Jonathan Dimbleby Literary Lunch
Tuesday 20th May

One of the most distinguished names in radio comes to Bath for a literary lunch. Jonathan Dimbleby has presented Any Questions for 21 years, during which time his voice has become a familiar feature in the lives of many Radio 4 listeners. The offer of an 18 week expedition across Russia for a BBC2 documentary proved too much to resist, and so with much trepidation he set off on his assignment. Come and join him at St Michael's Church in Bath to hear the story of this extraordinary journey.
At St Michael's Church (Broad Street), 12.30 lunch for 1.15pm talk. Tickets £12.50 with £12.50 off the book. Lunch with wine.

Matthew Fort
Tuesday 20th May

Travel writer and Food and Drinks Editor for the Guardian talks about his new book, Sweet Honey, Bitter Lemons: Travels in Sicily on a Vespa. Travelling round the island on his scooter, Monica, he samples exquisite antipasti in rundown villages, delicate pastries in towns that clung to the edge of vertical hillsides, and goes fishing for anchovies beneath a star-scattered sky.
At the Bookshop, 7.15 for 7.30pm. Tickets £5 with £5 off the book. Reception.

Duncan Hewitt
Thursday 22nd May

Former BBC China correspondent brings us a highly readable and fascinating look at the rapid changes China is undergoing. Getting Rich First: Life in a Changing China tells what it is like for the people on the street to live through the complete transformation of their society.
At the Bookshop, 7.15 for 7.30pm. Tickets £5 with £5 off the book. Reception.

Julian Barnes
Friday 23rd May

Acclaimed author of Flaubert's Parrot and Arthur and George has finally written a memoir. Julian Barnes comes to Bath this evening to talks to us about his family, his fear of death and his ambivalence, a disquisition on death that addresses religion, philosophy, literature, identity, memory, evolutionary biology and the nature of the universe. It is his funniest and frankest work yet. He writes about his fear and his melancholy, about his thrillingly cold-blooded older brother, his quiet, ironic father, his garrulous mother.
At the Bookshop, 7 for 7.30pm. Tickets £8 with £8 off the book. Reception.

John Barrow
Saturday 24th May

Join us for an evening of cosmic enlightenment with the renowned John Barrow as he talks about his fascinating new work, Cosmic Imagery: Key Images in the History of Science. Professor Barrow is the author of the best-selling Theories of Everything, Impossibility, and The Book of Nothing.
At the Bookshop, 7.15 for 7.30pm. Tickets £5 with £5 off the book. Reception.

Joseph O'Neill
Wednesday 28th May

A rare chance to hear New York writer, Joseph O'Neill. Netherland is to be one of the great novels of the year, a flawlessly drawn picture of a little-known New York - suspensful, artful, psychologically pitch-perfect - a sure contender for this year's Booker.
At the Bookshop, 7.15 for 7.30pm. Tickets £5 with £5 off the book. Reception.

Ferdinand Mount
Thursday 29th May

Cold Cream was Radio 4's Book of the Week and heralded as the perfect literary autobiography. Very much a memoir of rich experience and slowly gained maturity and happiness, it is a joy to read on every page. Don't miss this evening in the bookshop as the witty and anecdotal Ferdinand Mount talks about his Wiltshire childhood and his eccentric parents.
At the Bookshop, 7.15 for 7.30pm. Tickets £5 with £5 off the book. Reception.

Siri Hustvedt
Friday 30th May

A very special evening indeed for all those blown away by What I Loved, the powerful and heartbreaking epic story of two families, two sons, and two marriages. The Sorrows of an American is the long awaited multi-layered, new novel probing the mysteries of heart and mind. A compulsive, thought-provoking and profoundly affecting read that resonates long beyond the last page.
At the Bookshop, 7.15 for 7.30pm. Tickets £7 with £7 off the book. Reception.

Richard Grant
Tuesday 3rd June

Erudite & street-smart US travel writer, Richard Grant has never spent more than twenty-two consecutive nights under the same roof. In Bandit Roads he travels the dangerous length of the Sierra Madr. He was warned that he would be killed. In a remarkable piece of investigative writing, he evokes a sinister, surreal landscape of lonely mesas, canyons sometimes deeper than the Grand Canyon, hostile villages and an outlaw culture where homicide is the most common cause of death and grandmothers sell cocaine.
The Bookshop, 7.15 for 7.30pm. Tickets £5 with £5 off the book. Reception.

