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Nicola Upson

Nicola Upson will be at Heffers, 20 Trinity Street, Cambridge launching her new book Angels with Two Faces.

FREE tickets can be obtained from the Ground Floor Cash Desk at Heffers, 20 Trinity Street, Cambridge, by calling 01223 568568 or via email at literature@heffers.co.uk

Bodies in the Bookshop

Make murder your business and join us at our annual crime fiction extravaganza for an evening free from speeches and readings - a great chance to meet both debut and established crime writers including:

Tom Bale, Stephen Booth, Alison Bruce, Maureen Carter, Clem Chambers, Cassandra Clarke, Mary Andrea Clarke, Barbara Cleverly, Nick Connell, Adam Creed, Judith Cutler, R. S. Downie, Nick Drake, Jeremy Duns, Ruth Dudley Edwards, Roger Jon Ellory, Stewart Evans, Jane Finnis, Ariana Franklin, Meg Gardiner, Tony Gheeraert, Dolores Gordon Smith, Ann Granger, Steve Hague, Tarquin Hall, Matt Hilton, Veronica Heley, Kaye C. Hill, Suzette Hill, Jim Kelly, Christobel Kent, Deryn Lake, Patrick Lennon, James McCreet, George Mann, Edward Marston, Andrew Martin, Rose Melikan, Janet Neel, Malcolm Pryce, Ann Purser, Mike Ripley, David Roberts, Imogen Robertson, Leigh Russell, Alex Rutherford, E. V. Seymour, Stav Sherez, Harry Sidebottom, Yrsa Sigurdartottir, Roz Southey, Rebecca Tope, L. C. Tyler, Nicola Upson, Dan Waddell, Michael Walters, Paul Waters, John Wilcox and more.

This is a ticketed event ONLY. Tickets cost £5.00 and can be obtained from the Ground Floor Cash Desk at Heffers, 20 Trinity Street, Cambridge, by contacting Richard Reynolds on 01223 568532 or via email at literature@heffers.co.uk

Heffers Crime Reading Group, "Crimecrackers"

We meet on the third Wednesday of every month in Heffers Bookshop, 20 Trinity Street from 6.00pm until 7.00pm. If you would like to join our Crimecrackers Reading Group, please contact Richard Reynolds in the Literature Department, Heffers Bookshop, 20 Trinity Street:
Telephone: 01223 568521. Email: literature@heffers.co.uk

Heffers Fiction Reading Group.

The Heffers Fiction Reading Group meets in Heffers Bookshop, 20 Trinity Street, Cambridge on the last Wednesday of each month, 6.00pm until 7.00pm. Why not come along and enjoy a complimentary glass of wine and discuss some of the best books in contemporary fiction.

To join the reading group, please contact Katie James on 01223 568522 or email: general@heffers.co.uk.

Forthcoming events to be announced. Please contact Cardiff University Union, Senghennydd Road, Cardiff for more details.

The Blackwell Book Quiz

Do you know your Waugh from your Peace, or your Meyer from your Heyer? Then join us for Blackwell Bookshop's monthly book quiz. We will quiz you on anything from Classics to current Bestsellers, Booker Prize winners to Celebrity Biographies.

Teams of up to five people can take part.

It is FREE to enter, but seats are limited so please come early to secure your place. There are no tickets required for this evening of fun!

For further information please contact James Anderson on 0131 622 8201 or james.anderson@blackwell.co.uk.

Craig Russell - 'Lennox'

Blackwell is pleased to welcome the talented Scottish Crime author Craig Russell.

Craig is popularly known for his crime novels set mainly in Hamburg, Germany. Such titles as The Carnival Master or Brother Grimm have mesmerized us for years. So it is with much anticipation that we finally discover Craig has begun a new, unique and memorable series set here in Scotland. Lennox is gritty, compelling, and unashamedly neo-Noir.

Shady private investigator Lennox is a hard man in a hard city at a hard time: Glasgow, 1953, where the war may be over but the battle for the streets is just beginning. It's a place where only the toughest and most ruthless survive.

The McGahern twins were on the way up until Tam, the brains of the outfit, opened his door to find two hit men pointing shotguns at him. The Three Kings, the crime lords who run Glasgow's underworld, all deny ordering the hit, so Tam's brother Frankie turns to Lennox to find out who killed his twin. Lennox refuses. Later that night, Frankie's body is discovered on the road, his head mashed to pulp, and Lennox finds himself in the frame for murder. The only way of proving his innocence is to solve the crime - but he'll have to dodge men more deadly than Glasgow's crime bosses before he gets any answers.

