Literary Calendar
Events for September 17, 2013 through September 27, 2013
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Gill Hornby & Hilary Boyd talk to Lisa Jewell, LJCC
Hilary Boyd’s first ‘gran lit’ novel, Thursdays In The Park, was published last year and has since sold over 400,000 copies in ebook and print. She has worked as a nurse, a marriage guidance counsellor and a health journalist and published six non-fiction books on health-related subjects such as step-parenting, depression and pregnancy. Gill Hornby is a writer and journalist. She lives with her husband, Robert Harris, and their four children in Kintbury, Berkshire. The Hive is her first novel. Lisa Jewell had always planned to write&hellip
Daisy Waugh talks to Rachel Hore, LJCC
Bestselling novelist Daisy Waugh discusses her new novel, Melting the Snow on Hester Street, with fellow novelist Rachel Hore. Bestselling writer Daisy Waugh discusses her new book with fellow novelist Rachel Hore. Set in Hollywood in 1929, Waugh’s Melting the Snow on Hester Street follows a high-society couple, an actor and actress, on the brink of bankruptcy and divorce. Hore’s The Silent Tide connects the different worlds of two young women, who through their individual quests become inextricably linked. Bestselling writer Daisy Waugh discusses her new book with&hellip
John Harvey and Stella Duffy, chaired by Alison Joseph, Chair of the CWA, LJCC
Members of the Crime Writers’ Association, celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, talk about their love of short crime fiction – is the short story’s resurgence really such a mystery? This is part of the Highgate & Hampstead Literary Festival. More information/book tickets
Tracy Chevalier talks to Emily Rhodes, LJCC
Tracy Chevalier is the author of six previous novels, including the international bestseller Girl with a Pearl Earring. Born in Washington, DC, she moved to London in 1984, where she continued her education with a post graduate degree in Creative Writing. She was a reference book editor for several years before turning to writing full-time. Renowned for her rich evocations of periods past, Girl With a Pearl Earring was Tracy’s second novel and in 2004 was made into a film starring Colin Firth and Scarlett&hellip
Writers Talk at ZSL London Zoo – Andrew O’Hagan on Asian Tapir
ZSL conservation scientists and keepers team up with leading writers to talk about the animals in ZSL London Zoo. Alongside the animals, the writers speak imaginatively about their responses to them and ZSL’s experts talk about their ecology and conservation. The audience will be able to ask questions of author, scientist and keeper and have books signed over a glass of wine. These unique evenings will be held within the animal houses of London Zoo. ANDREW O’HAGAN Andrew O’Hagan is&hellip
David Kynaston talks to James Runcie, Southbank
The celebrated historian David Kynaston talks to James Runcie about the birth of modern Britain. The late 1950s was an action-packed, often dramatic time in which the contours of modern Britain began to take shape. These were the ‘never had it so good’ years, when the Carry Onfilm series and the TV soap Emergency Ward 10 got going, and films like Room at the Top and plays like A Taste of Honey brought the working class to the centre of the national frame; when the urban skyline&hellip
Book launch for Our Hearts Hang From the Lemon Trees by Laetitia Rutherford, Daunt Books
Book launch for Laetitia Rutherford’s memoir, Our Hearts Hang From the Lemon Trees, published by Short Books. More information/book tickets  
Simon Schama and Bettany Hughes talk to Prospect, The Shaw Theatre
Join Prospect for an evening of conversation with Simon Schama and Bettany Hughes to celebrate the publication of Schama’s long-awaited The Story of the Jews: Finding the Words 100 BCE – 1492. The Story of the Jews is an epic of endurance against destruction, creativity in oppression, joy admist grief. Don’t miss the chance to hear two of our most distinguished and electrifying historians in conversation. Followed by questions from the audience. More information/book tickets
Giles Milton in conversation with Roland Chambers, Daunt Bookshop Marylebone
Giles Milton has followed his best-sellers Paradise Lost and Nathaniel’s Nutmeg with Russian Roulette. His storytelling is as fine as ever in this tale of a Soviet plot to destroy British rule in India. It is also the story of the British spies who were sent to thwart it, a small band of men who had been smuggled into Russia in the aftermath of the 1917 revolution and were led by Mansfield Cumming, a monocled, one-legged sea captain with a&hellip
Concerning Frank Kermode, LRB
Frank Kermode was the great humanist critic of his generation. The LRB and the Department of English at UCL have together instituted an annual event to commemorate Kermode’s distinguished life and highly influential work. This year’s inaugural discussion, in which Jacqueline Rose and Michael Wood among others will participate, and which will be chaired by John Mullan, will range freely and informally across his contributions to criticism in numerous fields, from apocalyptic theory to contemporary fiction. More information/book tickets
Peter Bradshaw discusses Night of Triumph, Brick Lane
