“Sitting at a bar, dabbling with a digital map on his phone, the man is approached by another. He ignores him but later discovers the stranger is connected to this phone map. Connected in a disturbing way …” Listen to Will reading his short story at the Radio 4 website here (available for 19 days).
Will Self: Radio and Audio
The North London Book of the Dead
Listen to Will Self reading his short story “The North London Book of the Dead” on Radio 4 here until 9 May. It was first broadcast in 1995.
Will Self’s Great British Bus Journey
Today programme on the countryside
Listen to Will talking about the countryside at the 2hr 56min point on yesterday’s Today programme here.
New Point of Views
Will has produced another flurry of A Point of View broadcasts on Radio 4 recently: Ode to Space, Men Against Women, The miserable pantomime of contemporary British vegetarianism and Mass Myopia.
Phone interviews
Listen to Will talking for about half an hour on Afternoon Edition (available for 28 days) on BBC Radio 5 live here at the 1hr 11 minute mark, taking in the “muted” general election, autism, how the smartphone has changed us and finishing his trilogy of modernist novels with Phone in which “a new technology is visited upon us and a new conflict ensues and what ensues from that … is a new form of mental illness”. He also reveals that he’ll be recording an audiobook of Phone and that his next book will be a memoir.
Phone book tour and radio, summer and autumn 2017
Wednesday 24 May: 6pm, International Literature Festival Dublin, Smock Alley Theatre, 6/7 Exchange Street Lower, Temple Bar, Dublin. (This event is being recorded for broadcast on The Book Show for RTÉ Radio 1.)
Tuesday 30 May: Radio 5 Live Afternoon Edition live interview. Later that evening, Radio 4 Front Row live interview.
Friday 2 June: 5.30pm, Hay festival, Tata Tent.
Tuesday 13 June: 7pm-8.30pm, Guardian Live in conversation with John Mullan, Islington Assembly Hall.
Thursday 29 June: 8pm, Hebden Bridge arts festival, Town Hall HX7 7BY.
Friday 30 June: 7pm, City Books, Ropetackle arts centre, High St, Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex.
A Point of View
All four of Will’s recent A Point of Views are now available to listen to on the iPlayer: The fun of work – really?; Re-launching National Service; The Fourth Plinth; and, Teaching to the test.
Headspace: The ‘romance delusion’
Headspace, the second edition of Prospect’s new monthly podcast, features Will Self debunking the “romance delusion”.
Just a Minute
Listen to Will Self on his debut on Just a Minute on Radio 4 with Ross Noble, Sheila Hancock and Paul Merton here.