Craig Russell combines atmosphere, action and a pitch-black sense of humour with an intelligent and complex character that is a product of the recent war he lived through.

Come and discover the beginning of a great new crime series.

Tickets for this event are FREE and can be obtained from the front desk of Blackwell, South Bridge. For more information please contact Claire Leach on 0131 622 8206 or email events.edinburgh@blackwell.co.uk

Aravind Adiga - 'Between The Assassinations'

Blackwell is honoured to present an evening with the 2008 Man Booker Prize winner Aravind Adiga and his eagerly anticipated Between the Assassinations.

In Between the Assassinations, Aravind brings to life a chorus of distinctive Indian voices, all inhabitants of a fictional town.

On India's south-western coast, between Goa and Calicut, lies Kittur - a small, nondescript every town. Aravind Adiga acts as our guide to the town, mapping overlapping lives of Kittur's residents. Here, an illiterate Muslim boy working at the train station finds himself tempted by an Islamic terrorist; a bookseller is arrested for selling a copy of 'The Satanic Verses'; a rich, spoiled, half-caste student decides to explode a bomb in school; a sexologist has to find a cure for a young boy who may have AIDS.

What we will see emerge is the moral biography of an Indian town and a group portrait of ordinary Indians in a time of extraordinary transformation, over the seven-year period between the assassinations of Prime Minister Gandhi and her son Rajiv.

Keenly observed and finely detailed, Between the Assassinations is a triumph of voice and imagination. It sizzles with the same humour, anger, and humanity that characterized the prize winning The White Tiger.

Tickets for this event are FREE and can be obtained from the front desk of Blackwell, South Bridge. For more information please contact Claire Leach on 0131 622 8206 or email events.edinburgh@blackwell.co.uk

Douglas Jackson - 'Claudius'

Blackwell is pleased to present an evening with Douglas Jackson and his latest historical literary feat - Claudius.

The year is 43AD ...In Southern England, Caratacus, war chief of the Britons, watches from a hilltop as the scarlet cloaks of the Roman legions spread across his lands like blood, whilst in Rome, Emperor Claudius, newly risen to the imperial throne, dreams of taking his place in history alongside his illustrious forebears Caesar and Augustus.

Among the legions marches Rufus, keeper of the Emperor's elephant. War is coming and the united tribes of Britain will make a desperate stand against the might of Rome. The Emperor has a very special place for Rufus and his elephant in the midst of the battle - as a secret weapon to cow the Britons with the visible manifestation of Rome's power.

Claudius is a masterful telling of one of the greatest stories from Roman history, the conquest of Britain. It is an epic story of ambition, courage, conspiracy, battle and bloodshed, and confirms Douglas Jackson as one of the best historical novelists writing today.

If you were lucky enough to discover Douglas' last work Caligula or if you simply love history, Claudius is a must have read.

Tickets for this event are FREE and can be obtained from the front desk of Blackwell, South Bridge. For more information please contact Claire Leach on 0131 622 8206 or email events.edinburgh@blackwell.co.uk

Lari Don - 'Tam O'Shanter - Reloaded'

Blackwell welcomes writer and storyteller Lari Don to share with us her wonderful retelling of Robert Burns' Scottish classic Tam O'Shanter.

Returning from a usual Friday night out with his friends, Tam and his horse Meg stumble upon a dark, supernatural celebration at the old Kirk. What will happen when he disturbs this devil's dance? Will he escape the furious witches?

Tam O'Shanter: reloaded is published by Barrington Stoke a wonderful publisher that focuses mainly on creating books for dyslexic and struggling readers, but their books can really be enjoyed by us all.

With the fantastically spooky pictures by Peter Clover and the words recreated by the wonderful author of First Aid for Fairies and other Fabled Beasts, which was published last year to the great pleasure of many children across Scotland, we can all expect to enjoy Lari's version of Tam's misadventures.

If you loved the classic or are yet to discover this terrifying tale, please join us to celebrate the release of Tam O'Shanter: Reloaded.

Tickets for this event are FREE and can be obtained from the front desk of Blackwell, South Bridge. For more information please contact Claire Leach on 0131 622 8206 or email events.edinburgh@blackwell.co.uk

Michael Fry - 'Edinburgh: A History Of The City'

Blackwell is very happy to present an evening with Michael Fry and his wonderful book about our great city - Edinburgh: A History of the City.

