'Ought to become a classic. It is an enshrinement of [Meades's] intense baroque and catholic cleverness' Roger Lewis,   The Times 

Thirty years ago, Jonathan Meades published a volume of reportorial journalism, essays, criticism, squibs and fictions called  Peter Knows What Dick Likes . The critic James Wood was moved to write: 'When journalism is like this, journalism and literature become one.'

 Pedro and Ricky Come Again  is every bit as rich and catholic as its predecessor. It is bigger, darker, funnier and just as impervious to taste and manners. It bristles with wit and pin-sharp eloquence, whether Meades is contemplating northernness in a German forest or hymning the virtues of slang.





From the indefensibility of nationalism and the ubiquitous abuse of the word 'iconic', to John Lennon's shopping lists and the wine they call Black Tower, the work assembled here demonstrates Meades's unparalleled range and erudition, with pieces on cities, artists, sex, England, France, concrete, faith, politics, food, history and much, much more.



Jonathan Meades' books include three works of fiction –  Filthy English, Pompey and The Fowler Family Business  – and several collections including  Museum Without Walls , which received thirteen nominations as a book of the year in 2012.  An Encyclopaedia of Myself  was shortlisted for the PEN Ackerley Prize and longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize in 2014. His first and only cookbook,  The Plagiarist in the Kitchen , was published in 2017.  Pedro and Ricky Come Again  (2021) was the sequel to  Peter Knows What Dick Likes  (1988).

Meades has written and performed in more than sixty highly acclaimed television films on predominantly topographical subjects such as French nationalism, the Baltic and dictators' architecture.

He lives in France.



'Ought to become a classic. It is an enshrinement of [Meades's] intense baroque and catholic cleverness'



'One of the foremost prose stylists of his age in any register . . . Probably we don't deserve Meades, a man who apparently has never composed a dull paragraph'



'There are more gems in this wonderful book than I could cram into a dozen of these columns'



'Such a useful and important critic . . . He is very much on the reader's side, bringing his full wit to bear on every single thing he writes'



'As Meades puts it, who wants friendliness from books or from buildings? . . . Meades has sought to make a book shaped like his beloved Blenheim Palace: brutalist, arrogant; a moving finger'



'Meades has the panache and fearlessness to pull it all off'



'The consistency in quality and style are remarkable . . . It's writing that has a pop; essaying that puts its pint glass down with a slam, then offers you another. Positively curt and classy'



'This vast compendium has something to inform, amuse, shock or repulse on nearly every page' Paul Finch, Architects' Journal 'Gargantuan and whip-smart . . . Meades emerges as a fiercely independent thinker and a formidable intellect. His acerbic style carries the day, and readers bored of dry criticism will relish these piquant ripostes'