London Literary Events - July
Discover exciting literary events to add to you calendar this July.
London is bursting with incredible literary events. Here are some of the highlights which you should add to your calendar for July.
Like what you see? Help me keep creating bookish content by treating me to a coffee. You’ll get really good karma 😉😘
Abigail Bergstrom in Conversation with Stevie Martin
Thursday 10th July 2025
20:30 at Foyles Charing Cross road
The author of 'What a Shame' comes to Foyles for the launch of her darkly humorous and deeply resonant new novel about family and trauma, 'Selfish Girls', with comedian Stevie Martin.
Ines is reluctantly moving home on the edge of a breakdown, her childhood sweetheart in tow. Gwen is elated that her prodigal daughter has returned. Dylan is still licking her wounds from a rejection she can't forget. And Emma is quietly suffocating in the perfect marriage she wanted so badly. They were inseparable once, and now they are back in the Welsh town where they grew up. Uninhibited, claustrophobic and emotionally complex, Selfish Girls is a generations-spanning, unexpected love story.
Abigail Bergstrom has has written for ELLE, Sunday Times Style, the Telegraph, Grazia and Refinery29, among many others. Her debut novel What a Shame was published to critical acclaim and the screen rights were optioned by Severn Productions. She has been listed in the ‘The Bookseller 150’ which names the industry’s most influential figures, and she sits on the advisory board for Cheltenham Literature festival.
Book your tickets for Abigail Bergstrom in Conversation with Stevie Martin here.
Let the Bad Times Roll: An Evening with Alice Slater in Conversation
Thursday 10th July 2025
18:30 at Waterstones, London - Gower Street
The wonderful Alice Slater in conversation with author Eliza Clark, as we celebrate the launch of Slater's latest thriller.
From the writer of the Sunday Times Bestseller Death of a Bookseller, comes a darkly brilliant new thriller, Let the Bad Times Roll.
New Orleans: Then.
Alone in New Orleans, Selina is struggling to fit in. When a charismatic stranger invites her for a drink, she's grateful for the company - but as their friendship grows, she can't help but sense a darkness within her new friend. Who is Daniel, and what does he want from her?
London: Now.
Daniel is missing. No one has seen or heard from him in weeks. Beside herself with worry, his sister Caroline hosts an intimate gathering in her beautiful North London home so those closest to Daniel can come together and compare notes.But all isn't quite as it seems: Caroline has invited a stranger to the table, an accomplished psychic who claims to have met Daniel four thousand miles away in New Orleans.
As evening turns to night, the dark truth of what really happened in New Orleans begins to emerge...
Book your tickets for Let the Bad Times Roll: An Evening with Alice Slater in Conversation here.
Grace Curtis, Oliver Darkshire and Sylvie Cathrall in conversation
Tuesday 15th July 2025
18:00 at Waterstones, London - Covent Garden
Join Grace Curtis, Oliver Darkshire and Sylvie Cathrall as they discuss cosy fantasy!
Grace Curtis is a writer from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, and worksfor Future Friends, an indie game publisher. She is the author of Frontier and Floating Hotel.When she’s not dreaming up pulpy sci-fi and epic fantasy stories, Grace writes about video games, with work appearing in publications including Eurogamer and Edge Magazine.
Oliver Darkshire is trying very hard not to think about his life choices, or how he got here. He lives in Manchester with his husband, and once a week they sit down to figure out how they will fit another bookcase into his study without blocking the door.
Sylvie Cathrall writes stories of hope and healing with healthy doses of wonder and whimsy. She holds a graduate degree in odd Victorian art and has handled more than a few nineteenth-century letters (with great care). Sylvie married her former pen pal and lives in the mountains, where she dresses impractically and dreams of the sea.
Book your tickets for Grace Curtis, Oliver Darkshire and Sylvie Cathrall in conversation here
Mark Watson in conversation at Waterstones Piccadilly
Tuesday 15th July 2025
18:30 at Waterstones, London - Picadilly
Award-winning writer and comedian Mark Watson to discuss his deliciously entertaining new novel One Minute Away with bestselling author Bobby Palmer.
