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Miranda Seymour on Jean Rhys: I Used To Live Here Once
Monday 30th May, 7.30pm
Miranda Seymour is the celebrated biographer, novelist, and author of the award-winning memoir In My Father’s House. Her many acclaimed biographies include: A Ring of Conspirators, an innovative study of Henry James; Ottoline Morrell: Life on a Grand Scale; Robert Graves: Life on the Edge; Mary Shelley; and In Byron’s Wake. Now she comes to the […] See more »
DATE CHANGE: 2021 Booker Prize Winner Damon Galgut
Monday 30th May, 7.30pm
Damon Galgut joins us to discuss his latest novel The Promise, a powerful story of a family in crisis and the book that won him the 2021 Booker Prize. Galgut has been shortlisted for the prize twice before, for The Good Doctor and In A Strange Room. The Promise centres on a farm outside Pretoria, where the […] See more »
Joanne Harris for A Narrow Door
Tuesday 31st May, 7.30pm
Joanne Harris is the author of the Whitbread-shortlisted Chocolat, made into an Oscar-nominated film starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp. She is has written an array of bestselling novels, including Lollipop Shoes, Peaches for Monsieur le Curé, and The Strawberry Thief, all also featuring Vianne Rocher. In 2013, she was awarded an MBE by the Queen. […] See more »
Sandra Newman for The Men
Wednesday 1st June, 7.30pm
Sandra Newman is the acclaimed author of the Bailey’s Prize-longlisted The Country of Ice Cream Star, The Only Good Thing Anyone Has Ever Done (shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award), and the much-loved The Heavens. We’re delighted to announce an event with Sandra in the bookshop this June to celebrate her dazzling new novel […] See more »
Laura Bates for Fix the System Not the Women
Thursday 2nd June, 7.30pm
After the astounding response to her Everyday Sexism Project, founded in 2012, Laura Bates has gone on to become the bestselling author of books including Men Who Hate Women, Misogynation, and Everyday Sexism. She joins us in Bath this June to speak about her new book Fix the System, Not the Women. In this new book, Bates considers […] See more »
Jonathan Bate on Mad About Shakespeare: From Classroom to Theatre to Emergency Room
Monday 6th June, 7.30pm
‘Many of us are mad about Shakespeare, whether as audience, actor or scholar. Jonathan Bate represents us all in his enlightening, moving report of his own personal “madness”. Reading it is an education.” – Sir Ian McKellen We are delighted to announce that the acclaimed biographer Jonathan Bate joins us for an evening in the […] See more »
Ian Rankin for The Dark Remains
Tuesday 7th June, 7.30pm
Join us for a very special evening with Ian Rankin as we celebrate the paperback publication of this extraordinary book, which brings together two of Scotland’s most esteemed crime writers. When William McIlvanney died in 2015, he left a handwritten manuscript of Laidlaw’s first case tantalisingly unfinished. Who better to add the finishing touches than […] See more »
Ella Risbridger & The Year of Miracles
Wednesday 8th June, 7.30pm
We are delighted to welcome Ella Risbridger, the author of the beautiful and award-winning Midnight Chicken cookbook, to celebrate her new book – The Year of Miracles: Recipes about Love + Grief + Growing Things. This is a cookbook. It’s also a story about a year of grief and hope and change; a year of […] See more »
An Evening with Tim Weaver for The Blackbird
Thursday 9th June, 7.30pm
Tim Weaver is the Sunday Times bestselling author of twelve thrillers, including You Were Gone and No One Home. He has been nominated for a National Book Award, twice selected for the Richard and Judy Book Club, and shortlisted for the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger. He is the host and producer of the chart-topping Missing podcast and is currently developing an original TV […] See more »
An Evening with Kate Macdonald of Handheld Press
Friday 10th June, 7.30pm
Join us to celebrate the 5th anniversary of publisher Handheld Press! The founder of Handheld Press, Kate Macdonald, will join us in the bookshop to give a talk in celebration of the fifth anniversary of the independent publisher, based here in Bath. Macdonald is a literary historian, editor, reviewer and a former lecturer in British […] See more »
Thomasina Miers and Meat-Free Mexican
Tuesday 14th June, 7.30pm
The tantalising new cookbook from Wahaca founder, Guardian Feast columnist, former Masterchef winner and Mexican food afficianado. We’re hugely happy to welcome food writer, Thomasina Miers back to Bath for a talk and demo. Heap flavour onto your plates and fill your kitchen with Tommi’s Mexican-inspired vegetarian and vegan recipes. Starting with breakfasts to savour, Tommi […] See more »
Pankaj Mishra for Run and Hide
Wednesday 15th June, 7.30pm
