Lambeth Readers and Writers Festival - May 2009
The Lambeth Readers and Writers Festival 2009 offers a month long programme of inspirational events. The festival includes something to appeal to all ages and tastes. There will be talks and discussions with a wide range of authors - from the well-known to the up and coming. And it's all free of charge. Our aim is to make every home in the borough a reading home. With this in mind you are all invited to join us in this celebration of words through reading, writing, talking or simply listening. There will be something special taking place in a Lambeth library near you.
Thursday 7 May - Katherine Bing – Singleholic
Brixton Library 7pm
Mixed-race 30-year-old Sarah is dumped by her boyfriend and finds herself single once again. Fed up with being alone, she gives herself one year to find a man. With the help of friends Georgina, a happily married blonde, and Jacquie, a single black diva, Sarah learns to alter her game with hilarious consequences. Singleholic introduces multiculturalism to chick-lit. Join us for a hilarious night for the girls (and a few lessons for the boys) with new urban chick-lit diva Katherine Bing. One for the adults!
Friday 8 May - ‘A Charmed Life’ Film showing with Introduction by Patrick Vernon - Nettlefold Hall, West Norwood Library 7pm
This documentary film charts the life of Eddie Martin Noble (1917-2007) and examines personal historical perspectives on issues around colonisation of the Caribbean and racial inequality in post-war Britain. The film raises issues of the legacy of the Windrush Generation in Britain as Eddie, a RAF Pilot, comes to terms with a post war reality.
In this fascinating film, the story of Eddie Noble becomes a story for us all and inspired the book Small Island by Andrea Levy.
Friday 8 May - Stuart MacBride – Blind Eye - Streatham Library 7pm
Stuart MacBride’s first novel, Cold Granite, was shortlisted for the International Thriller Writers' best debut novel and won the Barry Award for the best first novel. In 2008, Stuart won Breakthrough Author of the Year at the ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards.
In his latest novel Blind Eye, Aberdeen's growing Polish community is under attack from a serial offender who leaves mutilated victims to be discovered on building sites - eyes gouged out and the sockets burned. Don’t miss one of the UK’s finest crime writers.
Monday 11 May – Ross Davies – The poems of Drummond Allison: Come let us pity Death - South Lambeth Library 7pm
Drummond Allison: Come, Let Us Pity Death is the tragic story of a World War Two officer-poet who at 22 died a First World War death in a daylight charge. Drummond wrote the much-loved cricket poem, The Oval, as well as Come, Let Us Pity Death, perhaps the war’s most moving elegy, commemorating Drummond’s airman brother, Douglas.
Lambeth author, Ross Davies, formerly a Fleet Street journalist with The Times and Evening Standard, and author of books on the literature of war, will be reading from Drummond’s account of war. Dr Davies is also shortly to publish Vauxhall: A Little History.
Lambeth Libraries, and the Friends of Tate South Lambeth Library, invite you to an evening of heartfelt poetry and historic things on your doorstep.
Thursday 14 May - Comic Writing for the Mid-life Crisis with Arthur Smith and Mark Steel - Nettlefold Hall, West Norwood Library 7pm
Who could be grumpier than comedians? Lambeth Libraries are proud to bring you two of the worst.
Arthur Smith is the self proclaimed mayor of Balham, one of the 'alternative comedians' who shook up light entertainment in the eighties and nineties.
His autobiography, My Name is Daphne Fairfax, sees Arthur reflecting on the nature of comedy and his days as a scruffy kid on the bombsites of Bermondsey, a wild-haired undergraduate, a roadsweeper, an English teacher, a failed rock star, a boozed-up sexual adventurer and an intensive care patient who has been told never to drink again - Hilarious, scandalous and rude.
Mark Steel is a writer, presenter and comedian. He has many TV and radio series to his name including the current Mark Steel's in Town on Radio 4. He writes a weekly column for The Independent newspaper and is a regular Radio. With his fourth book Mark has written his reaction to being forty in a world in chaos. What is Going On? is a book that goes right to the heart of Britain and the problems it suffers today, why over a million people marching in London couldn't stop the war in Iraq, why supermarkets are killing the small town centres of Britain. Personal, bitingly funny, poignant, sharply observed, it is Mark Steel at his brilliantly intelligent best.
