Looks like it's Other People Sunday. I'll probably forget next Sunday but it seems like a good day to blog about all the things I've seen this week, that I've taken notice of. First up is the soon to be released (September 8th, so not that soon) illustrated edition of Joyland from Hard Case Crime. Joyland is likely the best thing Stephen King has written in twenty years. I loved every moment of it, so much so that I took some time out to review it here.

Any book cover illustrated by Glen Orbik is a good book cover but this one captures the entire Joyland world in a pretty little snow-globe all of its own. All of which leaves me with just one unanswered question...

Where are the Hard Case posters?

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Talking of posters, back in this neck of the woods, one of my favourite artists - Richey Beckett - has just released this fine looking piece in his store (from David Robert Mitchell’s new horror movie IT FOLLOWS):

There's another variant of the poster that looks like this:

Maybe that will match your curtains better. Regardless of your taste in decor - go buy something from him. I'm actually running out of room around here but hey, you can always make room for valuable additions to your life, can't you.

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Blast From The Past this week comes in the form of something I had forgotten all about. So much so, that the book I meant to buy a very long time ago has since been updated. Take a look at this:

If ever there was a subject matter that sat close to my heart, it's this.

Men dressed in fur and looking peculiar in a field for no apparent reason other than to disturb passers-by?

Maybe. Maybe not.

These images are from a book called Wilder Mann: The Image of the Savage by an insanely talented photographer who goes by the name of Charles Ferger (because that's his name). There are more from the series on his webpage for the book here.

I would like to interview this man. Sooner rather than later.

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On the record deck this week has been Goon from Tobias Jesso Jr. If you think all the creative male singer/songwriters died somewhere back in 1975, stick your nose in and see what you think.

One man and a piano shouldn't be allowed out into the world unaccompanied. I like it. A lot. There's some fine songs lurking here... and if you do like what you hear, there's a tour on the road right now with some UK dates in the bag.

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On the reading front, I'm on a go slow due to writing but still enjoying ploughing my way through Knausgård (if your still unsure about him, there's a great piece in the New York Times which should help you make up your mind one way or another) and somewhere along the way, I picked up a copy of Tom Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simmons which despite a royally mixed bag on the review front, is suiting me just fine.

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And here's a playlist if you're a user of rdio.com - because I felt like it.

Le Fin.

I think I'm on a roll.

I've decided to create some er... how shall we put it? Broadcast-able material. Some run-throughs I've been running up so far indicate that it will take the format of a radio show. There will be some music, there'll be some chat and... well, what else could there be? I guess the chat may not only be mine but that's generally the sum total of the contents of a radio show, right?

Anyway, a working title for it right now is The Dope Show. Estimated time of completion? I have no idea but I'm working on it.

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Long time visitors will likely recognise this:

I wrote The Language Of Thieves & Vagabonds a fair while back and released it initially in a low-key short run and also unleashed it for the kindle, but when my stocks of the softback ran out, I killed it off. With things being different now and Bad Hare being around, I decided to make it available again. The cover's been redesigned to sit comfortably with all the others and it's available now - here - in a new softback format where you'll also find whatever else I have to say about it...

...and doing this has made me feel a lot less like a lame-ass than I did yesterday and that's always a good thing.

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Yesterday, I found I needed something new to read. I was supposed to be in a period of enforced non-reading in order to write, but this was not to be. An hour in the bookstore revealed nothing of any value to my trained eye, which is a crying shame. Nothing but all the books I had seen before Christmas and a whole bunch of books on dieting... a situation which obviously calls for drastic measures.

Rummaging around in the memory for books I had promised myself I would read but had subsequently forgotten about, I trawled the notebooks until I re-discovered the notes I had made on Karl Ove Knausgård until I found what I was looking for and went back out to find a copy of 'A Death in the Family', the first book in his autobiographical sequence 'My Struggle', which for obvious reasons gathered more than its fair share of attention when it was first released.

It's been kind of busy around here but I've read the first few pages and once I've moved a few things out of the way, I'm going to sink my heart and soul into this because it appears to deserve it. It's been a while since I've been excited about a book that's not mine.

An added bonus in this, is that Knausgård looks like this:

He looks like a writer who writes - not a writer that spends time worrying about things that don't matter. I believe at some point in time, he said: "I'd rather write than be happy."

I can relate to that. (My version of the same ideal went like this: "Now I've broken all my toys, words are all I have left to play with," but I think I prefer his).

Go look for yourself. I think you might like him.

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Lot's more to tell but I must wait for things behind the scenes to kick in before I reveal the chocolate.

Have a beautiful day pretty people...