Bristol   Cambridge   Cardiff   Edinburgh   Leeds   Liverpool   London   Manchester   Newcastle upon Tyne   Nottingham   Oxford  

Tim Bale - The Conservative Party

Tim Bale will be appearing at Heffers Bookshop, 20 Trinity Street to talk about his new book, The Conservative Party.

This timely and incisive book examines the Conservative Party since Margaret Thatcher, through the leadership of William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Howard, and into the present day with David Cameron in charge.

Many people expect the Conservatives will return to government in 2010 with David Cameron as our next Prime Minister. In a book based on in-depth research and interviews with the key players, Tim Bale asks some intriguing and provocative questions designed to investigate what makes the Conservative party tick. He scrutinises the recent history of the Conservative Party and looks at the people, the power structures, the ideas and the different interests of those involved.

This is a FREE event but a ticket is required. Tickets are available from the cashdesk at Heffers Bookshop, 20 Trinity Street.

Paul Stewart & Chris Riddell - The Immortals

Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell will be joining us to talk about their new book The Immortals.

Five hundred years into the the third age of flight and mighty phraxships steam across the immensity of the Deepwoods, plying their lucrative trade between the three great cities. Nate Quarter, a young Lamplighter from the mines of the eastern woods is propelled on an epic journey of self-discovery that encompasses tournaments, battles, revolutions and a final encounter with the Immortals themselves. This is the final tale in the Edge Chronicles sequence and it's a fabulous climax to the most original and dramatic fantasy series being written today.

Set years in the future, this book is ideal for new readers to discover the series before going back to read the 'history' of Twig, Rook and Quint. Packed with incredible illustrations from Chris Riddell, this is a wonderfully funny, moving and utterly inventive book.

This is a FREE event but a ticket is required. Tickets are available from the cashdesk at Heffers Bookshop, 20 Trinity Street.

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 David Robinson 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.

Blackwell Book Group

Who says reading is a solitary pursuit? Not us! Come and join the Blackwell Book Group for lively, friendly book chatter. No previous experience required! We will meet monthly to discuss a wide range of books - fiction and non-fiction, classic and contemporary, prize-winners and cult heroes - in short, whatever you fancy!

Our first book
To start us off, we have chosen The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. At the end of the Bookgroup meeting, every member is invited to put forward suggestions for the next book to be read.

What is the book about?
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is Carson McCullers' debut, published in 1940, when she was just 23. It is widely considered as her finest work.

In a small mill town in Georgia lives the deaf-mute John Singer, confidant to all the town's misfits yearning for escape. With a deft sense for racial tensions in the Depression-era South and its compassionate glimpses into its characters' inner lives, McCullers spins a haunting, unforgettable story that gives voice to the rejected, the forgotten, the mistreated and the personal search for beauty.

We offer 10% discount on the current book to Bookgroup members so join today! Just email your name and address to events.edinburgh@blackwell.co.uk.

Dan Rhodes and Louise Welsh

A slice of dark humour, with a side of mystery and an extra helping of sumptuous writing. Not for the faint of heart!

Join authors Dan Rhodes and Louise Welsh for the launch of their new books.

Dan Rhodes hears Little Hands Clapping.

A tale of mortifying heartbreak, momentous love, horrifying deaths and delicious apfelkuchen, in which a spider-eating old man and the local doctor form an unlikely alliance, fate unites a heartbroken baker and a euphonium, the most beautiful girl and boy in the village find love, and the town's least effective policeman, with a little help from a dog called Hans, exposes a crime so grotesque that it will shock the nation.

Dan Rhodes was born in 1972. His first book Anthropology was published in 2000 and soon followed by Don't Tell Me The Truth About Love, again a collection of short stories. His first novel, the critically acclaimed Timoleon Vitea Come Home earned him a spot on Granta Magazine's Best of Young British Novelists list in 2003. Little Hands Clapping is his sixth book.

Louise Welsh is Naming the Bones in her thrilling new novel.

Knee-deep in the mud of an ancient burial ground, a winter storm raging around him, and at least one person intent on his death: how did Murray Watson end up here? His quiet life in university libraries researching the lives of writers seems a world away, and yet it is because of the mysterious writer, Archie Lunan, dead for thirty years, that Murray now finds himself scrabbling in the dirt on the remote island of Lismore. Loaded with Welsh's trademark wit, insight and gothic charisma, this adventure novel weaves the lives of Murray and Archie together in a tale of literature, obsession and dark magic.

Louise Welsh is the bestselling author of The Cutting Room, The Bullet Trick and Tamburlaine Must Die. She was chosen as one of Britain's Best First Novelists of 2002 by the Guardian. Her awards include the Crime Writer's Association Creasy Dagger and the Saltire First Book Award. She lives in Glasgow.

