Book-lined bliss
Turns out we can all enjoy the London Library, without actually having to be a member
I’ve always rather fancied being a member of the London Library (even more so now I’m freelance and would very much enjoy writing these posts in its elegant rooms) but I’m not, for all the reasons, mainly financial, that I’m not a paid-up member of anywhere.
What I didn’t realise until recently is that civilians like myself can actually dip into that lovely world on occasion, because the LL has a regular and rather good events series, which is open to everyone.
The one for this Autumn, just announced, sounds quite nice. On September 26, Katy Hessel will be looking at where we are now in the Story of Art Without Men (the title of her bestselling book) with art historian Professor Dorothy Price, writer Hettie Judah - author of Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood - and Chris Bayley, assistant exhibitions curator at the Serpentine (and a man).
I love Naomi Alderman, author of Disobedience (made into a film starring Rachel Weisz, Rachel McAdams, and Alessandro Nivola) and The Power (which was adapted by Amazon Studios) and lead writer on Zombies, Run!. I just think she’s incredibly cool. She’ll be talking to bibliotherapist (an actual job!) Ella Berthoud about her latest novel The Future on October 10.
On October 30, Jessie Burton (The Miniaturist), Camilla Grudova (The Coiled Serpent) and Andrew Michael Hurley - whose disquieting novel, Starve Acre, was adapted into a folk-horror film starring Matt Smith and Morfydd Clark, just released last week - will dig deep into Daphne Du Maurier’s haunted fiction in conversation with host Bidisha, as part of a new series Live in the Archive. On November 7, playwright Inua Ellams’ brings back his regular evening of words and music, RAP Party.
This time - in anticipation of the London Jazz Festival - he has a line-up of jazz-loving writers and musicians including Jumoké Fashola, Soweto Kinch, Hannah Lowe, André Marmot, Katie Melua, Caleb Azumah Nelson, Derek Uwusu and others, sharing their jazz-inflected writing and their favourite jazz tunes.
And on November 14, non-fiction author and journalist Gaar Adams and novelist Sulaiman Addonia are going to speak about their new books, Guest Privileges: Queer Lives and Finding Home in the Middle East (Adams) and The Seers (Addonia), exploring queerness, migration and what constitutes home.
It’s all taking place in some of the most comfortingly bookish rooms in London. Tickets can be found here.