On May 14th 2026 a literary opus called ‘Up The Packet’ hits the nation’s shelves via Damaged Goods Books. It’s from the foison pen of Simon Williams, record company boss and crisp packet collector. Since 1977 this collector has amassed more than 8,000 crisp packets. They are all empty, they all live in shoeboxes, and they are all different. Apart from the swapsies.

‘Up The Packet’ is a tale about those crisp bags and their amazingly zinging innards: from the Tayto potato to the Spudos spud; from the wartime birth of Golden Wonder to the 1990s stock & awe of Walkers; from the ‘70s kid-friendly frenzy to the growth in grown-up snacks and into the indie credibility revolution. It takes the reader on a crunchy cultural journey through the entire history of the potato crisp, packed with solid packet factettes and frankly wild snacking theories. Oh, and it delivers some fabulous new full colour pictures of crisp bags through the past 50 years in the ‘Don’t Look Bag In Anger’ pull-out photo spread.

But that isn’t all, because ‘Up The Packet’ packs in a heap of music references, as you may or many not expect from a book title which riffs on the Libertines’ debut album. Who is a Soho Salad? Why is Motörhead’s Backstage Buffet? What is Kid Jensen? Where is the actual epicentre of the actual crispy rock’n’roll universe? Is there parking?? Will there be snacks??? The fashions, the fads, the songs, the TV ads, the crazy flavourings and the hazy lost favourites and - of course - the long and fact-finding road from Smiths Salt’n’Shake to Splodgenessabounds, ‘Up The Packet’ is a crisp-lover’s paradise in rock’n’rolling form.

But that isn’t all either, because ‘Up The Packet’ is a book with a crunchy conscience and so digs deep into the way the crisp packet sadly litters the land and loiters in the sea years long after the innards have been happily consumed. Ultimately, and somewhat inevitably, we meet a man in the salty business who is aiming to kill the crisp packet as we know it with devious compostable creativity. This may or may not hamper the chances of ‘Up The Packet: The Sequel’…

Simon Williams spent eleven years at the NME, a much shorter time DJing at Xfm, and a much longer time running fierce panda records and promoting small gigs in small London venues. ‘Up The Packet’ is his fourth book following ‘The Kite Who Was Scared Of Heights’ (for children of all ages), ‘1-2 Cut Your Hair: The Story Of Johnny Moped’ (for proto-punk rockers of all rages) and ‘Pandamonium! How Not To Run A Record Company’ (for indie music fans at all stages). ‘Up The Packet’ might be his maddest yet. It’s certainly his crunchiest.

‘Up The Packet’ will retail at £14.99 and is published in paperback by Damaged Goods Books on May 14 2026, which may well become the inaugural National Crisp Packet Day. It will be accompanied by the ‘Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps 2’ song by Norwich’s finest Bag of Cans. And there may well be a monster of a fierce panda-flavoured crisp coming over the hill - more information soon…

Hear Simon witter on in a crispy manner at these events here:
MAY 16TH FARRINGDON The Old Ivy House (+ Bag of Cans)
JUNE 3RD STOWMARKET Fred’s Bar & Vinyl (Stowmarket Book Club)
JUNE 5TH NORWICH Voodoo Daddy’s (+ Bag of Cans)
JUNE 9TH WALTHAMSTOW Mother’s Ruin (Rock’n’Roll Book Club with Ted Kessler)