This is a FREE event but a ticket is required. Tickets are available from the front desk at Blackwell, Edinburgh.

For more information please contact Ann Landmann on 0131 622 8206 or events.edinburgh@blackwell.co.uk.

Ruth Tittensor - From Peat Bog to Conifer Forest - An Oral History of Whitelee, Its Community and Landscape

Centuries of exploitation reduced the tree-cover of Scotland to tiny fragments by 1900. The desperate need of home-grown timber after the two World Wars led to a large-scale planting of coniferous trees from North America, increasing woodland cover from 6 percent to a remarkable 17 percent.

From Peat Bog to Conifer Forest focuses on the associated social, agricultural and ecological changes to the Whitelee Plateau just south of Glasgow. In an in-depth Oral History the book documents the experiences of the community which lived and worked in the area, and of the officials whose job it was to buy the moorland and convert it to forest, changing the whole landscape and its ecology dramatically. More recently a heavier emphasis is placed on conservation, amenity and recreation for members of the public from the major urban conurbations not far away, and the Whitelee Plateau is now best known as the site of Europe's largest onshore windfarm.

Ruth Tittensor presents an important case study of modern landscape change which will interest not only local people in the area concerned, but students and professional environmentalists. It also shows the importance of oral history in recording those changes. In recognition of this achievement From Peat Bog to Conifer Forest was shortlisted for the Saltire History Book of the Year 2009.

With a botany degree from Oxford University and a research degree in ecological history from Edinburgh University under her belt, Ruth Tittensor worked as a consultant ecologist and landscape historian in both England and Scotland. She has run many continuing-education courses, and coordinated countryside projects in which local people were encouraged to participate. In her research, publishing and educational work, Ruth has explored the historical basis of ecology and its relevance to modern land management.

This is a FREE event but a ticket is required. Tickets are available from the front desk at Blackwell, Edinburgh.

For more information please contact Ann Landmann on 0131 622 8206 or events.edinburgh@blackwell.co.uk.

Blackwell in partnership with Leeds Metropolitan University present PechaKucha Night

Blackwell are delighted to be involved in a series of lectures with the Leeds School of Architecture, Landscape and Design.

Devised and shared by Klein Dytham Architecture and the Igloo Student Society.

All events will be held in the 5th Floor studios, Arts Building, Leeds Met University, Broadcasting Place, Woodhouse Lane, Leeds. Featuring up to 12 speakers on a series of themes and subjects in the Arts, Design and Architecture.

28/01/10: Inspiration
18/02/10: Enthusiasm
29/04/10: Ingenuity
20/05/10: Future

All start at 6pm and are free to attend.

Blackwell in partnership with Leeds Metropolitan University present Design: Inside Out: Lecture forums 2010

Leeds School of Architecture, Landscape and Design

14/01/10: Rod Heyes of Caruso St John Architects & Prisca Thielmann of Maccreanor Lavington Architects
04/02/10: Stafford Critchlow of Wilkinson Eyre Architects & Matthew Hardcastle of Zaha Hadid Architects
15/04/10: Fred Scott of Greenwich University & Graeme Brooker of Manchester School of Art
22/04/10: Irena Bauman of Bauman Lyons Architects & Indy Johar of 00:/
06/05/10: Peter Higgins of Land Design Studio & David Littlefield, Educator and Author
03/06/10: Eelco Hooftman of Gross Max. & Professor Greg Keeffe of Leeds Metropolitan University

All events will be held in Lecture Theatre B, Leeds Met University, Rose Bowl, Woodhouse Lane, Leeds. All start at 6pm and are free to attend.

For further information and updates, see www.leedsmet.ac.uk/insideout

Blackwell in partnership with 4x4 Making Places Ltd present Our Green and Pleasant Land: Lecture forums 2010

Blackwell are delighted to be involved with the prestigious 4x4 lecture series, where four speakers talk on a different theme for four weeks in a row.

All events will be held in the Rose Bowl, Leeds Metropolitan University, Woodhouse Lane, Leeds from 5pm.

04/03/10: Governance:
Martin Wainwright (Guardian Northern news editor), Ruwan Aluvihare (Amsterdam City Council), Anna Minton (author of Ground Control) and John Thompson (Architect and founder of the Academy of Urbanism) have agreed to speak. Jan Anderson of Yorkshire Forward will chair the session.

11/03/10: Economy:
Eric Reynolds of Urban Space Management Ltd and Anamaria Wills of CIDA have agreed to speak. Paul Finch (CABE) has been invited to chair this session, together with Ann Pettifor from the New Economics Foundation.

