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Events for December 5, 2013 through February 7, 2014

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December 2013
£30

Carlos Acosta at the Bloomsbury Institute

December 5, 2013 @ 6:00 pm
Bloomsbury Institute,
50 Bedford Square London, WC1B 3DP United Kingdom
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Join us for a special Book Club event with Carlos Acosta, author of Pig’s Foot, at the Bloomsbury Institute. International ballet dancer Carlos Acosta and his editor Bill Swainson discuss Pig’s Foot. Selected as one of The Waterstones Eleven for the best fiction debuts of 2013, Carlos Acosta’s Pig’s Foot is a dazzling novel of revolution, family secrets, love and identity across four generations. Full of dark comedy, magical history and startling revelations, Pig’s Foot is a dazzling evocation of Cuba’s tumultuous history. Oscar Kortico, great-grandchild of the founders of a&hellip

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Philip Hoare on The Sea Inside at the Southbank

December 9, 2013 @ 7:00 pm
Southbank Centre,
Belvedere Rd London , SE1 8XX United Kingdom
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Philip Hoare heads the bill at the LGBT literary salon with his new book The Sea Inside. Plus Barbara Brownskirt, singer Marcus Reeves and other festive treats. Described by The New York Times as ‘London’s most theatrical salon’, Polari returns for the autumn, showcasing the best in established, new and up-and-coming LGBT literary talent and performance. More information/book tickets

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Carlos Acosta on Pig’s Foot, Kings Place

December 9, 2013 @ 7:00 pm
Kings Place,
90 York Way London , N1 9AG United Kingdom
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The dazzling dancer Carlos Acosta has already entranced readers with his autobiography. He now comes to Kings Place to talk about his much awaited second book, Pig’s Foot, a sweeping literary novel full of dark comedy and magical history; a big tale of revolution, family secrets, love and identity set in the Cuban hinterland across three generations. More information/book tickets

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Professor A. C. Grayling talks friendship, LJCC

December 9, 2013 @ 8:00 pm
London Jewish Cultural Centre,
94-96 North End Road London , NW11 7SX United Kingdom
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To mark the publication of his new book, A. C. Grayling roves the rich traditions of friendship in literature, culture, art, and philosophy, bringing into his discussion familiar pairs as well as unfamiliar—Achilles and Patroclus, David and Jonathan, Coleridge and Wordsworth, Huck Finn and Jim. Grayling lays out major philosophical interpretations of friendship, then offers his own take, drawing on personal experiences and an acute awareness of vast cultural shifts that have occurred. More information/book tickets 

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January 20142014

2013 TS Eliot Prize readings at the Southbank

January 12, 2014 @ 7:30 pm
Southbank Centre,
Belvedere Rd London , SE1 8XX United Kingdom
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Hear readings from the poets shortlisted for the 2013 TS Eliot Prize, one of the most loved events of the literary calendar. Ian McMillan comperes the evening. Ian Duhig chairs the judging panel, accompanied by two other judges, poets Vicki Feaver and Imtiaz Dharker. Expect an electric atmosphere at this performance, which is a unique opportunity to hear the best contemporary poets reading their own work. The judges will meet in October to decide on the ten-book shortlist. The four&hellip

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Jeanette Winterson and Stephen Grosz at Kings Place

January 13, 2014 @ 8:00 am - 5:00 pm
Kings Place,
90 York Way London , N1 9AG United Kingdom
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Award-winning Jeanette Winterson, author of Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, in conversation with Stephen Grosz, psychoanalyst and author of The Examined Life. Funny, acute, fierce and celebratory, Winterson’s Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal tells how the painful past she thought she had left behind returned to haunt her, and sent her on a journey into madness and out again in search of her real mother. Stephen Grosz has spent the last twenty-five years uncovering the hidden feelings behind our most baffling behaviour.&hellip

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The White Review No. 9 with Matthew Gregory and Francesco Pacifico, Foyles

