Coming up
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John O’Farrell — Family Politics
Wednesday 3rd April, 7.30pm
John O’Farrell, author of ‘May Contain Nuts’ and ‘The Best a Man Can Get’, joins us to discuss his latest novel ‘Family Politics’, an antidote to our divided times, with his signature warmth and wit.
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Zeinab Badawi — An African History of Africa
Wednesday 10th April, 7.30pm
Zeinab Badawi, president of SOAS and television journalist, joins us to provide an authentic account of Africa's history, told through African voices.
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Alex Niven — The North Will Rise Again
Wednesday 17th April, 7.30pm
Writer, poet and lecturer at Newcastle University Alex Niven confronts the North/South divide and the future of regional politics.
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Wednesday 24th April, 7.30pm
The Guardian investigative journalist and bestselling author of ‘Kleptopia’ joins us to lift the lid on Cuckooland — a world where the rich can buy everything… including the truth.
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SOLD OUT: Katherine May — Enchantment
Wednesday 13th March, 7.30pm
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SOLD OUT: Cathy Newman — The Ladder
Tuesday 19th March, 7.30pm
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SOLD OUT: Alice Winn — In Memoriam
Wednesday 20th March, 7.30pm
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SOLD OUT: Gary Stevenson — The Trading Game
Wednesday 27th March, 7.30pm
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Coming up at the Non-Fiction Book Club: Maria Ressa (How To Stand Up To A Dictator), Tania Branigan (Red Memory)
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Coming up at the Fiction Book Club: Tomasz Jedrowski (Swimming in the Dark), Sophie Mackintosh (Cursed Bread)
LIKE A BUSMAN, a bookseller is never truly on holiday. No matter how far you recline the sun lounger, how many Cosmopolitans you get through, somehow work is always all around you. It is our burden to bear, and we do so stoically.
So it proved this last week in Tenerife. A smattering of Kindles made the game a lot less fun than it used to be, but still there were plenty of opportunities to spot the new couple struggling with a parasol on the other side of the pool while you played Name That Paperback.
All the usual suspects were there: Lee Child, Jojo Moyes, Dilly Court. Colleen Hoover graced us in English and German. But there was quite the spread: a handful of old-school paper guys (Daily Mail, Bild), a fiendish sum of Sudoku books, and then everyone from Shirley Ballas (Murder on the Dancefloor) to Barbara Kingsolver.
There was even a bookcase for me to monitor. At the bottom of the stairs, the hotel staff provided a space for guests to swap their books. So of course I inspected it thoroughly every time I walked past. Bild der Frau and Woman & Home were snapped up equally quickly, suggesting that though languages differ, tastes do not. So too Golf Monthly (‘BIRDIES!’).
Valerie Perrin and Janice Hallett came and went, as did John Le Carre and Richard Osman. Poor Anton Du Beke stayed put all week (perhaps the lady at the beach club will eventually trade in her Shirley Ballas). Likewise a Romanian translation of a Danielle Steel, though I was tempted.
On Wednesday morning I spotted a clear breach of the rules. Someone had dropped off not only a hardback but also non-fiction. Rule, Nostalgia: A Backwards History of Britain looked intriguing but somewhat out of place. I almost dropped my factor 50 on Friday when I saw it had been picked up, but order was restored by lunchtime: it had been swiftly returned, presumably in favour of the Louise Penny.
I had stuffed far too many books into my case to sample anything from the bookcase (see my mini-reviews below). But I was delighted to leave a little lighter, and to enliven someone else’s holiday, by leaving behind my friend Hannah’s copy of The Satsuma Complex. I wonder who’s enjoying it right now.
Tom
What I read
The new David Nicholls
You Are Here by David Nicholls — pre-order now (out 23rd April)
Vintage Nicholls. Funny, bittersweet, ever so human. Two lonely thirtysomethings are reluctantly persuaded by a mutual friend to join a group walk. The group soon peels off and the two are left alone… Very nicely done. Had me chuckling at the breakfast table (“Do you get the sublime in London?”/“You do, but only in certain postcodes.”) and planning a long-distance walk from the safety of my sun lounger.
An extraordinary true story of endurance, love and the ocean
Maurice and Maralyn by Sophie Elmhirst — out now
God, Sophie Elmhirst can write. I’ve loved her long reads for a long time and was excited to read her first book. She delivers, in spades, with this incredible true story of a very ordinary couple who, in the 1970s, sold everything they owned to scrape together enough to build their own boat and sail to New Zealand. When their boat sinks in the middle of the Pacific, they are left adrift in a raft with no comms. Their fate depends on the ocean and on each other. Utterly gripping.
The best novel I’ve read so far this year
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden — pre-order now (out 30th May)
In the Dutch countryside in the early 1960s, Isabel still tends the family home, years after her brothers left and her mother died. Alone in life, she shuts herself off from affection and frets over an inventory of the family’s belongings. Then her brother’s girlfriend comes to stay, and odd things begin to happen. I *loved* this engrossing, claustrophobic debut novel, the best I’ve read so far this year. You’ll be hearing a lot more about this.
A caper!
The Satsuma Complex by Bob Mortimer — out now
A good example of a book that I heard so many friends rave about that I eventually succumbed. A floundering legal assistant becomes the unlikely hero in a high-stakes mystery unfolding around him in south London. Truly a caper.
What Hannah read
The Satsuma Complex (which she loved), Maurice and Maralyn (she told me off for constantly asking ‘where are you up to?’) and…
The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey — out now
Hannah says: Miv is an Enid Blyton fan living in small-town 1979 Yorkshire, at the time of the Ripper. Her childhood sense of adventure and curiosity comes up against an increasingly unsafe reality. This is a loss of innocence tale with warm and captivating storytelling about friendship, community and what lurks in plain sight. Highly recommended!