For delivery rider Damir, time is money. He races through cycle lanes next to Uber drivers and grocery vans, delivering your every desire. But one summer’s evening, in a postcode that could be another universe, Damir arrives on Decca’s doorstep with a bag of spilled edamame beans, and a throwaway delivery sparks a chain of events that will change all their lives.
Mark Watson is the acclaimed author of eight books, most recently Contacts, The Place that Didn't Exist, andHotel Alpha which have been published in twelve languages. He is also a stand-up comedian and has won numerous awards in Britain and Australia. He regularly appears on TV, has had his own cult Radio 4 series and been named the Edinburgh Festival’s highest achiever of the decade by The Times. He lives in North London.
Mark Watson will be in conversation with Bobby Palmer, author and journalist. His critically acclaimed debut novel Isaac and the Egg was published in 2022 and was a Waterstones Paperback of the Year. His second novel Small Hours was published last year.
Book your tickets for Mark Watson in conversation at Waterstones Piccadilly here.
Ramping Up Rights: Rachel Charlton-Dailey in conversation with Tazmyn-Mei Gebbett
Tuesday 15th July 2025
19:00 at Waterstones, London - Trafalgar Square
Celebrate the release of 'Ramping Up Rights' to open up a discussion on the fascinating journey through disability activism and the urgent necessity for education and protest!
A 100-year history of enraging injustices and inspiring campaigns: the fight for British disability rights isn't over.
From the 'crippled suffragette', to '80s punks chaining themselves to buses, to campaigners taking a stand online, this book celebrates the amazing activists and protest actions behind the UK's long battle for disabled people's rights to live.
Rachel Charlton-Dailey highlights a shockingly overlooked tradition of disabled struggle. She unpacks how British attitudes and policy went so wrong in the twenty-first century, and interviews campaigners and disabled people about how they have reclaimed power, from resisting government reforms to changing the media narrative. She explores live frontiers in the push for civil rights--from the scandalous inaccessibility of our education and transport systems, to the existential debates about genetic screening and 'the right to die'.
In this powerful book, honouring past disability activism becomes a call to action. Charlton-Dailey shows readers how hard, and how often, disabled people and their allies have fought, and won. She gives them the energy to keep fighting back.
Book your tickets for Ramping Up Rights: Rachel Charlton-Dailey in conversation with Tazmyn-Mei Gebbett here.
Unveiling the Heroines of the Ancient World
Wednesday 16th July 2025
19:30 at Hatchards Picadilly
Jane Draycott is the author of Fulvia: The Woman Who Broke All the Rules in Ancient Rome
Using original sources to piece together Fulvia's life and sort fact from fiction, historian Jane Draycott also explores the role of women more generally as Rome transitioned from a republic to the dictatorship of the Roman Empire. A fascinating take on an endlessly popular period of history.
Kaarina Parker is the author of Fulvia
The daughter of a wealthy but unimportant Roman family, Fulvia longs for a life of intrigue and influence. When her father dies, she makes her way to the city of Rome. Marrying the aristocratic Clodius, she is drawn into a world of debauchery – but her ambition steers them towards politics, and power.
Natasha Solomons is the author of Cleopatra
Cleopatra, Egyptian Princess and favoured daughter of the Pharoah, grows up amongst the scrolls in the great library of Alexandria, longing for the chance one day to write her own story. Years later, when the great Caesar arrives from Rome, she realises he could be the key to her salvation…
It promises to be a fascinating evening! Do come along if you are able.
Book your tickets for Unveiling the Heroines of the Ancient World here.
An Evening with Holly Jackson
Wednesday 16th July 2025
19:00 at St. James's Church
Celebrate the paperback publication of her Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize shortlisted novel, The Ministry of Time. Revolving around the titular establishment set up to bring expatriates from the past to near-future London, this extraordinarily assured debut blends love story, time-travelling tale and state-of-the-nation commentary to terrifyingly clever and ferociously funny effect.
