Firestation Book Swap: Thursday April 21st

Roll up roll up roll up! (Roll up what? Or on the ground? Or fold yourself into a ball and roll towards me? You decide. But anyway - ) It's going to be a stonking book swap on Thursday, featuring as it does the most excellent Stuart Evers - book journalist and writer of Ten Stories About Smoking which will almost certainly probably not make you want to start smoking (again) but will entirely entertain you in every way, and Jake Wallis Simons, who aside from being the author of The English German Girl and The Exiled Times of a Tibetan Jew (those are two separate books, though the amalgam is intriguing) AND being a superstar journalist, once had the great privilege of working with me at Daunt Books. We both survived.

All details here. Indeed why not join our Facebook group? That way Scott will email and tell you when there's a book swap, rather than you having to rely on me remembering to trail it here.

As ever it's free if you bring cake. Not as ever, it's the day before my birthday. What I'm saying is if you were dithering over cake, bring cake.

(As an aside, did you know that you can listen to the book swap on iTunes? Just do a search for Firestation Book Swap. I am amused to note that there's an 'explicit' warning. YES. THAT IS HOW WE ROLL (UP).)

Book Swaps a Go Go

There is a veritable embarrassment of book swaps going on this month, all for your entertainment. Are you embarrassed? I know I am.

First up is on Thursday 3rd Feb (ie THIS THURSDAY) at the London Review Bookshop, Bury Place, 7pm. My co-host for the occasion will be Robbie Hudson, as Scott is otherwise engaged, and our guests are Will Fiennes, author of 'The Snow Geese' and 'The Music Room' - books of beauty and elegance - and Nikesh Shukla, author of Coconut Unlimited - a book of laughter and rap music - which is not to say it isn't beautiful and elegant too. Please book your ticket here as it will almost certainly sell out. £6 or free if you bring a home baked cake.

Thursday 10th Feb, at the LSE, 4th Floor Cafe, 6pm. Scott Pack will be back on co-hosting duties, and our guests are Sarah Salway, who as well as being a fantastic author (of 'Something Beginning With' amongst other books) is the LSE's writer in residence, and Matt Beaumont, whose book 'e' is reputed to be excellent, as I would know if the publisher had sent it to me yet - fear not, there is still time. Details here, tickets are FREE, don't bring cake - it's a licensing issue, but not to worry, cake will be available from the cafe - and unswapped books will be collected for Read International, a charity which provides books to schools in Uganda and Tanzania.

Thursday 17th Feb, at the Fire Station in Windsor, 7.45pm. Back on home turf. You will be rewarded by co-host Scott and guests Sara Manning, author of the funny and poignant 'You Don't Have To Say You Love Me', Jess Ruston, our very first guest making a triumphant return to promote her new novel 'To Touch The Stars'. Usual Windsor rules - £5 to get in, or free with a home-baked cake.

And indeed I didn't need to tell you ANY of this, as I could have just directed you to our fabulous new website which has been made for us by Michael Harpur, our right-hand and probably left-hand man in Windsor, who does EVERYTHING for us bar sitting on the stage swapping the books himself. He is brilliant. So is the website, which aside from details of all the events has podcasts which you can listen to if you can't make it (if you are lazy, or live in Canada, or trapped under heavy furniture.)

Hope to see you at one of the book swaps this month.

November Book Swap

Last Book Swap of the year tomorrow! Except for the one that Scott is doing as part of the Peckham Literary Festival on the 25th, and the kids' one that Scott is doing, um, at some point (I'm sure he'll big both of them up over at his blog). I have no idea where Scott gets the energy. He has a job and everything. But it's *my* last Book Swap of the year and I hope you will join me as we have most excellent guests -

Maggie Gee, whose My Cleanerand My DriverI adored, and my aunt in Botswana will be getting for Christmas (it's OK, I have already told her) (it's also OK because it's the books my aunt is getting, not Maggie Gee)

- and -

Milton Crawford, whose The Hungover Cookbookis a Boxing Day and New Year's Day essential, for reasons I am certain are obvious, although I will be quizzing him closely on the veracity of his claims, as when I'm hungover all I can face is half a banana and a weak cup of mint tea, which inexplicably are not listed in his recipes.

Yes. It will be good. Details as ever par ici. Also as ever, I will point out that Windsor is much closer to other places, like London and Oxford, than you might think. (Though it remians quite a long way from Canada.)

