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We are thrilled to announce our line-up of events for 2013. We'll be adding more events to this page regularly so keep checking back to see if your favourite author has been added to the schedule. Alternatively do sign up for our newsletter to be kept up-to-date with all of our new events.
We've lined up lots of our Book Lovers Unite evenings in the shop, these events feature special guest author talks, music from The Bookshop Band, yummy buffet style dinner from our favourite local foodies, drinks and general book chat from the Mr B's team. We're also delighted to host a fantastic in-depth interview with Giles Coren at Hall and Woodhouse, Bath. More details can be found below...
As usual, we have only invited authors whose books genuinely love, and with each evening we're aiming to give you the closest and most memorable connection to the author as possible.
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Far-Flung Fiction Night
With Ben Fountain
Wednesday 22nd May, 2013, 7pm at Mr B's
Our favourite Texan returns to Mr B’s to introduce his award-winning short story collection “Brief Encounters with Che Guevara”. The rich, political and thought-provoking prose in Ben’s novel “Billy Lynn’s Long Half-Time Walk” made it our book of the year, and these tales set in seldom-visited countries (now published for the first time here in the UK) won him the Hemingway Foundation/Pen Award, the adoration of US critics and this Malcolm Gladwell article in the New Yorker. Anyone who was here in 2012 for Ben's first visit knows what a captivating guest he is. Anyone who missed it can snatch a bit of it by watching the highlights video here, before snapping up one of the precious tickets for his grand return. Once we've chatted with Ben about his stories set everywhere from Haiti to Sierre Leone , we'll search the back pages of literature's passports for some other dangerously exotic tales.
Tickets in advance £14 or £25 for any two
(includes delicious buffet and drinks, music from The Bookshop Band
and 15% off any book purchased at the event)
To book call 01225 331155, email books@mrbsemporium.com
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Sole Survivor Night
With Tan Twan Eng
Thursday 23rd May, 2013, 7pm at Mr B's
Fresh from being robbed of the 2012 Man Booker Prize, novelist Tan Twan Eng joins us to discuss “The Garden of Evening Mists”. We’ll explore the thin divide between the forces of beauty and horror in post-WW2 Malaysia through the eyes of Eng’s prison camp survivor Teoh Yun Ling. This is a rare opportunity to spend an evening in the company of one of the breakthrough authors of last year, a man whose prose was described by the Booker Prize judges as having the beauty of "slowly crashing icebergs". If our emotions are up to it, in part 2 of the evening we'll take you on a journey to meet other literary characters who survive against all odds.
Tickets in advance £14 or £25 for any two
(includes delicious buffet and drinks, music from The Bookshop Band
and 15% off any book purchased at the event)
To book call 01225 331155, email books@mrbsemporium.com
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Crime in the City Night: London
with Robert Wilson
Thursday 30th May, 2013, 7pm at Mr B's
Forget your Scandi detectives with their endless drink problems, we'll be investigating the shady characters of Britain's capital in the company of CWA Gold Dagger Winning crime author Robert Wilson. In "Capital Punishment" as a billionaire's daughter is taken from the mean streets of London a new hero steps forward; Charles Boxer: the expert in kidnap resolution with a dark past of his own. Whilst we plan to use Robert's visit from his adopted Mediterranean home to focus on London noir, we'll also be sure to chew the fat with Robert about his irrepressible Spanish detective Javier Falcon (star of 4 novels beginning with "The Blind Man of Seville") and his superb war-time thriller "A Small Death in Lisbon".
Tickets in advance £14 or £25 for any two
(includes delicious buffet and drinks, music from The Bookshop Band
and 15% off any book purchased at the event)
To book call 01225 331155, email books@mrbsemporium.com
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Wanderlust Night
With Michelle De Kretser
Thursday 6th June, 2013, 7pm at Mr B's
Booker-shortlisted author of “The Lost Dog” Michelle de Kretser will be wandering over from Australia to introduce her captivating new novel “Questions of Travel” - a dual-narrative tale of interlocking modern lives rich with the dreams and realities of international travel. If you haven't read Michelle's work before you will be struck down by the elegant precision of her language, which has never been shown off to greater effect than in this cleverly structured and very contemporary story. After lots of chat with Michelle in part one, and some fabulous music and food to boot, we'll spend some time in the second half of the evening exploring other characters in literature who are just itching to get out on the road.
