Wednesday September 1st 7.00pm- 9.00pm
THE BIG GREEN BOOKSHOP QUIZ NIGHT (part deux)
Another evening of whispering, head scratching and arguments await as the Big Green Bookshop introduces the second of our now legendary quiz nights. The theme of the quiz is loosely book related but there'll be all sorts of questions to test you.
Here are the rules;
Each team will have a MAXIMUM OF 4 people
It's £5 per team to enter. Payment must be made in advance.
The Quiz will start at 7.00pm prompt, so please try and get here... on time.
You can buy a ticket online http://www.biggreenbookshop.com/quiz/quiz-entry/prod_415.html which will guarantee you a table, or else you can pay over the phone or you can actually come into the bookshop.
Refreshments will be available, but feel free to bring your own.
Once again we're delighted that Greg Stekelman author of A Year In The Life of TheManWhoFellAsleep will be our question master.
It should be great fun and we hope you can make it.
Tuesday September 7th · 7:00pm - 9:00pm
Rohan Kriwaczek discusses On The Many Deaths Of Amanda Palmer
Amanda Palmer rose to indie rock fame as the front woman for The Dresden Dolls, and now draws huge audiences as a solo act. In 'On the Many Deaths of Amanda Palmer' Rohan Kriwaczek builds on Amanda's playfully gothic image by centering the book around her imagined death, taking us into a strange alternative reality of his own imagining.
Upon hearing rumours that Amanda Palmer had died, her fans began posting their own writing, a...rtwork, and thoughts onto the internet, eventually creating their own genre called the 'Palmeresque'. By collecting a selection of these pieces in one place and providing his own commentary, Kriwaczeck explores issues of authorship, celebrity, popular culture and the corruption of art. A must-have for Amanda's fans, this outrageous depiction of a cult songstress will appeal to anyone interested in fan fiction and the essential questions of modern media.
We're absolutely delighted that Rohan will be joining us at the Big Green Bookshop, to read from and discuss the book.
The book will be available on the night at the special price of £15.
This is a Free event and refreshments will be served.
Thursday September 9th - 7.00pm
The Booker Book Club 2010
The Man Booker Prize is probably regarded as the most prestigious literary award in the UK. It’s awarded each year for the best original full-length novel, written in the English language, by a citizen of either the Commonwealth of Nations, Ireland, or Zimbabwe.
Last week the 13 book longlist was announced, of which 6 will make it through to the shortlist, announced on Tuesday September 7th. This is 5 weeks before the winner is revealed to the watching millions on Tuesday October 12th. Last year it was the wonderful Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, and this year’s longlist includes Peter Carey, Helen Dunmore, David Mitchell & Rose Tremain. Whether they make it through to the shortlist remains to be seen.
So for the second year we’re going to be hosting a Booker Prize Book Club which is open to everyone. This is how it’s going to work;
As soon as the shortlist is announced, we’ll order copies of each of the books, which we’ll hopefully get by Thursday September 9th.
The group will meet on that evening to say hello, take home one or more of the titles, and enjoy some rather lovely wine.
Over the next five weeks, the members of the Book Club will make a concerted effort to read as many of the six books as they can.
The group will meet once again on October 12th, before the winner is announced, and discuss each of the books. After a heated debate, and a glass or two of vino, the group will vote for who they think should win. We’ll then watch the televised ceremony, and hopefully cheer as our choice and the actual winner is one and the same. Or more likely, shout and curse as our least favourite book takes the glory.
We realise that the cost of the shortlist is likely to be in the region of £80-£90 and we don’t expect you to pay this much for books that you might otherwise not buy. So we’ve come up with a few solutions;
•For a one off payment of £25, we will be a lending library, where you can borrow each of the books for a week each. You can also keep your favourite book after the ceremony.
•We will offer a discount of 20% on the shortlist for Book Group members
•A group of you could share the cost of the books and each buy a couple of books to pass around between you.
We’ll do whatever we can to help but the important thing is that you all get a chance to read the books… and you all come along.
Please contact us if you’re interested, with an email address and /or your phone number. We’ll be in touch to finalise details nearer the time.