Kaliane Bradley is a British-Cambodian writer and editor based in London. Her short stories have appeared in Electric Literature, Catapult, Somesuch Stories and The Willowherb Review,among others. She was the winner of the 2022 Harper’s Bazaar Short Story Prize and the 2022 V. S. Pritchett Short Story Prize. Her debut novel, The Ministry of Time, was an instant Sunday Timesand New York Timesbestseller and a global sensation. It was chosen as one of the Observer‘s ‘Best Debut Novels of 2024’ and was aBarack Obama summer pick; it was shortlisted for the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize, a Books Are My Bag award, the Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction and the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Award, and most recently, the Women's Prize for Fiction 2025.
Daisy Johnson was born in 1990. Her debut short-story collection,Fen, was published in 2016. In 2018 she became the youngest author ever to be shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize with her debut novelEverything Under. She is the winner of the Harper’s Bazaar Short Story Prize, A. M. Heath Prize and Edge Hill Short Story Prize. Her debut play,Viola’s Room, was produced in 2024 by the immersive theatre company Punchdrunk. She currently lives in Oxford by the river.
Book your tickets for An Evening with Holly Jackson here.
Irvine Welsh: Men in Love
Sunday 20th July 2025
19:30 at Foyles, Queen Elizabeth Hall - Southbank Centre.
The author talks to Miranda Sawyer about his new novel, which takes the Trainspotting crew on a riotous journey through Edinburgh, London, Amsterdam and Paris.
There wasn’t an album they wouldn’t buy, or a drug they wouldn’t try. Then they were left with nothing. Nothing but the eternal quest of all men: the search for love.
Opening in the late 1980s as rave culture is born and moving into the 1990s, Men in Love sees Renton, Spud, Sick Boy and Begbie leave heroin behind and seek joy, and the hope of redemption, on the dance floor and at an unexpected event: Sick Boy’s wedding day. But is falling in love the answer, or just another doomed quest?
Irvine Welsh’s first novel, Trainspotting, has sold over one million copies in the UK and was adapted into an era-defining film. He has written 13 further novels, four books of shorter fiction and numerous plays and screenplays. He currently lives between London, Edinburgh and Miami.
Book your tickets for Irvine Welsh: Men in Love here.
Asako Yuzuki and Polly Barton in conversation at Waterstones Piccadilly
Monday 21st July 2025
18:30 at Waterstones, London - Picadilly
Award-winning Japanese novelist Asako Yuzuki and translator Polly Barton to Waterstones Piccadilly to celebrate their internationally bestselling phenomenon, Butter. Teeming with searing insights into sexism, obsession and pleasure, this glorious Japanese cult classic revolves around a famed female chef convicted as the serial killer of lonely businessmen and a story-hungry young journalist who wishes to learn the secrets of gourmet cooking from her.
Asako Yuzuki was born in Tokyo in 1981. She won the All Yomimono Award for New Writers for her story, Forget Me, Not Blue, which appeared in her debut, Shuuten No Anoko, published in 2010. She won the Yamamoto Shūgorō Award in 2015 for Nile Perch No Joshikai. She has been nominated multiple times for the Naoko Prize, and her novels have been adapted for television, radio and film. Butterwon Waterstones Book of the Year 2024, the Books Are My Bag Breakthrough Author Award 2024, and debut of the year at the British Book Awards 2025. It is shortlisted for the CWA Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger Award 2025.
Polly Barton is a writer and Japanese literary translator. Her translations include Butter by Asako Yuzuki, Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa, Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda, and There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job by Kikuko Tsumura. She has published two works of non-fiction, Fifty Sounds, for which she won the 2019 Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize, and Porn: An Oral History. What Am I, A Deer?, her debut novel, was published in April 2026.
Book your tickets for Asako Yuzuki and Polly Barton in conversation at Waterstones Piccadilly here.
Gabriella Buba and M. H. Ayinde in conversation with A.Y. Chao
Tuesday 22nd July 2025
18:00 at Waterstones - Covent Garden
Join Gabriella Buba, M. H. Ayinde and A. Y. Chao as they discuss myths, magic and revolution!