The late poet laureate, Sir John Betjeman, said that Edinburgh was the most beautiful city in Europe. Like some other great cities it is set on seven hills. But only one of these, Rome, rivals Edinburgh in matching the beauty of its setting with the stateliness of its buildings. A romantic landscape of sea and hills, broad vistas and hidden corners is embellished by a style of architecture combining stern classicism with antiquarian whimsy. Edinburgh, too, provides the backdrop to much of the dark drama of the Scottish past, but the 1,500 year history of the city itself deserves wider telling. Long ruled by a strait-laced professional bourgeoisie, Edinburgh never suppressed a livelier side, peopled by figures comic or brutal, eccentric or gruesome.

Michael Fry, who has lived and worked there for nearly forty years, provides a compellingly readable account of this great city, from the earliest times to the present, balancing Edinburgh's cultural, political and social history, and shows how they have borne on one another. He draws on a wide range of new untapped archival sources, especially private papers and oral records, and paints a vivid a picture of the city of John Knox and James Boswell, of David Hume and Walter Scott, a city - that like Stevenson's 'Dr Jekyll' - is both dark and light, both 'Auld Reekie' and 'the Athens of the North'.

If you love Edinburgh or are yet to discover her charms, please join us to be immersed in this great telling of her past.

Tickets for this event are FREE and can be obtained from the front desk of Blackwell, South Bridge. For more information please contact Claire Leach on 0131 622 8206 or email events.edinburgh@blackwell.co.uk

Anne Thomson - 'Wash My Bikini'

Blackwell is honoured to be launching Anne Thomson's new book Wash my Bikini.

At the age of sixty, Anne applied to join the Voluntary Service Overseas as a mature volunteer, bringing her skills as a bank administrator and accountant. She was allocated a two year assignment in The Prison Fellowship of Zambia and travelled to Lusaka to begin work in the Ndola prison office.

What follows in Wash my Bikini is a remarkable diary of living and working in a community in one of the poorest countries of the world. Culture and climate were very different to the author's home in Edinburgh and VSO members have to adapt quickly to the basic living conditions, where everything is in short supply or unobtainable. The Author's detailed account, not only of the difficulties in dealing with officialdom, but also of passing on her skills to those in great need of support, underlines the raison d'etre of the Volunteer Service.

Jonathan Dimbleby writes in his Foreword 'Anne writes not as a critical outsider but as a friend, sharing the daily struggles of the lives of colleagues in the Prison Fellowship of Zambia of prisoners and their families. It is a story we are all the richer for reading.'

Wash my Bikini will be an inspiration to all those contemplating joining the VSO and others wishing to impart their skills through the many charities working overseas. It conveys a picture of life in an African developing country written from the inside.

Tickets for this event are FREE and can be obtained from the front desk of Blackwell, South Bridge. For more information please contact Claire Leach on 0131 622 8206 or email events.edinburgh@blackwell.co.uk

Forthcoming events to be announced. Please contact Blackwell, 21 Blenheim Terrace, Woodhouse Lane, Leeds, LS2 9HJ for more details.

Andrew Blackman - On the Holloway Road

Prize-winning local author Andrew Blackman talks about the journey into writing and publishing his debut novel On the Holloway Road. An excellent event for budding writers and all those fascinated by books, Andrew will be joined by Tom Chalmers, the MD of leading independent publisher Legend Press.

This is a FREE event and no ticket is required. For further information, please contact Blackwell, 158 Holloway Road, London.

Forthcoming events to be announced. Please contact Blackwell, The Precinct Centre, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9RN for more details.

Alice De Smith

Come and meet Alice De Smith will be launching her debut novel Welcome to Life at Blackwell, Newcastle. Alice will perform a reading which will be followed by an informal Q&A and wine reception.

This is a FREE event but we recommend that you call or email to reserve a seat. Tel: 0191 232 6421 - newcastle@blackwell.co.uk

Gavin Pretor-Pinney

Gavin Pretor-Pinney, author of the bestselling Cloudspotter Guide will be reading from and then signing copies of his latest book, The Cloud Collector's Handbook.

