the outlier

the outlier — a weekly letter exploring where unlikely things collide, from a man who played and now reads and writes

I’m Ben. After an English degree and a decade playing professional rugby, my first book — the rugby memoir Fringes — became a bestseller and was nominated for a major award. Since then I’ve written three more books, narrated audiobooks, hosted live events, and founded Boys’ Book Club, connecting men through reading, and the Boys’ Literacy Project, which takes books and authors into schools.

The Outlier is the hub for all of it. It now includes a studio where I work out of and where everything else emanates from — the books, the audiobooks, the live events, the schools work. If you want to understand what the studio is building, start with the letter. It’s been going over six years and 289 issues: one letter a week taking in books, sport, creativity, identity, and whatever else has caught my attention — plus cultural recommendations that people seem to like.

“They are the ones I look most forward to. I love the fact you dip in and out of various topics and are not afraid to voice an opinion on them.” — a reader

Free subscribers get the weekly letter and previews of everything else.

Paid members (£10/month or £70/year) get the Outlier Library — my books, audiobooks, an exclusive ebook and the subscriber podcast feed — plus members-only content, book giveaways, and the warm glow of subsidising the boys’ literacy work (pre-funding!).

Founding members (£150/year) get all of that plus first dibs on live events and my enduring gratitude.

(Subscribe online rather than through the iPhone app — Apple adds 30% to the price.)

If you’d like a membership but can’t pay, email me and I’ll bring you on board.