My Top Ten Non-fiction Books 2012

Posted on December 20, 2012 by Doug Johnstone

I tend to read more novels than non-fiction, but I did read plenty of cracking non-fic books this year, and a real mixed bag of topics and styles. Here are the best:

1. John Jeremiah Sullivan, Pulphead (Vintage)

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Essays from a brilliant new American talent. Like Hunter S. Thompson but with research, class, empathy and drive. If that makes any sense.

2. Ewan Morrison, Tales From The Mall (Cargo)

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Is it a bird? Is it a plane? A brand new hybrid book – part urban folk tales, part stories, part sociological study – and a brilliant, poignant look at that strangest of modern phenomena, shopping malls.

3. Ioan Grillo, El Narco (Bloomsbury)

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Mexico is fucked. How fucked? Very fucked. Drug cartels run everything. This book tells you how much. Fucked.

4. Kathleen Jamie, Sightlines (Profile)

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Ooh, I love Kathleen Jamie. These seemingly unassuming essays on nature and humankind wind up being profound and full of insight. Genius.

5. Richard King, How Soon is Now? (Faber)

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I love indie music. Always have, always will. This is a fantastic trawl through the indie labels of Britain over the last forty years. Worth it for the KLF chat alone.

6. William Gibson, Distrust That Particular Flavor (Viking)

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Welcome to the future. Great essays, reviews, and general cultural missives from a guy who knows a thing or two about the bleeding edge of technology.

7. Jean Sprackland, Strands (Jonathan Cape)

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Beautiful nature writing, as Sprackland spends a year writing about what she finds on her local beach. Surprisingly resonant and touching.

8. David Trilling, Bloody Nasty People (Verso)

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The BNP are pricks. This is not a nice book, but it is a necessary one, because it highlights just how much of a bunch of pricks the BNP are.

9. David Byrne, How Music Works (Canongate)

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David Byrne. Writing about music. Several thousand years’ worth of music. What a great fucking idea for a book.

10. Matt Thorne, Prince (Faber)

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His name is Prince. And he is funky. The definitive book on the man.

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My Top Ten Novels of 2012

Posted on December 20, 2012 by Doug Johnstone

Aye so, it’s that time of year again, when we arbitrarily hold pieces of writing up against each other and decide which is best! So let’s crack on! Click on the book cover to go through to my review in whichever publication it appeared, if it’s online.

1. Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)

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Brilliant thriller about a missing wife and a marriage gone seriously awry. I was a big fan of Flynn’s two previous novels, but this was a step up into a different league.

2. Megan Abbott, Dare Me (Picador)

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A thriller set against the backdrop of American high school cheerleading? Yes, indeed. Nerve-shredding and psychologically astute. Abbott is a class act. Apparently she’s working on a novel about mass hysteria – cannae wait.

3. Denis Johnson, Train Dreams (Granta)

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Hard to even describe this – a weird fable about America’s relationship with nature, or something. And some crazy wolf stuff. Hypnotic and assured. This should’ve won the Pulitzer, easy.

4. A.M. Homes, May We Be Forgiven (Granta)

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The opposite end of American writing from Denis Johnson, this sprawling, manic, touching novel is the ultimate 21st century dysfunctional family tale.

5. Don Winslow, Kings of Cool (William Heinemann)

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Prequel to the amazing Savages, this is a fantastic, lyrical, brutal piece of writing as good drug dealers fight bad drug dealers over generations. Cool indeed.

6. Jens Lapidus, Easy Money (Macmillan)

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Wonderfully panoramic piece of Swedish noir, set against the snowy backdrop of Stockholm. Reminiscent of James Ellroy at his visceral, cutting best.

7. Shalom Auslander, Hope: A Tragedy (Picador)

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Neurotic Jewish guy finds Anne Frank hiding in his loft in modern America. Blackly humorous chaos ensues. Funniest thing I read all year.

8. Irvine Welsh, Skagboys (Jonathan Cape)

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The big man back on rip-roaring, coruscating form. Big, bold, manic and powerful writing.

9. Frank Bill, Crimes in Southern Indiana (William Heinemann)

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It’s not all meth labs and in-bred shoot ’em ups, you know. But it mostly is. Shocking, brutal debut collection of stories from a talent to watch.

10. Ron Rash, The Cove (Canongate)

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Weird, atmospheric rural American drama, set in 1917 amid a witch-hunt for German war sympathisers.

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GONE AGAIN blether from the back cover:

Posted on November 22, 2012 by Doug Johnstone

In the tradition of No Time For Goodbye, The Vanishing and Tell No One comes a brilliant, unnerving, psychological thriller.

‘It’s just to say that no-one has come to pick Nathan up from school, and we were wondering if there was a problem of some kind?’

