When I was little - really little, though it’s too long ago now to call social services so maybe give my parents a pass on this one - I was given three books, each titled The World of the Unknown. One was about ghosts. The other about UFOs. And then there was another - a book I think about every time I find myself in a wooded area - about monsters. Usborne’s lavishly-illustrated-if-perhaps-age-inappropriate-series has become something of a cult classic in recent years, as the kids of the late seventies and early eighties have arrived at adulthood and had the opportunity to eulogise them.
A couple of years ago, in a fit of nostalgic yearning, I rebought all three books off eBay. I left them on the coffee table overnight once, only for my wife to thumb through them and tell me the following day, “everything makes much more sense now…”
Yesterday I launched the newest podcast under the Spoook banner; My Paranormal Romance, a place where the great and good explore their relationship with the weird and the strange. Episode one of that podcast is on the Spoook YouTube channel now - subscriptions are welcomed! - and sees me in conversation with Jed Shepherd, writer of - amongst many other works worthy of your attention - the 2020 horror movie Host, by some distance the best film, as well as the scariest, I saw that year.
There’s a host of big and/or fascinating souls scheduled for future episodes. Stay tuned!
Peter Usborne, a man who rerouted my life as profoundly as Kurt Cobain or any other huckster who ever picked up a guitar, passed away last month aged 85.
I do hope you consider this new podcast a fitting tribute to him.