Paul Meyer launch
Friday 6th June

Local resident and Bath Spa University graduate Paul Meyer will read from his first novel, What Love, to celebrate its recent UK publication. What Love tells the story of a computer engineer befuddled by his family, his job, and society. What keeps him going is music - in particular the jazz compositions of Charles Mingus. Novelist Matt Thorne has written, 'Weird, funny and utterly original, What Love offers a delightfully skewed take on contemporary life'.
The Bookshop, 7.15 for 7.30pm. Tickets £5 with £5 off the book. Reception.

The Medieval Murderers
Wednesday 11th June

Join us for an evening of mayhem, murder and medieval magic. The original Medieval Murderers are Mike Jecks, Susanna Gregory, Bernard Knight and Ian Morson. More recently joined by Philip Gooden and C. J. Sansom. The Medieval Murderers span one of the most exciting periods of English history, but they also write in very different styles and about the areas which inspired them. All rely on careful plotting and detailed characterisation, but that's only a part of their story.
At the Bookshop, 7.15 for 7.30pm. Tickets £7 with £7 off the book. Reception.

John Laughland launch
Friday 13th June

Recent years have seen a swift rise in the frequency of state leaders on trial for war crimes - Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam Hussein, Charles Taylor of Liberia, Alberto Fujimori of Peru, the Rwandan leaders. Supporters of such trials say they are breaking new ground, bringing accountability to tyrants for the first time. But is this true? John Laughland looks back over at the history of trials of state leaders and finds that it is a dark and complicated story which stretches back into 17th century England. Political trials raise some of the most fundamental questions about the relationship between the state and justice. Unfortunately, they very seldom achieve their aims. Political trials, he argues, are but the continuation of war by other means.
At the Bookshop, 7.15 for 7.30pm. Tickets £5 with £5 off the book. Reception.

Isabel Fonseca
Tuesday 17th June

Author of the brilliant Bury Me Standing and wife of Martin Amis will talk and read from her first novel. Attachment is an assured, tender and provocative novel - unflinching in its depiction of desire, of the responsibility that comes with age and family. After more than twenty years of marriage, Jean and Mark revel in a sabbatical on a remote tropical island. But when Jean opens an erotically charged email intended for Mark, she realizes that she has misdiagnosed some acute pathologies in her own life. How well do we know the people we love?
At the Bookshop, 7.15 for 7.30pm. Tickets £5 with £5 off the book. Reception.

David Lodge
Wednesday 18th June

We're delighted to host an evening with one of Britain's best-loved comic writers, respected academic, leading literary critic and prize-winning novelist, David Lodge. His new novel, Deaf Sentence confirms his genius at turning small personal tragedies into the stuff of humour. Depression and deafness are the subjects he tackles in Deaf Sentence and also his faith in the healing powers of a loving marriage. Not to be missed!
At the Bookshop, 7.15 for 7.30pm. Tickets £5 with £5 off the book. Reception.

Julian Evans on Norman Lewis
Thursday 19th June

Published to mark Norman Lewis' centenary, Julian Evans' Semi-invisible Man is a fascinating view of a suburban fugitive and adventurer; an incomparable witness; a writer of unsurpassed humour, wisdom and compassion for the ridiculous. It is a biography that aims to send its readers hurrying to the books of an overlooked master. Lewis' account of south-east Asia before the Vietnam war, A Dragon Apparent, remains required reading. Voices of the Old Sea, a glimpse of Spain as before the tourists, is a classic in the literature of the Mediterranean. His memoir of wartime Naples, Naples '44, is a masterpiece. An expert at penetrating the glorious, and inglorious, surfaces of our planet, as a stylist he was a revolutionary, entirely self-taught.
At the Bookshop, 7.15 for 7.30pm. Tickets £5 with £5 off the book. Reception.

