at the Parochial Hall Kenilworth

Brian Clegg will be talking about his book

 ’The Universe Inside You’

Come and listen to super scientist Brian over afternoon tea talking about his new book ‘The Universe Inside You’. Learn all kinds of fascinating facts and mind-boggling science.  Built from the debris of exploding stars that floated through space for billions of years, home to a zoo of tiny aliens, and controlled by a brain with more possible connections than there are atoms in the universe, the human body is the most incredible thing in existence. In the sequel to his bestselling Inflight Science, Brian Clegg explores mitochondria, in-cell powerhouses which are thought to have once been separate creatures; how your eyes are quantum traps, consuming photons of light from the night sky that have travelled for millions of years; your many senses, which include the ability to detect warps in space and time, and why meeting an attractive person can turn you into a gibbering idiot. Listen to Brian and you’ll never look at yourself the same way again!

Brian has written ten other science titles, including Ecologic, The God Effect, Inflight Science and Before The Big Bang . He has also written regular columns, features and reviews for numerous magazines and newspapers, including Nature, BBC History, Good Housekeeping, The Times, Playboy, The Wall Street Journal and Physics World. His books have been translated into many languages, including German, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Polish, Norwegian, and Indonesian. He has given sell-out lectures at the Royal Institution in London and has spoken at venues from Oxford and Cambridge Universities to Cheltenham Festival of Science. He has also contributed to many radio and TV programs. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

This is an event promoted by Kenilworth Books for Kenilworth Festival. Tickets  available from Kenilworth Books, Warwick Books or the Festival Box Office at £6 (to include light refreshments). We are grateful for the support of Icon Books the publisher for enabling us to put on the event.

 Tickets £6 from Kenilworth Books or Warwick Books. 

Dr Suzannah Lipscomb holds posts at the New College of Humanities and the University of East Anglia and her expertise on the tudor period has often been brought to bear on television and radio - from Time Team to the Today program. She has contributed to a variety of newspapers and magazines, and this is her third book.

‘A Visitor’s Companion  To Tudor England’ is both a practical handbook to fifty wonderful Tudor houses, palaces, castles and sites across England, and a colourful and intriguing  introduction to the key characters, stories and events of the Tudor age. If Hilary Mantel, a fastidious researcher herself, says “full of fascinating true stories… it helps us see the world as the Tudors must have seen it.’ it must be good!

Each site – from the Tower of London and Hever Castle, to Hampton Court Palace and Buckland Abbey – tells a wonderful story either about one of the Tudor monarchs, the key characters of the period – such as Anne Boleyn, Sir Thomas More, Sir Francis Drake, Bess of Hardwick or William Shakespeare – or the stories and events of the period, including the Spanish Armada, the Dissolution of the Monasteries and ‘Bloody’ Mary’s Protestant martyrs. And ‘A Visitor’s Companion to Tudor England’ is unique : no other book couples entertaining historical writing intended for a general adult readership – whilst drawing on the most up-to-date academic research – with a  gazetteer and guide to the key remaining Tudor sites. And, of course, it almost goes without saying that Suzannah covers both Shakespeare’s birthplace and our very location….Kenilworth Castle!

This is an event promoted by Kenilworth Books for Kenilworth Festival. Tickets will be available from Kenilworth Books, Warwick Books or the Festival Box Office £7.50 (£6 Concessions). We are grateful for the support of Ebury the publisher for enabling us to put on the event.

 in The Holiday Inn

Penny Junor will be talking about her new book

 ’Prince William’.

Penny Junor is a distinguished expert on the Royal Family and a trusted biographer, whose books about both the Prince and Princess of Wales, including ‘Charles: Victim or Villain?’ , the controversial biography that challenged Diana’s version of her marriage have established Penny’s reputation. She is a determined and perceptive writer and her drive to find out exactly who is William Wales – what drives and tempers him – will result in the first in-depth portrait of our future king. 

 ‘Prince William’ will be a wide-ranging and fascinating biography of this intensely private man and a glimpse into his world and into the impact that his traumatic childhood and adolescence have had on him. It will also look at how he sees the future and the kind of monarch he might be and how he will contribute to the society that ‘keeps’ him.

