2025 at 6:49 PM
drjamesbailey.bsky.social
Curiosity got the better of me and I had to see what was in this book. The Index alone is really quite something.
Index, which contains items including: ‘animal kingdom, proper place for’, ‘chimpanzees, avoiding teabags recommended by’ and ‘hands, importance of ensuring cleanliness of in tradespersons’
October 3, 2025 at 5:09 PM
drjamesbailey.bsky.social
Very sad to hear of the death of Patricia Routledge, although I’m now laughing at the memory of first moving in with my boyfriend, and finding out that he owned a copy of Hyacinth Bucket’s Book of Etiquette: For the Socially Less Fortunate 💜
A copy of Hyacinth Bucket’s Book of Etiquette: For the Socially Less Fortunate
October 3, 2025 at 10:35 AM
drjamesbailey.bsky.social
He thinks he’s a member of the Happy Mondays.
A young Staffordshire bull terrier, with a blue-grey coat, wearing a bucket hat
September 17, 2025 at 6:23 PM