London Literary Events - October
Discover exciting literary events to add to you calendar this October
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London is bursting with incredible literary events. Here are some of the highlights which you should add to your calendar for October.
Celebrating Ex-Wife: Monica Heisey and Sheena Patel on Writing Relationships and Breakups
Thursday 3rd October 2024
18:30 - 20:00 at Waterstones, Gower Street, London
Join us for an evening to celebrate the Faber Editions publication of Ursula Parrott's Ex-Wife, with Monica Heisey and Sheena Patel discussing the book, writing relationships and breakups.
This summer, Ursuala Parrott's lost classic Ex-Wife has been brought back into print, joining the Faber Editions collection and featuring a new introduction by Monica Heisey. Join us for an evening with Monica Heisey (Really Good, Actually), who will be joined by Sheena Patel (I'm A Fan) to discuss the book and, touching on their own books, what it means to write relationships and breakups.
Ex-Wife, Ursula Parrott:
It feels remarkable to be a deserted wife when one is only twenty-four.
New York, 1924. Patricia and Peter are a thoroughly modern married couple. Both drink. Both smoke. Both work. Both believe in ‘Love-Outside-Marriage’. Until they don’t. Or, really, until he doesn’t. So when Peter pushes for divorce with increasing violence, Patricia has to forge a new life as a single woman: as an ex-wife.
A sensational bestseller in 1929, yet utterly timeless, Ex-Wife plunges us into the ‘era of the one-night stand’. It evokes not only the Manhattan bars, fashion advertising offices, female friendships and all-night parties of a dazzling city, but the hollow affairs, emotional hangovers, backstreet abortions, and struggles for sexual freedoms amidst the moral double standards of a patriarchal world.
Book your tickets for Celebrating Ex-Wife: Monica Heisey and Sheena Patel on Writing Relationships and Breakups here.
Lynne Tillman in Conversation with Andrew Durbin
Monday 7th October 2024
Monday, October 7 · 7 - 8:30pm BST
19:00 - 20:30 at Foyles, Charing Cross Road
The legendary Lynne Tillman returns to Foyles for a discussion about her masterful novel, American Genius, A Comedy, with frieze editor Andrew Durbin.
Resident in what may be an artist’s retreat or a psychiatric hospital, Tillman’s narrator interweaves tales of her life with ruminations on her varied and eccentric preoccupations – from the Manson family to the Zulu alphabet – all written in Tillman’s characteristically beguiling and intelligent prose. A tale of a fascinating consciousness and a study in the revelations and the limits of imagination, American Genius, A Comedy, available in the UK for the first time, is Tillman’s hypnotic and compelling modernist masterpiece.
Book your tickets for Lynne Tillman In Conversation with Andrew Durbin here.
Sky Full of Elephants: Cebo Campbell in Conversation
Tuesday 8th October 2024
18:30 - 20:00 at Waterstones, Gower Street, London
Join for an evening with Brooklyn-based author and creative director Cebo Campbell, who will be discussing his poignant debut novel Sky Full of Elephants.
One day, a cataclysmic event occurs: all of the white people in America walk into the nearest body of water. A year later, Charlie Brunton is a Black man living in an entirely new world. Having served time in prison for a wrongful conviction, he's now a professor of electric and solar power systems at Howard University when he receives a call from someone he wasn't even sure existed: his daughter Sidney, a nineteen-year-old left behind by her white mother and step-family.
Traumatised by the event, and terrified of the outside world, Sidney has spent a year in isolation in Wisconsin. Desperate for help, she turns to the father she never met, a man she has always resented. Sidney and Charlie meet for the first time as they embark on a journey across a truly "post-racial" America in search for answers. But neither of them are prepared for this new world and how they see themselves in it.
Heading south toward what is now called the Kingdom of Alabama, everything Charlie and Sidney thought they knew about themselves, and the world, will be turned upside down. Brimming with heart and humour, Cebo Campbell's astonishing debut novel is about the power of community and connection, about healing and actualisation, and a reckoning with what it means to be Black in America, in both their world and ours.
Book your tickets for Sky Full of Elephants: Cebo Campbell in Conversation here.
Entitlement: Rumaan Alam in conversation with Sarah Shaffi
Tuesday 8th October 2024
19:00 - 20:30 at Waterstones, Trafalgar Square, London
Join as we welcome Rumaan Alam , in conversation with Sarah Shaffi, to celebrate the publication of 'Entitlement', a story around morality, money and race leaving you thinking of privilege and fate.
Money talks. But what if it lies?
Brooke wants many things. A sense of purpose, independence, security. To make a difference in the world, and maybe to impress her mother along the way. Her job assisting an eighty-year-old billionaire in his quest to give away a vast fortune could be just the ticket to the life she knows she is entitled to.
Intoxicated by this newfound proximity to wealth and power, Brooke soon finds herself rubbing shoulders with the one percent, as her boss’s attention offers her a glimpse into a world just beyond her grasp. But before long, being under his wing is not enough, and Brooke starts to dangerously blur the lines between what belongs to him, and what should belong to her.
Taut, unsettling, and alive to the seductive distortions of money and race, Entitlement is a biting tale for our new gilded age.
