Tag Archives: Stewart Lee

IS80 – Sinclair at 80

Delighted to be included in an illustrious array of company for this special book for Iain Sinclair to mark his 80th year. My piece, A Man Could Lose Himself In London, tells of a chance encounter with Iain in a London street a year or so before we properly met.

A unique tribute to a remarkable writer, film-maker and walker, in an edition of only 400 numbered copies – each signed by Iain Sinclair – this 192 page A4 illustrated publication features over 170 contributors, including Peter Ackroyd, Caroline Bergvall, Keggie Carew, William Gibson, Xiaolu Guo, Philip Hoare, Toby Jones, Stewart Lee, Esther Leslie, Rachel Lichtenstein, Robert Macfarlane, Jonathan Meades, Dave McKean, Michael Moorcock, Alan Moore,  J.H. Prynne, Denise Riley and Marina Warner.

Featuring original essays, poems, images, letters and reflection from writers, artists, musicians, publishers, friends, critics, booksellers and readers, it is not only a celebration of a unique body of work but also a de-facto history of the last 60 years in experimental literature and culture.

It is conceived and edited by Gareth Evans, and designed by Joe Hales Studio.

Please go here to pre-order: https://www.londonreviewbookshop.co.uk/stock/solution-opportunities-for-iain-sinclair-at-80-various

LIVE EVENT – STEWART LEE APRIL 2023

Stewart Lee will be in afternoon conversation with me in the intimate environs of Newcastle’s fabulous Live Theatre, ahead of his evening show at the significantly larger Theatre Royal. From the Live Theatre website:

‘The world’s greatest living stand up’ (The Times) comes to the Live Theatre, Newcastle upon Tyne, to talk art and ideas with Neil Jackson in support of the (fairly…) recent publication of Post Nearly Press Conversation Series.

With live music by Mariam Rezaei and Angharad Davies courtesy of Tusk Festival.

Funds raised from the event will support Live Theatre’s Talent Development and Children and Young People’s programmes.

https://www.live.org.uk/whats-on/live-encounters-stewart-lee

COMPILATION HARDBACK PLANNED

Collectors have enquired over the years, and still do, about the possibility of acquiring past editions of the Post-Nearly Press conversations series. All copies, even damages and rejects, are sold out, and it has always been the intention that these stapled books will not be re-published in that form. This still holds true – only potential future editions with new voices will extend that series.

However, it remains a shame that collectors cannot access the editions they want, especially were the series to continue. To that end a hardback compilation is planned which will feature the five editions to date (with Iain Sinclair, Chris Petit, Andrew Kotting, Alan Moore and Stewart Lee), along with artwork, introduction, foreword and some extras.

Discussions are ongoing with Chroma Editions in the hope of producing this compilation during 2021. Updates will be posted here, on Twitter, and to the mailing list (to which you can subscribe with the link provided).

Meanwhile, please consider Chroma’s exciting new book From Tarmac to Towpath – Excursions into Lockdown. All proceeds from this authentic and completely original publication, with haunting psychogeographical visions and dispatches from thirteen contributors such as Clare Archibald and Joanna Pocock, the book edited by David Banning and Julian Hyde, go to food banks.

From Tarmac to Towpath: Excursions into Lockdown is a collection of works created on the streets of London, Lancashire, Cumbria, Newcastle, Glasgow and the Firth of Forth when the UK was in Lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Featuring text and images from 13 artists across the UK, a document of traces emerges formed of spectral walks, psychogeographical encounters, eerie geometries, deserted towpaths, former railway lines, discarded masks, ghostly enclaves and sudden verdures. While boundaries dissolve, everything is muffled and haunted, desperate for re-connection. Dust, rust and peeling paint triggers acknowledgement of hyperawareness. Stunned side streets and somnolent houses (evoked by Graham Greene as, ‘the unfamiliar shadows of half-things, broken things, former things’) are amongst many captured moments that remind us of the unprecedented emotions and events of life in lockdown.

STEWART LEE – WHERE ARE THE THINKERS?

WHERE ARE THE THINKERS? is the latest item to be published by Post-Nearly Press.

SOLD OUT – but please see here

The fifth book in the Post-Nearly Press conversations series is STEWART LEE – Where Are The Thinkers? The item is original, print-only, and limited edition.

Stewart Lee gives an engrossing and strikingly open account of his stand-up and writing career, his craft, and his cultural influences — with discussion on Alan Moore, Andrew Kötting, Iain Sinclair, Mark E Smith, Derek Bailey and others.

26 double sided pages of original content; stab-stapled; mixed texture paper; original colour cover; cut short of A4.

If you’d like to order, email postnearlypress@gmail.com or go straight on to a transaction described below

UK: PayPal GBP 8.75 to postnearlypress@gmail.com (includes postage). Please include the delivery address on your transaction details.

Not in UK: please email postnearlypress@gmail.com  for postage costs.

Alternative payments such as a direct bank transfer or a UK bank cheque can be arranged – please email to enquire.

pnp

 

STEWART LEE – EXTRACT

EXTRACT from forthcoming POST-NEARLY PRESS book, the 5th in the Conversations Series, with STEWART LEE – here discussing Iain Sinclair and White Chappell: Scarlet Tracings

It had the same effect as From Hell had on me, and Arthur Machen subsequently. It made London come alive in four dimensions – suddenly you’re looking all around. And what I like about Sinclair is – I like so many things about him – but I like the fact he writes these compound sentences of ideas that are really funny. Another thing – and I’m not sure he was aware he was doing it – in the 1990s there was a division between factual writing and fiction, and now, the supposedly factual things, like The Last London, are written by this persona, which is a self-conscious parody of who people think Iain Sinclair is, which is a bookish flaneur, wandering around, regarding the world, and seeing… he wouldn’t see that [hits table] – he would think about where it was from; how it had got into this building; what that told you about the transport network. I find it inspiring how he’s basically worked out that if he writes in this character, there’s no difference between the fiction and the documentary. It’s all viewed through the prism of this narrator character. Who is him, admittedly. But I don’t think he can live like that narrator does, all the time.