 This is a book eagerly anticipated because of the wealth of material Penny has had access to. There will be fascinating new anecdotes and stories of the Prince growing up, about his university years, his life in the military and his emergence as a fully-fledged working member of the family firm. Penny has also had unprecedented access to the Prince’s household and drawn on her experience and contacts built up in over thirty years of writing royal biographies. Key to this man, and to his future, is his relationship with the media. This has played a major part in his psyche since childhood and will be looked at at length. The other important relationships in his life: with his mother, his father, the Queen, his brother Harry, and of course, Kate and the Middleton family, will also be examined at length and given psychological analysis.

William is a highly complex and fascinating character who accepts the future that fate has mapped out for him but who is determined to remain in control of his life. He is a born leader with very firm views on how he might use his position for the good of the world. And he will lead with Harry by his side. They are a formidable duo and, according to Penny, as delightful, charming, funny, and unpretentious a pair as you could hope to meet. Kate herself has, of course, brought a new dimension to the relationship that is proving successful and popular around the world.

This is an event promoted by Kenilworth Books for Kenilworth Festival. Tickets available from Kenilworth Books, Warwick Books or the Festival Box Office £6. We are grateful to the support of Hodder the publisher for enabling us to put on the event. Picture credits to Les Wilson…

Lindsey Davis will be talking about   

‘Master and God’

Lindsey Davis, best-selling author and winner of numerous awards, will be talking about ‘Master and God’ her new novel and a powerful story of a Roman Emperor, Domitian, and two of those closest to him. 

Gaius Vinius Clodianus is a reluctant Praetorian Guard, with a disastrous marriage history and post-traumatic stress – but he is a hero. Flavia Lucilla has given the imperial ladies a ridiculous hairstyle and makes toupees for the increasingly paranoid emperor – and she is good at her job. A devastating fire in Rome starts their story then a shared apartment brings them together, leading to a lifelong friendship, passion and love.

Together they watch Domitian’s once talented rule unravel into madness and cruelty, until the people closest to the Emperor conspire to delete him from history. As an imperial bodyguard, Gaius then faces an impossible dilemma, where the bloody outcome inevitably threatens his and Lucilla’s hopes of a future together and even their lives.

The novel’s reach stretches from the glories of monumental Rome to a prisoner-of-war camp above the snowline the wrong side of the frontier. Its settings include barracks and bars and quiet domestic rooms, the fabulous Flavian palace on the Palatine, Domitian’s fortress villa at Alba Longa, a villa that may have belonged to the poet Horace. It scoffs equally at the military life and poets. Even the doctor is paranoid.

As usual Lindsey brings Ancient Rome truly alive. She is a very popular speaker. Don’t miss it!

 This is an event promoted by Kenilworth Books for Kenilworth Festival. Tickets available from Kenilworth Books, Warwick Books or the Festival Box Office £6. We are grateful for the support of Hodder the publisher for enabling us to put on the event.

Lord Leycester’s Hospital

Harriett Castor will be talking about our ‘Book Of The Year’ for 2011 ‘VIII’

and Nicola Shulman will be talking about her book on Sir Thomas Wyatt

We are delighted to welcome to Warwick two wonderful Tudor authors. Harriett Castor’s ‘VIII’ is the story of Hal: a young, handsome, gifted warrior, who believes he has been chosen to lead his people. But he is plagued by the ghosts of his family’s violent past and, once he rises to power, he himself turns to murder and rapacious cruelty. He is…….. Henry VIII. The Tudors have always captured the popular imagination, but in ‘VIII’, Henry is presented in a totally different light. It is Henry’s story as told by himself. It’s a wonderful, wonderful novel based on the meticulous research of a genuine Historian, written for teenagers but definitely for adults too. Here is Frances’ review……”I have never really been a huge fan of historical fiction. Although a lot of it, surprisingly, is written by real historians, it tends not to be very convincing. This however is different. Harriett is a first-class historian (her sister Helen is too) and the amount of research she did for the novel really shines through. Not just along historical lines either…she consulted psychoanalysts and in particular the Jungian analyst Matthew Harwood, as well as clothing experts, martial arts gurus,experts on the Italian Wars and anything else you can think of. So the first criterion for an historical novel – that it is believable – is met in spades.
But it is, as other reviwers have said, a real page turner. You just don’t want to put it down. The unique view point from which it is written, inside Henry’s own head, helps it enormously and gives an immediacy which is brilliant. Breathtaking. And it really does give us an opportunity to re-assess what we think of Henry, and take a different view on him than that provided by the portraits with which we are so familiar…the ogre who thinks nothing of executing wives or friends, or the gross, obese tyrant totally self-centred, vain and dictatorial.
It is without doubt the best book I have read this year, the most exciting, the most thoughtful, and one I would recommend without resrvation to teens or adults. Do read it.”