Gabriella Buba is a mixed Filipina-Czech author and chemical engineer based in Texas who likes to keep explosive pyrophoric materials safely contained in pressure vessels or between the covers of her books. She writes adult romantic fantasy for bold, bi, brown women who deserve to see their stories centered. Her debut SAINTS OF STORM AND SORROW is a filipino-inspired epic fantasy out with Titan Books. DAUGHTERS OF FLOOD AND FURY comes out July 22, 2025
M. H. Ayinde was born in London's East End. Her short fiction has been published in FIYAH Literary Magazine, Omenana, Beneath Ceaseless Skies and elsewhere, and she was the 2021 winner of the Future Worlds Prize. She is a runner, a lapsed martial artist and a screen time enthusiast. Modupe lives in London with three generations of her family and their Studio Ghibli obsession.
Alice Chao is a Chinese Canadian author of fantasy. She's fascinated by the interplay between self-perceived versus imposed identity and how this intersects with belonging and enjoys exploring these spaces in her stories. A recovering lawyer and xiaolongbao enthusiast, she knits to soothe anxiety and has a deep abiding love for Hobonichi planners and kawaii planner stickers. She is grateful for the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.
Book your tickets for Gabriella Buba and M. H. Ayinde in conversation with A.Y. Chao here.
An Evening with Gurnaik Johal
Friday 25th July 2025
19:00 at Waterstones, London - Streatham
An evening with Gurnaik Johal in conversation with Hannah Hutchings-Georgiou to celebrate the release of his debut novel Saraswati.
As a holy river returns, seven lives change course in this masterpiece debut for fans of David Mitchell, Zadie Smith and Eleanor Catton.
Centuries ago, the holy river Saraswati flowed through what is now Punjab. Many dismiss this as myth, but when Satnam arrives in his ancestral village for his grandmother's funeral, he finds water in the dried-up well behind her house. The discovery sets in motion a contentious scheme to unearth the lost river as an act of Hindu nationalist pride.
The river changes the course of Satnam's life, and those of six others. As legends and histories resurface, the distant relatives - from a Canadian eco-saboteur to a Mauritian pest exterminator to a Bollywood stunt double - are brought together in a rapidly changing India. Ambitious, moving and brimming with folklore, Saraswati is a tour de force from one of Britain's most feted young writers.
Book your tickets for An Evening with Gurnaik Johal here.
Moomin 80th Anniversary Tea Party
Wednesday 30th July 2025
16:30 at Waterstones, London - Kensington
Celebrate the 80th Anniversary of Tove Jansson's beloved characters: The Moomins! Join us for a tea party where we will have activites, refreshments, goodies, and a short reading from one of the Moomin books!
An evening with Philip Pullman to celebrate 30 Years of Northern Lights
Thursday 31st July 2025
19:30 at The Royal Geographic Society
We’re delighted to be joined by Philip Pullman at the Royal Geographical Society, London for a unique anniversary event to celebrate 30 years of his acclaimed Northern Lights. Join us for an unmissable conversation, in which Philip Pullman will discuss Northern Lights and the His Dark Materials trilogy with his long-time editor and publisher David Fickling in an event chaired by Jane Tranter, CEO of Bad Wolf who produced the acclaimed BBC & HBO His Dark Materials TV series. In the event you will receive never-before-seen insight into the beloved books and the author. Attendees will also have an opportunity to submit their questions in advance.
Attendees will also have an opportunity to submit their questions in advance.
On 9th July 1995, Northern Lights was published, and the world was introduced to the breath-taking world of His Dark Materials. Ever since, generations of readers have been transported by Lyra Belacqua and her extraordinary destiny. Acclaimed as a modern masterpiece, Northern Lights won a multitude of awards and became a global bestseller, followed by The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass. The original trilogy was followed by The Book of Dust trilogy; The final volume, The Rose Field will be published in October 2025.
Book your tickets for An evening with Philip Pullman to celebrate 30 Years of Northern Lights here.
Like what you see? Help me keep creating bookish content by treating me to a coffee. You’ll get really good karma 😉😘