Cultur Vultur / Books & Ideas
Discover author talks, book launches and conversations worth getting out for, across London.
Loading events…
91 talks and events in the next 7 days
Showing 401–425 of 640 events401–425 of 640 events
Actor and podcaster Tim Downie (Upstart Crow, Toast of London and host of Folklands podcast) talks to author, actor and comedian Rachel Parris about his new book Rituals: A Folk Journey Through The Seasons.
Speaker: Dennis Walder, Emeritus Professor of Literature at the Open University Dennis Walder was born in Cape Town to Swiss German parents and is a graduate of the universities of Cape Town and Edinburgh. He is Emeritus Professor of Literature at the Open University and has published widely on 19th and 20th century literature, including the best-selling Literature in the Modern World. Other books include Dickens and Religion, Athol Fugard, and Postcolonial Nostalgias. His short story The Place (Stand 2011) was runner-up for the V S Pritchette Prize. His latest book, Amid the Alien Corn: A Son’s Memoir (2025) takes its narrator from the bewilderment of childhood and youth towards the unfolding of his mother Ruth’s secrets, long suspected from a pervasive sense of something missing at the heart of his family. Members: Free, Online or Victoria Hall Non-Members: £10, Online or Victoria Hall. To attend in person, please pay on the door Please book, for online link only, by 1pm on the day of the event Please join us for a drink in the Members’ Room after the lecture
From alt-rock bassist Melissa Auf der Maur—of Hole and Smashing Pumpkins fame—comes a photographic love letter to the last analog decade.
We've got another exciting signing event to announce in partnership with the incredible comics festival, Thought Bubble! Ahead of his appearance in Harrogate on the weekend, the artist Raúl Allén, will be in the shop signing on Wednesday 11th November 2026, from 6-7pm, to celebrate the…
Our book club meets once a month for friendly informal chat about books. In November we will be discussing Shy Creatures, Clare Chambers. Come along and tell us what you think. New members always welcome! Doors at 6.30 Discussion begins at 7.00 Please contact the store if you have any access requirements
Join us for a special evening with bestselling author Patrick deWitt in conversation with Octavia Bright as we celebrate Dodge City.
Come along to this month's Fiction book club, where we will be discussing 'The House of the Spirits' by Isabelle Allende.
Arkady and Boris Strugatsky reigned supreme over Soviet science fiction for more than three decades, building an incredibly rich archive of speculative fiction, full of internal coherence and paradox reflecting profound shifts in Soviet society and ideology. Co-presented by Pushkin House and Klassiki, the season After Utopia: The Strugatsky Brothers on Film explores the long shadow the pair cast over Russian and Soviet cinema with screenings of four classic adaptations of their work.
Join us for an in-conversation with author Rebecca Jane Morgan and activist Charlie Craggs to celebrate the book Deviants and Trailblazers: A History of Trans Activism in Britain. At a time when trans rights are under attack in Britain and beyond, Deviants and Trailblazers tells a story of resilience. Across the book, Morgan chronicles activism and radical change, from key moments including the first legal gender changes in 1944 and the Gender Recognition Act 2004, to the ongoing battle for change. In doing so, Morgan traces the relentless efforts of the trans community, and the grassroots organising that persist today. Our Meet the Author series invites you to learn more about Britain’s queer history from those who are writing it. Each event features an in-conversation with the author, followed by a post-event book signing where you can meet them in person. You can purchase a copy of the book in our shop. Your ticket also includes admission to Queer Britain Museum – explore our exhibitions before the event. EVENT TIMINGS6.30pmEvent Starts6.30-6.35pmShort Introduction6.35-7.10pmIn-Conversation7.10-7.30Q&A7.30-8pmBook Signing8pmEvent Ends ACCESS Queer Britain Museum has step-free, wheelchair-accessible entry.An accessible, gender-neutral bathroom is available on site.Event timings will be shared here in advance.This event will not include BSL interpretation or live captioning.The event will be photographed for marketing and archive purposes.
Derek Jarman's Kicking the Pricks: The Last of England with Richard Scott and Declan Wiffen Originally published in 1987, and out of print for many years, Kicking the Pricks is a key title in Derek Jarman’s cross-disciplinary oeuvre, documenting the making of one of his most important and politically-charged films, The Last of England. Featuring diary entries, interviews and notes from the script of the film alongside writing about his childhood, his father, the process through which he came to terms with his sexuality, his early work as a painter and designer, and his debut as a film director, it is one of Jarman’s most radical publications. Reflecting unsparingly on what he saw as the corruption of the cinema industry, the moral and personal consequences of AIDS, and Thatcher’s Britain, it remains all too relevant. Launching and discussing this new edition from House Sparrow Press will be poet Richard Scott, who has contributed a new suite of found poems to the edition and Jarman scholar Declan Wiffen, whose extensive essay contextualises the work. Welcoming them and hosting will be Gareth Evans, co-editor of House Sparrow Press.
