Will Self’s “digital essay” on Kafka has been published in its entirety at the Space website, and includes an hour-long video of his trip to Prague and readings of Kafka’s “A Country Doctor”. For a short explanation of this unique London Review of Books commission, go here or visit thespace.org or @thespacearts for more details.
Umbrella by Will Self – USA Publication Date
A quick note for American readers – Umbrella is published in the USA on 8th January 2013 by Grove Press. Pre-ordering is available at Amazon.com. For more information about Umbrella and to read an extract, see the full page of info on Umbrella.
Esquire gong
Will Self was awarded Writer of the Year (Consumer Media) for Esquire magazine at last night’s Professional Publishers Association awards. Read two recent Esquire pieces here.
One Day in the City/Disability and the media
June 15: As part of the UCL Festival of London and Literature’s One Day in the City, Will Self is going to be talking about nightwalking with William Raban, Matthew Beaumont (who co-edited the excellent Restless Cities) and Ger Duijzings from 2pm to 3pm at the Darwin lecture theatre. There will be a showing of William Raban’s short film The Houseless Shadow before the discussion. Entry is free.
June 19: Will is going to be in conversation with Mike Shamash reflecting on how writing about disability has changed and the potential for a new paradigm at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre from 2pm to 6pm. Details here.
Will Self – Professor Of Contemporary Thought
Will Self is to become Professor of Contemporary Thought at Brunel University. You can read the Guardian’s news story for the full details and Will’s own thoughts on the appointment in his Guardian column. There’s also an interview with him at the Times Higher Education website here and an interview on The Breakfast Show at the 2hr 44min mark here.
Self will be giving a joint talk entitled “Urban Psychosis” in the university’s public lecture series at its campus in Uxbridge, on 29 March.
Robert Lockhart 1959-2012
“Robert Lockhart, who has died aged 52 after a heart attack, was a musician to the tips of his nimble – and invariably heavily nicotine-stained – fingers. A piano virtuoso, he retired from concert performance early in his career to concentrate on composition, and became both an eclectic and effective composer for theatre, film and television, as well as creating freestanding works for ensembles ranging from the string quartet to the brass band.
“An unashamedly ‘pre-sampling’ composer, Lockhart savoured working with musicians above all else, and his flair for arranging and conducting in the studio ensured him a steady stream of commissions which, although often requiring only workmanlike undertones, his often deeply personal music frequently managed to soar high above.
“His film credits were extensive, but particularly notable were his work on John Schlesinger’s Cold Comfort Farm (1995), and his long association with the director Terence Davies, for whom he worked as musical director on the films Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988), The Long Day Closes (1992) and The Neon Bible (1995). Davies’s meditative and elegiac films about a Liverpool working-class family were appealing to Lockhart, who was born and brought up in Wigan and never quite adjusted to what he viewed as the terminal effeteness of the south-east. Other film credits included Andrew Grieve’s On the Black Hill (1988) and the thriller Vicious Circles (1997).”
Read the rest of Will Self’s obituary of his friend the composer and pianist Robert Lockhart at the Guardian here.
Will Self On Psychiatry
“… psychiatrists stand – whether they acknowledge it themselves and whether people collectively acknowledge it – at the threshold between happiness and sadness and between sanity and madness, between the particular and quotidian and the transcendent. This is a priestly role. You might say that a GP occupies a ‘vicar function’ and but I’m thinking more of the old religion, in terms of priests who manage the transition from the phenomenal to the numinal…”
An interview with Will about the role of psychiatry at Frontier Psychiatrist.
On JG Ballard: Cities, Suburbs and Edgelands
Watch Will Self and John Gray talking about JG Ballard at the recent Bristol conference Festival of Ideas.
Will Self Book Excerpts
Bloomsbury have recently produced some beautifully presented and highly readable online excerpts of Will Self’s books published by them. Each excerpt provides the first chapter if it’s a novel or a couple of essays if it’s a collection of journalism. It’s a great way to get a feel for each book. You can see the excerpts here on the site for the following titles:
- The Butt
- Grey Area
- Junk Mail
- Great Apes
- Cock And Bull
- My Idea Of Fun
- The Quantity Theory Of Insanity
- The Sweet Smell Of Psychosis
Click the excerpt and it will open full screen on your monitor, making it very easy to read. Press ESC at any point to close the excerpt and return to your browser.
Will Self on Facebook And YouTube
Will Self now has an official FaceBook Page which shows the latest items posted on will-self.com and a YouTube Channel which gathers together various clips of Will from over the years.
Will’s Twitter page continues to update with the latest items on the site too, and there is a fledgling page on Google+ as well. If you prefer each item posted on will-self.com to be delivered to your email inbox, enter your email address in the signup box at the bottom of each page of the site.
The will-self.com website has had a bit of a makeover to make it cleaner and easier to read and there are now Facebook Like buttons along with other social media widgets at the top and bottom of each post on Will’s site if you want to share or bookmark it.
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- …
- 14
- Next Page »
