Literary Calendar
Events for May 12, 2014 through May 27, 2014
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Val McDermid on crime fiction, Kings Place
Crime Writer Val McDermid and Group Analyst Sue Einhorn explore the world of crime fiction where human taboos of murder, incest, violence are broken and the human struggle with mortality is violently exposed. Award-winning crime writer Val McDermid is the founder and life force behind the Harrogate Crime Festival and is a powerful, fascinating presence in her own right. Her first novel was published in 1987. Today she is a No. 1 bestseller, translated into more than 30 languages, with over two million copies&hellip
Changing Sexual Mores with Shereen El Feki, Asia House
Sex is entwined with religion, tradition, gender and politics across Asia. It makes the perfect lens for examining the region’s complex social landscape. This evening, we take a serious but illuminating look at dating, love, marriage, divorce and LGBT culture in the Middle East, India and Pakistan. Shereen El Feki works on issues related to health and social welfare in the Arab region — including intimate attitudes toward sexual (and political) freedoms, as explored in her book, Sex and the Citadel. She has&hellip
John Keay on Midnight’s Descendants, Asia House
If British India had not been partitioned in 1947, its population would today be the world’s largest. At around 1.5 billion, midnight’s descendants South Asians already outnumber Europeans and Chinese; and they are growing faster than either. They comprise all the peoples of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Midnight’s Descendants: South Asia from Partition to the Present Day is the first history of the region as a whole. Correlating and contrasting the fortunes of all the constituent nations over&hellip
Orlando Figes on Revolutionary Russia 1891-1991, Daunt’s Marylebone
The problem of Russia dominated the 20th century. Perhaps the finest modern historian of Russia tells the story in an illuminating short history. More information
Ben Macintyre on A Spy Among Friends, Daunt’s Marylebone
Ben Macintyre on A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby was the most notorious British defector and Soviet mole in history. Agent, double agent, traitor and enigma, he betrayed every secret of Allied operations to the Russians in the early years of the Cold War. Philby’s two closest friends in the intelligence world, Nicholas Elliott of MI6 and James Jesus Angleton, the CIA intelligence chief, thought they knew Philby better than anyone, and then discovered they had not known him at all. This&hellip
An evening with Jerry White, Waterstone’s Piccadilly
The historian will be discussing Zeppelin Nights: London in the First World War looking at the dramatic changes WW1 brought and the intrinsic determination and character of Londoners. Event is free, but please reserve your place by contacting piccadilly@waterstones.com or the store on 0207 851 2400.  
Bloomsbury Book Club with Lynn Barber
Britain’s greatest and most ferocious interviewer, Lynn Barber, takes to the Bloomsbury stage to discuss A Curious Career, her new memoir of her life as an interviewer with Geoff Colman. A nosy child, Lynn Barber questioned everyone she knew about imitate details of their lives. She became the most famous celebrity interviewer with an unusual lack of the English fear of social embarrassment. She discusses the highs and lows of her early career at Penthouse where she started out interviewing foot fetishists, voyeurs, dominatrices and men&hellip
New Pan-Asian Fiction, Asia House
A special preview of three new novels before they are published. Romesh Gunesekera will talk about Noontide Toll, a collection of stories which reveal a Sri Lanka moving forward after nearly 3 decades of conflict. Xialou Guo is one of Granta’s 2013 Best Young Authors. Her new novel, I Am China, is the story of young lovers separated during the Jasmine Revolution. Roopa Farooki’s The Good Children is a landmark epic of the South Asian immigrant experience, set in Pakistan, England and the US. Originally from Sri&hellip
Michael Schmidt and Michael Wood on the novel, LRB
Quoting from the letters, diaries, reviews, and essays of novelists and drawing on their biographies, Schmidt’s The Novel – A Biography (Harvard) invites us into the creative dialogues between authors and between books, and suggests how these dialogues have shaped the development of the novel in English. Michael Schmidt is professor of Poetry at Glasgow University and a writer in residence as St. John’s College, Cambridge; he will be in conversation with Michael Wood, author and regular contributor to the London Review of&hellip
Tim Butcher on The Trigger, Waterstone’s Piccadilly
Tim Butcher will discuss The Trigger, the story of the teenage assassin who killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand and triggered the First World War. Tickets £5/£3 (Waterstones Cardholders available online via Waterstones.com/tickets or in store)
On Tove Jansson with Ali Smith and Thomas Teal, RSL
Best remembered and much loved for her Moomin characters, the Finnish writer Tove Jansson (1914-2001) is now also being celebrated for her novels and short stories for adults. But where do books for children end, and books for adults begin? Can an author’s writing invite the states of adulthood and childhood to merge and address each other? Jansson was inspired to create the Moomintroll after an argument about the philosopher Immanuel Kant; her luminous classic novel for adults,The Summer Book,&hellip
Charlotte Mendelson and Sathnam Sanghera, Keats House
Sixteen-year-old Marina flees the pressures of life with her Hungarian relatives, to find that a traditional English boarding school does not offer the sense of belonging she anticipated. Following the death of his father, Arjan discovers that a return to life among his Sikh family reveals truths about his life and background that he didn’t expect either. Almost English and Marriage Material are touching, witty novels about the need to understand our past, if we are to fully embrace our future. Charlotte Mendelson is&hellip
Andrew Motion hosts Poetry in the City
Poet in the City present an evening of poetry hosted by Andrew Motion. Celebrating 10 years of the Creative Writing School at Royal Holloway University, this special event will showcase some of the most exciting voices to emerge from Bedford Square in recent years. Andrew Motion will read alongside fellow poet Jo Shapcott, as they present readings from four acclaimed new poets; Karen McCarthy Woolf, Lydia McPherson, Declan Ryan and Will Searle. More information
Andres Neuman on Talking To Ourselves, Waterstone’s Piccadilly
The celebrated author and winner of the National Critics Prize will be discussing his newest title Talking to Ourselves. Event is free, but please reserve your place by contacting piccadilly@waterstones.com or the store on 0207 851
Karl Ove Knausgaard, Waterstone’s Piccadilly
The bestselling Norwegian author will be signing copies of the exhilarating and terrifying Boyhood Island the third book of the My Struggle cycle
Javier Cercas discusses The Outlaws with Paul Preston, LRB
Javier Cercas rose to fame in the English-speaking world with The Soldiers of Salamis which won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2004 and was one of our early bestsellers. He continued his exploration of modern Spanish history with The Anatomy of a Moment, a work of non-fiction that investigated the failed coup of 1981. Now he returns to fiction with The Outlaws, a fast-paced and morally complex tale of disaffected youth set in the period just after the end&hellip
Meet Seth Macfarlane, Piccadilly
Animator, writer, producer, director, actor, singer and creator of Family Guy & Ted will be signing copies of his debut novel A Million Ways to Die in the West. Please arrive early to avoid disappointment, access to the queue will be limited & is on a strictly first come first served basis. No posed photography. Seth MacFarlane will signed copies of ‘A Million Ways to Die in the West’ only
Michael Cunningham on The Snow Queen, Waterstones Hampstead
The Pulitzer-prise winning author of The Hours discusses his new novel The Snow Queen
Edmund White on Inside a Pearl, Southbank Centre
Master memoirist Edmund White reads his intriguing memoirs from his time spent in Paris. All reviews for Inside A Pearl: My Years in Paris by Edmund White Effortlessly mixing serious artistic and historical concerns with the soap opera of urban life, Edmund White is a master memoirist. InInside A Pearl, White turns his attention to the years spent in Paris, which were the sexiest and most exciting times in his life. With the extraordinary cast of characters including Yves St Laurent,&hellip