H. M. Castor has been obsessed with the Tudors since primary school. She studied Tudor History at Cambridge University, and despite spending time after that doing a variety of jobs – including teaching English in Prague, the Tudors have never lost their hold on her. In particular she has been fascinated by the story of Henry VIII. I’ve read a great deal about his life, she says, but still a huge question has remained: just how does this extraordinary boy become one of the most villainous kings in British history? He is hugely talented, has astonishing warrior skills, and is said to be a model of virtue. So what turns him into a monster? In writing’ VIII’ I’ve set out to answer that question.

Nicola Shulman is herself a modern Marchioness, although she’s certainly not one to play up that aspect of her life. However it does perhaps resonate in her writing and in ‘Graven With Diamonds’ a book both intriguing and amusing  she tells the story of Henry VIII, – his court, his victims and his Queens – from the perspective of a powerful but little-discussed influence in the lives of those involved: poetry. Learned divines despised it, sober heads ignored it, but for Henry, the beau ideal of chivalry, poetry made things happen. It affected his wars, his diplomacy and his many marriages.

It was at the root of his fatal attraction to Anne Boleyn, the source of her power and it was the means of her destruction. In this witty and accessible account, Nicola Shulman interweaves the bloody events of Henry’s reign with the story of English love poetry and the life of its first master, Henry’s most glamorous and enigmatic subject: Sir Thomas Wyatt. Courtier, spy, wit, diplomat, assassin, lover of Anne Boleyn, and favourite both of Henry and his sinister minister Thomas Cromwell, the brilliant Wyatt was admired and envied in equal measure.

His love poetry began as an elite and risque entertainment for the group of ambitious men and women at the slippery top of the court. But when the axe began to fall among this group, and Henry’s laws made his subjects fall silent in terror, Wyatt’s poetic skills became a way to survive. He saw that a love poem was a place where secrets could hide.

From its first appearance Nicola’s book has received rave reviews

“This glitteringly brilliant book… dazzles in its scope, its scholarship and its originality… As a biography it is exceptionally accomplished, as an illumination of the function of literature under tyranny it is extraordinarily modern. Everyone who cares anything for poetry should read this vivid, dynamic and exhilarating account of how and why words matter”. –Times Literary Supplement, Book of the Year

“Masterly… the best work of history this year” –AN Wilson, Book of the Year – Evening Standard

Tickets £3.50 (£2 concessions) from Warwick Books or Kenilworth Books or our partners at the Libraries. We are grateful to the publishers Templar and Short Books for their support.

Adam Ruck will be talking about his new book

‘France On Two Wheels : six long bike rides for the bon vivant cyclist’

For Adam Ruck, France and cycling go together like a rich Camembert and a heady glass of Bordeaux. This book – full of useful details and tips – follows him through six intricately plotted Gallic cycling routes; from Lake Geneva to the Channel, the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, Vichy to Roanne, Paris to Provence, Roanne to the Atlantic, and Burgundy to Spain. His talk will be both amusing and full of interest for those who love France and those who hanker for a quiet life……

Having lived in France in his youth, Adam, now in his fifties, sets out to rediscover a landscape that was once familiar, now forgotten. His journey combines the pleasures of exploring a landscape by bike with the pleasures of exploring the depths and idiosyncrasies of another culture. It is a passionate moment in the British love affair with all things Gallic.

Both a practical companion and a story of exploration and rediscovery, ‘France on Two Wheels’ offers detailed descriptions of useful routes, stop-off points and watering-holes, along with detours into subjects as varied as wine, Flaubert, windmills, Wodehouse, belfries, battlefields and beer. It is vivid proof that the only way to experience the French countryside is on two wheels!

Adam Ruck is an established British travel journalist whose knowledge of France goes back more than 40 years. He has written guidebooks to France for Consumers’ Association and the AA (Automobile Association), and contributes regularly to the travel pages of The Daily Telegraph.  A short account of the first of Adam’s rides through France, from Lake Geneva to Normandy, was published in the Travel section of The Sunday Telegraph in August 2010.  