Tickets in advance £14 or £25 for any two
(includes delicious buffet and drinks, music from The Bookshop Band
and 15% off any book purchased at the event)
To book call 01225 331155, email books@mrbsemporium.com
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North Korea Night
with Adam Johnson
Tuesday 18th June, 2013, 7pm at Mr B's
We're delighted to welcome 2013 Pulitzer-Prize-winning American novelist and short-story writer Adam Johnson to introduce his fascinating and atmospheric North Korean set novel "The Orphan Master's Son". Typically ahead of the game, Mr B discovered this topical literary gem last year and was gripped by the story of 'almost' orphan Pak Jun Do, as he struggles to navigate his way through life under the North Korean regime and is thrown into a prison camp of apocalyptic proportions. The descriptions of the communist goverment from an everyman persepective are both engrossing and nightmarish; from the constant propaganda messages broadcast over loudspeaker, to the hidden obsessions of the people in power (e.g. Commander Ga's love of sexy karate!). And the narrative, which flips between characters and time frames and captures the most bizarre and astonishing of situations, makes for some utterly compulsive reading.
We'll talk to Adam about his dyamic novel, the time he spent travelling in North Korea and how it feels to be the winner of America's big literary gong, before enjoying food from some of the best local caterers in town. And in the second half of the evening we'll turn to other literature which depicts the tumultous history of North Korea, all from the (relative!) safety of the bibliotherapy room.
Tickets in advance £14 or £25 for any two
(includes delicious buffet and drinks
and 15% off any book purchased at the event)
To book call 01225 331155, email books@mrbsemporium.com
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Secret Diary Night
With Ruth Ozeki
Tuesday 2nd July, 2013, 7pm at Mr B's
Join us for a snoop around some of fiction’s most fascinating diaries in the company of novelist, filmmaker and Zen Buddhist priest Ruth Ozeki. Ruth’s stunning novel “A Tale for the Time Being” features the wonderfully direct voice of Nao, a sixteen-year-old Japanese girl whose journal is washed up on the shore of a small Canadian island (inside a “Hello Kitty” lunchbox) and discovered by a distracted writer. Nao’s diary excerpts are contrasted with the artful description of their finder’s reading sessions, creating an interlinked dual-narrative tale.
We love this time-bending, thought-provoking book, and we’re so excited to welcome Ruth to the bibliotherapy room for a nose in Nao’s journal. There’ll also be food from some of our favourite Bath foodies and music from The Bookshop Band before we introduce you to our picks of some of fiction’s other most captivating diarists.
Tickets in advance £14 or £25 for any two
(includes delicious buffet and drinks, music from The Bookshop Band
and 15% off any book purchased at the event)
To book call 01225 331155, email books@mrbsemporium.com
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FRAGILE! Handle with Care
With Rachel Joyce
Wednesday 10th July, 2013, 7pm at Mr B's
The lovely Rachel Joyce, she of "The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry" fame will make a return trip to Mr B's to celebrate the publication of "Perfect" - a moving novel about Byron, an eleven-year-old boy who is bewildered when in 1972 2 seconds are added to time. This appears to set off a chain of events which will change Bryon's life, and that of his family, beyond recognition. Byron and his friend James (the cleverest boy at school) become fixated with the time shift and set-up "Operation Perfect" a scheme designed to discover how the existence of those pivotal seconds could have changed their futures forever.
We're already in love with Rachel's second book, which is written with the same grace and humour as "Harold" and contemplates the fragile nature of time, the people who surround us and the meaning of language. We can't wait for you to meet Byron and hear Rachel talk about her latest work. As ever, there will be music from our brilliant Bookshop Band and a buffet from some of our favourite local foodies and we'll wrap up the evening with a discussion of other great novels which feature characters or moments that should be handled with care!
Tickets in advance £14 or £25 for any two
(includes delicious buffet and drinks, music from The Bookshop Band
and 15% off any book purchased at the event)
To book call 01225 331155, email books@mrbsemporium.com
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