For the full longlist and more information about the Man Booker Prize please follow this link. http://www.themanbookerprize.com/prize/thisyear/longlist
Wednesday September 15th 7.00pm- 8.30pm
Arabella Weir reads from & talks about her new book 'The Real Me Is Thin'
We're delighted to be hosting an evening at the bookshop with Arabella Weir. She is best known for her role in BBC2's The Fast Show and is a frequent commentator on current issues in the Guardian. She's also author of the bestselling 'Does My Bum Look Big In This?'
Her latest book 'The Real Me is Thin' is published in September by Fourth Estate, priced £16.99. It is a hapless and hilarious tale of a life lived under the ruthless ...reign of the chocolate biscuit...
Lumped into 'the too fat for potatoes group' by her mother, carefree eating isn't something Arabella Weir had much experience of growing up.
Written with startling frankness, Arabella unravels her own eating history in this humorous appraisal of our attitudes towards eating disorders and obesity. Not easy for someone who still can't be alone unsupervised in a room with a packet of chocolate biscuits.
Charting Arabella's neurotic relationship with food, from prolonged abstinence to binge eating, this humorous memoir recreates a childhood besieged with battles over food. Subjected to her mother's capricious feeding regime and taught early on that food was her enemy, happiness meant being allowed to eat what she liked - or more importantly, what everyone else was eating.
Recounting stories of unhinged mothers and callous doctors, mystery-meat suppers, and egg custard battles with calculating boyfriends' mothers, this candid memoir vividly recreates a childhood and adolescence marred by the social embarrassment of being marked as different simply due to your weight.
Arabella will be reading from her book and also answering any questions you may have.
This is a FREE event and refreshments will be served.
This promises to be a fantastic evening and we look forward to seeing you there.
Friday September 17th 7.00pm- 8.30pm
F C Delius in Conversaton with Kim Forrester
Friedrich Christian Delius is one of the most critically acclaimed contemporary German writers. He was born in 1943 and lives in Berlin and Rom. His first poetry collection appeared in 1965. Since then he has published 14 novels, 5 poetry collections and has recently written the libretto for the opera Prospero by Luca Lombardi. His books have been translated into 17 languages.
His newly translated novel, Portrait of the Mother as... a Young Woman, will be published at the beginning of September by the rather lovely Peirene Press, priced at £8.99.
Rome, one January afternoon in 1943. A young German woman is on her way to listen to a Bach concert at the Lutheran church. Innocent and naive, the war is for her little more than a daydream, until she realizes that her husband might never return. This is a mesmerizing psychological portrait of the human need to safeguard innocence and integrity at any cost - even at the risk of excluding reality. Moreover, it's a compelling and credible description of a typical young German woman during the Nazi era. If we can relate to her we come close to understanding the forces that were shaping an entire generation.
More extraordinary almost, is the the story is told in one 105 page sentence.
Friedrich will be in conversation about the book with the wonderful Kim Forrester, whose book blog Reading Matters in one of the best there is. Check it out.
http://kimbofo.typepad.com/readingmatters/
This is a FREE event and refreshments will be served.
Thursday September 23rd 7.00pm
Exclusive Limited Edition Photographic Celebration of The Harringay Passage
a couple of weeks ago a very friendly person walked into the bookshop and asked in a most understated way whether we might be interested at looking at a book that she and her freind had designed.
What she showed us was something that we were completely blown away by. Now we've learned a bit about how it was made and who these two incredibly talented people are and we're even more excited about.
Firstly a bit about the people behind the book:
Antonella Gentile is passionately interested in every aspect of books – their history, the materials & processes that create them, the people that write them, the people that read them.
She is a qualified librarian, having graduated from the University of Venice in Cultural Heritage Conservation, with a major in Library Science.
After receiving her Master Degree, she took a graduate course of studies at the National Library in Florence, where she was trained in the use of electronic resources and in the conservation of paper, a skill she had begun to develop at the Marciana National Library in Venice while she was still studying.
This interest has guided her in her studies and in all of her work experiences, even those without a specific link to library science.