Portsmouth Litfest

Tonight the Book Swap visits Portsmouth! Our guests are Mick Jackson, a Book Swap alumnus (in Alfreston, so I wasn't there) whose new novel The Widow's Tale I'm enjoying hugely - his previous, The Underground Man, was Booker-shortlisted, so may be even better; and Charlotte Moore, who's written a wonderful biography of her house Hancox and the people who lived in it (including some brilliantly inspiring era-defying independent-minded women), and who I met at a lunch party a few years ago and thus I can report is very nice and has impeccable table manners. That should help with the cake. Join us! We'll be at the Aspex Gallery at 7.30pm. Don't forget to bring a book to swap.

Events, Dear Girl, Events

Harold Macmillan: would be attending if he hadn't died in 1986.

It is ALL GO in the heady world of events performed at by me. You'd almost think I had a new book out! But I don't.

But let's not allow that to interfere with our excitement!

On MONDAY SEPTEMBER 13TH I will be appearing at the soon-to-be-renamed TO HELL WITH THE LIGHTHOUSE night, featuring a special launch of the new FAT QUARTER magazine (hmm, really not sure where I'm going with all these caps - but hey, I've started so I'll finish) and you can find all the details HERE. Other readers are ANJALI JOSEPH and JEAN HANNAH EDELSTEIN and the thing that I should have saved the caps for is that IN A FIT OF INSANITY I HAVE AGREED TO READ FROM MY NEW NOVEL, YOU KNOW, THE ONE I HAVEN'T FINISHED YET OR EVEN GIVEN A NAME TO. It's a pretty major exclusive seeing as the only people to have seen a word of this are my agent, my UK and Canadian publishers, and one friend, and if you all hate it, well, I could have a total meltdown as I watch two years' work goes down the tubes. So no pressure there, then. All this will be taking place at PETER PARKER'S ROCK'N'ROLL CLUB, Denmark Street WC2H 8LP at 7.30pm. Do I know anything about Peter Parker's Rock'n'Roll Club? No. Does it sound cool? HELL TO THE YEAH.

THEN, on THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 16TH is the FIRESTATION BOOKSWAP at the Windsor Firestation, details HERE. Apparently there is some dispute as to whether "bookswap" is all one word. IT IS. Even if I am the only person who says so. As ever I will be co-hosting with SCOTT PACK but FAR MORE EXCITINGLY THAN THAT our guests this month are TIM COATES, who used to head up Waterstones and is now a(n) historian, and who I invited to take part because I did an event with him a few months ago and he was so incredibly interesting that I was SLACK-JAWED WITH AMAZEMENT - how often am I slack-jawed for any reason? Why, NEVER. And TOM MORTON aka @DRSAMUELJOHNSON on Twitter. Non-Twitterers, you can still read Tom Morton aka Dr J's twitterings by going to www.twitter.com/drsamueljohnson and I'm fairly sure that you will find him so funny that you will either JOIN TWITTER and go around saying to people YOU KNOW, I NEVER USED TO UNDERSTAND THE POINT OF TWITTER, BUT NOW I DO, or BUY HIS BOOK or - radical suggestion - COME TO THE BOOKSWAP. Or ALL THREE.

Is that enough? IT'S NOT ENOUGH. On Monday September 27th we are doing ANOTHER BOOKSWAP. I don't know where. It's just in my diary. But I think it's at the Independent Bookseller's conference in Warwick, which you may not attend, UNLESS YOU ARE AN INDEPENDENT BOOKSELLER.

AND THEN on Thursday September 30th I am doing a STORYTELLING EVENT in which I will be TELLING A STORY and also providing the words for some FICTIONAL LETTERS to be read by people OTHER THAN ME. This event is called TALL TALES and takes place at the GOOD SHIP in KILBURN and I am NOT REMOTELY SURE HOW YOU CAN ARRANGE TO COME TO THIS, it is arranged by ROBERT HUDSON, go and bother him about it, why don't you.

On October 1st, I will be staying in and watching television.

THAT IS ALL.

Musical bookswap on a Monday

And why not? It's my blog.

I am SO BLOODY EXCITED about the Firestation Bookswap on Thursday. Here are some reasons you might want to get excited too:

1. It's the bookswap's first birthday! I might wear that transparent dress I accidentally wore on the first night, to celebrate. Then again, I might not.

