Topping & Company Booksellers of Bath and Ely » Hugh

The Sacred and Profane Love Machine by Iris Murdoch

Hugh — Mon, 14 May 2012 19:30:42 +0000

Murdoch’s 1974 Whitbread winner is a characteristically beguiling mixture of forceful dramatic action and teasing philosophical speculation from a great novelist at the height of her powers.

Eight Months on Ghazzah Street by Hilary Mantel

Hugh — Mon, 14 May 2012 19:30:03 +0000

Eight Months on Ghazzah Street follows Frances Shore, a cartographer whose husband’s work takes her to Saudi Arabia. But when she arrives, she finds herself unable to map the Kingdom’s areas of internal darkness. The regime is corrupt and harsh, the expatriates are hard-drinking money-grubbers, and her Muslim neighbours are secretive and watchful. The streets are not a woman’s territory; confined in her flat, she finds her sense of self begin to dissolve.

Stephen May

Hugh — Sat, 12 May 2012 20:00:31 +0000

Billy Smith is a 19 year old spending his gap year working at the local museum. When his mother is murdered in a bungled street robbery it falls to him to take care of his six-year old half-brother Oscar. Under pressure from all sides – his aunt, Oscar’s father, the school authorities and social services – and increasingly, self-destructively obsessed with the whereabouts of his mother’s killer, Billy watches helplessly as his world begins to unravel. Billy’s story is one of urgency and truly compelling turns.

May is an award-winning novelist, playwright and TV writer; we’re delighted to welcome him to the bookshop.

Paul Durcan

Hugh — Thu, 03 May 2012 20:00:43 +0000

Paul Durcan is one of our most major poets. Praise in Which I Live and Move and Have My Being is his first major work for five years. Here, in over eighty poems, Durcan not only contemplates love lost and won, friends present and past, but also celebrates the birth of his grandson, praises the modest heroism of truckers, air traffic controllers and nurses – those “slim, sturdy, buxom nourishers” of mankind.

If for Sartre, “hell is other people”, for Durcan , “heaven is other people, especially women”. A consummate performer of his own poetry, Durcan’s readings are renowned and sought after. This evening will be a real treat for all lovers of poetry.

Alison Baverstock

Hugh — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 20:00:12 +0000

Join us to discover the things that all authors need to know about self-publishing.

Self-publishing is a process, not a single product, and one that many authors are engaging with already (circulating drafts of work-in-progress for feedback is a just one form). Alison Baverstock offers a detailed and thought-provoking analysis of the hottest trends in contemporary publishing, with ideas on how you can support your writing, reach an audience and achieve the satisfaction of completion: publication

In association with

Tom Holland

Hugh — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 20:00:20 +0000

With Rubicon and Persian Fire, Tom Holland established himself as one of our finest historians of the great empires of antiquity. In the Shadow of the Sword tells the story of how the ancient world came to an end and how a new power, Islam, arose.

In the 6th century AD, the Near East was divided between two great empires – Persian and Roman. A hundred years on, one had vanished forever, while the other was a dismembered bleeding trunk. A new superpower arose in their place – the empire of the Arabs. This upheaval was so profound that it spelt the end of antiquity.

But the changes were more than geo-political – religion and societies were transformed forever, creating a world today still shaped by this great convulsive age. In the Shadow of the Sword sheds light not on the dark ages of the past, but illuminates instead how the strifes and divisions of religious and geographical disputes today are not new, but a legacy of this great conflict.

Talk and Tastings with Charles Dowding

Hugh — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 20:00:38 +0000

Charles Dowding is one of our leading growers of organic vegetables; an early pioneer of vegetable boxes, he has been running organic gardening courses from his farm in Somerset, growing an extensive range of vegetables and year-round salads for local shops and restaurants. In his new book, Vegetable Course, he shares his wealth of knowledge and experience to help you grow the perfect vegetable using the best methods and techniques.

Voss by Patrick White

Hugh — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 19:30:33 +0000

Nobel Prize winner White’s most famous novel is a powerful narrative of exploration and obsession, notable for the detail of its historical reconstruction, the intensity of its psychological insight, and the vividness of its Australian landscapes.

Adam Thorpe

Hugh — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 20:00:43 +0000

Adam Thorpe is a rare breed: extremely gifted both as a novelist and as a poet. In Voluntary, his sixth collection of poems, he takes us on a wide-ranging journey through states of gain and loss, alienation and belonging. The poems explore our chances, record our traces – in the marks on skin, home movies, stone walls, the pressure of our blood, or the clearing of a dying father’s study: ‘foraging backwards’ until something is revealed, however tentative. He teases out the senses of ”voluntary”; suggests chance’s extempore music: the gleeful play of a sea-otter, the extraordinary gift of a passing gull to his small daughter, or poetry itself. This is a rare chance to hear one of our finest writers reading from his poetry.

Frances Spalding

Hugh — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 19:30:46 +0000

Renowned art historian Frances Spalding will be talking about her new book on Prunella Clough (1919-1999) – one of the best and most original artists to emerge in the second half of the twentieth century. Drawing on hitherto unpublished letters and journals, Frances explores Clough’s interest in Surrealism, Neo-Romanticism, and Abstract Expressionism, placing the artist’s exuberant industrial and abstract work within the broader context of the English art scene.