Pankaj Mishra’s books include The Romantics, which won the LA Times’ Art Seidenbaum Award for fiction, Age of Anger and From the Ruins of Empire. He is a regularly contributor of political and literary essays to the Guardian, the London Review of Books, the New York Review of Books and the New Yorker. Now, we […] See more »
Seirian Sumner for Endless Forms: The Secret World of Wasps
Monday 20th June, 7.30pm
Seirian Sumner is a Professor of Behavioural Ecology at University College London, where she studies the ecology and evolution of social insects. She has published over 70 papers in scientific journals, and has received numerous awards for her work, including a L’Oreal for Women in Science Award, a Points of Light Award from the UK […] See more »
An Evening of Poetry: Ruth Sharman & Stephen Payne
Tuesday 21st June, 7.30pm
Ruth Sharman is an English poet based in Bath. Her poems have appeared in a number of anthologies, national newspapers and magazines, and on Radio 4. Her new collection, Rain Tree, charts the poet’s journey as she revisits the India of her childhood, taking her from the smog-laden streets of Chennai to mountains older than the […] See more »
Dipo Faloyin for Africa Is Not A Country
Wednesday 22nd June, 7.30pm
Dipo Faloyin is a senior editor and writer at VICE, where his work has a specific focus on culture, race and identity across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. His writing has also featured in Dazed, i-D, The Huffington Post, Refinery 29, Prospect and others. He was born in Chicago, raised in Lagos and currently lives in London. He joins us to give […] See more »
Lost Pleasure Gardens & the Queen of Waters: A Walk
Sunday 26th June, 10am
Andrew Swift and Kirsten Elliott are the founders of Akeman Press and the leading historians on the city of Bath. Kirsten has always had an interest in industrial archaeology, particularly canals, but her other interests are architecture, dance, literature and the social life of the Georgian period. For over thirty years Kirsten has taken guided tours […] See more »
Ed Yong on An Immense World: How Animal Sense Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us
Tuesday 28th June, 7.30pm
Ed Yong is a science writer on the staff of The Atlantic, where he won the Pulitzer Prize in explanatory journalism for his coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic and the George Polk Award for science reporting. His first book, I Contain Multitudes, was a New York Times bestseller, exploring the amazing partnerships between microbes and animals. We’re […] See more »
Notes On Heartbreak with Vogue Dating Columnist Annie Lord
Monday 4th July, 7.30pm
Dark, fierce and raw, Notes on Heartbreak is a love story told in reverse, starting with a devastating and unexpected break-up. As Annie Lord reels from a broken heart, her stunning memoir revisits the past, from the moment she first fell in love, the shared in-jokes and intertwining of a long-term relationship, to the months that saw […] See more »
Mezcla with Ixta Belfrage
Tuesday 5th July, 7.30pm
Everyday eating with built-in wow factor – from the Ottolenghi protégé shaking up the food world. MEZCLA: Recipes to Excite by Ixta Belfrage, one of the most talked about new voices on the UK food scene. In Spanish mezcla means mix, blend or fusion and in her first solo cookbook, Ixta shares 100 bold, impactful […] See more »
Fiction in Translation: Chinatown with Thuận and translator Nguyễn An Lý
Thursday 7th July, 7.30pm
Born under the bombs that the US let fall on the North of Vietnam, Thuận grew up first in Hanoi, then Saigon, where she studied Vietnamese literature at school and read Hugo, Balzac and Flaubert at home. Soviet Russia took her in as an 18-year-old and gave her five years of college education, but it was only […] See more »
Anna Hoghton for Orla and the Wild Hunt
Friday 8th July, 7.30pm
Orla and the Wild Hunt is the stunningly original adventure from the acclaimed author of The Mask of Aribella (and former Topping & Company Bath bookseller!), Anna Hoghton. Join us and Anna in the bookshop to celebrate the launch of her new children’s book, following two siblings in a quest to overcome their grief and […] See more »
Gill Hornby for Godmersham Park
Tuesday 12th July, 7.30pm
‘Masterly. A brilliant piece of storytelling with all the deft touches and shading of Austen’s novels’ – Helena Kelly, author of Jane Austen, The Secret Radical. From the author of the Sunday Times bestselling Miss Austen, comes a wonderfully original, emotionally complex novel. Set in 1804 the novel follows Anne Sharp, a governess who became […] See more »
Turkish-Cypriot comfort food: Meliz Berg
Wednesday 13th July, 7.30pm
Meliz Berg is a self-taught cook, recipe developer and food content creator. Inspired by her Turkish-Cypriot heritage, and experience of growing up in a household that combined both traditional Cypriot and London living, she created the blog and instagram page @MelizCooks. Meliz Cooks is loved for its easy-to-follow recipes, addictive combinations of flavours and spices, […] See more »