2. We have had some amazing guests on the bookswap so far but it'd be hard to beat this month's line-up. I read Matt Rudd's William's Progressin one sitting, despite being filled with horror at its hilarious revelations about the truth about having young babies - yes I will now never have children and it is all Matt Rudd's fault, but I will forgive anybody who makes me laugh. Get a taste of his inimitable sense of humour at his blog. And Andrew Kaufmann's All My Friends are Superheroesis the only book that has ever made me cry from happiness. I read it less than a year ago, have already given away four copies (including Scott's - sorry Scott, if I can remember who I gave it to I might be able to get it back) and I love love LOVE it. In fact if you buy a copy you can find a quote from me on the back confirming this very thing. His latest, The Waterproof Bible, is similarly strange and wonderful. Andrew is interviewed on the Beat website by bookswap alumnus Aliya Whiteley and I defy you to read the interview and not want to meet the man in person.

3. For one month only, the bookswap is FREE. Free I hear you say? Why yes -



Hilarious. Could that video be any more 90s? And when did you last think of the Soup Dragons?

I am returned

Had a lovely time in Tuscany, but feeling a bit fragile as a beloved friend passed away while I was on holiday. Not yet ready to resume trademark inconsequential frippery. Although, to be fair, said beloved friend was a big fan of inconsequential frippery. The last text message I got from him was to alert me to the fact that Samantha Fox of Page Three / bad pop / lesbian / born again Christian fame has rabies. So, not least in his honour, the fun will return.

Meanwhile, a reminder that we're having our first ever London bookswap at the London Review Bookshop on Thursday at 7.30pm. Our guests are James Miller and Patrick Neate. It's very close to sold out, so if you are planning to come, please don't show up without a ticket as you will almost certainly not get in. You can book ahead here. Looking forward to seeing some of you there.

UPDATE: LRB bookswap is now sold out.

Bookswap Preview

Next Thursday is our regular Firestation Bookswap night and for once I have actually been sent the books far enough in advance to do a proper preview. Previous bookswap authors look away now... Gone? OK. The rest of you, usually I get the books so late I have to finish them on the train to Windsor. OK bookswap authors, you can look back now.

First up, we have Aliya Whiteley, author of Light Reading. Light Reading is a murder mystery - or is it? - in which two neglected air force wives stave off boredom and try to avoid thinking about their own problems by investigating a suspicious suicide in a sinister seaside resort. The cover, with its "A Lena and Pru Mystery!" sticker, makes it look like cheerful but conventional fun, but it's far darker and more unusual than that, and actually I can't figure out whether of the book's being missold or I'm missing the irony of the packaging. A question I'll be putting to Aliya.

Joining Aliya will be Bronia Kita, whose Wild West novel The Swansong of Wilbur McCrum reads like a cross between Forrest Gump and Little House on the Prairie. Wilbur McCrum, a cow-phobic, fit-ridden outlaw, narrates his peripatetic life story from the bottom of a well, where he is drowning after trying to escape a vengeful posse while disguised in women's clothes. No need to say more - that's a premise which sells itself.

STOP PRESS. At this point I wrote a whole lot of information which is now completely inaccurate. Like, as of five minutes after I posted. And which I will now delete. So I started off by saying that we're doing a bookswap at the London Review Bookshop on Thursday August 5th, which is still true, and then -

la la la la la la la -

He'll

[but who? The author who isn't coming, that's who. For entirely respectable reasons, I should add]

be joined by James Miller, whose book I don't yet have, but whose website promises the following:

Other than writing, my main passion is Jamaican and African-American music. I have a ridiculous collection of reggae, dub, dancehall, soul, blues and gospel music. My other obsessions include drinking coffee, wandering around London, going to Italy and taking pictures of buildings. I'm also interested in Civil Rights history, psycho-analysis, post-colonial theory, anti-capitalist protest, Middle East politics, Modern, pre-Raphaelite and Renaissance art, mega-cities and anything that might offer an insight into our present postmodern nightmare.

He doesn't mention cake. But clearly a man with plenty to talk about.

I think the LRB event is going to be fantastic, but please, please book ahead - I am fairly certain it will sell out. The event's not on their website quite yet (at time of writing anyway) but you could try calling them on 020 7269 9030. (Usual bookswap rules of free entry for those who bring home-baked cake will apply.)

Events, dear boy, events

Next week is ACTION PACKED with events. ACTION PACKED I tell you.

