August Fiction Reading Group
Monday 20th August, 7.30pm
This month we are reading the stunning debut novel from one of the most exciting young novelists around. The Still Point is a beautifully written evocation of a faltering marriage intertwined with the tragic story of an ill-fated arctic explorer. It is a novel largely defined, appropriately, by the still moments, in which the action is […] See more »
Alan Lee on illustrating Tolkien
Saturday 1st September, 11.30am
The £75 event voucher is redeemable against a beautifully illustrated limited slipcase edition of The Fall of Gondolin. Alan Lee, long standing Tolkien illustrator and recipient of an Academy Award for his work on The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, will be talking about his artwork for Tolkien’s The Fall of Gondolin. Painstakingly restored from Tolkien’s manuscripts […] See more »
Donal Skehan Talk, Demo & Tastings
Monday 3rd September, 8pm
The entertaining Dublin born host of Saturday Kitchen celebrates his newest cookbook, Donal’s Meals in Minutes. The book that everyone needs to hand, this is real, honest, fast food made with simple ingredients and clever cooking methods that are the building blocks for delicious home-cooked suppers. With recipes from his Meals in Minutes TV series you […] See more »
Brilliant Debut Novelist Helen Cullen
Tuesday 4th September, 8pm
Sometimes an author is destined to become the next literary sensation, and we booksellers feel the magnitude of their incoming star power as it rumbles through the book world. Helen Cullen is such an author, and we are delighted to introduce you to her in our beautiful bookshop. Inside the Dead Letters Depot in East […] See more »
Sarah Langford on In Your Defence: Stories of Life and Law
Wednesday 5th September, 8pm
Sarah Langford is a barrister. Her job is to stand in court representing the bad, the vulnerable, the heart-broken and the hopeful. She must become their voice: weave their story around the black and white of the law and tell it to the court-room. These stories may not make headlines but they will change the lives […] See more »
Towards Understanding: A Translated Fiction Reading Group
Sunday 9th September, 7.30pm
Jenny Erpenbeck, a celebrated German author, still somehow manages to largely fly under the radar here in Britain despite her acclaim and numerous awards. Go Went Gone is her latest novel, and illustrates the extraordinary empathy that infuses her work with resounding truth, as she tackles the very relevant topic of displacement. As always, there will […] See more »
Exclusive: Sebastian Faulks Launch for Paris Echo
Tuesday 11th September, 8pm
Standard £20 place includes a copy of the book. ‘Faulks is beyond doubt a master’ Financial Times Here is Paris as you have never seen it before – a city in which every building seems to hold the echo of an unacknowledged past, the shadows of Vichy and Algeria. American postdoctoral researcher Hannah and runaway Moroccan […] See more »
Andrew Miller Book Launch for Now We Shall Be Entirely Free
Thursday 13th September, 8pm
Andrew Miller’s Pure was a stunning historical novel rightly garlanded with many prizes. His latest novel Now We Shall be Entirely Free is written in richly evocative, luminous prose, with the grip of a thriller. One rainswept winter’s night in 1809, an unconscious man is carried into a house in Somerset. He is Captain John Lacroix, home from Britain’s disastrous […] See more »
Gill Meller Talk, Demo & Tastings
Monday 17th September, 8pm
Championed by Diana Henry, Nigella and Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall, Gill Meller is the celebrated head chef at the River Cottage who brought us the award-winning, Gather. His highly anticipated new book, Time distills the essence of his approach to food and cooking – time spent in the kitchen, with good ingredients, makes for the best possible way of life. […] See more »
Kate Atkinson
Wednesday 19th September, 8pm
Join us for an evening with prizewinning author Kate Atkinson. In 1940, eighteen-year old Juliet Armstrong is reluctantly recruited into the world of espionage. Sent to an obscure department of MI5 tasked with monitoring the comings and goings of British Fascist sympathisers, she discovers the work to be by turns both tedious and terrifying. But […] See more »
Yotam Ottolenghi & Tara Wigley
Tuesday 25th September, 8pm
He’s the undisputed master of the multi-ingredient recipe, but Yotam Ottolenghi also does simple brilliantly. He is in Bath with his co-author Tara Wigley this evening to talk about and cook from the stunning new cookbook we have all been wishing for: a taste of Ottolenghi made easy. Ottolenghi Simple showcases Yotam’s standout dishes that will suit whatever […] See more »
David Jacques on Blick Mead: the Origins of Stonehenge
Friday 28th September, 8pm
