Rules for Mavericks is a unique and compelling read, packed with guidance for the less maverick amongst us. Reflecting on his own experiences and the experiences of other creative non-conformists (from Christopher Hitchens to Joni Mitchell via David Bowie) Phil Beadle provides us with strategies for improving creative output, for challenging authority, for fighting the good fight when things get tough and for learning from the many inevitable mistakes we will make in the days and years ahead. Unconventional and inspiring, Rules for Mavericks may just give you the courage you need to shrug off convention and release your inner dissident.
Bob Pritchard, teacher, Hilbre High School
Rules for Mavericks is irreverent, stimulating and absorbing. There's a mixture of humour and wisdom on every page. It's an insight into how thinking like a maverick can have practical benefits. Phil Beadle writes in a way that is personal and therefore easy to relate to. He demonstrates how deciding to think and behave like a maverick can change your work and personal life for the better.
Rod Judkins, author of The Art of Creative Thinking
Phil Beadle has written a seminal piece of work exploring creativity and the timely need for Maverick behaviour in a perpetuated mediocre world. With shades of Hakim Bey's aThe Temporary Autonomous Zonea, the book takes the reader on a personal and philosophical journey through change, performance and failure. You know that when a book begins with an affirmation of the protests of aRadical Muslim Feminist' Safia Aidid it is going to strike at the very heart of conservative establishment and it does so with sophistication of thought and style. With a layout that seems to be inspired by McLuhan's aThe Medium is the Massagea, Beadle will guide you - almost Diffordesque at times - through the emotional pitfalls and loneliness of authentic creation, whilst at other points in the book he stands back and ridicules the pretension of our successes. Either way, the book needs to be read by anyone brave enough and honest enough to understand the need for rejecting conformity and challenging blandness. This book will certainly be ridiculed, misunderstood and overlooked by the dullards Beadle urges you to fight against, but as the writer himself encourages, aSmile at them. They hate this. And fire your energy and your anger into your work.a
Tait Coles, Assistant Principal, Head of ITT across a group of schools in Bradford
Phil Beadle is one of the most important voices in British education. His latest book is not just about the true nature of the word amaverick'. It is about perhaps the most important educational gift we can give, namely the courage and curiosity to truly be ourselves and not apologise for it. Maverick, as he explains, is a label often stuck on people who dare to challenge convention. It is not something they necessarily chose for themselves. But convention can never adequately describe us. Our deepest hopes and dreams are far too profound for it. Obsequious deference to convention can never really make great scientific breakthroughs, create great art or stand against tyranny. Nor can it speak to the hunger for learning in any child. It is a prison all of its own. Phil is not just some provocateur or agitator, as much as those who fear mavericks might like to belittle him with that cosy and ill-explored label. He is allergic to bullshit and he speaks for freedom against a mediocrity that can ruin lives.
Ben Walden, Artistic Director, Contender Charlie
The successor to Camus's aThe Rebel', Phil Beadle's aRues for Mavericks' rocks, dips and swerves like no other book of this type ever has. It is a true original combining anthropology and philosophy with a new way of looking at our world. It is revolutionary in scope and speaks not solely to intellectual, but to all of us. The clarity of Phil's writing opens up the closed and high grounds and lets us all in to the palace of intelligence. This is no mean achievement and a more than must read.
Jim Douglas, Novelist, aTokyo Nightsa
Voices in the wilderness are seldom heard with clarity. This book is the exception. Mavericks can't be made, but they can be given the space and support to fly in the face of conformity with alacrity. Phil Beadle wears the badge conferred on him with uncomfortable reticence, but delivers a message in tune with his original thinking, emphasising the importance of straying from the flock whilst hiding in full sight of the wolves. Sometimes controversial, but never less than eye-opening and thought-provoking, which is what any self-respecting moderate demands of their mavericks. As society careers towards ever-narrowing options in a disenfranchised democracy designed to govern from the top down, polemicists become ever more important voices: a rule book for railing against the top might just be the most useful tool of all. Read it and build with it.
Pete Wilkinson, Director, The Jerwood Space