As Mark Douglas photographs a pod of whales stranded in the waters off Edinburgh’s Portobello Beach, he is called by his son’s school: his wife, Lauren, hasn’t turned up to collect their son.

With brilliantly controlled reveals, we learn some of the painful secrets of the couple’s shared past, not least that it isn’t the first time Lauren has disappeared. And as Mark struggles to care for his son and shield him from the truth of what’s going on, the police seem dangerously short of leads. That is, until a shocking discovery…

Following Hit & Run (a #1 Kindle bestseller and a 2012 Fiction Uncovered pick) and Smokeheads (shortlisted for the Goldsboro Last Laugh Award), Gone Again is Doug Johnstone’s darkest and most emotionally charged thriller yet.

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4 book gigs in 6 days

Posted on November 12, 2012 by Doug Johnstone

Just realised I have four book gigs in six days coming up at the end of the month. That’s like a tour. Kind of. Anyway, here are the dates, hopefully see some of you out and about:

24th November, Fife Libraries Readers’ Day, Rothes Hall, Glenrothes 1.30pm. This sounds interesting – seven authors reading, talking about their work with small groups, and some Q&A stuff as well.

26th November, Newington Library, Edinburgh 6.30pm. A hometown gig for me, this should be great. I’ll probably bring the guitar – consider yourselves warned. This event is part of Book Week Scotland.

27th November, St Ninians Library 7.30pm. I have been specifically asked to bring my guitar to this one. So I will. This event is part of Book Week Scotland.

29th November, Port Glasgow Library 6.30pm. An Evening with Cargo Publishing. There’s me and writing amigos Kirstin Innes and Alan Bissett. Should be a good ‘un. This event is part of Book Week Scotland.

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What I do all day, according to my 7-year-old son

Posted on November 9, 2012 by Doug Johnstone

At parents’ evening the other night, we got a look at Aidan’s jotters from class. One of the things he had to do was ‘A Day As…’, imagining the life of someone else. He did me. This is what he wrote, and it’s awesome:

If you can’t read it, here’s a transcript:

9.10.12 a day as dad

hello I am doug and this is what I do I eat brekfast then I get ready for work. I then start writing a new book. Then I go to the book shop and sell soum books and get mouny. Then I go home and have tea. I wash the dishes. Then I get redy for bed and then I go to bed. Tmorow I get the kids redy for scool and nursury. Then I go on and on with my book about a life jotter and then I get the kids home. I have tea and go to bed.

I particularly like ‘Then I go on and on with my book…’, which is how I feel at the moment, halfway through a first draft. And no, I don’t know what a ‘life jotter’ is, but I like the phrase.

I notice he has inherited my stripped-back prose style, while the use of repetition to evoke the workaday nature of existence really makes the existential pointlessness and drudgery of life shine through. Top marks, Big Guy.

Dx, proud dad.

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Here’s my new book cover: GONE AGAIN

Posted on November 7, 2012 by Doug Johnstone

Here’s the cover for GONE AGAIN, out exactly four months today. Whatcha think? I REALLY LOVE IT. So there. Published 7th March, 2013 by Faber.

Dx

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The Ossians reviewed by Martin Macauley for [pank]

Posted on November 6, 2012 by Doug Johnstone


I love it when one of the earlier books gets a review out of the blue. Here’s a very engaged treatment by Martin Macauley of The Ossians over at [pank]. Macauley namechecks David Lynch, Elmore Leonard and Robert Louis Stevenson. Gotta be happy with that, eh?

Dx

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Not lost in translation

Posted on November 1, 2012 by Doug Johnstone

Here’s a wee thing I did a while ago for English PEN that I completely forgot about. Me and some other writers were asked about our favourite books in translation. Very interesting answers across the board.

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I’m on the radio tomorrow morning…

Posted on October 26, 2012 by Doug Johnstone

…bright and breezy, on Shereen Nanjiani’s show on Radio Scotland, imaginatively entitled ‘Shereen‘. Show starts at 10am. Perfect morning listening. It’s kind of a profile interview – dunno how they’ll edit it, but I spent a fair bit talking about my hilarious decision to quite my high-paying graduate systems engineer job to become a freelance music journalist back in 1999. Ha!

Hopefully they’ll mention that I’m appearing at St Andrews Literature Live in the afternoon. Did I mention that? That I’m appearing at St Andrews Literature Live tomorrow afternoon? Well I am. 2pm at the Byre Theatre. Do please come, cos I have a feeling it’s gonna be freaking empty.

Love y’all!

Dx

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Look what came in the post today:

Posted on October 25, 2012 by Doug Johnstone

Out 7th March 2013, folks. Not final cover, obviously.

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