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.

Obsessed with Walking clip 1

Obsessed with Walking clip 2

Obsessed with Walking clip 3

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’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

Website exclusive: Foie Humain read by Will Self

Val Carmichael credited Pete Stenning — who was called ‘the Martian’ — with getting him off the gin and on to the vodka. “Cleaver cunt, the Martian,” Val said to the assembled members, who were grouped at the bar of the Plantation Club in their alloted positions …

Listen to Will Self read the start of Foie Humain here and then here, the first of his four part story-cycle in Liver, which is available as an unabridged audio book from Whole Story Audio Books for £19.99 here.

Devilish Business on the South Downs

A curious incident on the South Downs: driving my eldest son and his stuff down to his new rented accommodation in Brighton, prior to his second year at Sussex University, we pulled the van off the motorway and drove up towards Devil’s Dyke. I wanted to show Lex the Dyke, and also his youngest brother, Luther, who was along for the ride. My own father used to take me up here on the weekends we spent in Brighton at my grandparents’ house on Vernon Terrace, and he would always tell the folk tale about how the Dyke was dug by the Devil to flood the Sussex Weald, but that he was surprised in the middle of the night by an old woman cotter lighting her oil lamp, and taking it for the dawn he jumped all the way to the North Downs where he landed forming the Devil’s Punchbowl on impact.

Walking to Hollywood, an early review

Walking to Hollywood, Will Self’s new book, is published by Bloomsbury today. One of the first reviews is from the Sunday Times, who said that it was “Casually delirious and unfailingly precise … the whole book is a painfully brilliant performance full of Self’s characteristic obsessions with scale, texture and metamorphosis. The overall effect is hallucinogenic, paranoid and almost gruellingly clever.”

There was an interview with Self in the Telegraph last week talking about the book, which can be found here.

Walking to Hollywood tour dates

Some forthcoming tour dates with Will Self talking about Walking to Hollywood:

September 7 at the Ropetackle Arts Centre in Shoreham, West Sussex. Details here.

September 9 at the SW11 festival in London. Details here.

September 13 at Arnolfini, Bristol. Details here.

September 14 at Topping books in Bath. Details here.

September 17 at Cambridge Arts Centre. Details here.

October 4 at Clapham Bookshop, 7pm. More details here.

October 11, Ilkley literature festival. Details here.