L.A. Baby!

by Tim Key

Key jetted off to Los Angeles in the fall of 2024 and stayed sane by writing poems and talking to Emily Juniper on the phone. She then did the honourable thing and designed this stuff, lovingly filling the pages of a beautifully-sized green book. Amongst the glitz and glamour of twenty-first century Hollywood, we can view Key's crazy adventures and infinitesimal moments of loneliness. A hymn to laundrettes and dive bars, a come-and-get-me plea to Audrey Hepburn or frankly any of the greats. This is Key and Juniper's fourth book and, judging by how emotionally and creatively reliant they are on one another these days, there will be another four coming down the tracks.

Genres: Poetry, Humor, Comedy, Nonfiction, Memoir

150 pages, Paperback

Published July 4, 2025

About the author

Key has written four books. His most recent focuses on the lockdown of 2020. His others are collections of poems and other bits and bobs. He also does other things: stand-up comedy, acting, Alan Partridge's sidekick.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Key

Reviews

[Ste · Rating 3 out of 5]

With "He Used Thought As a Wife", Key found an incredible vein of poetry, humour and pathos in examining how he and the world around him was closing into bubbles during the lockdown. "L.A. Baby" concerns a very different kind of bubble - the dislocation and isolation of flying to L.A. to shoot a TV series (it's not named here, but it's the upcoming The Office spinoff The Paper. Key plays "a dweeb".)

The big, fatal difference between "He Used Thought..." and "L.A. Baby" is that his new book is almost entirely in first person. Almost every poem seems to be about him (there are a couple he denies are autobiographical). There are none of his usual poems about people with names like Boggis and Jelson doing weird things, none of the empathy and observation that makes his poetry more than a punchline. His introspective poetry sometimes finds a shard of flint about loneliness, but often it doesn't get further than "It was hot".

Perhaps this makes sense. Los Angeles is the most self-centred, self-obsessed city on the planet. Where better to write a book of poems about yourself?

[Mary White · Rating 5 out of 5]

A huge fear of mine is Tim Key and I not getting on if we met. But I think we would. Very wholesome, very comforting, very funny, very sad.

Special mention to the Richard Osman’s House of Games carry on case, which is the best item to win from House of Games, unless there’s a dart board and you don’t own one.

[Tom Mooney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my favourite of Tim's recent poetry collections but still full of hilarity

[Cain · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Chugging IPA in the fanny end of nowhereville".

This comical, snarky git has such a big heart. Proper poems, a proper poet.

[Harry Dichmont · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good old Tim Key. Not quite as brilliant as his lockdown books but I really enjoyed this journey to LA, and to be honest the book is so beautifully designed that I actually enjoyed the physical process of reading it!

[Caspar Bhalerao · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone imminently headed stateside, this book resonated so acutely. As an object itself it’s beautifully printed and published and wonderful in its own little absurd way. Not much more to add than that - five stars - but I’ll leave you with the poem ‘Keep It Together Man’ - which I think encapsulates the whole text in one fell swoop:

The British Airways air hostess poured me 250ml of ice-cold Frobishers apple juice and I clutched her wrist.
“Excuse me, madame.”
She said “Yes,” and crouched, and I loosened my grasp.
“I’m scared,” I went on.
“Oh.” She had such kind, chestnut-coloured eyes.
She took hold my wrist now.
“Scared of what?”
I took her other wrist and so now we were both holding something and being held.
I had a map on my screen; a cartoon plane, whizzing across the globe, but everything felt more real than that.
I pointed to America.
“This… thing,” I croaked.
She had the word “Grace” on her lapel.
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that.” Her voice was like syrup mixed with rosewater and then heated up on a teaspoon.
“Nothing to worry about there,” she stood and smiled and plumped my headrest, “it won’t bite.”
I smiled as she scuttled away.
I sipped my Frobishers apprehensively and adopted the brace position for twenty minutes or so.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another excellent collection from Key - one of the best British poets in the game. It’s funny throughout, but there’s a thoughtfulness that occasionally pops up that takes you by surprise.

It might even be the reason I finally watch The Paper.

[Ben Cotton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another rip-snorter of a tome.

[Cit Lennox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absurd, poignant and at times laugh out loud funny. With a fair sprinkling of Audrey Hepburn

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

So enjoyable and silly then one poem is devastatingly profound.

