The Daily Telegraph writes that travellers starting their journeys on the Piccadilly Line at Heathrow, Cockfosters or Uxbridge can currently pick up a free copy of Piccadillyland, a 120-page compilation of references to stations on the Tube line from more than 100 novels, including works by Iris Murdoch, John Mortimer and Will Self, part of the ongoing project Art on the Underground.
Monthly Archives: June 2009
Edinburgh man
Will Self is going to be at the Edinburgh international book festival on Sunday August 23 2009, 6.30pm-7.30pm:
“Human anatomy, contemporary culture, seemingly parallel universes, nothing is beyond the scope of Will Self’s wildly fertile imagination. From the Kafkaesque nightmare of The Butt to the appetites, addictions and excesses of Liver, his take on the world around us is utterly unique. A master of the satirical and the grotesque.”
New Penguin paperbacks
To coincide with the paperback release of Liver, £7.99, Penguin is also publishing Dorian, Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys, Dr Mukti and Other Tales of Woe, and How the Dead Live, all at £8.99.
Joining the Jet Set
To watch the second part of the BBC’s The Secret Life of the Airport series, visit the iplayer here.
A Report to the Minister
Will Self’s story set in Bushy Park, London, for the Royal Parks series of short stories that take their inspiration from London’s Royal Parks, is now available here for £2.
In praise of industrial estates
“A couple of years ago, the writer Nick Royle and I decided that we would undertake the Three Peaks Challenge. We’d get another rambling writer to join us, raise sponsorship and give the proceeds to charity. However, it transpired that there were grave environmental concerns about the peaks. The sheer numbers of sponsored walkers clambering up Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowdon were leading to catastrophic erosion, denudation of flora, scaring off of fauna – not to mention the large quantities of plastic water bottles that were left behind by these charitable folk.
The Secret Life of the Airport: Preparing for Take Off
Will Self is one of the contributors to this BBC4 three-part series charting the development of Britain’s airports and how they have transformed the country.
The first part “takes us from the heady, imperial glamour of Britain’s first airport terminal at Croydon to the internationally agreed hieroglyphics on today’s taxiways and runways. Using rare archive and access to airports’ hidden corners, it reveals the intense local rivalry, skulduggery and sheer passion for flight behind our airports.” It’s available on the BBC iplayer until July 6.
Nineteen Eighty-Four
On the 60th anniversary of the publication of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Independent asked writers what they thought about it, and to cite their favourite reads. Will Self chose Céline’s Journey to the End of the Night:
“1984 is an alternative-world book, and I write alternative-world books. It’s an alternative London book. I think the success of his parallel world is where its appeal lies. So, the Chestnut Tree café was modelled on a café in South End Green. It’s a bricolage of London in 1948. I wouldn’t say it’s in the top 10 that have influenced me as a writer, but it’s probably in the top 20 or 30.
Telegraph review of The Butt
“On holiday in a strange desert country, Tom Brodzinski unthinkingly throws a cigarette butt over a hotel balcony; it hits someone, and before Tom can do anything about it, he is accused of assault and swept up in arcane laws that set him on a journey of reparation. This is a fable as well as a slightly uneasy political satire about the indigenous peoples of Australia, and the West’s treatment of Iraq. Will Self has produced a fizzing cocktail of Conrad and Kafka that, while not his best novel, manages to be both immensely readable and mysteriously gripping. Philip Womack“