Will Self

Ideas

Special report 3 - The city that forever resists the rational

• 07 July 2003

Since it burst its stone banks in medieval times, London has defied central planners. Only Margaret Thatcher understood its anarcho-dynamism. By Will Self

Books

The drowned world. When Sir Joseph Bazalgette built the Victoria Embankment, he "placed chains upon the river". But, warns Will Self, London's resurgent waters will have the final revenge

• 16 June 2003

Liquid History: the Thames through time
Stephen Croad Batsford, 208pp, £15.99
ISBN 0713488344

Arts & Culture

Anvil of angst

• 03 March 2003

Music - Massive Attack were the soundtrack of the 1990s. Will Self on why the Bristol boys still outclass their rivals

Poetry

How poetry became just an appendix. When do you hear anybody quote a line from a contemporary poet? Yet you hear Bob Dylan, and other songwriters, quoted all the time. By Will Self

• 06 January 2003

Do You, Mr Jones?: Bob Dylan with the poets and professors
Edited by Neil Corcoran Chatto & Windus, 378pp, £17.99
ISBN 0701172800

Books

Don't have any more, Mrs Moore. Is Peter Ackroyd a cockney mystic or one of our greatest scholars? A visionary or bombast? Will Self on the man who would be king of literary London

• 04 November 2002

Albion: the origins of the English imagination
Peter Ackroyd Chatto & Windus, 516pp, £25
ISBN 1856197212

Books

The road as metaphor of itself. Iain Sinclair may be a fellow-traveller of cranks and eccentrics, but he is also one of our most original and talented writers. Will Self celebrates a self-styled psychogeographer

• 30 September 2002

London Orbital: a walk around the M25
Iain Sinclair Granta Books, 482pp, £25
ISBN 1862075476

Books

Ingenious bubble wrap. The 1990s revelled in decadence and imposture. Sadly, this clever cultural history is as superficial as the era it recalls, writes Will Self

• 15 July 2002

The Nineties: when surface was depth
Michael Bracewell Flamingo, 373pp, £12.99
ISBN 0007128010

Ideas

Eating people is wrong. "I was left moaning on the floor in a foetal position." Will Self reads E O Wilson's new book on the coming environmental catastrophe and despairs

• 29 April 2002

The Future of Life
Edward O Wilson Little, Brown, 229pp, £18.99
ISBN 0316648531

At the arms fair, I speak to the Russians, Israelis and Swedes. The Brits, though, won't come near me

• 04 March 2002

Books

The biggest rogue of them all. Americans, said Bill Clinton, are targets of terrorism because "we act to advance peace and democracy". Pull the other one, writes Will Self

• 14 January 2002

Rogue State: a guide to the world's only superpower
William Blum Zed Books, 308pp, £12.99
ISBN 1842770152