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

Devoured!!! A perfect read

[Ewan · Rating 5 out of 5]

he’s done it again.

[Clementine · Rating 5 out of 5]

solemnly removing a Beautifully Written Classic Novel™️ from my favourites shelf and replacing it with tim key’s newest book once again. Love love loved obviously, bump 2 the top

[Thalia · Rating 3 out of 5]

loads of fun. thank you imogen for the perfect treat to dip in and out of!!! it was my graduation present and i just finished it now, so good to have something that reminds me reading is supposed to be fun and free. LOLed several times!

[Jonas Hirschi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely little book! Marvelous design, humorous absurdities, but also a functioning frame that leads you through the story.

[Matt Booth]

Lovely stuff (yet again!)

[S V B · Rating 5 out of 5]

I continue to fancy Tim Key.

[Archie Osmond · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5! My first book of poems that I’ve read, and I loved it. Funny as you’d expect from Tim Key, but it had a strong narrative thrust to it as well that I appreciated and liked.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everything this man does is ace. Beauty of a book.

[Sekaringtias · Rating 3 out of 5]

With poetry, suppose there is a specific type of envy for those who could masterfully come up with otherworldly, beautiful prose, seemingly making our mundane life more comprehensible in its absurdity, even perhaps sometimes worthy of cinema. Then there is another type of envy for writers like Tim Key, who could break through all of that and conjure up an enjoyable book out of.. what is it really? Frankness and authenticity? The curious art of taking one's self lightly? It seems Key has tapped into a specific niche that is just his, and found his readers. To me it's more of a story than poems, and it works fine for me that way. It is a delightful read and the side convo/reflection with Em does make it more special.

[Vicky · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up on a whim while on holiday several months ago and read it all in one sitting today. It is as gorgeously designed as always. I laughed often, though I can't claim to have enjoyed this as much as the lockdown-and-post-lockdown pair. It's a bit more frothy, a bit less substantial than those, though the election night poem did a great job of kicking me in the gut. I also found myself gently moved by the air of long-distance loneliness weaved throughout. ("Key wanders up the booze aisle and we lose him. We can hear distant beer bottles clinking though. And we can still pick out moments of laughter and love. And a warmth that is stretched a million miles across the oceans."). I enjoyed this, but it didn't hit me as hard as his previous books.

[Oscar Dent · Rating 3 out of 5]

If this was the first Key book read, I would have loved it. But we are all competing against our own shadows, and sadly this one is not as brilliant as previous efforts. As others have said, the poems being mostly in first person robs them of the previously frequent absurdism and whimsy. Also the subject matter (being in a foreign land to film a sitcom) is, to me at least, an inherently less rich a seam than others (going mad on your own in lockdown etc).

Still very enjoyable, but less so than previous.

[George White · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a bit of me. Comedic prose on fame, loneliness and ambition in the city that is synonymous with all of the above.

I would give the text 4.5 stars if that were possible, but the book as a physical object in itself is also absolutely wonderful. Key & Emily Juniper have combined to make an object as wonderful to hold as it is to read, and that’s my bag.

[Barney Nuttall · Rating 3 out of 5]

Deliciously readable and occasionally funny. Lacks the melancholy, or pure conflict, of Key’s Covid ventures but there’s a novelty in seeing the very British poet in the City of Angels. Doesn’t give much of an impression of the city but its strongest asset is its invocation of the ghosts of stars pervading its avenues. Plus Key’s vernacular is always a pleasure.

[Claire Q · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rounded up from 4.5 stars
Amazing design as always. Some of the poems, besides humorous, were actually quite serious and made me think (ex. A Nation Decides). Liked the prose sections and the star maps.

[George Craig · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nothing short of incredible. Charming, funny, dramatic, grandiose, mundane in equal measure. Tim Key illuminates and deepens the human experience with observations on the mundane and magical alike, keeping with him this childlike wonder in his writing.

[Hannah Maroof · Rating 4 out of 5]

I too met Audrey Hepburn when I was filming my spin-off to the office recently.

[James Grimditch · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is rly good, a bit more serious than his other work

[James Ramsay · Rating 3 out of 5]

'A country on the verge, optimism being kicked, beaten, rogered.'

[Tom Keight · Rating 4 out of 5]

Classic Key