On Tuesday 13th April I'm hosting a pub quiz at the Crown Tavern on Clerkenwell Green in London to launch Granta magazine's latest issue. The theme of the mag is Sex, and so is the theme of the quiz. Let's not speculate about why they asked me to do it. No. Let's not. Details are here, alongside a list of other related events which unaccountably do not feature me.

And THEN on Thursday it's the Firestation Bookswap in Windsor, hosted as usual by me and Scott Pack, and featuring young feminist Kat Banyard, novelist Ray Robinson, and cake. Lots and lots of lovely cake. I could do a great post with lots of clever links to everyone, but as it turns out Scott did that already so if you want more details pay him a visit.

Hope to see you at one or both events. One will have more sex and the other will have more cake. I will judge you entirely on which you choose.

Firestation Bookswap: November Preview

Over on his brilliant blog, Robert Hudson does a lovely job of publicising next month's Firestation Bookswap, in which he is appearing with Richard Asplin. I think it's going to be a particularly good one this month, if you can make it, which is not to diss the particularly good ones we've had so far, but it's too late for you to make those. Also, audience members have started baking and bringing cakes. Rumour has it there is going to be parkin, there will almost certainly be cupcakes and I am hoping for a repeat of last month's flapjacks. (Those links all take you to the bakers thereof.) That's in addition to cakes from varied family members of Scott's, and I might even get some brownies made myself this time. I aint promising anything. But you never know.

Oh yeah, and books. Bring one, swap one, talk about lots. You know the drill.

Tickets here.

The Other Woman

I don't like poetry. That's the official line. The vast majority of the time, I find it self-indulgent and boring to read. So why was I reduced to floods of tears by a poem in Kate Clanchy's recent collection 'Newborn'? Poetry, it turns out, is not pointless when it speaks directly to you.

Here is the poem in question.

The Other Woman

I am running to meet her,
now, the girl who lives on her own,
who has in her hand the key to her own
hallway, her own bare polished stair, who
is clacking down it now, in kitten heals, swearing,
who is marching over envelopes marked with a single name,
who is late, can be late, sleep late, forgets things,
who tonight has forgotten hat, gloves and
umbrella, who is running not caring
through luminous rain.
What shall we say?

Shall I slip off
my coat and order cold wine
and watch myself sip it through
the long row of optics, arching my back
on the velvet banquette? And pick up the wit,
the moue of the mouth as we pass jokes like olives?
And say the right thing and stand up for my round,
tapping the bar with a rolled-up twenty,
tipsy, self-conscious, a girl,
a vessel of secrets, so
carefully held in?

Or down just one glass
and see stars and the whole
room go smeary, have nothing to say
and say all the same - You don't understand.
What happens is someone slips from your side, someone
full-sized. Will she yawn, get her bag, start tucking
her fags in when I get out his photo,
say Look, look how he's grown,
all by himself, he has grown
to the size of my life?


Oh god, I just started crying again just copying that out.

This poem is so unbearably cruel. It is written from the point of view of the mother, but I am not a mother, and so that is not how I read it. I am 'The Other Woman' of the title. Running late to meet my married friend, my friend the mother, whose rich internal life is so beautifully chronicled in the rest of Clanchy's book. I don't have a rich internal life. I just have kitten heels and my own front door. I may look luminous but I am an object of pity. In another poem, Clanchy talks of a friend who is single: "I thought / of her last eggs / the womb staying empty, folded / like an evening purse". What is wit and wine against an empty, folded womb? And then the cruelest blow of all: I don't understand. When my friend shows me her baby photos, she is afraid I might yawn. She has moved on to another place, a place of total fulfillment - "he has grown / to the size of my life." My pleasures are as transient and meaningless as olives. In order to maintain our friendship, she must lie to me, "say the right thing", be " a girl, / a vessel of secrets, so / carefully held in." She is afraid that if she shows her true self, her friend will get her bag and leave, but she does not allow for her friend's empathy. You don't understand. Her friend is The Other Woman. Sexy. Selfish. A threat.

"You don't understand" says Clanchy, but I do understand. On the contrary, it is you who does not understand me. I am not bored of your baby. What breaks my heart is to see my friend sitting opposite me thinking that we have nothing in common - "what shall we say?" She thinks she knows me because she used to be me, but it is her own ambivalence about her lost self she sees reflected back at her. She has moved on, but the one thing she can never know is how it feels to be left behind. The mother in the poem, finding her friend wanting, has one drink and goes home to her baby. But the Other Woman, as with all Other Women, is glamorous but lonely. The mother has moved on to something, has grown a person to be her life. But the Other Woman has no life. Or no life that her friend can see.