Adam Thorpe
Friday 20th June

Acclaimed novelist, playwright and poet, Adam Thorpe comes to Bath to celebrate the publication of his 8th novel The Standing Pool. Two Cambridge academics take a sabbatical with their three small girls in a remote Languedoc farmhouse. But the farmhouse has its own histories, rather more fraught than those the Mallinsons are used to dealing with on the page. Thorpe writes with linguistic élan and imaginative flair and deftly interweaves social comedy with narrative suspense, returning us to the dark and terrifying mysteries that feed at the heart of this thrilling novel.
At the Bookshop, 7.15 for 7.30pm. Tickets £5 with £5 off the book. Reception.

A Midsummer Night with Titania
Tuesday 24th June

An evening for lovers of literature, of sudoku and of magical storytelling. Titania Hardie's The Rose Labyrinth is an enthralling novel of mystery, adventure and romance that comes with cards and riddles. Before his death in 1609, the brilliant Elizabethan spy, astrologer and mathematician John Dee hid many of his papers, believing that the world was not prepared for the ideas they held. In spring 2003, Dees many times great granddaughter and final holder of the secret was forced to pass the enigmatic legacy to one of her two sons. Diana chose her passionate, tempestuous younger boy, leaving a tiny silver key with a note: For Will, when he is something, or someone, that he is not now. But Will is not the only one trying to reach the truth at the heart of the Rose Labyrinth.
At the Bookshop, 7.15 for 7.30pm. Tickets £5 with £5 off the book. Reception.

Riverford Farm Cook Book with Guy Watson
Thursday 26th June

Tales from the field and recipes from the kitchen. A must for all of you who get a wonderful fresh and seasonal Riverford box each week. Guy Watson began farming at Riverford in 1985 on three acres of land on the Watson family farm based in Staverton, South Devon. With the land fully converted to organic status in 1987, Guy began delivering his vegetables to local shops and home delivery was the next logical step. Riverford has now become one of the country's largest independent growers and this book charts the rise of Riverford and ethical eating and is a must-have guide to growing, sourcing and using the best-quality produce in delicious recipes.
At the Bookshop, 7.15 for 7.30pm. Tickets £5 with £5 off the book. Reception.

Melvyn Bragg
Thursday 3rd July

Indefatigable presenter - the face of The South Bank Show for the past 30 years - writer and novelist and the voice of Radio 4's hit In Our Time graces us with his presence in Bath this evening. Bragg's most recent, elegiac novel, Remember Me is the fourth in a series of loosely autobiographical novels. Joe Richardson leaves Cumbria to study at Oxford and falls in love with Natasha, a French art student haunted by her traumatic childhood. Joe looks back at events more than 40 years later and early in the narrative reveals that Natasha will commit suicide.
The Bookshop, 7.15 for 7.30pm. Tickets £5 with £5 off the book. Reception.

Gerald Seymour
Friday 4th July

Seymour's first novel, Harry's Game became an instant bestseller and immediately established him as one of the most cutting-edge and incisive thriller writers in the UK and around the world. Since then, his extraordinary blend of breathtaking storytelling and current events prescience have held his many readers in his spell. Timebomb is his stunning new contemporary thriller. In 1992, after being fired from a top secret nuclear facility, a top KGB man buried a nuclear suitcase. Sixteen years later he has found a buyer for it.
The Bookshop, 7.15 for 7.30pm. Tickets £5 with £5 off the book. Reception.

Simon Sebag Montefiore
Tuesday 15th July

Historian, novelist and presenter, Simon Sebag Montifiore's superb Young Stalin was chosen as Biography of the Year in the 2008. This evening he will read and talk about his new novel, Sashenka - an epic story of revolution, passion and betrayal - and one woman whose extraordinary secret lies uncovered for half a century. Beautiful and headstrong, Sashenka Zeitlin is just 18. In the evenings when her mother is partying with Rasputin and her dissolute friends, Sashenka becomes Comrade Snowfox and slips into the frozen night to play her part in a dangerous game of conspiracy and seduction.Twenty years on, and Sashenka is married to a dashing Communist leader with whom she has two children. But she is about to embark on a forbidden love affair, which will have devastating consequences.
The Bookshop, 7.15 for 7.30pm. Tickets £5 with £5 off the book. Reception.