18/03/10: Land:
Sheffield ex city architect Andy Beard has agreed to chair this session with artist Charles Quick and Ann Harding (Settle Hydro) confirmed. We have invited Glen Howells (Glen Howells Architecture) as the fourth speaker.

25/03/10: Nature:
Peter Murray, editor of the Architectural review, is confirmed for the role of chair, with Alan Simson (landscape architect from Leeds Metropolitan University), Richard Bickers (Arup) and Tristram Stuart (author of Waste). We have also invited architect Amanda Levette (Future Systems).

Please see www.makingplaces.com for further information and updates.

Forthcoming events to be announced. Please contact Blackwell University Bookshop, University of Liverpool, Alsop Building, Brownlow Hill, Liverpool, L3 5TX for more details.

Justin Pollard - Love & History

QI Elf Justin Pollard talks about the interesting bits of Love & History. Stories of courtship, marriage and lust throughout History will abound in this engaging and entertaining pre-Valentine's Event.

Justin Pollard is the author of The Interesting Bits, Secret Britain and a biography of Alfred The Great. As well as writing questions for QI, Justin is also the historical consultant for The Tudors.

Phoenix Artists Club (Members Bar), 1 Phoenix Street, off Charing Cross Road, WC2H 0DT.

£3 per ticket (price of ticket includes glass of wine).

To reserve a ticket please contact Marcus Gipps at marcus.gipps@blackwell.co.uk

Women In History - A Force To Be Reckoned With

In conjunction with the Biographer's club, Historians Susan Ronald (The Pirate Queen), Carol Dyhouse (On Glamour) and David Waller (The Magnificent Mrs. Tennant) discuss some famous and lesser known women in history. Ask our authors some questions, talk about your own heroines and join in the discussion.

Phoenix Artists Club (Members Bar), 1 Phoenix Street, off Charing Cross Road, WC2H 0DT.

£3 per ticket (price of ticket includes glass of wine).

To reserve a ticket please contact Marcus Gipps at marcus.gipps@blackwell.co.uk

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

Forthcoming events to be announced. Please contact Blackwell, 141 Percy Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RS for more details.

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

Jenny Joseph, Tobias Hill and Antony Dunn – Poetry in Winter!

Jenny Joseph, Tobias Hill and Antony Dunn will be appearing at Blackwell Bookshop, 48-51 Broad Street, Oxford to read from and discuss their poetry.

Jenny Joseph's latest collection is Nothing Like Love which comprises some of her early love poems, some previously uncollected poems, and some completely brand new poems. Famous for Warning – her internationally renowned dramatic monologue in which a middle-aged character talks of her fantasies of old age – Jenny Joseph is a poet who has been exploring new ways of telling stories in prose and verse over more than 60 years.

Tobias Hill is a poet, short-story writer and novelist. His poetry collections include Year of the Dog, Midnight in the City of Clocks, Zoo and Nocturne in Chrome and Sunset Yellow. His fourth novel, The Hidden is a powerful and gripping work about age-old secrets and private enmities set amongst ongoing excavations in Sparta.

Antony Dunn has published three collections of poems, Pilots and Navigators, Flying Fish and Bugs, published in 2009. He has written for theatre and film, and is Head of Communications at Yorkshire Dance.

Tickets cost £2 and can be obtained by telephoning or visiting the Customer Service Department, Second Floor, Blackwell Bookshop, Oxford. Tel: 01865 333623.

David Boyd Haycock - A Crisis of Brilliance: Five Young British Artists and the Great War

David Boyd Haycock will be appearing at Blackwell Bookshop, Oxford to talk about his book, A Crisis of Brilliance: Five Young British Artists and the Great War.

Dora Carrington, Mark Gertler, Paul Nash, Christopher Nevinson and Stanley Spencer were five of the most important British artists of the twentieth century. From diverse backgrounds, they met at The Slade in London between 1908 and 1910, in what was later described as the school's 'last crisis of brilliance.' Between 1910 and 1918 they loved, talked and fought, they admired, conspired and sometimes disparaged each others' artistic creations. They created new movements, they frequented the most stylish places and founded a nightclub. They slept with their models and with prostitutes; and their love affairs descended into obsession, murder and suicide.

Tickets cost £2 and can be obtained by telephoning or visiting the Customer Service Department, Second Floor, Blackwell Bookshop, Oxford. Tel: 01865 333623.

Andrew McNeillie - In Mortal Memory

Andrew McNeillie will be reading from and discussing his new collection of poetry, In Mortal Memory on Thursday 25th February at Blackwell Bookshop, Oxford.