Join us for a fascinating evening celebrating the publication of David Jacques’ groundbreaking research into the origins of Stonehenge. The Stonehenge landscape is one of the most famous prehistoric places in the world, but much about the purpose and origins of the stones remains a mystery and little attention has been paid to what human settlement […] See more »
Lateral Cooking with Niki Segnit Talk & Tastings
Tuesday 2nd October, 8pm
Niki Segnit is the woman behind the groundbreaking, award-winning and bestselling book on our bedsides and kitchen counters, The Flavour Thesaurus. Now, with a forward by Yotam Ottolenghi, she launches the inspiring new Lateral Cooking. One dish leads to another… Lateral Cooking is, in a sense, the `method’ companion to its bestselling predecessor, The Flavour Thesaurus – […] See more »
An Evening with Ben Macintyre
Wednesday 3rd October, 8pm
On a warm July evening in 1985, a middle-aged man stood on the pavement of a busy avenue in the heart of Moscow, holding a plastic carrier bag. In his grey suit and tie, he looked like any other Soviet citizen. The bag alone was mildly conspicuous, printed with the red logo of Safeway, the […] See more »
Launch of Tim Liardet’s New and Selected Poems
Thursday 4th October, 8pm
In Arcimboldo’s famous seventeenth-century Mannerist portraits, the sitter’s face is composed of organic matter. In subordinating a mixture of elements into an unrelated whole, imagination can transform the medium of expression itself. Tim Liardet’s Arcimboldo’s Bulldog: New and Selected Poems spans nine of his ten award-winning collections and adds new poems, fresh produce, reconfiguring his life’s work […] See more »
Ambrose Parry: Christopher Brookmyre and Marisa Haetzman with The Way of All Flesh
Monday 8th October, 8pm
Two brutal murders. Two young people determined to arrive at the truth. One thriving city, teeming with life, innovation, deceit, and death. Readers far and wide have been entranced by Chris Brookmyre’s utterly absorbing and unique crime novels for many years. Now, in collaboration with medical historian Dr Marisa Haetzman, a dazzling new series has […] See more »
Hannah Fry on How Algorithms will Define our Future and Why We Should Learn To Live With It
Tuesday 9th October, 8pm
Welcome to the age of the algorithm, the story of a not-too-distant future where machines rule supreme, making important decisions – in healthcare, transport, finance, security, what we watch, where we go even who we send to prison. So how much should we rely on them? What kind of future do we want? You are accused of a […] See more »
King Edward School 2018 Anthology Launch
Wednesday 10th October, 7.30pm
‘The images are alive, the language sings, wonderful ideas bounce off every page’ – Anna Wilson The Anthology 2018 is the sixth annual collection of poetry, short stories and art work from the talented young writers and artists of King Edward’s School, Bath. This year’s guest editor, author Anna Wilson, provided inspiration for verse themed around My […] See more »
Novelist of the Year Sally Rooney
Sunday 14th October, 8pm
Sally Rooney is a once in a generation author. She impressed everyone with her astonishing debut Conversations with Friends, which unified the opinions of critics and readers in a rare achievement of brilliance. However, second novels make or break a novelist, and Normal People is the kind of follow up that writers dream of. Assured, intelligent and tender, […] See more »
An Evening with Rosemary Shrager
Tuesday 16th October, 8pm
The inimitable Rosemary Shrager has a passion for sharing what she loves: delicious food anyone can learn to make and enjoy. She is a larger than life enthusiast, bubbling with laughter and originality, with decades of experience as a chef and cookery teacher, and knows how to make even the most nervous of cooks feel confident […] See more »
An Evening with John Simpson
Tuesday 16th October, 8pm
In John Simpson’s time with the BBC, he has reported on major events all over the world, and is one of our leading journalists with unrivalled experience in the field. From being punched in the stomach by Harold Wilson on one of his first days as a reporter, to escaping summary execution in Beirut, John […] See more »
Anna Del Conte Lunch
Friday 19th October, 1pm
Anna Del Conte is widely recognised as the doyenne of Italian cooking with a fabulous and award-winning repertoire cookbooks to her name. Classics such as Gastronomy of Italy, Classic Food of Northern Italy and her memoir, Risotto with Nettles are always firmly in stock on our cookery shelves. She was awarded the Guild of Food Writers Lifetime Achievement […] See more »
Oliver Bullough on Moneyland
Wednesday 24th October, 8pm
The investigative journalist and author of The Last Man in Russia and Let Our Fame be Great, Oliver Bullough, takes us on a journey into the universe of the lawless, stateless superrich, where third-world kleptocrats rub shoulders with terror financiers, captains of industry and western heads of state. From the ruins of Kiev to the Bond-villain lairs of Knightsbridge and Central Park, something […] See more »
Darjeeling Express with Asma Khan in Bath
Thursday 25th October, 8pm
