James Bailey

@drjamesbailey.bsky.social

6523 Followers 10328 Following

Writer from Manchester. LIKE A CAT LOVES A BIRD, my biography of Muriel Spark, out now! 🐈‍⬛ https://lnk.to/LikeaCatLovesaBird Instagram.com/drjamesbailey

A signed copy of Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark. Next to my signature is a doodle of a cat, alongside a cat-shaped badge which has ‘Muriel Spark Fan Club’ on it.
Muriel Spark, photographed beside a table display of copies of Memento Mori
A picture of me, accompanied by the text: JAMES BAILEY IN CONVERSATION WITH JESS WHITE AT WATERSTONES LIVERPOOL WEDNESDAY 15 JULY 6.30PM The Nine Lives of Muriel Spork
Photo of me, holding a copy of The Sunday Times in a newsagent
The best books to read this summer Novels, memoirs and history, paperbacks and hardbacks — plus something for the children. Here's our guide to this summer's finest reads. Use the save button to create your own reading list
‘I have a calling. Writing is a thing I have to do. Not many men will suffer for that and people do come before books, so it's best not to have people in your life—I'm willing to subordinate an enormous amount for my work. They say sacrifice, but sacrifice for a pleasure makes it more pleasurable. If you took away the writer from me, I believe I would not exist at all.’
Pin-badges in the shape of a cat, with the words ‘Muriel Spark Fan Club’ on them
A note from Muriel Spark’s archive, titled ‘Motifs’. Motifs mentioned include: ‘pinewood’; ‘laughs when alone’; ‘material of dress - doesn’t stain’ An owl paperweight is on top of the note.
A photo of me standing by a sign for MURIEL SPARK WALK in Edinburgh
A round wooden table, on which three copies of Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark are arranged
James Bailey's Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark is both remarkably shrewd and surprisingly amusing WILLIAM BOYD
Professor Andrew Biswell, next to a photograph of Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy
I have a calling. Writing is a thing I have to do. Not many men will suffer for that and people do come before books, so it's best not to have people in your life—I'm willing to subordinate an enormous amount for my work. They say sacrifice, but sacrifice for a pleasure makes it more pleasurable. If you took away the writer from me, I believe I would not exist at all.
A round wooden table, upon which three copies of Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lived of Muriel Spark are displayed
Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark, comes at the reader slightly aslant, stealthy in its insights, lightweight in page-count, playfully acerbic, overly fond of cats. It's a smart, bantam weight (100 pages shorter than the next-shortest Spark biography, although still 100 pages longer than Spark's own baffling memoir, Curriculum Vitae), savagely assessing, and ultimately memorable; in other words, young author James Bailey has written very first truly Sparkean biography of Muriel Spark.
Me, standing behind a large stack of copies of Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark. The book has a red cover and pink spine, and features a photograph of Muriel Spark holding a black cat.
Later I would mature more and tell the truth about how I was feel. ing, but when I wrote that, I was still hiding away from what I really felt. There was nothing personal about it; it wasn't about anyone. It was a way of having fun with some words that suited a track that sounded like you were having fun. So we have a car, and it's long, because it's a limousine, speeding down a Manhattan avenue, all the lights on green, through the steam pouring into the night, and you want to keep it clean, so you wax it and rub it, giving it a shine, and it's hard to park, because we're in the city, and it's so big, so you have to squeeze it into tight spaces, between certain obstacles, and nudge up against the car in front of you or behind you or both. You make it fit, and it is such a great feeling. Obviously, this could sound like you were talking about something else. If you wanted, you could imagine that I am not singing about a car at all. But that's up to you. If you think the song is not about parking a car, shame on you.
Picture of Muriel Spark in a graveyard, accompanied by the text: Sometimes, I like to go to Waterstones Liverpool to plug my book
Billboard for Joni Mitchell’s album, Hejira
Billboard for Joni Mitchell’s album, Blue
3 copies of Like a Cat Loves a Bird on a round wooden table
Me and Jenn Ashworth: I’m holding a copy of my book and smiling
Me signing copies at Hatchards
Signing at The Edinburgh Bookshop
Me, dressed in a blue jacket and green cap, posing in front of the window of The Edinburgh Bookshop. Copies of my book are in the window, which is decorated with the title of my book, Like a Cat Loves a Bird.
Me, behind a microphone in the BBC Radio Scotland studio. I’m holding a copy of my book, Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark
YouTube clip called ‘Dick & Dom - The Best of Bogies’, showing the pair in a library
Shop with a sign saying ‘sweet shop’, which is part of a little street in Barbra Streisand’s basement
Photo of Muriel Spark reclining in an armchair
Mocked up copy of a Human League CD, featuring the actors from EastEnders
Dedication page from my book, which reads ‘For those who like this sort of thing’. Overlaid with a screen shot of Maggie Smith as Jean Brodie, saying “for those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like”.
A dining room, with bunting which says ‘happy book day’
