29th February at 7pm in Bridge House Theatre…..

We are very lucky that Professor Danny Dorling one of our foremost social commentators and geographers is coming to Warwick on Wednesday February 29th to talk about his recent book ‘So You Think You Know About Britain’.

We don’t live in the country we thought we live in anymore; it has changed because we have changed. When it comes to immigration, the population explosion, the collapse of the family, the north-south divide, or the death of the countryside, common wisdom tells us that we are in trouble; however, this is far from the truth. In this anatomy of contemporary Britain, Danny Dorling dissects the nation and reveals unexpected truths about the way we live today, contrary to what you might read in the news. Exploring the key issues that make the headlines, this book will change the way you think about our country and explain just why you should feel positive about the future. He examines

• Why there are more young women in London than men
• Why the North/South Divide is moving southwards
• Why we need more immigrants rather than less
• Why the population time bomb is a myth
• Why there are more divorced people in Blackpool than anywhere else
• Why young black people don’t vote

Whilst sometimes, by the very nature of the important things he is talking about, controversial,  Danny is also well known for being transparent. For his very latest book ‘Fair Play’ all the background data is accessible on-line in great detail but in a very easy-to-follow format. And wonderful, fascinating reading it makes too. Pity all commentators and academics aren’t as open. All of Danny’s books are worth reading that’s for sure, and he is responsible for my very favourite reference book of all time ‘Atlas of The Real World’ which is full of mind-bending and innovative charts which show information as we’ve never seen it before. I really look forward to this talk….don’t miss it!

Tickets available FREE from Warwick Books, Kenilworth Books, or the Bridge House Box Office ( 01926 776438, email boxoffice@warwickschool.org ).

You can catch Danny on Radio 4 at the moment on Wednesdays where he is talking about the Domesday Reloaded project….

“As we reach the end of the Domesday Reloaded project, Prof Danny Dorling compares the 2011 and 1986 views of the UK to give a unique insight into how the country has changed in the last 25 years.

Since March 27th 2011, the public have been updating a repository of 24,000 photographs, taken for the BBC’s Domesday project in 1986. Danny picks four areas in which to explore the transformations of the UK. He visits these places and talks to the individuals who have updated the squares about their lives and experience of the way that their locality has changed.

One theme Danny explores is the disappearance of an industrial landscape since the 1980s. He looks at Sheffield, where he is Professor of Human Geography, to explore how this once steel town has benefitted from the expansion of higher education to become a centre of student life.

He also looks at aspects of life that haven’t changed in a quarter of a century, such as the pantomime in the Scottish village of Buchlyvie. The residents were keen contributors to the 1986 Domesday project and they have updated their square in 2011…….”

Kenilworth Books Book Club meets at the Virgin and Castle Pub, High Street, Kenilworth, 4th Tuesday of every month 7.30 p.m. till about 9.30 p.m.

24th January : Bleak House by Charles Dickens – up to the end of Chapter 33 (‘The Appointed Time’)

The Sense of an Ending Julian Barnes

28th February : Steve Jobs – The Exclusive Biography by Walter Isaacson

Death comes to Pemberley by P.D. James

27th March : So You Think You Know About Britain by Prof. Danny Dorling

Cat’s Table by Michael Ondaatje

We are an informal and friendly group. Do come along and join us! Ring Victoria Lee on 0790 8899250, Kenilworth Books on 01926 855784 or see www.warwickbooks.net for more information.

By the time the summer holidays begin, Spencer Little is keen to put the events of the past term at Cambridge behind him and a remote village in the Lake District seems to offer the perfect escape. But it’s not so easy to remain anonymous in a small community and, after striking up a friendship with ten year old Alice, Spencer also finds himself being drawn into other people’s lives. As the summer heatwave intensifies and a web of complicity tightens around him, Spencer realizes that he will eventually be forced to choose between loyalty and truth, between logic and passion.

This title is the winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 2011. Tony Webster and his clique first met Adrian Finn at school. Sex-hungry and book-hungry, they would navigate the girl-less sixth form together, trading in affectations, in-jokes, rumour and wit.

Maybe Adrian was a little more serious than the others, certainly more intelligent, but they all swore to stay friends for life. Now Tony is retired. He’s had a career and a single marriage, a calm divorce.

He’s certainly never tried to hurt anybody. Memory, though, is imperfect. It can always throw up surprises, as a lawyer’s letter is about to prove.

“The Sense of an Ending” is the story of one man coming to terms with the mutable past. Laced with trademark precision, dexterity and insight, it is the work of one of the world’s most distinguished writers.

Leonard and Rosemary Cannon summon their middle-aged offspring, along with partners and children, to the family home in the Welsh Marches for the Christmas holiday. As the gathered family settle in to their first Christmas together for some years, the grown siblings – Rodney, Jonny and Gwen – are surprised when they are invited to each put stickers on the furniture and items they wish to inherit from their parents. “Disputed Land” is narrated by Leonard and Rosemary’s thirteen-year-old grandson, Theo, who observes how from these innocent beginnings age-old fissures open up in the relationships of those around him.

Looking back at this Christmas gathering from his own middle-age – a narrator at once nostalgic and naive – Theo Cannon remembers his imperious grandmother Rosemary, alpha-male uncle Jonny, abominable twin cousins Xan and Baz; he recalls his love for his grandfather Leonard and the burgeoning feelings for his cousin Holly. And he asks himself the question: if a single family cannot solve the problem of what it bequeaths to future generations, then what chance does a whole society have of leaving the world intact?