book launch
David Lodge: Launching A Man Of Parts
12 months ago
Saturday 9th April 2011
David Lodge: Launching A Man Of Parts
£6.50 /£5 /7.30pm/ Recital Hall, Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, Birmingham B3 3HG
Sponsored by Harvill Secker.
David Lodge is a novelist, critic, and Emeritus Professor of English Literature at the University of Birmingham, where he taught for many years, taking early retirement in 1987 to write full-time.
His new novel, A Man of Parts, is his fifteenth work of fiction. Others include Changing Places (1975), Small World (1984), and Nice Work (1988), all of which are set partly in “Rummidge,” a mythical version of Birmingham, where he continues to live. He has won several prizes and awards, including the Hawtherndon Prize and the Yorkshire Post Fiction Prize for Changing Places, the Sunday Express Book of the Year Award for Nice Work and the Whitbread Book of the Year Award for How Far Can You Go? (1980). Both Small World and Nice Work were shortlisted for the Booker Prize. David Lodge adapted Nice Work and Charles Dickens’ Martin Chuzzlewit as television serials for the BBC, produced at Pebble Mill in 1989 and 1994 respectively. More recent novels include Therapy (1995), Thinks…(2001), Author, Author (2004), and Deaf Sentence (2008) His stage plays The Writing Game (1990) and Home Truths (1998) were premiered at the Birmingham Rep, and a new play, Secret Thoughts, based on the novel Thinks… will be premiered at the Bolton Octagon in May of this year. He is the author of numerous works of literary criticism, including The Art of Fiction, Consciousness and the Novel, and The Year of Henry James. In 1998 he was awarded the CBE for services to literature.
A Man of Parts, is about H.G.Wells. As the second war he has lived through moves into its final phase, the ailing “H.G.” loo
ks back on a life crowded with incident, books, and women. David Lodge achieves a riveting portrait of a remarkable man who embodied as many contradictions as he had talents: a socialist who enjoyed his affluence, an acclaimed novelist who turned against the literary novel, a feminist womaniser, sensual yet incurably romantic, irresistible and exasperating by turns to those who knew him personally, but always vitally human.
Join us in celebrating the publication of this latest work with David.
Book Online or call 0844 870 0000
Join Michael Thomas and Roz Goddard in launching their new poetry collections
1 year ago
Details of a Birmingham poetry launch you might like…
Birmingham Launch: The Sopranos Sonnets & Other Poems and Port Winston Mulberry
Roz Goddard & Michael Wyndham Thomas
Thursday 15th July from 7.30pm – 9.00pm.
The Priory Rooms, Bull Street, Birmingham, B4 6AF.
FREE Entry
Celebrate the Launch of two brand new poetry collections from Nine Arches Press and Littlejohn & Bray, with readings from Roz Goddard and Michael Wyndham Thomas.
About Roz Goddard’s The Sopranos Sonnets & Other Poems:
Roz Goddard’s The Sopranos Sonnets & Other Poems is acutely observed, streetwise and bittersweet. At its heart are ten sonnet-portraits inspired by the television series about a dysfunctional mafia boss and his family. Among the cast of characters is Gloria, the hauntingly-seductive mistress with a built-in self-destruct button, and Leotardo, ready to murder at the drop of a letter…
This pamphlet will be available as a standard pamphlet, but also as a signed limited-edition pamphlet in a print run of 100 copies only.
About Michael Wyndham Thomas’s latest poetry collection, Port Winston Mulberry from Littlejohn & Bray:
Mulberries was the name of the artificial harbours used for the D-Day landings in June, 1944. The title poem of the collection, Port Winston Mulberry highlights one of Michael Wyndham Thomas’s abiding interests: giving voice to anonymous witnesses when history throws a fit. But this is just one strand in his latest collection. Reflections on how relationships are (or ought to be); observations of the passing human scene; the light and shade of memory; even commemorations of a father’s lethal choice of van–all of these and more find voice in a collection as varied in mood and form as in subject. ‘My dad drove vans,’ declares the opening poem. Michael Wyndham Thomas drives in all directions and returns with much to report.
Christine Coleman Book Launch
1 year ago
Tuesday 27 April 2010 : A Launch Event for Christine Coleman’s new novel, Paper Lanterns. In conversation with Clarissa Dickson-Wright, Christine will read from her new book and talk about the ideas behind it.
Venue: The Ikon Gallery, 1 Oozells Square, Birmingham B1 2HS
Time: 6.45pm
Tickets: Free but please reserve via Sara Beadle on 0121 246 2792 or sara[at]birminghambookfestival[dot]org
