Conspiracy Theories – Special Edition

It might be down to the fact I rarely get more than three hours of sleep, but I am not a morning person. Others may bounce with Tigger cheer just after dawn, but I struggle to glue myself together before 9am. While I am often awake to hear the early morning quarrels of the geese outside and the chug-chug-chug of a passing canal boat add to a soundscape dominated by John Humphrys’ acerbic scorn, everything is muffled. It all seems to be happening in a dimension I am aware of, but not part of. Before my second cup of tea, the bundles of neurons that make up my white matter seem insulated not with myelin, but cotton wool.

Therefore when shouts went up that the post had brought a parcel from Seoul, I did not leap from my bed to shred brown paper and cardboard. At that point I only vaguely knew my name was David Southwell. It took at least another 15 minutes to remember I was occasionally an author and the package on the kitchen table was probably the latest edition of Conspiracy Theories to come out in South Korea. At this point, I began moving from bed to kitchen at Flash speed.

At every step of the process, I have been impressed by my Korean publisher Imago. Less than three weeks ago I emailed over an exclusive new preface for this book and now, with shimmering timing, they had delivered two copies into my hands making for a wonderful Christmas Eve gift. Beyond creating copies of the book at a pace even the Scarlet Speedster would approve of, Imago have delighted me with their design and quality standards. The new Imago version comes in at more than 550 pages, has better use of photographs and the luxury of embossed, glossy, black-on-black titles on the cover. To me it is a thing of beauty.

Best of all is the title given to the new version: Conspiracy Theories – Special Edition. I never thought I would see one of my books with the words ‘Special Edition emblazoned across the front. I feel like a film director getting to release a director’s cut DVD set.