I Liked Rex
Thirty-six new stories from Diane Williams are an event in any avant-gardist’s calendar. I Liked Rex (Granta Magazine) explores the spiritual that arises from the commonplace, with Williams’s brevity and intelligence. Another master of the short form Lydia Davis writes ‘Not a single moment of the prose, here, is what you expect, and even the ordinary is, in the context created by Diane Williams, no longer ordinary; it is fresh, happy and peculiar - or is it we who are refreshed, happy and more peculiar than before after reading her?’ Diane Williams will be reading from her work and discussing it with Lucie Elven, LRB contributor and author of The Weak Spot.
Join us for an evening of conversation with French novelist Anne Serre to celebrate the release of Virtue and Rosalind as part of the Penguin International Writers Series.
Join us for a special night focused on environmental writing across fact, fiction and hopeful futures, with authors E.J. Swift, winner of the 2026 Arthur C. Clarke Award science fiction book of the year, and Cal Flyn, winner of the 2026 Wainwright Prize for Conservation Writing.
Join us for a very exciting evening with bestselling author Ryan Cahill as we celebrate the release of ‘Of Darkness and Light'
Award-winning author Tom McCarthy visits Foyles to celebrate his newest book The Rhyl Poster with Eyal Weizman
Soho Bibles, also known as typescripts, were small typed booklets of erotic stories sold illicitly in the back rooms of Soho's bookshops from the 1950s onwards.
@ Join us for the launch of this illuminating study of one of the most remarkable housing initiatives in European history. With the author, Sara Almodovar Pereira, in conversation with architect and theorist Dr Dubravka Sekulić. ABOUT THE BOOK: The fall of the dictatorship in 1974 saw the start of Portugal’s revolutionary period and with it one of the most remarkable housing initiatives in European history. As an immediate response to the vast portion of the population living in slums and shanties, the SAAL (Mobile Local Support Service) was established to equip impoverished people to build the new homes they needed. Initiated by architect Nuno Portas, the SAAL connected citizens with planners, architects, engineers, and builders to collaborate on the design and construction of new developments, to be built on requisitioned sites as close as possible to the inhabitants’ former homes. The resulting estates were intimately informed by their inhabitants’ needs and hopes. Through their uniquely participatory process they developed a celebrated new architectural language. In this book, Sara Almodovar Pereira collects the experiences and reflections of those who participated in the SAAL, reconstructing this extraordinary chapter in architectural and social history through the voices of those who were there, at the protests and meetings, on the building sites and barracks. The experiences recounted are revelatory, demonstrating truly participatory architecture and offering new understandings of housing as right and provision, far from prevailing paradigms and their perpetuated logic of ‘crisis’. This immersive oral history traces the unfolding of a historical moment at ground level and reminds us of ways of working and building that could transform the future. Sara and Dubravka will talk for around 45 minutes followed by a Q&A. As always, tickets are priced on a sliding scale. If you are unable to pay for a ticket please do not hesitate to contact us at shop@housmans.com, and a free ticket will be made available. If you choose ‘book + entry’ your copies of the book will be available to collect on the evening. If you would like to collect it earlier, or arrange for delivery, please contact us (postage is £2.95). Telephone 020 7837 4473 or email shop@housmans.com. Doors Open at 6:45pm, Event Starts 7:00.
Live in Conversation with Samira Ahmed
Meet artists, designers and makers and try out a wide range of textile making techniques. This event is aimed at learners aged 7-11.
This event is part of the free Lunchtime Lecture series. Booking is recommended but not essential.
An evening celebrating the life and legacy of the counterculture artist, publisher, archivist, curator and collector Roger Ely.
Join BBC Introducing Live and BBC Radio 1Xtra for an evening of live music and discussion
Join Wendy Jones to discuss Utterly Lazy and Inattentive: Martin Parr in Words and Pictures, with Joanna Scanlan and Susie Parr.
In Algospeak, online etymologist Adam Aleksic embarks on an energetic, astonishing journey into language and the internet; revealing the bigger social story of how language shapes us, just as much as we shape it.
Riverwork
Paris-based Canadian poet and novelist Lisa Robertson’s latest book Riverwork centres on Lucy Frost, an insomniac cleaning woman researching and documenting a series of interwoven disappearances, most notably that of the Bièvre River, once the core of Paris’s textile industry but now buried beneath the city’s streets. Lisa Robertson will be in conversation with author Iain Sinclair, another excavator of hidden urban histories.
