Will Self

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    • Will
    • Phone
    • Shark
    • Umbrella
    • The Unbearable Lightness of Being a Prawn Cracker
    • The Undivided Self
    • Walking to Hollywood
    • Liver
    • The Butt
    • The Book Of Dave
    • Psycho Too
    • Psychogeography
    • Dr Mukti And Other Tales Of Woe
    • Dorian
    • Feeding Frenzy
    • How The Dead Live
    • Tough Tough Toys For Tough Tough Boys
    • Great Apes
    • Cock And Bull
    • Grey Area
    • Junk Mail
    • My Idea Of Fun
    • Perfidious Man
    • Sore Sites
    • The Sweet Smell of Psychosis
    • The Quantity Theory Of Insanity
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New Bloomsbury book covers

August 3, 2011

Greg Heinimann at Bloomsbury has created a series of new book covers for Will Self’s back catalogue to coincide with the paperback publication of Walking to Hollywood (below) in September. The new covers are for My Idea of Fun, The Quantity Theory of Insanity, Cock & Bull, The Sweet Smell of Psychosis, Junk Mail, Grey Area, Great Apes and The Butt.

Read a short report about it in Creative Review here.

Walking to Hollywood paperback

Mortality, the corpse and the fiction of Will Self

November 22, 2009

The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living: Mortality, the Corpse and the Fiction of Will Self.

Death, according to Jacque Lynn Foltyn, has replaced sex as the 21st century’s definitive taboo. While the valance has long since been ripped away from the collective Victorian piano leg, the corpse, meanwhile, has become primed with symbolic explosives, threatening the very foundations of society built upon the mythology of modernist progress. Be it the computer-generated cadavers of CSI Miami, or Gunther von Hagens’ reality TV autopsies, Foltyn argues that the human corpse has become an increasingly pervasive object of revulsion and attraction in our culture, a site of anxiety about medicine’s failure to conquer, but enthusiasm to hide, death. With all this in mind, it’s not surprising to find that the fiction of Will Self – an author who frequently weaves his narratives in, around, and beyond the boundaries of taboo – is one who showcases several literary autopsies, in which death and the human corpse are explored with a surgeon’s eye (and, more often than not, a coroner’s tongue).   More...

Will Self in conversation with Nick Cave

October 7, 2009

An edited version of this article was printed in the Guardian Review, October 3

Nick Cave risked upsetting his friend Will Self, who loathes writers who read out anything other than the first chapter, by reading a section towards the end of his new novel, The Death of Bunny Munro, at a packed Old Market Hall in Hove on Wednesday night.

For much of the evening it was the Cave and Self deadpan double act. Self asked him why he came back to write prose after 20 years since his debut, And the Ass Saw the Angel. “I got asked to do it,” was Cave’s straight-bat reply.
“So, Madame Bovary. C’est moi. Is Bunny Munro you?” asked Self.
“No,” replied Cave.   More...

My Idea Of Fun

January 31, 2006

My Idea Of Fun - Will Self
Buy from Amazon.co.uk Buy from Amazon.com

Observer
‘This is a brilliant first novel, obscene, funny, opulently written, and, of course, agonisingly moral’

Nicholas Lezard, Guardian
‘No one else I can think of writes about contemporary Britain with such elan, energy and witty intelligence. Rejoice’

My Idea Of Fun – Amazon.co.uk Reader Reviews

January 31, 2006

7 Reader reviews

“I think the previous two reviews are evidence enough that this book needs to be read…anything that can sway opinion so widely demands attention. It’s a dirty, smart, sickening, hilarious book, and no matter which (if any) of these four descriptions you agree with you have to admit that it is a brilliant piece of work. I read it a few years ago and it is now in the possession of an acrimonious ex girlfriend, so I’m just here to buy it again. I strongly urge you to also. ” – A Reader

Read all Amazon.co.uk reader reviews

My Idea Of Fun – New York Times Review

January 31, 2006

New York Times, September 1999

“Mr. Self’s “Cock & Bull: Twin Novellas” and the story collection “The Quantity Theory of Insanity” were prologue. Although he is British and this novel is set in England, it has family resemblances to the work not only of Nabokov, but also of Thomas Pynchon, William Gaddis and Don DeLillo. For intelligence and ambition, for inventiveness, comedy, heartbreak and ferocity, for his representation of the human interior as occupied and vandalized by science and business, Will Self belongs in their company.”

Read the full review



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Will’s Latest Book

Will Self - Will
Will Self's latest book Will is published in hardback by Viking on 14 November 2019.

You can pre-order at Amazon.co.uk.

Will’s Previous Books

Will Self - Phone
Phone
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  Shark
Shark
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
Umbrella
Umbrella
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  The Unbearable Lightness Of Being A Prawn Cracker
The Unbearable Lightness Of Being A Prawn Cracker
More info
Amazon.co.uk
The Undivided Self
The Undivided Self
More info Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  Walking To Hollywood
Walking To Hollywood
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
The Butt
The Butt
More info Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  Grey Area
Grey Area
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
Junk Mail
Junk Mail
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  Great Apes
Great Apes
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
Cock And Bull
Cock And Bull
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  The Quantity Theory Of Insanity
The Quantity Theory Of Insanity
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
The Sweet Smell Of Psychosis
The Sweet Smell of Psychosis
More info

Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  My Idea Of Fun
My Idea Of Fun
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
The Book Of Dave
The Book Of Dave
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  Psychogeography
Psychogeography
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
Psycho Too
Psycho II
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  Liver
Liver
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
How The Dead Live
How The Dead Live
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  Tough Tough Toys For Tough Tough Boys
Tough Tough Toys For Tough Tough Boys
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
Dr Mukti And Other Tales Of Woe
Dr Mukti And Other Tales Of Woe
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  Dorian
Dorian
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
Feeding Frenzy
Feeding Frenzy
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  Sore Sites
Sore Sites
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
Perfidious Man
Perfidious Man
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
   
Bloomsbury  
Penguin

About / Contact

will-self.com is the official website for British novelist and journalist Will Self. The site is managed by Chris Hall and Chris Mitchell.

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If you have a specific request for Will regarding commissions, book rights etc, you can contact his agent Tracy Bohan at The Wylie Agency, 17 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3JA – www.wylieagency.co.uk

Will’s Writing Room

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Recent Posts

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  • In conversation for the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival
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  • Will by Will Self published in paperback
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  • The welcome return of Radio 4’s News Quiz audience
  • How to Academy events
  • An unforgettable encounter with Terence Conran
  • The Phone and Phone Booth Assemblage Considered as Mise en Abyme
  • What gaming tells us about the human condition

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