Rachel Kaufmann has also had a long term love for books, which she considers one of the most powerful media for the transmission of knowledge & ideas as well as being objects of intriguing beauty in and of themselves. She qualified as a book and paper restorer at the Istituto per l'Arte e il Restauro Palazzo Spinelli in Florence, where she had occasion to work on many an old document during stints at the Gabinetto Vieusseux and the Historical Archive. But when moving to Britain a few years ago, her other long term passion for design took over and she worked as a graphic designer for four years before deciding to bring the two loves together and is thus studying for a BA in Book Arts and Design at the London College of Communication.
And so it was at the London College of Communication that Antonella and Rachel met and decided to work together for a book project during their second year in Book Arts and Design. The idea came about one night when Antonella was making her way home from dinner at Rachel's in Finsbury Park and, seeking alternative routes to the trafficked main roads and Shopping Cities, she found herself walking down a long tight passage that took her most of her way back to Wood Green.The Harringay Passage. Enchanted by this footpath's similarity to the 'calle' in Venice – the narrow streets of her home town – the next day she spoke of it enthusiastically with Rachel. They agreed that it could be a wonderful project for a photographic book and that they could use the structure of the book itself to convey the experience of walking down the Passage. Rachel immediately had this vision of pages unfolding views for the reader as the many roads crossing the path open up views for the walker, and the structure for their book was conceived.
The book is truly a work of art. It takes a day for each of the books to be made, as each on is hand sewn and bound by Rachel and Antonella. We are absolutely delighted to be able to launch this incredible book on Thursday September 23rd at 7.00pm
There will be a limited edition of 20 copies of the book available on the night. Each one is printed on high quality gloss paper and will be sealed, numbered and signed by Antonella and Rachel. These are available for pre-order at £40.
Nearer Christmas copies of the book using matt paper will also be available at a cost of £28. These will also be available to pre-order.
From Thursday 12th a viewing copy will be available in the bookshop for you to see for yourself how incredible it is.
It will be a wonderful night of celebration on the 23rd, so please make sure you mark it in your diaries and tell all your friends.
See you there.
Thursday September 30th 7.00pm
Carl Barat performs and reads from his autobiography The Threepenny Memoir
On Thursday September 30th, to coincide with the launch of his autobiography, The Threepenny Memoir, Libertines front man Carl Barât will be joining us in the intimate surroundings of The Big Green Bookshop, for an exclusive acoustic performance and a reading.
From his childhood in suburban Basingstoke, through times of literally being down and out in London and Paris, to success as one of the co-founders of one of Britain's most revered bands, Carl Barat has gone through the glass darkly as bands fell apart around him, friendships faltered and egos and hedonism threatened to pull his life apart. Threepenny Memoir tells his extraordinary story, in themed chapters. Love tells of early, unrequited ardour, first heartache and the enduring feelings he has for his best friend, Pete Doherty. Work details time spent on the night shift in factory jobs; his first taste of the bright lights and big city as an usher in theatreland; of the moment when rock and roll really did become just another chore. London looks at the city that shaped him and helped nurture him as a song writer even as he slept on its streets; Icons his fascination with Sir Alec Guinness, his adoration of David Niven, the affinity he felt for the War Poets; Drugs – well, you can probably guess. Each chapter is chronologically linked by pages from Barat's journal, each recalling a pivotal moment from his life. The Libertines first NME cover in June 2002; their last ever show in Paris just before Christmas in 2004. Walking out on stage with Pete once more at the Hackney Empire in April 2007; touring broken-hearted and solo along America's West Coast in early 2009. His first night onstage at the Riverside Hammersmith, in Sam Shephard's Fool For Love in January 2010. His thoughts on the upcoming Libertines reunion in August 2010. Threepenny Memoir is a revealing and intimate self-portrait, a story of love and fighting and the creativity that came of that, and a fascinating account of the London of the last decade, with The Libertines its beating heart.
SADLY, TICKETS HAVE SOLD OUT FOR THIS EVENT. WE ARE HOPING TO HAVE MORE TICKETS BUT CANNOT GUARANTEE THIS. iN ORDER TO BE PUT ON THE RESERVATIONS LIST FOR THIS, PLEASE FOLLOW THE LINK HERE. http://www.biggreenbookshop.com/index.php
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