Don’t miss this night of hilarity from the most miserably funny comedians over 40.
Saturday 16 May - The Strangeness of Brendan McCarthy - Minet Library 2.30pm.
Brendan McCarthy is one of Britain's most talented comic book creators and designers. His unique and distinctive style has influenced a generation of artists and writers. He studied Painting at Chelsea School of Art and decided to become a full time artist and writer. He has produced some classic UK graphic novels, written and designed some ground-breaking TV series and worked on many successful Hollywood movies.
Join Brendan – one of the top graphic novel artists today - for an afternoon of comics at Minet Library.
Monday 18 May – Amanda Craig – Hearts and Minds - Carnegie Library 6.45pm
Amanda Craig is a well-known journalist and broadcaster. She is the author of three previous novels. In her latest, Hearts and Minds, five people, seemingly very different, find their lives in the capital connected in undreamed-of ways. Riveting, humane, engaging, Hearts and Minds is a novel that is both entertaining and prepared to ask the most serious questions about the way we live. Amanda will be discussing her work, join her at Carnegie Library.
Wednesday 20 May - Helen Oyeyemi – White is for Witching Brixton Library 7pm
In a vast, mysterious house on the cliffs near Dover, the Silver family is reeling from the hole punched into its heart. All is not well with the house either, which creaks and grumbles with generations of women that inhabit its walls. One dark night Miranda vanishes and the survivors are left to tell her story. This is a spine-tingling tale told by a quartet of voices, electrifying in its expression of myth and memory, loss and magic, fear and love. This is Helen’s only London reading – join her in conversation at what will be a highlight of Lambeth’s literary festival.
Thursday 21 May - Historic Clapham - Clapham Library 7pm
Michael Green and Alyson Wilson of The Clapham Society will introduce books about the history of Clapham. Michael will talk about his recent book, Historic Clapham, which starts with pre-historic times and finishes with the death of Samuel Pepys at the great mansion, Clapham Place, in 1703.
Alyson will take up the story from that time to the present, based on the four Clapham Society books now in print – The Buildings of Clapham, Clapham in the Twentieth Century, The Clapham Sect and Discovering Clapham, a colour-illustrated history of the area - An evening for the curious, who want to know more about the place where they live.
Saturday 23 May - Graphic Novel Night with Pat Mills and Guests - Streatham Library 7pm
Pat Mills, nicknamed 'the godfather of British comics, is a writer and editor who, along with John Wagner, revitalised British boys comics in the 1970s. He has remained a leading light in British comics ever since.
His comics are notable for their anti-authoritarianism and he is best known for creating 2000 AD and playing a major part in the development of Judge Dredd.
Another top night for graphic novel fans and anyone curious about the form.
Tuesday 26 May - Gillian Slovo – Black Orchids - West Norwood Library 7pm
Novelist Gillian Slovo was born in South Africa, the daughter of Joe Slovo, leader of the South African Communist party, and Ruth First, a journalist who was murdered in 1982.
Gillian has lived in England since 1964, working as a writer, journalist and film producer. Published since 1984, her 2004 novel, Ice Road, was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. Her body of work carries the refrain of the evils of Apartheid South Africa, injustice and inhumanity. Her first play, Guantanamo, played in London's West End and off-Broadway in New York and her most recent novel, Black Orchid, is a story about the search to feel at home in your own skin. Gillian Slovo lives in London and will be in conversation.
Friday 29 May - North Sea Radio Orchestra - Brixton Library 7.30pm
North Sea Radio Orchestra is a unique 20-piece chamber group who perform music of beauty and originality that has, at its heart, lyricism and melodic richness. Featuring wind, strings, percussion, guitars, organs and voices, theirs is a world in which melody and harmony abound.
Don’t miss this opportunity to see one of London’s best musical collaborations and to witness a first – an orchestra at the Library – hear the NSRO perform from their latest album, 'Birds'.
'A truly lovely, soothing, joyous combination of folk and chamber music'
‘Like a heavenly daydream’ - Daily Telegraph
Book early for this event which is bound to sell out fast.
For event details, find out what's happening at your local library or download the Readers and
Writers Festival 2009 brochure.
Further information
For more information or to book tickets for Lambeth Libraries events please call 020 7926 1075 or email readersandwriters@lambeth.gov.uk.
To avoid disappointment please book for all events.