If we are to reinvest the world with meaning

A detail from In the Dark Woods, 2019, from my Acid Renaissance series. I recently read, and greatly enjoyed, Alan Moore’s latest novel I Hear a New World, the second instalment in Moore’s Long London series, following on from The Great When. I’m not here to review it, but I would highly recommend it and its predecessor. I picked my copy up from my local Waterstones, unaware that this chain of bookshops are apparently the sole stockists of an Exclusive Edition with painted edges, end papers, casefoil, and—the thing that prompted this post—some exclusive content. And it was this exclusive edition that I ended up buying. Part of the exclusive content is a short essay, barely more than five pages, written by Moore in 2025 called And What Are We Supposed To Do With All These Busted Myths? but it was one of those pieces that triggered resonances and new ideas. Unfortunately the essay doesn’t appear to have been published anywhere else apart from in these five pages of the exclusive edition…