January 23, 2014 @ 6:30 pm
The Gallery at Foyles,
Charing Cross Road London, WC2H 0EB
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The White Review, an arts and literature quarterly, launches its ninth issue featuring new fiction, essays, reportage, poetry, artwork and interviews. Tonight’s guests include the winner of the Eric Gregory award 2010, poet Matthew Gregory and the author of The Story of My Purity, Italian novelist Francesco Pacifico. Book tickets/more information

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£10

Will Self on Guy Debord, LRB

January 23, 2014 @ 7:00 pm
London Review Bookshop,
14 Bury Place London, WC1A 2JL United Kingdom
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Will Self will be at the shop to discuss the work of Guy Debord, and in particular The Society of the Spectacle, for the new Notting Hill edition of which he has written an introduction. ‘Never before’, he writes, ‘has Debord’s work seemed quite as relevant as it does now, in the permanent present that he so accurately foretold. Open it, read it, be amazed …’ Will Self will be in discussion with film-maker and author of The View from&hellip

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£10

Is the world of literature is becoming more, or less, closed? With Jonathan Dimbleby, Alan Johnson and Stephen Kelman

January 23, 2014 @ 7:00 pm
The Folio Room,
Bloomsbury Street Hotel London , WC1B 3QD United Kingdom
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There is much talk about social mobility, but little evidence of it in Britain today. Private school students are fifty-five times more likely to win a place at Oxbridge than students at state schools who qualify for Free School Meals. Seven per cent of children attend private schools, but they account for 54% of FTSE 100 CEOs, and 70% of High Court judges and 61% of Booker Prize winning novelists. In an evening jointly hosted by the RSL and First Story, Jonathan&hellip

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£5

Rachel Cooke & Samantha Ellis discuss their heroines, Keats House

January 23, 2014 @ 7:00 pm
Keats House,
10 Keats Grove London, NW3 2RR United Kingdom
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In Her Brilliant Career, award-winning journalist Rachel Cooke looks at ten astonishing women of the 1950s, whose pioneering professional lives paved the way for future generations. Among a host of stellar reviews, the Telegraph described it as ‘vastly entertaining, cannily researched and sharply perceptive.’ Wondering whether she’d rather be Cathy Earnshaw or Jane Eyre prompted Samantha Ellis to write How to be a Heroine. In her engaging memoir of reading, she reconsiders her fictional heroines, assessing everyone from the Little Mermaid to Lucy Honeychurch,&hellip

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5×15: Matthew Green, Simon Munnery, Deborah Levy, Anna Whitelock, Steve Jones

January 24, 2014 @ 6:30 pm
Tate Britain,
Millbank London , SW1P 4RG United Kingdom
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Matthew Green, Simon Munnery, Deborah Levy, Anna Whitelock and Steve Jones  at 5×15 at Tate Britain. More information/book tickets

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Emily’s Walking Book Club, Daunts

January 26, 2014 @ 11:30 am - 5:00 pm
Daunt Bookshop, Hampstead,
51 South End Road London, NW3 2QB United Kingdom
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Sunday, 26th of January at 11.30am at our shop on South End Road Join other book-lovers for a walk on Hampstead Heath to discuss a lost Russian masterpiece, The Spectre of Alexander Wolf. A man is haunted by the memory of a soldier he killed, until he reads a story that describes it in perfect detail. Obsessed with the quality of the writing as much as the possibility that the man he shot is alive, the narrator sets off in search of&hellip

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Frank Furedi on the First World War, Foyles

January 27, 2014 @ 6:00 pm
The Gallery at Foyles,
Charing Cross Road London, WC2H 0EB
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Dr Frank Furedi is a social commentator and author and emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent in Canterbury. His latest book argues that the battle of ideas which crystallized during the course of the Great War continues to the present, and claims that the Culture Wars of today are the latest expressions of a century long conflict. So, is this a contemporary analysis; crass comparison or simply First World War anniversary porn? Book tickets/more information