A big stack of Like a Cat Loves a Bird on a round wooden table
Three copies of Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark on a round wooden table
Selfie, in which I am holding up a copy of my book, Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark
Review exceeds the character count for alt text. Please message me if you’d like to read it, and I’ll send you the full text.
A photo of me, holding up a copy of The Times which features a review of my book, accompanied by the headline: ‘A genius with claws - the picaresque life of Muriel Spark’
For someone who wrote biographies of writers early on in her career, Muriel Spark grew to be suspicious of the genre. As she warned American academic Dorothea Walker in 1988, "A number of biographical pieces already written about me are completely wrong, sometimes pure inventions."
3 copies of Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark, on a round wooden table
She was also famed for her trenchant wit and woe betide anyone who got caught in the whiplash. When an aspiring poet sent her verses about water nymphs, she replied tartly that fairies were acceptable only in Ireland and the plays of JM Barrie. One of her most famous put-downs was to Marie Stopes, a pioneer of family planning who had criticised Spark for being a divorcee. "I was young and pretty," Spark said, whereas (the braless) Stopes "had totally succumbed to the law of gravity without attempting to do a thing about • She then delivered her parting shot: "I used to think it a pity that her mother rather than she had not thought of birth control." Meeow.
Photograph of Muriel Spark writing in a notebook, accompanied by the headline: From trolling Nazis to Miss Jean Brodie: the nine lives of Muriel Spark She swapped chilly Edinburgh for sex and sun in Rhodesia, then left her husband to write. James Bailey's biography Like a Cat Loves a Bird captures the complicated life of the brilliant novelist Paula Byrne Thursday April 02 2026, 5.00am, The Times
A stack of copies of Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark
My boyfriend (a journalist) was scheduled to interview Liza Minnelli over the phone this evening. I was unaware of this...
To non-fiction now, and I like the way James Bailey writes about Muriel Spark in his biography, Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark (Sceptre, 9 April, ÂŁ20). He knows from the outset that she will be difficult to pin down, so he has great fun in exploring possibilities, imagining scenarios, creating scenes and celebrating her enigmatic writing. Still, there are facts here, and you will learn a lot, not only about Spark, but about the changing (and the depressingly persistent) sensibilities of the 20th century.
James Bailey follows up his 2021 work Muriel Spark's Early Fiction - which analysed the literary experimentation of her work in the 1950s and 1960s - with a broader biographical study of the Edinburgh-born author, whom he calls "perhaps modern literature's finest shapeshifter". Timed for publication around the 20th anniversary of Spark's death at 88, Bailey claims "there is still something of the monster to Spark's public image". Cats certainly wandered in and out of her life. She adopted Patricia Highsmith's furry pet, and among the more unusual names she coined for her own feline companions were "One-Eyed Riley" and "Pinot Grigio". She also claimed that the cruelty she inflicted on some of her characters was like the way a cat loves a bird; "you know cats do love birds; they love to fondle them," she said.
To non-fiction now, and I like the way James Bailey writes about Muriel Spark in his biography, Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark (Sceptre, 9 April, ÂŁ20). He knows from the outset that she will be difficult to pin down, so he has great fun in exploring possibilities, imagining scenarios, creating scenes and celebrating her enigmatic writing. Still, there are facts here, and you will learn a lot, not only about Spark, but about the changing (and the depressingly persistent) sensibilities of the 20th century.
The back of the book, which features a black cat accompanied by the following blurbs: ‘Vital, fun and immediate Francesca Reece, author of Glass Houses Beautifully written... fascinating' Lucinda Hawksley, author of The Mystery of Princess Louise "A book as elegant, sharp-witted and mischievous as its subject' Clare Pollard, author of The Modern Fairies 'Fascinating and nuanced' Luke Turner, author of Out of the Woods I cannot imagine a book I'd rather read' Holly Pester, author of The Lodgers 'A sparkling and witty exploration of Spark's life and work' Jenn Ashworth, author of The Parallel Path 'Razor-sharp yet full of mystery' Sophie Haydock, author of The Flames
12 copies of Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark, arranged on a table
Selfie of me, holding a copy of Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark. Book cover is orange-red with a picture of Muriel Spark holding a black cat.
EVENTS 16 APRIL Blackwell's, Manchester with Jenn Ashworth 21 APRIL Hatchards Piccadilly, London with Sophie Haydock 23 APRIL Topping & Co Booksellers, Edinburgh 27 APRIL Blackwells, Oxford with Francesca Wade 12 MAY Urmston Bookshop
Cover of Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark. Cover features a photo of Spark holding a black cat.
Cartoon of Muriel Spark, by David Levine. Spark is shown holding a black cat.
Selfie of me, holding up a proof copy of Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark. I am wearing 5 pin badges, which resemble a cat’s face and bear the text: Muriel Spark Fan Club