The bold, witty, talented and unstoppable Asma Khan of the famous Darjeeling Express comes to Bath to celebrate her soulful new book, Asma’s Indian Kitchen. Following the route of the Darjeeling Express train from Bengal, through Calcutta, where she grew up, and along the foothills of the Himalayas to Hyderabad, these are authentic Indian recipes […] See more »
Peter Marshall on the Reformation
Tuesday 30th October, 8pm
Peter Marshall’s Heretics & Believers, winner of the 2018 Wolfson Prize for History, offers an all-encompassing new interpretation of the English Reformation. Marshall frames the actions of people great and small against a background of profound and often violent change. “Appearing on the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s launching of the European Reformation in Wittenberg, this is […] See more »
An Evening with Don Paterson
Wednesday 31st October, 8pm
Aphorisms have been described as ‘the obscure hinterland between poetry and prose’ (New Yorker) – short pithy statements that capture the essence of the human condition in all its shades. In The Fall at Home, master of the form Don Paterson brings the best examples from his two previous volumes together with ingenious new material relevant […] See more »
Launch of Carrie Etter’s Poetry Collection The Weather in Normal
Thursday 8th November, 8pm
The Weather in Normal explores the poet’s loss of her hometown of Normal, Illinois through her parents’ deaths, the sale of the family home, and the effects of climate change, a collection at once innovative, emotive, and deeply resonant. “Taking the temperature of memory, Etter’s deeply moving fourth collection maps family and personal history against the […] See more »
An Evening with Ian Rankin
Tuesday 13th November, 8pm
In a house of lies, who can ever know the truth? John Rebus might be retired, but he’s far from finished. In this brand new mystery from the peerless Ian Rankin, the ex-DI returns alongside series stalwart Siobhan Clarke. A missing private investigator is discovered in a locked car, deep in the woods—however, the area had […] See more »
An Evening with Prue Leith
Wednesday 14th November, 8pm
The spectacular Prue Leith has been at the top of the British food scene for many years. She has seen huge success not only as founder of the renowned Leith’s School of Food and Wine, but also as a caterer, restaurateur, teacher, TV cook, food journalist, novelist, and cookery book author. She’s also been a leading […] See more »
An Evening with Ben Aaronovitch
Wednesday 21st November, 8pm
Ben Aaronovitch has created a superbly entertaining supernatural crime series with his Rivers of London books. Rich with witty one-liners, they centre around the adventures of PC Peter Grant, Britain’s Last Wizard and member of the Met’s Economic and Specialist Crime Unit. Lies Sleeping is the long-awaited seventh book in which the Faceless Man, wanted for multiple counts of murder, […] See more »
An Evening with Jenni Murray
Monday 26th November, 8pm
In A History of the World in 21 Women, Jenni Murray celebrates great women from around the world – rescuing some from obscurity and shining a new light on familiar names. Breaking the mould in art, science, journalism and politics, each of these women fought, in her own way, for change. From Joan of Arc to […] See more »
Max Hastings on Vietnam
Tuesday 27th November, 8pm
From the best-selling author of All Hell Let Loose comes a masterful chronicle of one of the most devastating international conflicts of the 20th century and how its people were affected. Vietnam became the Western world’s most divisive conflict since the Second World War, first creating a humiliation for France in 1954, then a vastly greater one for […] See more »
Diarmaid MacCulloch on Thomas Cromwell
Friday 30th November, 8pm
Thomas Cromwell is one of the most famous – or notorious – figures in English history. Born in obscurity in Putney, he became a fixer for Cardinal Wolsey in the 1520s. After Wolsey’s fall, Henry VIII promoted Cromwell to a series of ever greater offices, and by the end of the 1530s he was effectively […] See more »
An Evening with James Runcie
Tuesday 9th April 2019, 8pm
“There is no denying the winning charm of these artfully fashioned mysteries” – The Independent. Crime fiction is a treasured genre for us here in Bath; from the gritty to the cosy, we love it all. It’s therefore an absolute delight to welcome none other than James Runcie to the bookshop to discuss Quickstep, a prequel […] See more »
James Hawes Book Launch for The Shortest History of England
Tuesday 16th April 2019, 8pm
James Hawes wrote the authoritative, and highly enjoyable bestseller The Shortest History of Germany. His brief yet rewarding book examined Germany’s place in a continent on the throes of upheaval. Garlanded with superb reviews, it is an exhilarating book to read. His highly anticipated The Shortest History of England is equally excellent. Comprehensive, yet still concise, the book […] See more »