Guardian film critic Peter Bradshaw will be reading from, talking about and signing his novel ‘Night of Triumph’. On VE night, 1945, the then teenage princesses, Elizabeth and Margaret, were allowed to leave the palace incognito and join the parties and festivities with their subjects – pretending to be ordinary people for the first and only time in their lives. More information/book tickets
Open House London, The London Library
The London Library is delighted to announce it will once again be taking part in Open House London – the capital’s greatest architectural showcase taking place on 21 & 22 September 2013. Open House London celebrates all that is best about the capital’s buildings, places and neighbourhoods. Every September, it gives a unique opportunity to get out and under the skin of London’s amazing architecture, with over 700 buildings of all kinds opening their doors to everyone – all for&hellip
The Southbank book club discuss The Turn of the Screw
Our book club explores The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. Throughout 2013 we read books to tie in with Southbank Centre’s year-long festival on 20th-century culture and music, The Rest Is Noise. Please read the book in advance of the event and bring a copy with you on the evening. September marks Benjamin Britten’s centenary, making it the perfect time to consider the strange and sinister novella on which one of Britten’s most celebrated operas was based. Henry James’s imagination weaves&hellip
Max Hastings on Catastrophe: Europe goes to War 1914, Daunt Bookshop, Marylebone
Max Hastings, amongst the finest military historians of the Second World War, turns his formidable skills to the Great War. Catastrophe looks at both the roots of the conflict and its early years and argues against the ‘poets’ view’ that it was not worth winning. He offers a striking and broad account of seven nations at war drawing on the experiences of generals, private soldiers, housewives and statesmen. Talks take place at Daunt Books, Marylebone High Street Tickets are £8&hellip
The Betrayal of Oscar Wilde: Rupert Everett, Merlin Holland and Sir David Hare, Soho Literary Festival
Sir David Hare, who wrote The Judas Kiss, and Rupert Everett, the play’s star,are delighted to be opening the festival with a discussion with Merlin Holland. Merlin is Oscar Wilde’s only grandchild and the co-curator of the Wilde exhibition at the British library. His father, Vyvyan Holland, wrote a memoir,The Son of Oscar Wilde. More information/book tickets
Simon Schama discusses The Story of the Jews and the History of the World, Southbank
Simon Schama discusses his epic project of the past five years, the writing of a new Jewish history. The most personal of all his historical projects, taking him from forts on the Nile to the Lithuanian woods, it has led him not only to formidable challenges but to unexpected illuminations and the strong sense that the story, intense with joyous creativity as well as burdened with tragedy, belongs not just to Jews but to everyone. More information/book tickets
Virginia Ironside: Growing Old Disgracefully, Soho Literary Festival
When an agony aunt reaches her sixties, she can lie like a trouper, jump off a bridge – or take to the stage. Virginia Ironside is a well-known British journalist and author. Her career began in the 1960s when she wrote a rock column for the Daily Mail. Today she writes the Dilemmas column for the Independent and a monthly column for The Oldie, and has recently published No! I Don’t Need Reading Glasses! In Growing Old Disgracefully Virginia explains that unlimited free drugs, fun funerals, grandchildren and sex (or, even better,&hellip
Claire Tomalin on Charles Dickens, Soho Literary Festival
We are delighted to welcome Claire Tomalin to the Soho Literary Festival. She is one of our most prominent literary biographers, whose subjects have included Thomas Hardy, Samuel Pepys, Katherine Mansfield, Jane Austen and Mary Wollstonecraft. She will be talking about her acclaimed work, Charles Dickens: A Life. More information/book tickets
The Animals: Love Letters between Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy, Soho Literary Festival
In 1952, Christopher Isherwood (Goodbye to Berlin) met the teenage Don Bachardy on Santa Monica beach. Defying convention, the two men began living together as an openly gay couple in an otherwise closeted Hollywood. Their relationship lasted until Isherwood’s death in 1986. In romantic letters to one another, the couple created the private world of the Animals. Christopher was ‘Dobbin’, a stubborn old workhorse; Don was the playful young white cat, ‘Kitty’. But Don needed to carve out his own identity – some of their&hellip
Craig Brown & Friends, Soho Literary Festival
Last year’s show, Comedy and Parody with Craig Brown & Friends, was a sell-out – so Craig and his friends are back this year by popular demand, with their own One-Stop Literary Festival, including the prose and poetry of such distinguished authors as Paolo Coelho, Vivienne Westwood, Pippa Middleton and Ed Miliband. His ‘& Friends’ and partners in satirical crime this year include the journalist and author of The Potter’s Hand A N Wilson, and author and Oldietheatre critic Paul Bailey. More information/book tickets