Hello, I’m Jonathan Melville, the Edinburgh-based author of four non-fiction books on films and TV series I love: Seeking Perfection: The Unofficial Guide to Tremors, A Kind of Magic: Making the Original Highlander, Local Hero: Making a Scottish Classic, Hamish Macbeth: The Making of a BBCtv Classic and the forthcoming Rainbow Connections: Volume One - Meeting the People Who Brought Jim Henson’s Vision to Life.
As a fan of film and TV, I wanted to write a book about subjects I can’t easily read about elsewhere.
In 2015 I published my first book, a 25th-anniversary overview of the Tremors franchise, an unauthorised book featuring interviews with more than 50 people involved in the first four films and the TV series.
This was followed in 2020 by my 35th-anniversary look at 1986’s Highlander. For that one, I spoke to dozens of people involved in the film, including stars Christopher Lambert and Clancy Brown, and Queen's Brian May and Roger Taylor.
In 2022 I published my third book on the making of Bill Forsyth's Local Hero, talking to cast and crew about the Scottish classic - actors including Peter Riegert, Denis Lawson and Jennifer Black spoke to me about their time on set as I also discussed the making of the film with many of the crew including writer/director Bill Forsyth.
In 2025 I published my fourth book, Hamish Macbeth: The Making of a BBCtv Classic, which takes readers back to the 1990s and the making of one of Scotland’s strangest TV series, a mashup of The X-Files and Northern Exposure set in a tiny Scottish village.
Next up is a book of interviews with creatives who worked with Jim Henson on his various projects. I have various other book projects at various stages of completion and I’ve started writing a bit of fiction.
What’s in this newsletter
I’ll mostly be publishing updates on my non-fiction books and other projects, though I plan to start writing more about writing, or at least how I write (and plan, research, promote and whatever else is needed to get a book out into the world) in the coming months.
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