Olia Hercules: Ukrainian Food Writer & Activist
Tuesday 19th July, 7.30pm
One of our favourite story-telling food writers returns to the bookshop to introduce and cook from her new book, Home Food: Recipes to Comfort and Connect. Olia Hercules has become a fierce and passionate activist since the war on Ukraine began and has set up the global movement #cookforukraine. Her wonderful cookbooks, Mamushka. Kaukasis and […] See more »
The Pig: 500 Miles of Food, Friends & Local Legends
Thursday 21st July, 7.30pm
An evening with a cookery demo and tastings to celebrate the second book from THE PIG, the multi-award-winning hotel group that has become a byword for delicious, home-grown food and stylish, mismatched interiors. James Golding, The Pig’s Group Chef Director will cook a couple of delicious recipes from The Pig. Following the success of their […] See more »
Juno Dawson for Her Majesty’s Royal Coven
Friday 22nd July, 7.30pm
Juno Dawson is a bestselling novelist, screenwriter, journalist, and a columnist for Attitude Magazine. Juno’s books include the global bestsellers, This Book Is Gay, Clean, and the 2020 YA Book Prize winning Meat Market. An occasional actress and model, Juno appeared in the BBC’s I May Destroy You (2020) and Holby City (2021) and was […] See more »
Country Walks from Bath: A Walk with Akeman Press
Sunday 24th July, 10am
Andrew Swift and Kirsten Elliott are the founders of Akeman Press and the leading historians on the city of Bath. Bath is a city surrounded by countryside of extraordinary beauty and diversity – much of it little changed since the city’s 18th-century heyday. The fourteen walks in their book, Country Walks from Bath, all start […] See more »
Persiana Everyday with Sabrina Ghayour
Thursday 4th August, 7.30pm
We’re really looking forward to welcoming the golden girl of Persian cookery back to Bath. Sabrina Ghayour, author of the award-winning, Sunday Times bestselling cookbook Persiana brings us her all-new collection, Persiana Everyday. Packed full of insanely flavourful easy dishes – including no-cook, quick-prep, quick-cook and one-pot dishes, Persiana Everyday is just what we all need in […] See more »
Tsitsi Dangarembga for Black and Female
Thursday 1st September, 7.30pm
Tsitsi Dangarembga is the internationally acclaimed author of three novels: Nervous Conditions, winner of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize; This Mournable Body, shortlisted for the Booker Prize and The Book of Not. She won the PEN Pinter Prize in 2021 and the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. Dangarembga is also a filmmaker, playwright, and […] See more »
Africana Food with Lerato Umah-Shaylor, Demo & tastings
Thursday 8th September, 7.30pm
Africana is a celebration of modern African cookery, a love letter to a rich heritage and an enduring people. Combining recipes passed down the generations with her own modern and inventive style, food writer and cook Lerato shares her own stories of Africa with a sense of adventure. Discover iconic dishes from Nigeria to Madagascar, Morocco […] See more »
Ian McEwan for Lessons
Sunday 11th September, 5pm
Ian McEwan is recognised by many to be one of the finest writers alive today, and has been described by the Sunday Times as the “supreme novelist of his generation.” He won the Booker prize for his masterpiece Amsterdam in 1998, and four of his books – Atonement, Enduring Love, The Children Act, On Chesil […] See more »
Chris Patten for The Hong Kong Diaries
Tuesday 13th September, 7.30pm
Once described by the Observer as Chris Patten ‘the best Tory Prime Minister we never had,’ Patten is currently Chancellor of Oxford University. When MP for Bath (1979-92) he served as Minister for Overseas Development, Secretary of State for the Environment and Chairman of the Conservative Party. He was Governor of Hong Kong from 1992 […] See more »
Kit de Waal for Without Warning & Only Sometimes
Wednesday 14th September, 7.30pm
Kit de Waal is the author of the novels MY NAME IS LEON, which was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award and won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year, and THE TRICK TO TIME, which was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and a short story collection, SUPPORTING CAST. She joins […] See more »
Gaia Vince on Nomad Century
Thursday 15th September, 7.30pm
Gaia Vince is one of the most respected environmental commentators of our age. In 2015, she became the first woman to win the Royal Society Science Book of the Year Prize solo for her debut, Adventures in the Anthropocene. She has held senior editorial posts at Nature and New Scientist, and her writing has appeared in the Guardian, The Times and Scientific […] See more »
Ben Macintyre for Colditz: Prisoners of the Castle
Monday 19th September, 7.30pm
