ESC Insight’s Ewan Spence is sitting nicely behind “Queen: The Illustrated Lyrics” in the Amazon Kindle charts with his book “Eurovision: Beyond the Sequins”. Pick up your copy before the show starts at Saturday 9pm CET!
Running from the end of Dusseldorf 2011 with the victory of ‘Running Scared’ to the start of Baku 2012, ‘Eurovision: Beyond the Sequins’ looks in-depth at Europe’s favourite TV Show, as well as following Ewan Spence’s travels across Europe to visit the National Finals of Sweden, Austria, and Switzerland, as well as the preview parties across the continent.
Ewan Spence looks beyond the sequins, pyrotechnics and key changes to explore what Eurovision really means, from the finer details of the contest to the myth of political voting. This book examines whether the best song ever wins, the media perception of the contest and the ability of this mad, wonderful institution to represent Europe and the people of the continent
Eurovision is more than three hours on a Saturday night in May. It’s something that lives and breathes throughout the year. But what happens between the end of one contest and the start of the next? In those fifty weeks before rehearsals start once more, the Song Contest doesn’t stop. It doesn’t die. It’s still a huge sprawling exploration of culture, music, people, and politics.
The Guardian have published my latest book through their Guardian Shorts brand. If you head over to Amazon, you’ll be able to pick up your Kindle copy (Amazon US also carries the book, and iBooks will have it up shortly as well).
I’d love to hear your comments on the book – there’s about one week to the Eurovision Final (May 26th), so there’s not a huge amount of time to promote the book while the Contest is still in the public conscious, so feel free to tweet, message, or write up a post on the book. And if you’d like to review it, get in touch!