This is a free event and all are welcome - please just come along and join in!

Anthony Julius - Trials of the Diaspora

Anthony Julius will be appearing at Blackwell Bookshop, Oxford to talk about his new book, Trials of the Diaspora.

This is a ground-breaking book that offers the first ever comprehensive history of anti-Semitism is England. Anthony Julius offers four distinct versions of anti-Semitism which he then proceeds to investigate in detail: anti-Semitism in medieval England; in literature; modern anti-Semitism from the mid 17th century onwards; and contemporary anti-Semitism which treats Zionism and the state of Israel as illegitimate Jewish enterprises.

"This is an essential history and it's fortunate it has been written by a man with the extraordinary fluency, staggering erudition, scholarly integrity, intellectual acumen and moral discernment of Anthony Julius." - Philip Roth

Tickets cost £2 and can be obtained by telephoning or visiting the Customer Service Department, Second Floor, Blackwell Bookshop, Oxford. Tel: 01865 333623.

Paul Torday and Jim Powell

Join us for this fabulous fiction event celebrating the publication of two new novels: The Hopeless Life of Charlie Summers by Paul Torday and The Breaking of Eggs by Jim Powell at Blackwell Bookshop, 48-51 Broad Street, Oxford on Wednesday 17th March at 7pm.

Both these novelists have come to writing as a second career - Paul Torday spent 30 years in engineering and industry, after which he began to pursue his lifelong ambitions to write. Jim Powell had a first career in advertising, and then started in pottery, as well as being active in politics, contesting the 1987 election and collaborating with Francis Pym on his book The Politics of Consent.

These writers will discuss coming to write fiction as men of experience and maturity, proving that it's never too late to write one's first novel!

Paul Torday is the celebrated writer who brought us Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, The Irresistible Inheritance of Wilberforce and The Girl on the Landing.

The Hopeless Life of Charlie Summers is a modern-day Tale of Two Cities featuring Hector Chetwode-Talbot, who has a high-powered job in the city; and Charlie Summers, a fly-by-night entrepreneur whose latest scheme is to import Japanese dog food into the UK.

Jim Powell is a major new talent whose debut novel, The Breaking of Eggs is a work comparable in style and subject matter to the writing of Paul Torday.

The Breaking of Eggs tells the story of Feliks Zhukowski, a writer of travel guides whose career is in the doldrums. He decides to sell his business to an American publisher and go in search of his brother and mother whom he hasn't seen for decades. Thus begins a series of life-changing events

Tickets cost £2 and can be obtained by telephoning or visiting the Customer Service Department, Second Floor, Blackwell Bookshop, Oxford. Tel: 01865 333623.

Writer in Residence at Blackwell Bookshop, Oxford: Roma Tearne

Roma Tearne, the acclaimed novelist and artist, will take up a week's residency at Blackwell Bookshop in Oxford from Monday 26th April to Saturday 1st May 2010.

Roma Tearne is a Sri Lankan born writer and artist living and working in Britain. She is the author of four novels, Mosquito, Bone China, Brixton Beach and The Swimmer, all published by Harper Collins.

Brixton Beach is the profoundly moving story of a country on the brink of civil war and a child's struggle to come to terms with loss. It has recently been selected as one of the ten titles for the inaugural series of Channel 4's The TV Book Club.

The Swimmer, published on 3rd May 2010, is a captivating novel about love, loss and what home really means. It tells the story of forty-three year old Ria, who is used to being alone and who has struggled to find love, until she discovers the swimmer, Ben, an illegal immigrant from Sri Lanka, with whom she enters an unconventional romance.

But what's the purpose of a residency at Blackwell Bookshop? In Roma's own words:

"I will be capturing the life of a large bookshop. The residency will take the form of an investigation into what it really is like to work with, and surrounded by, books. Books are magical things, material objects, receptacles of imagination and ideas, information and touchstones of feeling."

Roma Tearne & Ali Shaw: "Between The Lines" - A Writer's Residency

Roma Tearne is spending a week as the Writer in Residence at Blackwell Bookshop in April 2010. She will explore the fertile ground offered by this unique and world-famous bookshop - the environment, the ambience, the conversations and the goings-on that occur. Come along to this special event - find out what Roma hopes to achieve by this exercise, why was she invited in, what work is she going to produce and what have been the most memorable moments during the week.

Ali Shaw, who joins Roma in this discussion, is the author of the highly acclaimed debut novel, The Girl With Glass Feet (nominated for the Costa First Book Prize). He used to work as a bookseller in the Economics and Business Department of Blackwell Bookshop and he subsequently worked at the Bodleian. He is currently writing his second novel.

