As we suspect many of you are fully aware, over the years there's been more than a healthy number of books about Pink Floyd, covering the music, the personalities, the live experiences, and more. For a new book to stand out, it has to offer something a little different from the majority already on the shelves. The newly published 'Lost Souls: A Fictional Journey Through 50 Years of Pink Floyd' by Dutch music journalist and author Edwin Ammerlaan seemed to be written with exactly that in mind.

The book centres on a teenager called Matt Hallander who in 1967 accidentally bumps into Roger Waters and Syd Barrett on a ferry from Ibiza to Formentera, forming a fascination for the Floyd which expanded into friendship with the members of the band. Managing to get a job with a music publication, the protagonist builds trust with the band and is chosen to write a book about them. This necessitates spending time with them, interviewing them, and finding out how they all work and live collectively.

Ammerlaan was keen to find a new angle on the band when he was approached by a Dutch publisher to write about them. In his words "I've been a freelance music journalist since 1987 and have written many features about Pink Floyd in that time. I rejected it because I felt that most things about Pink Floyd had already been thoroughly documented. To add a new perspective to the Floyd history would be virtually impossible."

He turned away from the suggested Dutch language book, repeating all the normal stories, to write in a more personal, subjective way for an international audience. It weaves together actual events, and interviews he, and others, conducted with the band members, into an absorbing fictional narrative following his main character's "coming of age" story conflating his development with the band's. Some of the interviews have been changed to sound more conversational, and there's a healthy dose of fictitious invention thrown in to move the story along.

It's a curious concept but seems to work very well. The easy, conversational style of writing keeps the interest going, not least to see where the story goes. Having experienced some of the concerts Ammerlaan describes in the book, he captures things that I noticed and felt at times, and with his use of Matt as his main character's name, on a personal level this felt a little odd at first but I got used to it! From the reaction of others in the Floyd community who have also got the book, the attention to detail and atmosphere seems to have captured the imagination, and there's some very positive word of mouth for this book. It won't be for everyone (and don't expect a thorough biography of the band - that can be found elsewhere in numerous places) but for something quite different it could be just what some people are after.

If you want to check out the book, it is available as an eBook on Kindle, or as a paperback, now. Ordering through our links also helps with BD's ongoing running costs, and we really appreciate it: Amazon UK, Amazon.com, Amazon Canada, Amazon France, Amazon Germany, Amazon Spain and Amazon Italy.