Ben Macintyre is the bestselling historian and author of books such as Agent Sonya, The Spy and the Traitor, Agent Zigzag, Operation Mincemeat and A Spy Among Friends. He is a columnist and Associate Editor at The Times, and has worked as the newspaper’s correspondent in New York, Paris and Washington. Just this year, two of his books have been adapted […] See more »
Slightly Foxed Autumn Issue Launch
Tuesday 20th September, 6.30pm
A Slightly Foxed Celebration We are delighted to host the launch party for the Autumn Issue of the beloved Slightly Foxed literary quarterly here in the bookshop. A unique and beautifully appealing little literary magazine, Slightly Foxed has been delighting readers for 18 years with its sublime list of books that you never knew you […] See more »
An Evening with Tom Kerridge
Wednesday 21st September, 7.30pm
One of our best loved, down-to-earth, high profile chefs Tom Kerridge is back in Bath this evening with a brand new book, Real Life Recipes. From Monday lunch to Sunday lunch, fantastic food with no stress Michelin-star chef Tom Kerridge is here to make your lunch, tea and weekends taste like you want them to, […] See more »
An Evening with Maggie O’Farrell for The Marriage Portrait
Friday 23rd September, 7.30pm
Maggie O’Farrell is the author of Hamnet, Winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2020, and the memoir I Am I Am I Am, both Sunday Times no. 1 bestsellers. Her previous novels include This Must Be The Place, The Distance Between Us which won a Somerset Maugham Award and The Hand That First Held […] See more »
Raynor Winn for Landlines
Friday 23rd September, 7.30pm
Raynor Winn’s first book, The Salt Path, detailed her and her husband Moth’s experience of walking the South West Coastal Path following Moth’s traumatic medical diagnosis and their subsequent homelessness. Since then, they have become regular long-distance walkers and Winn’s books on nature, homelessness and wild camping – The Salt Path and The Wild Silence […] See more »
English Wine Tasting with Oz Clark
Thursday 29th September, 7.30pm
Join us for a special evening of English Wine tasting in the bookshop with the indomitable Oz Clarke – a long time champion of English Wines – as we celebrate the fully revised and updated English Wine. The modern view of English wine is of a country amazingly blessed with vast tracts of soil suitable […] See more »
4 BROWN GIRLS WHO WRITE
Wednesday 5th October, 7.30pm
4 BROWN GIRLS WHO WRITE are a poetry collective and sisterhood made up of Roshni Goyate, Sharan Hunjan, Sheena Patel and Sunnah Khan. The collective was born on the waters of the Thames in 2017 where Sheena gathered friends on a boat to share in creativity and vulnerability. The four found resonance in each other’s […] See more »
Alexander McCall Smith for A Song of Comfortable Chairs
Tuesday 11th October, 7.30pm
Alexander McCall Smith is the author of over one hundred books on a wide array of subjects, including the award-winning The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series. He is also the author of the Isabel Dalhousie novels and the world’s longest-running serial novel, 44 Scotland Street. His books have been translated into forty-six languages and he […] See more »
Melvyn Bragg for Back In The Day
Monday 17th October, 7pm
Melvyn Bragg joins us for an evening at the Bath Abbey for his first ever memoir – an elegiac, intimate account of growing up in post-war Cumbria, which lyrically evokes a vanished world. In Back In The Day, Melvyn Bragg recalls growing up in the Cumbrian market town of Wigton, from his early childhood during […] See more »
Colin Thubron on The Amur River: Between Russia and China
Tuesday 18th October, 7.30pm
Colin Thubron is an acknowledged master of travel writing, considered by many to be one of the greatest travel writers alive today. His first writing was about the Middle East – Damascus, Lebanon and Cyprus. In 1982 he travelled into the Soviet Union in an ancient Morris Marina, pursued by the KGB, a journey he […] See more »
Max Hastings on Abyss: The Cuban Missile Crisis 1962
Wednesday 19th October, 7.30pm
On the week of the 60th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis, the brilliant historian and journalist Max Hastings joins us to discuss his new book Abyss, an exploration of period in which the world came the closest it has ever to nuclear war. On 14 October 1962 the US and the USSR clashed when […] See more »
Guy Shrubsole on The Lost Rainforests of Britain
Thursday 17th November, 7.30pm
Guy Shrubsole, formerly a campaigner and an investigator for Friends of the Earth, has written widely for publications including the Guardian and New Statesman. His previous book, Who Owns England?, was an instant Sunday Times bestseller. Described by Robert Macfarlane as “a formidable, brave and important book,” it exposed the history of how England’s elite […] See more »