BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Housmans Bookshop - ECPv6.15.18//NONSGML v1.0//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://housmans.com X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Housmans Bookshop REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H X-Robots-Tag:noindex X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:Europe/London BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST DTSTART:20230326T010000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT DTSTART:20231029T010000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST DTSTART:20240331T010000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT DTSTART:20241027T010000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST DTSTART:20250330T010000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT DTSTART:20251026T010000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST DTSTART:20260329T010000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT DTSTART:20261025T010000 END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20240918T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20240918T203000 DTSTAMP:20260403T223523 CREATED:20240816T122421Z LAST-MODIFIED:20240917T120218Z UID:59414-1726686000-1726691400@housmans.com SUMMARY:‘The Racket: A Rogue Reporter vs The American Empire’ with Matt Kennard DESCRIPTION:‘The Racket: A Rogue Reporter vs The American Empire’ with Matt Kennard (SOLD OUT)\n\n\n\n\n\nHousmans welcome back investigative journalist Matt Kennard to discuss the new edition of this vital and staggering book\, which exposes the dark nature of modern geopolitics and neo-imperialism. \n\n\n\nWhile working for the Financial Times\, Matt Kennard had unbridled access to the crème de la crème of the global elite. From slanging matches with Henry Kissinger to afternoon coffees with the man who captured Che Guevara\, Kennard spent four years gathering extraordinarily honest testimony from the horse’s mouth on how the global economic system works away from the convenient myths. It left him with only one conclusion: the world as we know it is run by an exclusive class of American racketeers who operate with virtually unlimited weapons and money\, and a reach much too close to home. \n\n\n\nOwing to the very nature of the Financial Times\, however\, Kennard was not able to publish these findings as part of his day job. Enter The Racket\, now in a fully updated second edition. This tell-all book\, reported from all corners of the world\, will transform everything you thought you knew about how the world works-and in whose interests. Kennard reports not only from across the United States\, but from the United Kingdom\, the Caribbean\, Latin America\, Africa\, and the Middle East. In doing so he provides startlingly clear and concrete evidence of unchecked\, high-level\, interrelated systems of exploitation all over the world. At the same time\, through encounters with high-profile opponents of the racket such as Thom Yorke\, Damon Albarn\, and Gael García Bernal\, Kennard offers a glimpse of a developing resistance\, which needs to win. \n\n\n\nNow more relevant than ever\, this 2nd edition contains a new preface by the author and a new foreword by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges. \n\n\n\nThere will be a reading from the book and discussion\, followed by a Q&A.Matt Kennard is co-founder\, and chief investigator\, at Declassified UK\, a news outlet investigating British foreign policy. He was a fellow and then director at the Centre for Investigative Journalism (CIJ) in London\, UK. He has worked as a staff writer for the Financial Times in Washington\, DC\, New York\, and London. He is the author of several acclaimed books including Irregular Army (2012)\, and co-author (with Claire Provost) of Silent Coup (2023). \n\n\n\nAs 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. \n\n\n\nIf you choose book + event entry\, your copy of the book will be available to collect on the evening. If you would like to collect it earlier\, or have it delivered\, please contact us (postage is £2.95). Telephone 020 7837 4473 or email shop@housmans.com.Housmans cannot sell alcohol but please feel free to bring a bottle! \n\n\n\n \n\n\n\nSOLD OUT! There are no more tickets available for this event.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nShare this:\n Share on X (Opens in new window)\n X\n \n Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)\n Facebook\n \n Share on Insta (Opens in new window)\n Insta\n Like this:Like Loading... URL:https://housmans.com/event/the-racket-a-rogue-reporter-vs-the-american-empire-with-matt-kennard-2/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/RACKET-1.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20240920T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20240920T213000 DTSTAMP:20260403T223523 CREATED:20240830T151115Z LAST-MODIFIED:20240919T142655Z UID:59785-1726858800-1726867800@housmans.com SUMMARY:Resisting Mediocrity: Remaking the University DESCRIPTION:It’s not easy being made redundant. It’s an act of violent separation. Over the past decade\, thousands of lecturers and researchers have experienced this attack on their income\, autonomy and dignity; thousands more\, at around 70 universities\, are currently at risk of losing their jobs. Universities are in crisis – and 40% of institutions are projected to be in financial deficit this year.  \n\n\n\nUniversity bosses lack the vision necessary to do anything but mimic their competitors. The new Labour government\, like its Tory predecessor\, is sanguine about job cuts\, course closures and even university bankruptcies. The leadership of the University and College Union seems impotent in the face of the onslaught\, happy to embrace a mediocre and exploitative system of higher education.  \n\n\n\nEven as many alternative spaces of accessible learning\, such as trade unions\, have faced huge challenges\, every year sees fresh attempts at political education. In reading groups\, community art projects\, trade unions\, social centres\, and religious spaces\, people continue to engage in collective self-education. \n\n\n\nThis event will explore the contours of the crisis in universities\, and consider possible routes out of the mess made by neoliberal management. We will ask\, what would education look like without the profit motive? How can we resist the university’s relentless mediocrity in order to build something better\, whether on campus or beyond? \n\n\n\nOUR PANEL \n\n\n\nSita Balani is a UCU branch committee member at Queen Mary University of London. She will talk about political education\, including Study and Struggle\, a course/reading list designed to be used both inside and outside of the university. \n\n\n\nNicholas Beuret is a member of inCommons\, a collective project which is bringing together scholars\, activists and organisers to offer residential courses on commoning\, free to students and outside of the university. \n\n\n\nZara Dinnen is branch co-chair at Queen Mary University of London UCU\, where she has been involved in political education in meetings\, pickets and beyond. She is co-author of the essay “How to Stop a University”. \n\n\n\nBecca Harrison contributes to UCU committees (OU branch\, national exec\, higher education\, equalities) and organises against institutional and gender-based violences. She is the author of ‘Fuck the Canon\,’ which calls for a remaking of film and media studies\, and is a contributor in Al Jazeera’s ‘Degrees of Abuse’ series. \n\n\n\nDavid Harvie was a UCU organiser at University of Leicester until being made redundant – part of an attack on trade union organisation – in 2021. Now a deprofessionalised intellectual\, he’s co-author of Shaping for Mediocrity: The Cancellation of Critical Thinking at Our Universities (2024) and\, since June 2023\, has been UCU’s (national) honorary treasurer. \n\n\n\nRehana Zaman has been a UCU executive committee member at Goldsmiths since 2021\, most recently in the role of co-President. She is also an artist and filmmaker often engaging issues around labour and immigration through collective forms of practice. \n\n\n\nAs 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. \n\n\n\nIf you choose ‘book + event 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. \n\n\n\nDoors Open at 7pm\, Event Starts 7:30 \n\n\n\nFeel free to BYOB. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nShare this:\n Share on X (Opens in new window)\n X\n \n Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)\n Facebook\n \n Share on Insta (Opens in new window)\n Insta\n Like this:Like Loading... URL:https://housmans.com/event/resisting-mediocrity-remaking-the-university/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,Discussion group,In Store,Literary Event ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/jhp6617ef4523e98-1.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20240930T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20240930T220000 DTSTAMP:20260403T223523 CREATED:20240827T145815Z LAST-MODIFIED:20240910T101319Z UID:59671-1727722800-1727733600@housmans.com SUMMARY:POETRY READING: NAT RAHA launches 'apparitions (nines)' DESCRIPTION:We are very\, very excited to be welcoming the legendary poet Nat Raha to Housmans for the official UK launch of her new book\, apparitions (nines). A vital figure in UK\, and wider Anglophone\, vanguardist poetry for many years Raha’s newest experiment in lyric writing promises to be characteristically invigorating. \n\n\n\nReading alongside Nat we’ll have fabulous poetry from Mendoza\, Christine Kirubi\, Susannah Slack\, Samuel Solomon abd Daniella Valz Gen. \n\n\n\nABOUT THE BOOK: \n\n\n\nInjecting the disruptive potential of collective action into the body of the poem\, Nat Raha’s invigorating experiment resuscitates Anglophone poetry. \n\n\n\nInjecting the disruptive potential of collective action into the body of the poem\, Nat Raha’s invigorating experiment resuscitates Anglophone poetry. Amidst the violence of capitalism and state and imperial power\, there is Nat Raha’s apparitions (nines) in its “charred golden minidress\,” ushering us into a space of grief and resistance\, the embodiment and intimacy of queer\, trans\, and diasporic Black and brown people. Written as a series of “niners\,” a poetic form consisting of nine nine-syllable lines\, apparitions (nines) is at once a brash and subversive rejoinder to the Anglophone sonnet\, as well as an ode to beauty\, collectivity\, and tenderness which emerges from\, and far surpasses\, constraint. \n\n\n\nOUR READERS: \n\n\n\nDr Nat Raha is a poet\, activist-scholar\, and