This is a FREE event but we recommend that you call or email to reserve a seat. Blackwell: Tel: 0191 232 6421 - newcastle@blackwell.co.uk - Dance City: Tel: 0191 261 0505 - info@dancecity.co.uk

Forthcoming events to be announced. Please contact Blackwell University Bookshop, Nottingham Trent University, Chaucer Building, Goldsmith Street, Nottingham, NG1 5LT for more details.

David MacKay - Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air

On Monday 29th June at 6.30pm, David Mackay will be talking about his book, Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air. He will be in conversation with Chris Goodall.

Addressing the sustainable energy crisis in an objective manner, this enlightening book analyses the relevant numbers and organizes a plan for change on both a personal level and an international scale - for Europe, the United States, and the world. In case study format, this informative work answers questions surrounding nuclear energy, the potential of sustainable fossil fuels, and the possibilities of sharing renewable power with foreign countries.

Hailed as a 'game-changer' and written from a 'pro-arithmetic' point of view rather than with any specific bias in mind, David Mackay reframes our understanding of power consumption and production - from the mobile phone-charger to the nuclear power station - by expressing it in a single unit of measurement: kilowatt-hours per day (k/Wh/d).

"Energy policy is crucial for the world, and a wide public should be engaged in debate and decisions on these issues. But such debate must be grounded in realistic numbers and good physics. All the key principles are clearly and accessibly explained in this book. David MacKay has performed a great service by writing it." - Prof Martin Rees FRS, President of the Royal Society.

This is a FREE event and no ticket is required. Please telephone 01865 333600 for further details.

A celebration of the oldest concert hall in Europe

Throughout July, the Blackwell Bookshop coffee shop gallery will be hosting an exhibition of pictures by John Melvin linked to the appeal for the extension and renovation of the Holywell Music Room.

John Melvin is an architect by profession. Over the last few months, whilst developing the plans for the renovation and extension of the Holywell Music Room, he has also been drawing a unique series of drawings and watercolours of the concert hall and its surroundings. These are on display, and a limited edition of lithographs and prints are on sale throughout July. The proceeds from the sales will go to the HMR Appeal.


The Holywell is the oldest purpose-built concert hall in Europe. Opened in 1748, its elegance and beauty have played host to many of the world's great musicians and composers. Both Haydn and Handel performed in this intimate hall. It was the prototype for many of the most important concert halls of the world: the first Leipzig Gewandhaus, St Cecilia's Hall in Edinburgh, even the Wigmore Hall in London. The 18th century building is of outstanding merit to the heritage of music in our country. It has continued to make an extraordinary contribution to musical performance of chamber music and many other genres of music right up to the present day.

Time hasn't always been kind to the Holywell, and it is in much need of improvements and renovation. An Appeal has been launched to restore the Holywell, which is at the heart of the musical life of Oxford and the country. The improved facilities will benefit musicians and concert goers alike. A new underground extension will provide more circulation space and the opportunity for a glass of wine at the Holywell whilst allowing for more green room space for the musicians. These are just two examples of the many benefits which will be enjoyed by generations to come.

John Melvin is an Architect and Town Planner. He trained at the Architectural Association School of Architecture and the Department of Town Planning, University College London.

He has won many awards for his architecture, including, in 1993, a Building of the Year Award from the Royal Fine Art Commission.

His work has been widely exhibited, both in this country and abroad, by the RIBA and the British Council. In 1995 a monograph on the work of his office was published by Zwemmer. In 1996, John Melvin was awarded the Sargant Fellowship at The British School at Rome.

John Melvin has written and lectured extensively on architecture, and was one time visiting lecturer in Landscape Design at Greenwich University. His publications have included Eton Observed (1998), and Whichford and Ascott Observed (2008).

Ox-Tales Book Launch

Come and celebrate the launch of Ox-Tales, four brilliant collections featuring short stories from a star-studded cast of writers including Kate Atkinson, Sebastian Faulks, Helen Fielding, William Boyd, John le Carré, Ian Rankin and Jeanettte Winterson.

The books – and stories – are themed very loosely on the four elements highlighting different aspects of Oxfam's work: Earth (from land rights to farming): Air (combating climate change), Fire (campaigning for arms control) and Water (safe water and sanitation).

The book launch takes place at The Oxford Playhouse on 3rd July with Ox-Tales authors Mark Haddon, Joanna Trollope and Nicholas Shakespeare all reading from their stories and signing books.

To find out more and to book tickets please visit www.oxfam.org.uk/ox-tales

The Ox-Tales books will be available at Blackwell and from Oxfam shops from 4th July. The books retail at £5 each with £3.50 per book going directly towards funding Oxfam's work if bought from the charity shop chain.

