One of the great pleasures (or displeasures, on occasion) of being a writer is meeting and getting to know other writers. This also means you get to plug their books and talk a little about how good they are. It so happens that three such friends have had books published in recent weeks, so here is a little round up.

First, mostly due to the fact I love it and the back cover has a quote from yours truly, is Vic Templar’s Taking Candy From a Dog. This is the part memoir, part fiction tale of a very ordinary boy, living a very ordinary life in a very ordinary part of Kent, yet it is also one of the most touching and hilarious books you could wish to read about life as a child. It is warm without being cloying and funny without being too knowing. It is even printed in loving crafted editions by an independent publisher with an eye for the best new authors. It is a tale of picnics, wasps, summers that last forever, Wimbledon, Fred Perry, the Buzzcocks, Gillingham FC and family life in the 1970s. This is a promo video that Vic made for it.

Talking of promo videos, my friend Stewart Home made what he claims was the first promo video for a book way back in 1993. That was for his book No Pity, which you can see below. You can read a 1999 interview of Stewart by me here.

Stewart’s zillionth book, Blood Rites of the Bourgeoisie has just been published by BookWorks and is a kind of extreme feminist abstract art manifesto brought to you via the medium of spam emails. It is as filthy as it is funny, with Home spamming the lists of art curators, art press and artists that used to spam him, only with twisted interpretations of what they want to hear. Home is one of the few avant garde novelists with staying power in British literature and defies categorisation. You may enjoy his early skinhead-punk-hippie-(anti)anarcho-marxist novels, you may enjoy his cultural theory books, his avant garde essays or simply just read the rude bits. But you will realise that he is something special and unique.

Last but no means least is Ian Vince, who writes about comic matters in his various books, such as his travelogue about a trip on a milk float. His latest book is all about Britain. It is a geological exploration of what lies beneath the land we walk on every day and is entitled The Lie of the Land. Ian has also set up a British Landscape Club for all those who share his interest in making geology more interesting. I have not had a chance to read it yet, but am sure that Ian’s amusing tone and enjoyment of the trivial shines through to make an entertaining read.

Vic Templar is a peculiarly amusing yet almost unheard of British comic diarist, author and playwright, whose skill at hiding his light under a bushel is only exceeded by his fine way with words. I had the pleasure of supplying a quote for the press release for his latest book vic templar does his chunkers, which is a wonderful handmade tome, of which the first 100 come signed and numbered.

At just £5.00, this book is a bit of a must have. It includes Vic’s musings on the Norwegian Army, the story of how Bobby Charlton used to empty his bins, the time he saw Jimi Hendrix and how his first BBC radio play evolved. I went straight to his essay on tea making, which is a kind of dialogue with George Orwell, taking the great (honorary) Briton’s essay on the same to task. Yet he does concede that Orwell got a good deal of it right. If you visit the news page of Vic’s loving publisher you can see a promo video for the book and learn more about its creation. But please, just buy a copy. If you don’t like it I shall come round your house and give you your money back assume you are a fool.