On Thursday 11th September 2025, Mark Kermode’s Surround Sound: The Stories of Movie Music found its way into bookshops. It was 10 years in the making for Mark, and nearly 2.5 years for me.
I still recall the phone call from Mark in March 2023 asking me to write a book about film music with him – a book I’d known about since we started working together on the Scala Radio show back in January 2019. I’d tried all sorts of not-so-subtle ways to become involved in the project – asking him about the interviews he’d done with composers, offering to transcribe them, even giving him a copy of my previous Classic FM book about director-composer creative partnerships – but he hadn’t picked up on any of the hints. Thank goodness, then, for his wonderful wife Linda who suggested he ask me to co-author it.
Shortly after I was on board, I found out I was pregnant, so the book was delayed even further but thankfully Mark and the brilliant Picador team were very accommodating. After an initial discussion in the pub about what we wanted to cover in the book, I started doing research at the wonderful BFI Reuben Library, one of my favourite places in London, where I found fascinating archives of composer interviews.
I managed to do most of the research and my portion of composer interviews (we’d divided them up between us) before my son arrived in December 2023, and then I worked on the book whenever I could during maternity leave, often creating playlists for myself during late night feeds. Mark and I would pick a chapter, set ourselves a delivery date, do a first draft, then read the other one’s initial attempts and take it from there. Breaking it down into a chapter-by-chapter delivery helped make it feel less of a daunting task and more of a fun project to occupy my mind during what’s otherwise a rather brain-mulchy time.
It’s worth stating that the book is not a definitive history of film music. We tell our history of film music from silent movies to present day, citing composers who we feel have been the most influential and innovative. There are chapters devoted to particular film genres, like Horror and Action, and other chapters that focus on music genres, such as Pop and Electronica.
We also explore HOW film music made, from inception to the recording of an orchestral score, and we’re very grateful to all the composers, musicians and engineers who took the time to chat to us. People like – and this isn’t a complete list – Michael Abels, Laura Karpman, Warren Ellis, Anne Dudley, Rachel Portman, Hildur Gudnadottir, Germaine Franco, Jonny Greenwood, Howard Shore, Mike Matessino and Clint Mansell.
We’ve tried to make it as accessible as possible. You don’t need to know anything about music or film scoring to enjoy it – and I really hope you do! It’s been an absolute delight to write it with Mark and I’m still pinching myself!
Bookshops
If you have any interest in films, music and film music, please do buy a copy – ideally from your local independent bookshop or bookshop.org.uk!
Here are some particular favourites of mine:
Edinburgh – Portobello Books
Bath – Mr B’s Emporium
London, E3 – Bàrd Books
Bristol – Storysmith
Falmouth – Falmouth Bookseller
Penzance – The Edge of the World Bookshop
Newquay – Clemo Books
Monmouth, Ross-on-Wye, Cheltenham, Malvern, Leominster and Hereford – Rossiter Books
Ely, Bath, Edinburgh, St Andrews and (soon) York – Topping & Company
Events
So far, we’ve had a lot of fun chatting about film music at events in London, Bath, Monmouth, Birmingham and Edinburgh, and here are some still to come:
Thurs 18th Sept: The Cheap Street Church in Sherborne in association with Winstone’s Books
Fri 19th Sept: Budleigh Salterton Literary Festival
Fri 10th Oct: Cheltenham Literature Festival
Sat 18th Oct: Liverpool Literary Festival
Fri 7th Nov: York Theatre Royal in association with Aesthetica Festival
We’d love to see you there!
