The unabridged recording of The Book of Dave – all 18 hours and 15 minutes of it – that Will Self recorded last Autumn has been released by Whole Story Audio Books for £30.62. Details here.
Will Self: Books
In conversation with Russell Hoban
Because of “unprecedented demanded”, the British Library has rescheduled the talk between Russell Hoban and Will Self from February 2 to February 15 2011 to “a larger venue” (TBC).
Hoban will be talking about his novel Riddley Walker (1980) and its extraordinary language, as well as his other work, which includes Kleinzeit (1974), Pilgermann (1983), The Medusa Frequency (1987), Amaryllis Night and Day (2001) and Angelica Lost and Found (2010).
Will Self: In Confidence
Watch Laurie Taylor interviewing Will Self on the Sky Arts series In Confidence, posted on You Tube in various parts beginning here.
Liver and The Undivided Self
There’s a double-helping of Self served up in the States with the publication of Liver, which has a rather attractive front cover (you can buy it here), and the short story collection, The Undivided Self, both published by Bloomsbury USA.
Walking to Hollywood – some more reviews
The Guardian: “You see suddenly that, beneath the apocalyptic humour and fizzing contempt of Walking to Hollywood lies the iron will and cold, self-inspecting intelligence of its author. All along the book has been about death.”
The Spectator: “The conversations with Scooby-Doo, the made-up characters, the sex, lies and videotape – this is a landscape contoured, almost in whole, by Self’s imagination … It is, as always, a place crammed with a Devil’s Dictionary’s worth of wordplay, and with an unerring tendency towards the absurd and perverse … Walking to Hollywood is certainly an engaging enough breakdown on the part of its author. Just make sure to approach it with all the professional detachment of a psychiatrist.”
Self on Self
Listen to Will Self and Martin Amis (and others) talking about putting themselves in their fiction from the Guardian Books podcast here.
Bookslam reading and interview
Listen to Will Self being interviewed after his appearance at Bookslam recently and also to him giving a reading from Walking to Hollywood.
Watch ‘Obsessed with Walking’
Watch some clips from the fascinating 30-minute Australian film Obsessed with Walking by Rosie Jones, which follows Will Self around Los Angeles “doing field research” for his book Walking to Hollywood and interviews him at home in London too.
To listen to the director talking about why and how she made the film, go here. For more information about the film, visit the Flaming Star Films website. To buy a copy of Obsessed with Walking go here.
Will Self reading from Walking to Hollywood
“Will Self’s just flashed me …”
The Scotsman’s verdict on Walking to Hollywood: “There must be a word – I don’t know it but Will Self will – meaning envy of eloquence, jealousy of the ability to use a large vocabulary convincingly to make the reader’s mind bounce around different levels of reality. That’s one reason Self remains such an engaging writer: the other is that underneath even his weirdest imaginings lies the kind of truths that can only be absorbed through a pair of walking feet.”
For the full review, go here