The Other Woman a brilliant poem describing the divide which appears between single women and their friends with babies. What I would like to know is whether Clanchy believes that the divide is real or illusory. Fortunately I will have the chance to find out, because alongside historian Helen Rappaport, Kate Clanchy will be my guest at the Firestation Bookswap in Windsor this Thursday. Do join us.

Firestation Bookswap: September Preview

Announcing the Bookswap guests for September!

We've got poet, biographer / memoirist, and frequent flyer at the Guardian Kate Clanchy; and historian, Russianist (great word) and novelist Helen Rappaport. I am very keen to get my mitts on Clanchy's Antigona and Me, her account of her relationship with her cleaner and nanny, a Kosovan refugee, and also Rappaport's Ekaterinburg(aka 'The Last Days of the Romanovs'), which is not her most recent (that's her Lenin biog 'Conspirator') but I have heard so much good stuff about it that I can't resist.

We're kicking off at 7.30pm to give out-of-towners a fighting chance of getting home afterwards, and we're going to be a tad more organised about proceedings after last month's amiable chaos (notably there will be an interval for drinking and weeing purposes) but the essence of the night is still the same: questions on all kinds of topics from Scott Pack, myself and the audience, and the soon-to-be wold famous Book Swap for which the night is named, which will be much assisted if you bring a book with you to swap. Tickets are £5 and can be bought here.

As before, if you can't make it, do leave questions for our guests in the comments, and I will try to ask them.

Firestation Bookswap: Ruston / McCrum

Very much enjoyed last night's somewhat chaotic inaugural Firestation Bookswap. By now I'm sure you all know that this was a hybrid author event / book club hosted by Scott Pack and myself at Windsor's new(ish) arts centre, The Firestation. We'd invited guests Jessica Ruston, whose intelligent-yet-glamorous blockbuster debut Luxury has just come out, and Robert McCrum, who has a wealth of writing and editing experience encompassing fiction, memoir, biography and long stints at Faber and The Observer. We'd persuaded Scott's wife Rhian to bake delicious cakes and macaroons for our guests and audience. We'd got everyone, guests and audience alike, to bring along a book to swap with each other. And then we gathered everyone together, put the kettle on and off we went...

Chat was a mixture of bookish and non-bookish topics, bolstered by audience questions from the anonymous question jar, and less anonymous contributions from the floor. We covered a huge range of issues from broadsheet reviews (six pages in the Observer divide into new releases from big names, books related to news and current affairs, and only small provision for what McCrum referred to as "The History of Sand" type books) and the difficulty of reading Harry Potter out loud, to the most annoying places on earth (Ruston: 'a delayed plane', McCrum: 'the Hay literary festival') and the efficacy of cat worming tablets (no, really). Jess even brought a compilation CD for us to listen to as we mingled afterwards and swapped our books. I was delighted to pick up 'For Richer, For Poorer', Victoria Coren's account of her life as a poker pro, from McCrum but regretfully had to give up my copy of Luxury in return (I will be buying another).

I am sad to say that the number of audience questions means that I did not have a chance to ask Lilalia's question about the physicality of the written word, but I did manage to get in Persephone's regarding whether McCrum ever looks back on 'My Year Off', his memoir of recovering from stroke, and wants to footnote it saying he has changed his mind... His answer started as 'yes, the whole thing' and then swiftly changed over to 'actually, I wanted to write it as it was, and keep it detached but helpful for other stroke sufferers, so no', before settling on 'I have actually blanked out the whole experience so it's a useful record to remind me what happened'.

Thanks to all who came. Our next event will be on Thursday 17th September and I will announce the guests as soon as I can. Meanwhile here is a lovely review from Emma at the Independent blog who can verify the deliciousness of the macaroons... Surely that's incentive enough to join us next month?

A bit of me

Do you miss me? I miss you. But my gorgeous, demanding little nephews and their equally gorgeous, slightly less demanding and far less little parents are visiting me from Mozambique so I am ignoring my responsibilities.

Fortunately, here's an interview I did earlier. Just to keep the wolf from the door.

And you're coming to the Firestation Bookswap on Thursday of course, so I'll see you there. Remember, if you can't come because you live in Canada or something, you can post questions for Jessica Ruston or Robert McCrum here and I'll ask any that aren't actually obscene.