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The fictional world of Will Self is unlike any other. Learn, amongst other things, the dark and terrible secret of Ward 9, why you are right to think that London is full of dead people and that each and every human being is caught up in a colossal balancing act between the sane and the insane. Acerbic, satirical, hilarious and, most of all, utterly unique in imaginative vision.

For four characters the 500 quid worry bead in their pocket may be both a blessing and a curse. For elderly Dr Zachary Busner, it's his lifeline to his autistic grandson Ben, whose own connection with technology is, in turn, a vital one. For MI6 agent Jonathan De'Ath, aka 'the Butcher', the phone may reveal his best kept secret of all: that Colonel Gawain Thomas is his lover.

It's 1988, and Lily Bloom, a 65-year-old American, lies dying of cancer in a London hospital. As her two daughters buzz around her and the nurses pump her full of morphine, she slides in and out of consciousness, outraged that there is so little time left and so many people still to disparage. As she begins her journey to the other world, she reflects on her husbands, her children, her entire life.

Shiva Mukti is a hardworking and conscientious psychiatrist, who, in the inauspicious surroundings of St Mungo's - a central London hospital of more than average decrepitude - does his level best to staunch the flow of mental illness. But Mukti is not a happy man; beset by thwarted ambition and sexual frustration, he now finds himself in thrall to the more successful and urbane Dr Zack Busner, consultant psychiatrist at Heath Hospital, and an originator of the once modish Quantity Theory of Insanity.

Will Self takes a 1,000-mile tour of the UK by bus and coach, exploring urban Britain and British identity at a time of flux. Bus and coach windows afford him a different perspective on the nation. He eschews the bright lights of the big cities, heading instead for smaller urban centres. His objective is to speak to Britons about how they view their cities and themselves in 2018. Over 10 programmes, Will's trip takes him to Plymouth, Swansea, West Bromwich, Wolverhampton, Preston, Middlesbrough, East Kilbride and Derry-Londonderry. 

4th May, 1970. President Nixon has ordered American ground forces into Cambodia. By the end of the day four students will be shot dead in the grounds of Kent State University. On the other side of the Atlantic, maverick psychiatrist Dr Zack Busner has been tricked into joining a decidedly ill advised LSD trip. Five years later, sitting in a nearby cinema watching Steven Spielberg's Jaws, Busner realizes the true nature of the events that transpired on that dread-soaked day.

From one of the most unusual and distinctive writers working today, dubbed 'the most daring and delightful novelist of his generation' by the Guardian, Will Self's Why Read is a cornucopia of thoughtful and brilliantly witty essays on writing and literature.

Will Self is the author of many novels and books of non-fiction, including Great Apes, The Book of Dave, How the Dead Live, which was shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel of the Year 2002, The Butt, winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction 2008, Umbrella, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2012, and Shark. His most recent novel, Phone, was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize. He lives in south London.

Will Self reads from his introduction to Revelation, the final book of the Bible, which prophesises the ultimate judgement of mankind in a series of allegorical visions, grisly images, and numerological predictions. According to these, empires will fall, the 'Beast' will be destroyed, and Christ will rule a new Jerusalem. The introduction is preceded by a reading from the book by Richard Holloway, former Bishop of Edinburgh.