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March 14, 2020 @ 11:00 am - 1:00 pm
  • CANCELLED
  • Fiction
  • ONLY A FEW TICKETS LEFT!

Essex Book Club Symposium

Louise Hare and Joanna Glen

Venue:

Colchester Library, Trinity Square
Colchester, CO1 1JB
Tickets:
£7
£5 concessions (27 years and under)
Book

Box Office:

Mercury Theatre
01206 573948

This event has been cancelled. We are sorry for any inconvenience caused. If you have a ticket for this event the box office will be in touch to issue a refund.

Join members of book groups from across Essex and two up and coming writers.

Joanna Glen’s The Other Half of Augusta Hope, shortlisted for 2019 Costa First Novel Award, combines sharp humour and heart-breaking sadness.  While Louise Hare will discuss her debut novel This Lovely City, a poignant, conversation-starting story set around Brixton’s Windrush community, exploring themes of race, poverty and community in post-war London society.

Augusta Hope cover
The Other Half of Augusta Hope

This is a story for anyone who has ever felt like they don’t belong.

Augusta Hope has never felt like she fits in. And she’s right – she doesn’t. At six, she’s memorising the dictionary. At seven, she’s correcting her teachers. At eight, she spins the globe and picks her favourite country on the sound of its name: Burundi. And now that she’s an adult, Augusta has no interest in the goings-on of the small town where she lives with her parents and her beloved twin sister, Julia. When an unspeakable tragedy upends everything in Augusta’s life, she’s propelled headfirst into the unknown. She’s determined to find where she belongs – but what if her true home, and heart, are half a world away?

 

This Lovely City cover

 

This Lovely City

The drinks are flowing. The jazz is swinging. But for the city’s newest arrivals, the party can’t last.

With the Blitz over and London reeling from war, jazz musician Lawrie Matthews has answered England’s call for help. Fresh off the Empire Windrush, he’s taken a tiny room in south London lodgings, and has fallen in love with the girl next door.

Touring Soho’s music halls by night, pacing the streets as a postman by day, Lawrie has poured his heart into his new home – and it’s alive with possibility. Until, one morning, he makes a terrible discovery.
As the local community rallies, fingers of blame are pointed at those who had recently been welcomed with open arms. And, before long, the newest arrivals becomes the prime suspects in a tragedy which threatens to tear the city apart.

 

Logo for Essex Cultural Diversity Project

 

Venue

Colchester Library
Trinity Square
Colchester, CO1 1JB
+ Google Map
033301 32640

Visit accessable.co.uk for all disability and access information about Colchester Library.

Hearing Loop: Essex Book Festival has a mobile Roger Pen hearing loop system, which needs to be booked by individuals in advance at least five days before the event. If you would like to use the Roger Pen email claire@essexbookfestival.org.uk