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Up All Night

A History of Going Out

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Up All Night

By: Imogen Willetts
Narrated by: Emily Pennant-Rea
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Summary

 There is a specific energy to it. Cafes and shops close their shutters. Darkness descends. 'The air begins to tingle', wrote John Dos Passos of twenties New York. 'It's tonight if you drink enough, talk enough, walk far enough, that the train of magical events will begin.'

Barely four centuries ago, music, fashion, sex, architecture, art and booze first fused to create what we now call nightlife. It happened, strangely enough, in 17th-century Japan, in a remote marshland outside the shogun's capital. This den of hedonism and iniquity became a breeding ground for new ideas - and while the venues have changed, nightlife has been at the frontier of cultural innovation ever since.

Up All Night is the story of the good times and the great ones. Who invented jazz? What did 18th century Londoners do for entertainment? Why was Detroit the birthplace of techno? Who built Las Vegas? And what, in our increasingly online lives, are we missing when we pass up the chance of a big night out?

Join party historian Imogen Willetts for a guided tour of history's wildest nights out - piecing together tantalising ephemera and foggy reminiscences from shogunate Japan to noughties Hollywood, and every iconic scene in between.

'Spills over with colourful anecdotes . . . Reading Up All Night makes you want to put it down - if only to step out into the seductive, thrilling night' DAILY TELEGRAPH

'A sparkling cultural history . . . Its procession of nocturnal scenes is immersive, intoxicating and full of surprises' MIKE JAY, author of PSYCHONAUTS

'A jaunty, jam-packed history of big nights out that revels in spectacle and theatricality' EMMA WARREN, author of DANCE YOUR WAY HOME ©2026 Imogen Willetts (P)2026 Orion Publishing Group Limited Entertainment
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Critic reviews

Spills over with colourful anecdotes . . . The less talked-about locales are Willetts's real ace card. Take the story of Shanghai as a post-First World War party destination, where thousands of revolution-fleeing Russians found work in the city's clubs and dance halls - including Moscow's entire royal ballet. Or post-Second World War Las Vegas, where the Nevada nuclear test site became an entertaining light show in what's dubbed "Atomic Tourism" . . . Reading Up All Night makes you want to put it down - if only to step out into the seductive, thrilling night
A sparkling cultural history: original in conception, prodigious in scope and written in appropriately high style. Its procession of nocturnal scenes is immersive, intoxicating and full of surprises (MIKE JAY, author of PSYCHONAUTS)
A jaunty, jam-packed history of big nights out that revels in spectacle and theatricality, happiest when bringing the reader into spaces that have been transformed by imaginative special effects (EMMA WARREN, author of DANCE YOUR WAY HOME)
Most party people can't remember how their night started - Imogen Willetts digs all the way back to the seventeenth century. Her thoroughly researched history of nightlife gives us a fizzy chronology of fine partying, with an emphasis on the expression, rebellion and escape that clubs and bars have always provided. I hereby raise a strong toast to this book, which gives historical evidence that a mad mix of music, cocktails and people in our face will never go away (MICHAEL MUSTO, legendary cultural critic and chronicler of New York)
What's the nightlife goss? It's all here babes! From witches in moonlight to 1980s East Village to Margate 2026, Up All Night covers a vast expanse of nightlife. The research and detail is sublime: the perfect celebration of the place where the best of life happens. Get your glad rags on: we're going out out (AMY ZING, co-founder of queer club collective SINK THE PINK, MARGATE ARTS CLUB and MARGATE PRIDE)
Meticulously researched and dangerously fun, Up All Night is so vivid and insightful, I needed a lie down afterwards (JODIE HARSH, author of YOU HAD TO BE THERE)
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