Thursday 27th March
10.30-11.15
£5
Celebrating Virago Modern Classics
Deborah Levy, Susie Boyt and Sarah Dunant talk to Lennie Goodings
Some of today’s most notable women writers talk about which Virago Modern Classics
continue to inspire them. Favourites include novels by Muriel Spark, Angela Carter and
Elizabeth Taylor. This is a unique opportunity to hear writers talk as readers, discussing the
ways in which these feminist classics have influenced their work.
Deborah Levy is a novelist, playwright and poet, whose recent novel Swimming Home was
shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.
Susie Boyt is a novelist, memoirist and she is also a journalist for the Financial Times. The
Literary Review described her novel The Small Hours as ‘an absolute gem ... exquisite,
diamond-bright and lacerating to the hardest of hearts’.
Sarah Dunant is a writer, broadcaster and critic. Blood and Beauty, her most recent bestselling novel about the Borgias was described by The Sunday Times as ‘intelligent and
passionate’.
Lennie Goodings is the head of Virago, the publishing house which has championed women
writers for over forty years.
Thursday 27th March
12-12.45
£5 – including a fresh juice provided by The Natural Kitchen
***lunchbreak event – sneak out of the office and eat your lunch while enjoying some
food for thought ***
Bright Young Novelists
Adam Foulds, Rebecca Hunt and Evie Wyld talk to Edmund Gordon
In an industry which favours established names and where new writers struggle to get their
voices heard, these young novelists have enjoyed astonishing success. Three writers of a
talented new generation read from their books and discuss their work with a young literary
critic.
Poet and novelist Adam Foulds was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize with his first novel
The Quickening Maze. His new novel In The Wolf’s Mouth is set in Sicily during the Second
World War.
Rebecca Hunt will be talking about her new book Everland. Her first novel Mr Chartwell
was praised in the Guardian as ‘a vivid, moving delight’.
Evie Wyld is a novelist and a bookseller. The Spectator says: ‘It is no surprise that she has
been included on every possible shortlist of talented young authors to look out for. Evie Wyld
is the real thing.’
Edmund Gordon is a literary critic, who has written for the Guardian, the London Review of
Books and The Sunday Times, among other publications. He is a lecturer at Kings College
London, and is writing a biography of Angela Carter.
Thursday 27th March
£5 – including delicious hot chocolate provided by Rococo
1.30-2.15
***lunchbreak event – sneak out of the office and eat your lunch while enjoying some
food for thought ***
In praise of short stories
A.L. Kennedy, David Constantine and Helen Simpson talk to K.J. Orr
Short stories have never been more celebrated as a literary art form, or more popular with
readers. Join us for an inspiring discussion of their merits and charm, and listen to a dazzling
array of short story writers read their work. Witness just how much can be achieved in a short
story – as Alice Munro said in her Nobel Prize acceptance speech: “Everything the story tells
moves you in such a way that you feel you’re a different person when you finish.”
A.L. Kennedy is a writer of short-stories, novels, and non-fiction, and she is also a journalist
for the Guardian. Her new short-story collection All The Rage is a dozen ways of looking at
love, written with her signature blend of humour and darkness.
David Constantine is an award-winning writer, whose work includes poetry and translation
as well as short stories. He is a fellow of Queens College, Oxford.
Helen Simpson is a prolific writer of short stories, whose subtle and intimate work has often
been compared to that of Katherine Mansfield.
K.J. Orr is finishing her first full collection of short stories, which will be published by
Comma Press. Her individual stories have been shortlisted for the BBC National short Story
Award and the Bridport Prize.
Thursday, 27th March
FREE, but booking essential
Including a healthy raspberry flapjack from The Natural Kitchen
5-5.45
Michael Morpurgo
We are delighted to welcome former Children’s Laureate and award-winning writer, Michael
Morpurgo OBE. The author of War Horse will be talking to children aged 6–11 about his life,
the First World War, his love of animals and other inspirations behind his work. He says his
stories come, “from all around me. Places, people, stories I hear, little happenings, big
happenings, history. I keep my eyes and ears open, my heart fresh.”
Thursday 27th March
7-7.45
£5
Madness in our Times
Barbara Taylor & Adam Phillips
Historian Barbara Taylor joins psychotherapist Adam Phillips to discuss mental health in
Britain today, and how its treatment has changed over the years.
In The Last Asylum, Taylor explores the history of the Middlesex County Pauper Lunatic
Asylum in North London. This was one of England’s most infamous asylums, housing nearly
3,000 patients at its peak, including Taylor herself. She gives a powerful account of her battle
with mental illness, while telling the compelling story of the demise of our asylums. Taylor is
joined by Adam Philips, who was praised by the New Yorker as ‘Britain’s foremost
psychoanalytic writer’. His most recent book, One Way and Another, is a collection of his
playful, imaginative and incisive essays.
Thursday, 27th March
8.30pm-9.30pm
£5
The Invisible Woman
Claire Tomalin
The love affair between Charles Dickens and young actress Nelly Ternan lasted for thirteen
years, destroying Dickens’ marriage and effacing Ternan from the public record. In this
astonishing work, one of our foremost biographers shines a light on the shadows of history,
returning the neglected actress to her rightful place, and painting a compelling portrait of the
great Victorian novelist himself. Discover the thrilling literary detective story and deeply
compassionate book which inspired the new film starring and directed by Ralph Fiennes.
Claire Tomalin has won numerous prizes for her biographies. Her subjects include Samuel
Pepys, Thomas Hardy, Jane Austen, Katherine Mansfield, Charles Dickens … and, of course,
Nelly Ternan, the invisible woman.