Tickets are FREE and are available from Kenilworth Books, Warwick Books and both libraries……We are grateful for the support of our partners at Kenilworth Library and the publisher Short Books.

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 April:        The Rainbow by DH Lawrence

The Silver Pigs by Lindsey Davis

22nd May:         Past Caring by Robert Goddard

Winter in Madrid by CJ Sansom

26th June:         The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

by Rachel Joyce

Mr Chartwell by Rebecca Hunt

24th July:          A Debt to Pleasure by John Lanchester

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

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.

in The Shire Hall, Warwick

Hodder’s brilliant new author Erin Kelly

talked about her second book

set in Warwickshire

‘The Sick Rose’

‘You kept my secret. I know yours now. That makes us even.’

Paul has been led into a life of crime by his schoolyard protector, Daniel – but one night what started as petty theft escalates fatally. Now, at nineteen, Paul must bear witness against his friend to avoid imprisonment.

Louisa has her own dark secrets. Having fled from them many years ago she now spends her days steeped in history, renovating the grounds of a crumbling Elizabethan mansion in Warwickshire. But the her fragile peace is shattered when she meets Paul; he’s the image of the one person she never thought she’d see again.

A relationship develops between them, and Louisa starts to believe she can experience the happiness she had given up on; but it soon becomes apparent that

neither of them can outrun their violent past . . .

‘It’s unusual for a second novel to be even better than the first but Kelly has pulled off that difficult trick.’ (Literary Review)

‘Erin Kelly’s debut THE POISON TREE was a fine psychological thriller; THE SICK ROSE confirms that promise . . . a first-class suspense novel’ (Mail on Sunday )

Erin  was born in London in 1976 and grew up in Essex. She read English at Warwick University and has been working as a journalist since 1998, writing for newspapers including The Sunday Times, The Sunday Telegraph, the Daily Mail, the Express and The Mirror, and magazines including Red, Psychologies, Marie Claire and Elle. She continue to write about health, lifestyle, women’s issues and parenting, and is a columnist at Mother and Baby magazine.

She lives in north London with her husband and daughter.

We still have one or two signed copies of Erin’s book available.  If you haven’t read it, be sure to pick up a copy……….

Janet Roberts, husband Mike and Chico himself came to Kenilworth Books on Thursday 12^th April.  They brought with them lots of little gifts to give away, gas filled balloons, badges, rubbers, etc.  Of course, we were selling copies of the book, “Chico Chugg” (isbn 9781848971967  at  £6.99) and Janet was signing copies.  We also had a colouring competition that had been running for a few days during the holidays.  Lots more children came into the shop to colour in pictures of characters from the story: Hilary, Harry(with his guitar), the children, Charlie & Jimmy and of course Chico himself and the narrow boat “which wey”.  Everyone who coloured a picture was entered for a prize draw.  The winner was Sophie Langdon, who won a toy “Chico” and a little bag of goodies including a copy of the book.  Two runners up, Jessica Lang and William Luxmoore won a bag of goodies each plus signed a copy of the book each.

 Photographs of the event and some of the coloured in pictures will be available on Chico’s website at www.chico.chugg.com

Monday 23rd April 7pm Old Shire Hall

This is a FREE event to celebrate World Book Night and the official opening of Warwick Library. Tickets from Warwick Books or Kenilworth Books.

‘world-class – one of today’s greatest poetry performers’ Carol Ann Duffy
‘an inspiring figure, an encouraging & democratic spirit, a strong & popular poet and one of the funniest people in Britain’ Poetry News

‘If there’s a more engaging presence on the radio than Barnsley poet Ian McMillan and a more entertaining show than Radio 3’s The Verb then I don’t know it’ Stuart Maconie, Radio Times

Ian is poet-in-residence for English National Opera, The Academy of Urbanism and Barnsley FC. He presents The Verb every week on BBC R3 and appears regularly on Pick of the Week, Quote Unquote, The Arts Show, You & Yours and this spring, Coast. He’s Yorkshire TV’s Investigative Poet and Humberside Police’s Beat Poet. He was recently castaway on Desert Island Discs and featured with his Orchestra on The South Bank Show. His rip-roaring poetry shows are legendary. Cats make him sneeze. www.ian-mcmillan.co.uk