GHOST OF AN IDEA By William Burns (Headpress Books, 2025)
A great cover, an interesting subject and a promising title but sadly the content of this book leaves a lot to be desired.
The first of its seven chapters takes up just under half the book and is for the most part a well-informed, though often repetitive, essay on the topic. William Burns knows his stuff but seems unsure whether his pitch should be high (with quotes from Derrida / Nietzsche) or low (e.g. when complaining that the vagaries of memory “can be an extreme bummer”).
The second half is mainly filler; a hotchpotch of lists, reviews and over-long interviews with obscure musicians. The focus of these pieces is very confusing. For instance, having established that Folk Horror was born in the UK, the author’s list of film recommendations contains summaries of recent American or global titles before ending with a quote from The Wicker Man!?
A review of a Nick Cave concert in Brooklyn has no obvious relevance to the rest of the book.
Worst of all, the book ends with an unseemly rant against the Toy Story franchise which is portrayed as being nothing more than a corporate exercise in mind control and is held responsible for “endless merchandising that has blighted the world for the last 20 years.” If you want to split hairs, Disney have been doing the same thing for much longer!
Aside from bordering on the unhinged, this short but spiteful essay (in lieu of a coherent conclusion) ends the book on a very sour note.
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Nicolas Edward Cave (Nick to his mates) received an honorary degree from the University of Brighton on 8th February 2012 “in recognition of services to the arts and his patronage of CineCity, the annual 
