Christopher Fowler's Blog, page 282

Entry Into Berlin

I’m in Berlin today – I only ever seem to be in Berlin in winter, and yes, it’s minus something and trying to snow, which will devolve to a point where I end up standing in Alexanderplatz in horizontal icy rain without adequate clothing, wondering whether I still have ears.

What to do, shall I visit [...]

The Great UK / US Book Divide

The modern mantra is to say that globalisation has shrunk the world, turning cities into identical reproductions of each other, but I’m starting to wonder if that’s true. I make it a habit to regularly check out American and English Top 50 book lists and compare them, to try and gauge what we’re all reading, [...]

A London Story: Polly, the ‘Jobbing Artist’

Some time back I posted about trying to find the author of a book I owned as a teenager.

The author’s brilliant first novel ‘Here (Away From It All)’ received wide praise from Anthony Burgess, the New York Times and others, but when I tried to track her down the trail ended in Australia. When I [...]

Nyctophobia: A First Look

So, here’s the latest rough of the cover artfor my 2014 haunted house thriller, Nyctophobia.

Why do so many suspense and horror films take place in virtual darkness? I’ve always found the dark a cliche, probably because I was never very bothered by it. However, an early movie, ‘Wait Until Dark’, did scar me as a [...]

London’s Rare Views No.1 – Holly Lodge Estate

As the city homogenises, we’re gradually losing the mysterious nooks and corners that made each London street so fascinating. Here’s one I lived near for years without ever exploring. I knew that one of the houses was lived in by the seventies singer Lynsey De Paul, but no-one ever seemed to stay very long in [...]

Helping The Medicine Go Down

He’s been at her again. Pogo, the Australian drum-n-bass sampling DJ, is having another pop at Mary Poppins. Seems like it’s the big year for PL Travers’ most beloved creation, but if Pamela hated the penguins, God knows what she’d have made of Pogo’s sound-attack on the film. It’s a nice addition to his MP [...]

Admin Tackles London Books, Concedes Defeat

I can’t go on. I thought I could review every London book that came out, just a few words, but even that has defeated me. They’re pouring in, thousands of the buggers. I can only review the ones I buy – I’d be broke if I tried to buy them all, so let me just [...]

Referendums: When The Power Of Every Word Counts

Here are some people celebrating hatred.

Croatia is the EU’s newest nation. It’s also a Roman Catholic country, so perhaps it was inevitable that human rights for minorities never stood a chance. But holding a referendum to ban same-sex marriage, with a question deliberately worded to prejudice the answer, has just opened the floodgates to the [...]

Re:View – ‘Frozen’

Admin does not make a point of attending films about princesses, but this one marks a bit of a watershed. When Pixar agreed to join Disney, who had lost the plot in its pursuit of family entertainment, it was generally felt that Pixar would be subsumed by the Mouse House. Instead, under the guidance of [...]

Here Be Monsters

Guillermo Del Toro’s wonderful new book has a forward by James Cameron and an afterword by Tom Cruise, and me in it somewhere toward the end. This is the poshest company I’ve ever been in.

I was surprised to find myself in ‘Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities’ because the fantasy director’s notebooks, interviews and acquisitions [...]