Book your tickets for Entitlement: Rumaan Alam in conversation with Sarah Shaffi here.
Asako Yuzuki in Conversation with Hanako Footman
Wednesday 9th October 2024
19:00 - 20:30 at Foyles, Charing Cross Road
The author of Butter comes to Foyles Charing Cross Road to discuss her sensational novel with actor and writer Hanako Footman.
Inspired by a real case of a convicted con woman and serial killer, Asako Yuzuki’s Butter is the searing tale of a gourmet cook turned murderer who is said to have seduced her victims with her home cooking. A shocking and exhilarating story of obsession and an unsettling exploration of misogyny, this is the first work to appear in English from one of Japan’s most thrilling contemporary novelists.
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. Butter, released in the UK in February 2024, is her first novel to appear in English.
Yuzuki will be in conversation with actor and writer Hanako Footman. Footman is a British-Japanese author and actor. She grew up in Wimbledon and trained at LAMDA. She now lives in Dalston, East London. As a child she spent her school holidays in Japan, at her grandmother’s house by the sea. She tries to go back whenever she can. Hanako’s debut novel Mongrel was shortlisted for the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize in 2024.
Book your tickets for Asako Yuzuki in Conversation with Hanako Footman here.
An Evening with André Aciman
Monday 14th October 2024
19:00 - 20:30 at Foyles, Charing Cross Road
Join the author of Call Me By Your Name and The Gentleman from Peru for an evening of conversation at Foyles Charing Cross Road to mark the release of his elegant new memoir, My Roman Year.
A luminous coming of age memoir written with Aciman’s characteristic style and insight, My Roman Year is the story of the 13 year old writer’s life in Rome. A wise and transporting meditation on exile and the meaning of home, My Roman Year is the highly-anticipated latest work from the New York Times bestselling author of The Gentleman from Peru.
André Aciman is the New York Times bestselling author of Call Me By Your Name, Out of Egypt, Eight White Nights, Enigma Variations, Find Me, and the essay collection Homo Irrealis. He’s the editor of The Proust Project and teaches comparative literature at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
Book your tickets for An Evening with André Aciman here.
An evening with Lauren Roberts at St Mary’s Marylebone, London
Monday 14th October 2024
19:00 at St Mary's London, Wyndham Place, London
Join Lauren Roberts at the beautiful St Mary’s Marylebone as she delves into the beloved Powerless series. Now available in a stunning hardback edition with reverse jacket, exclusive map endpapers and more, this sizzling slice of fantasy romance follows the fortunes of Paedyn Gray - an ordinary mortal blending in with the dangerous Elites by pretending to be a Psychic.
When Lauren Roberts isn’t writing about fantasy worlds and bantering love interests, she can likely be found burrowed in bed reading about them. Lauren has lived in Michigan her whole life, making her very familiar with potholes, snow, and various lake activities. She has the hobbies of both a grandmother and a child, i.e., knitting, laser tag, hammocking, word searches, and colouring. She’s the author of Powerless, and she hopes to have the privilege of writing pretty words for the rest of her life.
Book your tickets for An evening with Lauren Roberts at St Mary’s Marylebone, London here.
Kate Dylan in conversation with Saara El-Arifi
Wednesday 16th October 2024
18:30 at Waterstones, Piccadilly, London
Celebrate the publication of Kate Dylan’s fantasy novel Until We Shatter at Waterstones Piccadilly.
No matter where she goes, Cemmy's life is under threat. The Church would see her killed for having any magic. The Council of Shades wants her dead for not having enough.
Until We Shatter is an action-packed, epic heist fantasy from the author of Mindwalker, perfect for fans of Six of Crows and A Darker Shade of Magic. Kate will be hosted by fellow fantasy author Saara El-Arifi.
Kate Dylan is a video editor by day, science fiction and fantasy author by night. Her love for creating new worlds is fuelled by a steady diet of coffee, books, and Marvel movies. When she isn’t telling stories, you can find her haunting London cafés like an over-caffeinated ghost.
Saara El-Arifi is the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Ending Fire trilogy and Faebound. With a DNA profile that lights up like a satellite photograph of earth, El-Arifi's heritage is intrinsically linked to the themes she explores in her writing.
Book your tickets for Kate Dylan in conversation with Saara El-Arifi here.
Sabaa Tahir in conversation at St. James's Church, London
Wednesday 30th October 2024
19:00 at St. James's Church, 197 Piccadilly, London, W1J 9LL
Celebrate the publication of bestselling fantasy author, Sabaa Tahir at the beautiful St. James's Church on Piccadilly as she celebrates her much-anticipated new novel, Heir.
The author of Ember in the Ashes returns with a richly imagined fantasy which masterfully interweaves the lives of three young people as they grapple with the burdens of power, the treachery of love and the devastating consequences of unchecked greed. Get ready for a dark and breathless journey that will captivate readers and that may cost these young people their lives - and their hearts. Literally.
Book your tickets for Sabaa Tahir in conversation at St. James's Church, London here.
Like what you see? Help me keep creating bookish content by treating me to a coffee. You’ll get really good karma 😉😘