Kate Clanchy
Wednesday 24th April, 7.30pm
*Please note the change of venue. The event will now take place at the Topping and Company bookshop.* Kate Clanchy has taught in state schools for nearly thirty years. Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me is an extraordinary memoir, detailing a life’s work spent teaching in a national institution. This book is made up of stories; […] See more »
Ali Smith
Friday 26th April, 7.30pm
From the bestselling author of Autumn and Winter, as well as the Baileys Prize-winning How to be Both, comes the next instalment in the remarkable, once-in-a-generation masterpiece, the Seasonal Quartet. What unites Katherine Mansfield, Charlie Chaplin, Shakespeare, Rilke, Beethoven, Brexit, the present, the past, the north, the south, the east, the west, a man mourning […] See more »
Chris Brookmyre
Monday 29th April, 7.30pm
To new nanny Amanda, the Temple family seem to have it all: the former actress; the famous professor; their three successful grown-up children. But like any family, beneath the smiles and hugs there lurks far darker emotions. Sixteen years earlier, little Niamh Temple died while they were on holiday in Portugal. Now, as Amanda joins the […] See more »
Damian Barr
Wednesday 1st May, 7.30pm
Damian Barr is a journalist, writer and host of his own Literary Salon. His memoir of surviving small-town Scotland in the Thatcher years, Maggie and Me, was published in 2013 to great acclaim; now he turns his hand to fiction for the first time. His debut novel, You Will Be Safe Here, explores legacies of abuse, redemption […] See more »
Erin Kelly
Thursday 9th May, 7.30pm
From Erin Kelly, best-selling author of He Said/She Said comes the gripping new suspense novel Stone Mothers. ‘Marianne grew up in the shadow of the Stone Mother, the old asylum which still haunts her dreams. She was seventeen when she fled the town, her family, her boyfriend Jesse and the body they buried. Now, forced to […] See more »
Adam Henson
Wednesday 15th May, 7.30pm
Born on the farm he now works, Adam Henson has successfully combined a life in farming with a career as a television presenter, fronting BBC’s flagship rural affairs programme, Countryfile . In A Breed Apart, Adam takes readers on a very personal journey around the nation, discovering the animals that have shaped our lives and our land throughout […] See more »
Natalie Haynes
Thursday 23rd May, 7.30pm
Broadcaster, comedian and writer Natalie Haynes is the author of both fiction and non-fiction books which draw upon her expertise as a classicist.In A Thousand Ships, Natalie retells the story of the Trojan War from an all-female perspective. In the middle of the night, Creusa wakes to find her beloved Troy engulfed in flames. Ten […] See more »
Victoria Hislop
Wednesday 29th May, 7.30pm
Athens 1941. After decades of political uncertainty, Greece is polarised between left and right when the Germans invade. Fifteen-year-old Themis comes from a family divided by these political differences, differences deepened by the German invasion. She watches friends die in the ensuing famine and is moved to commit acts of resistance. In the civil war that follows, […] See more »
Markus Zusak
Wednesday 5th June, 7.30pm
The long anticipated new novel from the author of The Book Thief is finally here. The five Dunbar brothers are living in the perfect squalor of a house without grown-ups. Today, the father who abandoned them is about to walk back in. But why has he returned, and who have the boys become since he left? At the helm […] See more »
Professor Steve Jones
Wednesday 12th June, 7.30pm
Professor Steve Jones is a regular broadcaster and writer of books on scientific issues as well as other radio and TV programmes, such as Today, Question Time and Newsnight. His many books include Genetics for Beginners, The Language of the Genes, In the Blood, and Almost like a Whale. In Here Comes the Sun, Steve Jones explores the dependency of all life and […] See more »
A Debut Novel from Claire McGlasson
Tuesday 18th June, 7.30pm
ITV News Anglia journalist Claire McGlasson has produced an extraordinary debut novel, The Rapture which heralds the arrival of a brilliant new voice in fiction. Dilys is a devoted member of a terribly English cult: The Panacea Society, populated almost entirely by virtuous single ladies. When she strikes up a friendship with Grace, a new […] See more »
Robert Macfarlane
Wednesday 3rd July, 7.30pm
In Underland, Robert Macfarlane, the great nature writer of his generation, takes us on a journey into the worlds beneath our feet. From the ice-blue depths of Greenland’s glaciers, to the underground networks by which trees communicate, from Bronze Age burial chambers to the rock art of remote Arctic sea-caves, this is a deep-time voyage into […] See more »
Jose Pizarro
Wednesday 17th July, 7.30pm
Our leading Spanish chef, José Pizarro appears on BBC’s Saturday Kitchen and Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch and has an award-winning collection of restaurants in London. His gorgeous new cookbook focuses on the mouth-watering dishes from the Andalusia region of southern Spain. Join us for a glass of wine and learn how to cook this wonderful […] See more »
Francis Pryor on Fenland
Wednesday 24th July, 7.30pm
Francis Pryor, Time Team’s distinguished archaeologist, has lived in, excavated, farmed and walked the Fen Country for more than four decades. In Fenland: The Silt and the Black, a journey spanning history, archaeology and personal recollection, Francis reveals his great love for this most mysterious of English landscapes. The Fens are often regarded as a neglected […] See more »
Christopher Somerville
Tuesday 27th August, 7.30pm
Please note: the date for this evening has changed. When Christopher Somerville set out to explore Britain’s cathedrals, he found his fixed ideas shaken to the roots. Starting out, he pictured cathedrals – Britain possesses over one hundred – as great unmoving bastions of tradition. But as he journeys among favourites old and new, he discovers buildings and communities […] See more »
Herman Melville Study Weekend
Saturday 14th September, 11am
Moby-Dick is widely regarded as one of the very greatest and most original novels ever written. Yet many are put off by the length, strangeness and seeming difficulty of Herman Melville’s masterwork and remain unaware of the range and fascination of his other writings. In fact, Moby-Dick is the central pinnacle of a substantial, varied […] See more »
Jim Al-Khalili
Wednesday 2nd October, 6.30pm
From renowned theoretical physicist, broadcaster and author Jim Al-Khalili, comes this thrilling debut novel drawing on cutting-edge science and set in a near-future full of dazzling technologies. 2041 and the world as we know it grinds to a halt. Our planet seems to be turning against itself – it would appear that the magnetic field, […] See more »