Coming Soon on Existential Ennui...

I'm back. Hang out the bunting, begin the ticker tape parade, etc. etc. – but don't go getting too excited just yet, because blogging will, for the moment, remain intermittent on Existential Ennui: there are still a fair number of matters to deal with at the new house, the most pertinent of which being the internet connection – or lack thereof. As a consequence, my posting on this 'ere blog – and on The Violent World of Parker blog for that matter – will likely remain sporadic for the foreseeable future, which in turn means that it's unlikely I'll be getting stuck into any series of posts – of which there are a number in the works – any time soon, lest they, out of necessity, tail off partway through.

That said, I may yet throw caution to the wind and dive into a series anyway, not least because some of the runs of posts I have planned promise to be pretty bloody special indeed, and may even, if I do say so myself, having the makings of greatness about them. So to get us back into the swing of things, I thought I'd preview some of those forthcoming delights, accompanied, as is traditional, by a selection of teaser images, which you can see scattered about this post. Some of these topics and authors, I realise, I almost certainly teased in my last "coming soon" post – and indeed the one before that – which only goes to demonstrate how long these things gestate in my fevered brain; but the majority I'm unveiling here for the first time.

In no particular order, then – other than the order in which they'll probably appear, that is – coming soon on Existential Ennui... there'll be a series of posts on journalism and media-related books – both fiction and non-fiction, and featuring Donald E. Westlake, Jeffrey Bernard, Tom Wolfe and Michael Frayn; a series on books which begat perhaps more famous films; a run of posts on what the aforementioned Donald Westlake made of cult crime fiction author Peter Rabe's work; yet more signed editions (some absolute stonkers there); a handful of intriguing omnibus editions; and of course further additions to my Beautiful British Book Jacket Design of the 1950s and 1960s gallery.

On top of that, there'll be posts on Patricia Highsmith, Kingsley Amis, P. M. Hubbard, Desmond Cory, Peter Cheyney, Dennis Wheatley, Jeff Lindsay, Michael Dibdin, Michael Gilbert, Brian Cleeve, Charles Willeford, Victor Canning, Eric Ambler, Edward S. Aarons, Francis Clifford, Mike Ripley, Peter O'Donnell, Nevil Shute, Sapper, and, no doubt, many more besides.

But before all that, next I'll have a review of a brand new graphic novel, one which is due to be published this very month, and was written and drawn by a very good friend of mine...