Alice's Day

Blackwell Bookshop will be presenting another one of it's famous Family Days as part of Oxfordshire's celebration of Alice in Wonderland.

One golden afternoon on 4th July 1862 Charles Dodgson, an Oxford don, took Alice Liddell and her sisters on a boating picnic up the River Thames from Folly Bridge in Oxford. To amuse the children he told them a story about a little girl, sitting bored by a riverbank, who finds herself tumbling down a rabbit hole into a topsy-turvy world called Wonderland.

The story so delighted the 10-year-old Alice that she begged him to write it down. The result was Alice's Adventures in Wonderland which was published in 1865 under the pen name Lewis Carroll and became one of the most popular children's books ever written.

Keep your diary clear for a frabjous day of fantastical performances and fun activities.

Blackwell Customer Reading Group, Oxford

Do you like talking about books? Then join Books on the Broad Reading Group, winner of the Penguin / Orange Book Group of the year!

Future Choice include:

June Empire of the Sun by J G Ballard, to be discussed in July.

This is the story of a British boy's four-year ordeal in a Japanese prison camp in Shanghai during the Second World War, in a world of starvation and survival, of internment camps and death marches. Empire of the Sun blends history and autobiography with a filmic, dream-like, vision of a world thrown out of joint. Rooted in the author's own experience of family internment following the attack on Pearl Harbor, winner of the Guardian Fiction Prize, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and filmed by Steven Spielberg, Empire of the Sun has been acclaimed as one of the great war novels of the twentieth century.

July Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, to be discussed in August.

'Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies'. A voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850; a disinherited composer in between-the-wars Belgium; a journalist in Governor Reagan's California; a vanity publisher fleeing gangland creditors; a genetically modified waiter on death-row; and Zachry, a young Pacific Islander witnessing the nightfall of civilisation, the six narrators of Cloud Atlas hear each other down the corridor of history, changing their destinies in many ways. In his novel which encompasses the globe and reaches from the nineteenth century to a post-apocalyptic future, David Mitchell challenges the boundaries of language and time and offers a meditation on humanity's will-to-power.

For further information, please contact either Lydia or Kathryn:

Lydia: tel: (01865) 333668; email: law.ox@blackwell.co.uk

Kate: email: kathryn.d.wilson@st-annes.oxon.org

Our meetings take place on the first Monday of every month from 6.30pm to 8pm in Caffe Nero on the first floor of Blackwell Bookshop, 50 Broad Street, Oxford.

Walking Tours of Oxford

The Famous Blackwell Literary Walking Tours (Tuesdays 2pm, Thursdays 11am)
Conducted by our trained and experienced local guide, this tour highlights "town" and "gown" locations where famous writers, including Samuel Johnson, Lewis Carroll, Dorothy L Sayers, Louis Macneice, Percy Byshe Shelley, Stephen Hawking, Joanna Trollope, Thomas Hardy, Phillip Pullman, TE Lawrence and John Mortimer lived and worked. At the same time, the tour takes in the beauty of Oxford and the University with their historic buildings and monuments.

The Inklings Tour (Wednesdays 11:45am)
This tour is a must for Inklings enthusiasts. The Inklings was a famous group of writers which included JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis, Charles Williams, John Wain and many more. Our tour will take you to some of the places where they met and found their inspiration. This includes their old haunt - the Eagle and Child pub - where they discussed their writing over a drink or two.

The Historic Oxford Tour (Fridays 2pm)
This tour will take in Oxford and the University through the centuries, starting with the Danish invasion one thousand years ago during which the wooden town was burnt to the ground. The journey begins at Oxford's first stone building and takes you through some spectacular architecture, placing present day Oxford in its historical context.

Tours will be conducted between 16th April and 24th October.
All tours commence from Blackwell Bookshop, 48-51 Broad St, Oxford and last approximately one and a half hours.
Prices: Adults £7/Concessions £6.50

For booking and enquiries please contact our bookshop located at 48-51 Broad St. Tel: 01865 333606, e-mail: oxford@blackwell.co.uk.
Advanced group bookings welcome. Numbers are limited so early booking is advised.

Forthcoming events to be announced. Please contact Blackwell's University Bookshop Hallam, Sheffield Hallam University, City Campus, 1 Howard Street, Sheffield, S1 2LW for more details.