Books, Issue 660

Cachín Cachán Cachunga!

The spectre of funding cuts looms heavily over the Scottish arts scene at the moment. One consequence of the forthcoming age of austerity may very well be a resurgence in low-fi events: regular cabaret and variety shows offering artists who can no…

Five new music books

Rob Jovanovic - The Velvet Underground Unpeeled Some bands just refuse to go away and the Reed/Cale combo is one such example. This is the first full biog for two decades and is based on exclusive chats with the surviving members. Aurum. Rob Young…

Edinburgh Book Festival's Unbound invites fresh approach from DisComBoBuLate, Irregular and Gutter

Here at List Towers we love a bit of innovation, and this year’s festivals appear to be bringing it in spades. Case in point, the Book Festival’s all-new Unbound. Taking a refreshingly out-of-the-box approach, over 18s are invited to a nightly free…

National Library of Scotland resource celebrates Thomas Carlyle, James Watt and Ralph Abercromby

The National Library of Scotland has announced plans for a new online educational resource for Scottish schools. Featuring images from its own collection, as well as the Scottish National Portrait Gallery and the National Maritime Museum, it celebrates…

Shit My Dad Says - Justin Halpern

Dads can get a bit crotchety. Dads can occasionally be pretty funny. And sometimes dads can let a little sweary word slip out. You know, when they bang their thumb with the hammer or if someone pulls out in front of them on the road. But there’s…

Bret Easton Ellis - Imperial Bedrooms

(Picador) Bret Easton Ellis blazed onto the American literary scene in 1985 with a novel so filled with hedonistic excess, you felt drunk just reading it. Populated by a cast of largely dislikeable teenagers, Less Than Zero took us to the heart of…

Rhys Thomas - On the Third Day

(Doubleday) Rampaging humans infected with a mysterious, incurable disease, society’s structures crumbling, whole countries vanquished and just one family on the run from it all. We can see what Rhys Thomas is trying to do with his second novel and…

Sloane Crosley - How Did You Get This Number

(Portobello) You have to hand it to someone who footnotes the parental dedication at the beginning of their book with a diatribe about the memory of some still-raw teenage punishment. Then again, you may also feel compelled towards suspicion when you…

Peter Milligan & Davide Gianfelice - Greek Street: Blood Calls For Blood

(Titan/Vertigo) Peter Milligan is one of the comic world’s most interesting writers. From back on his days at 2000AD (where he gave us the wonderful ‘Bad Company’) through oddities such as Skin to his natural home at Vertigo, where his Shade the…

Alex Marsh - Sex & Bowls & Rock & Roll

(The Friday Project) Pooterish internet celebrity Alex Marsh (privatesecretdiary.com) features the adultescent concerns of that modern publishing anomaly, the hobbyist’s memoir (yeah, thanks Mr Hornby), in this book about rock’n’roll dreams being…

Dexter novelist Jeff Lindsay set for Glasgow appearance

If you are a big fan of the serial killer forensic cop anti-hero of American telly show Dexter, you may want to meet the mind who created this memorable character in the first place. Or you may want to run a million miles in the opposite direction.