Mike Jay will be at Ottakar's in Newport to talk about his latest paperback The Air Loom Gang which explores the extraordinary life and adventures of Welsh tea merchant James Tilly Matthews. Matthews became inextricably embroiled in an heroic attempt to broker peace between England and the 1790s French Revolutionary government. He was let down by both sides and, after incarceration and frustration, became subject to the most extraordinary delusion: that his mind was being controlled by a gang of nefarious 'pneumatic chemists' who were, by means of a powerful 'air loom', magnetically and hypnotically controlling his thoughts and behaviour. As a patient in Bedlam, Matthews gave fascinating details of his torturers (Bill the King, Jack the Schoolmaster, The Glove Woman etc) and the sort of excruciating tortures they perpetrated on him (e.g. Bomb Bursting, Brain Lengthening, Fluid Locking, Lobster Cracking, Kiting and Apoplexy-Working with the Nutmeg Grator).

This true story is the first recorded account of the schizophreniform influencing machine delusion, and Mike Jay gives a sensitive account in a book which in part reads like a politico-historical thriller and a conspiracy fantasy.

"I have never seen the logic of madness . .presented so clearly and convincingly. The Air Loom Gang is a wonderful book to read, combining exceptional scholarship and psychological insight with deep empathy for the tormented but always gentle and dignified Matthews. And it is beautifully written, with all the drama, the rich characterization. the subtlety, of a fine novel." (Oliver Sacks)

Mike Jay will also be talking about his new hardback on the politcal reformist and adventurerThe Unfortunate Colonel Despard. Jay is also the author of Blue Tide: The Search for Soma, Emperor of Dreams: Drugs in the 19th Century, Underworld of the East, and editor of Artificial Paradises and 1900. He has written for The Guardian, The Independent, and Fortean Times.

Refreshments provided. For further information, or to reserve tickets, phone (01983) 527927.

Ottakar's Bookshop, 118 High Street, Newport, Isle of Wight PO30 1TP