Tickets cost £2 and can be obtained by telephoning or visiting the Customer Service Department, Second Floor, Blackwell Bookshop, Oxford. Tel: 01865 333623.

Adam Foulds & Roma Tearne

Join Adam Foulds and Roma Tearne for a discussion about their new novels.

Adam Foulds' The Quickening Maze is an intensely lyrical novel which depicts the historically accurate story of the incarceration of John Clare in an asylum in Epping Forest, following a lifetime's struggle with alcohol, critical neglect and depression. A young Alfred Tennyson, meanwhile, moves nearby and becomes entangled in the life of the asylum.

Roma Tearne's The Swimmer is a captivating novel about love, loss and what home really means. It tells the story of forty-three year old Ria, who is used to being alone and who has struggled to find love, until she discovers the swimmer, Ben, an illegal immigrant from Sri Lanka, with whom she enters an unconventional romance.

Tickets cost £2 and can be obtained by telephoning or visiting the Customer Service Department, Second Floor, Blackwell Bookshop, Oxford. Tel: 01865 333623.

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 Choices include:

January: The Ministry of Fear by Graham Greene, to be discussed in February.

For Arthur Rowe the charity fete was a trip back to childhood, to innocence, a welcome chance to escape the terror of the Blitz, to forget twenty years of his past and a murder. Then he guesses the weight of the cake, and from that moment on he's a hunted man, the target of shadowy killers, on the run and struggling to remember and to find the truth.

February: An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears, to be discussed in March.

An intellectual thriller set in the Oxford of the 1660s, a time of great ferment - intellectual, religious and political. Robert Grove, a fellow of New College is found dead in suspicious circumstances. A young woman is accused of his murder. We hear about the events surrounding his death from four witnesses but only one reveals the extraordinary truth.

March: Spies by Michael Frayn, to be discussed in April.

In the quiet cul-de-sac where Keith and Stephen live there is very little evidence of the Second World War. But the two friends suspect that the inhabitants of the Close are not what they seem. As Keith authoritatively informs the trusting Stephen, the whole district is riddled with secret passages and underground laboratories. Then one day Keith announces an even more disconcerting discovery: the Germans have infiltrated his own family, and the children find themselves engulfed in mysteries far deeper and more painful than they had bargained for.

April: Rabbit, Run by John Updike, to be discussed in May.

Harry Rabbit' Angstrom, one time high school sports superstar, is going nowhere. At twenty-six, he is trapped in a second-rate existence - stuck with an alcoholic wife and a futile job. With no way to fix things, he flees from his family and his home in Pennsylvania, beginning a journey that he hopes will free him from his mediocre life.

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.

For further information, please contact the bookshop on tel: 01865 792792.

Are you interested in joining a Non-Fiction Reading Group?

We are starting up such a group - on a temporary basis - for those interested in reading and discussing books in the fields of Current Affairs, History, Politics, Philosophy and other subjects.

This group is designed to appeal to anyone who's generally interested in discussing the world and what goes on in it; we're not only looking for people who know the topics inside out!

The group will meet monthly: the first meeting will be in April and the book being discussed will be Straw Dogs by John Gray. This will be followed in May with Never Had It So Good by Dominic Sandbrook.

We have fifteen places, so if you would like to register, then please send an email to oxford@blackwell.co.uk with 'Non-Fiction Reading Group' in the title field. Please also include your full name and your daytime and evening telephone numbers, and we will contact you to confirm your registration.

Walking Tours of Oxford

Choose one of our three Walking Tours led by our experienced guide.

On Tuesdays at 2pm and Thursdays at 11am, join the Literary Tour and discover the University and city where such authors as Graham Greene, Dorothy L. Sayers and Lewis Carol lived and learned.

Wednesdays at 11:45am is the Inklings Tour, where fans of CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien can see the favourite haunts of these two famous authors, as well as those of their fellow group members, including Charles Williams and Neville Coghill

On Fridays at 2pm , you can take the "Three Cs" Tour (Chapels, Churches and Cathedrals). Learn about the beautiful ecclesiastical buildings that grace the city, and the famous people who have visited them.

Tickets are £7 for Adults, £6.50 for Students and those over 55. For the Three "C's" Tour, £9 Adults, £8 Students and those over 55.

Tours commence from our Oxford Shop, 53 Broad Street, Oxford. OX1 3BQ. All tours last an hour and a half.

To book, call 01865-333606 or email oxford@blackwell.co.uk. (Booking recommended).

Tours run from Tuesday 13 April until Friday 29 October 2010 inclusive.

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.