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Germaine Greer at Kings Place

January 27, 2014 @ 7:00 pm
Kings Place,
90 York Way London , N1 9AG United Kingdom
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The author of The Female Eunuch tells us how she embraced the fight to bring back a forest in her native Australia. Expect Germaine Greer to bring the same passion with which she defended feminist issues to the essential challenge faced by our planet’s biodiversity. Book tickets/more information

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£10

Jonathan Lethem on his book Dissident Gardens, LRB

January 29, 2014 @ 7:00 pm
London Review Bookshop,
14 Bury Place London, WC1A 2JL United Kingdom
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Jonathan Lethem’s latest book Dissident Gardens (Cape) tells, in a ‘torrent of potent voices, searing ironies, popculture allusions, and tragicomic complexities’ the story of three generations of a radical New York family, at the same time painting a vivid portrait of the American Century. Book tickets/more information

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£8

Bookslam at Clapham Grand

January 30, 2014 @ 7:00 pm
Clapham Grand,
21-25 St. John's Hill London London , SW11 1TT United Kingdom
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January sees us attack the new year head-on with an event as bracing as a stiff breeze, sweeping as a new broom and challenging as Anneka … we welcome two of the most creative thinkers we know (albeit of very different thoughts and very different talents) in, dare we say, an unusual masterstroke of programming. JONATHAN LETHEM is one of the most original, entertaining and important writers of contemporary American fiction. The author of ‘Motherless Brooklyn‘ and ‘The Fortress Of Solitude‘ introduces&hellip

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February 2014

Granta 126: Olivia Laing and Jonny Steinberg with Gaby Wood

February 4, 2014 @ 7:00 pm
The Horse Hospital,
Collonade, Bloomsbury WC1N 1HX United Kingdom
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In the new issue of Granta, writers remember, or invent, scenes from their own lives and the lives of others, exploring the textures of memory and loss, recovery and invention. to celebrate the launch of Granta 126: Do You Remembercontributors Olivia Laing and Jonny Steinberg discuss their work in the issue, with Daily Telegraph Literary Editor Gaby Wood. In ‘The Magic Box’, Olivia Laing searches for traces of David Wojnarowicz in the artist’s native New York as she delves into Wojnarowicz&hellip

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£5

Rob Delaney in conversation with Hadley Freeman, Foyles

February 5, 2014 @ 6:30 pm
The Gallery at Foyles,
Charing Cross Road London, WC2H 0EB
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Provocative, flirtatious, frequently filthy and downright aggravating (if your name’s Mitt Romney), Rob Delaney is the funniest man on Twitter (not our words, but those of Comedy Central). When he’s not entertaining millions by publicly teasing celebrities and big corporations, he’s also a passionately vocal supporter of women’s rights, gun control and universal healthcare, writing powerfully on his views for Viceand the Guardian (and lampooning his political adversaries to devastating effect in 140 characters). His memoir (‘A book as funny, sincere, weird, wet,&hellip

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Rob Delaney at King’s Place

February 6, 2014 @ 8:00 pm
Kings Place,
90 York Way London , N1 9AG United Kingdom
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With over 1 million followers, he has been named one of the funniest people on Twitter and is known as one of America’s most brilliant stand-ups, a regular at the top US comedy venues, and for appearances on shows such as Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Conan. Rob will be performing a stand-up gig. He will also read short excerpts from his memoir Mother. Wife. Sister. Human. Warrior. Falcon. Yardstick. Turban. Cabbage. Book tickets/more information

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James Wood, LRB Winter Lectures

February 7, 2014 @ 7:00 pm
British Museum,
WC1B 3DG United Kingdom
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James Wood explores the estrangement of voluntary emigration: the puzzling sense of losing the country you leave and failing to find another. Homelessness, in a word. James Wood is Professor of the Practice of Literary Criticism at Harvard. His books include four collections of critical essays, of which the latest is The Fun Stuff, and a novel, The Book against God. Book tickets/more information

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