Friday 28th March
10.30-11.30
FREE but you must have read the book
Emily’s Walking Book Club
Join other book-lovers for a stroll around Regent’s Park with bookseller and blogger Emily
Rhodes to discuss Michael Cunningham’s award-winning novel The Hours.
Clarissa Vaughan is going to buy the flowers herself, as she steps out of her 1990s New York
apartment to prepare for a party she is hosting for a dying friend. In 1940s Los Angeles, a
young wife and mother yearns to escape her claustrophobic world and read her treasured
copy of Mrs Dalloway, and in 1920s Richmond, Virginia Woolf is struggling to begin work
on that very book. Moving effortlessly between decades and locations, this deeply affecting
novel intertwines the worlds of three women, recasting Woolf’s enduring classic Mrs
Dalloway in a compelling new light.
‘A sensitive marriage of intelligence, integrity and finely textured emotions.’ The Sunday
Times
‘Extremely moving, original and memorable.’ Hermione Lee, TLS
Friday 28th March
12-12.45
£5
***lunchbreak event – sneak out of the office and eat your lunch while enjoying some
food for thought ***
The late great Antal Szerb
Nicholas Lezard, Paul Bailey and Len Rix
We are delighted to welcome renowned literary critic Nicholas Lezard, prize-winning author
Paul Bailey and distinguished translator Len Rix to celebrate the work of Antal Szerb. Szerb
was a prolific, eminent Hungarian writer, whose books include the masterpiece Journey by
Moonlight. This coming-together of some of our best literary minds to pay respect to a truly
great figure is a unique opportunity for fans of Szerb, and an inspiring introduction for those
who are new to his work.
Nicholas Lezard is a literary critic for the Guardian, and writes the Down and Out in
London column for the New Statesman. His most recent book is Bitter Experience Has
Taught Me.
Paul Bailey is a writer and critic, whose work has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.
His new novel is The Prince’s Boy.
Len Rix is a translator of Hungarian literature, whose renderings of Antal Szerb’s work have
been especially highly praised.
Friday 28th March
1.30-2.15
£5
***lunchbreak event – sneak out of the office and eat your lunch while enjoying some
food for thought ***
The Bloomsbury Cookbook
Jans Ondaatje Rolls and Olivia Laing
‘One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.’ Virginia Woolf’s
famous line from A Room of One’s Own begs the question, what exactly did the Bloomsbury
Group eat? Answers are revealed in Jan Ondaatje Rolls’ delightful Bloomsbury Cookbook –
a series of narratives accompanied by recipes, sketches, letters and hand-written notes. This is
a must for all literary food lovers, a chance to discover what sustained E.M. Forster, Roger
Fry, Virginia Woolf and their companions, and to enjoy a taste of it yourself.
Jan Ondaatje Rolls will talk to Olivia Laing, the British Library’s Writer in Residence and
author of To the River and The Trip to Echo Spring.
Friday 28th March
FREE but booking is essential
Including a healthy raspberry flapjack from The Natural Kitchen
5-5.45
Emma Chichester Clark
‘What shall we do, Blue Kangaroo?’
Come along to meet celebrated children’s writer and illustrator Emma Chichester Clark,
whose work includes the beloved Blue Kangaroo series, Melrose and Croc, and many other
wonderful books. Join in the fun and listen to stories in this engaging talk for under-fives.
Friday 28th March
7-7.45
£5
Sebastian Barry talks to Alex Clark
The Temporary Gentleman
The prize-winning author of The Secret Scripture makes his only London appearance to talk
about his stunning new novel The Temporary Gentleman.
Jack McNulty is a ‘temporary gentleman’ – an Irishman whose commission in the British
army in the Second World War was never permanent. In 1957 he sets out to tell his tale, and
so Barry gives us a moving portrait of one man’s life – his demons and his lost love – in his
characteristic lyrical prose. Amidst a great deal of praise, his work has been described as
‘magnificent and heart-rending’ by the Guardian, and ‘daring, accommodating and humane’,
by John Banville. He talks to Alex Clark, literary critic for the Guardian, the Evening
Standard and the BBC, and former editor of Granta.
Friday 28th March
8.30-9.30
£5
Capturing a Sense of Place
Colin Thubron, Sara Wheeler, Mahesh Rao and Tracy Chevalier talk to Barnaby
Rogerson
How can the feeling of a place best be caught on the page? How do the sharp observations of
travel writing compare to fictions inspired by the landscape? Some of our finest travel writers
and novelists come together to discuss the myriad ways of capturing a sense of place. It’s a
subject close to our hearts, as you can tell from the way we arrange our books!
Colin Thubron is one of our foremost travel writers, novelists and adventurers, whose books
include To a Mountain in Tibet and Shadow of the Silk Road.
Acclaimed travel writer and biographer Sara Wheeler has written extensively about the polar
regions. In her most recent book O My America! she looks at the lives of women who
travelled to America at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
Mahesh Rao is a debut novelist who lives in Mysore, India. In The Smoke is Rising he
examines the contradictions of this city in a funny and poignant narrative. It is the first work
of original fiction to be published by Daunt Books.
Tracy Chevalier’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, a magnificent conjuring of seventeenthcentury Delft, firmly established her as one of our finest novelists. Her most recent book, The
Last Runaway, follows a young Quaker girl to nineteenth-century Ohio.
Barnaby Rogerson is a travel writer and historian. He runs Eland Publishing, which
specialises in keeping the classics of travel literature in print.