Lecturer in Fine Art Critical Studies at the Glasgow School of Art. Her poetry is of an experimental queer lyric\, attending to hirstories of struggle and resistance to racial capitalism\, through de/re/materialising sound\, form and syntax\, on the page and in performance. \n\n\n\nHer books of poetry include apparitions (nines) (Nightboat Books\, 2024)\, of sirens\, body & faultlines (Boiler House Press\, 2018) and countersonnets (Contraband Books\, 2013). Her performance work\, epistolary (on carceral islands) was co-commissioned by Edinburgh Art Festival\, Scotland and TULCA Festival of Visual Arts\, Galway\, Ireland\, 2023. \n\n\n\nWith Mijke van der Drift\, Nat is co-author of Trans Femme Futures: Abolitionist Ethics for Transfeminist Worlds (Pluto Press\, forthcoming 2024); their article ‘“They would plant the rose garden themselves”: Femmeness\, Complicity\, Solidarity’\, is due imminently in Social Text. \n\n\n\nMendoza\, aka Linus Slug: Insect Librarian\, is nonbinary neurodivergent poet and researcher. Their work evolves through a series of creative processes exploring the interaction between sound\, image and text. The purpose of poetry making is not to speak of their experiences in neurotypical terms\, but to describe how they navigate the world through their own embodied language in which familiar and unfamiliar terrain is disrupted. In doing so\, they are liberated from neurotypical modes of thinking allowing them to de-construct / (re)construct the ‘self’ through the language of insects.  It is an act of nonconformity. \n\n\n\nPublications include WINDSUCKERS & ONSETTERS: SONNOTS for Griffiths\, collaboration with Peter Manson (Materials\, 2018); “the science of poetry : the poetry of science” Linus Slug / Peter Manson broadside (2015)\, and Type Specimen: An Observant Guide To Linus Slug (Contraband Books\, 2014). Mendoza’s poetry can be heard at the Archive of the Now \n\n\n\ndove Christine is an artist-poet based in London. Her debut collection WILDPLASSEN is out now with the87press. \n\n\n\nSuzanna Slack is the author of Gummi Zone (2023)\, White Spirit Videotelephony (2023)\, The Shedding (2022)\, Luxury Profile (2021)\, The Poor Children (2021)\, Is This It? (2019)\, all produced by VF Press\, and Happy Birthday Story (1998)\, by Atman.  The Poor Children was selected by Sophie Collins\, author of Small White Monkeys\, as a White Review 2022 Book of the Year.  The chapter (Money) from The Poor Children is to be included in a forthcoming book by Kris Dittel and Aneta Rostkowska as part of their ongoing Unruly Kinships project.  Suzanna writes memory trilogies\, who knows why\, and is producing another one while managing disabilities and care responsibilities. They are grateful for any help. \n\n\n\nSam Solomon lives in Brighton. He is author of Special Subcommittee (Commune Editions\, 2017)\, Lyric Pedagogy and Marxist-Feminism: Social Reproduction and the Institutions of Poetry (Bloomsbury\, 2019)\, and co-translator from the Yiddish of The Acrobat: Selected Poems of Celia Dropkin (Tebot Bach\, 2014). He is currently at work on a literary labour history of queer typesetting and has recently completed a second collection of poems.   \n\n\n\nProcess-led\, Daniella Valz Gen’s work explores poetic experience through different forms of reading\, writing\, performing and making. They’re invested in a relational and responsive approach to land\, place\, and the other-than-human. Born in Peru and based in London\, Valz Gen’s work highlights the interstices between languages\, cultures and value systems as areas where potential new meanings can arise.  Valz Gen is the current writer in residence at Whitechapel Gallery. They are a co-director of the analogue film cooperative not/nowhere and a lecturer in Fine Art. Valz Gen’s work has been shown at Glasgow International\, SPILL Festival\, Aichi Triennale\, Gropius Bau among others. Subversive Economies\, their first poetry collection\, was published by PSS Press in 2018. Their writing has been featured in The Happy Hypocrite\, Map Magazine\, Salt\, and others. \n\n\n\nThis a free event. \n\n\n\nIf you have any further enquiries please Telephone 020 7837 4473 or email shop@housmans.com. \n\n\n\nDoors Open at 7pm\, Event Starts 7:30P.S. BYOB \n\n\nShare this:\n Share on X (Opens in new window)\n X\n \n Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)\n Facebook\n \n Share on Insta (Opens in new window)\n Insta\n Like this:Like Loading... URL:https://housmans.com/event/poetry-reading-nat-raha-launches-apparitions-nines/ CATEGORIES:Book Talk,In Store,Literary Event ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/webp:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/9781643622392_FC-copy-533x800-1-1.webp END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241004T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241004T213000 DTSTAMP:20260403T223523 CREATED:20240906T163344Z LAST-MODIFIED:20241003T110524Z UID:59901-1728068400-1728077400@housmans.com SUMMARY:BOOK LAUNCH: Your Right To Protest by Christian Weaver DESCRIPTION:Housmans are very excited to be welcoming Christian Weaver to shop to celebrate the official launch of his vital new book Your Right To Protest. Christian is a human rights barrister\, social justice campaigner. His first book The Law In 60 Seconds: A Pocket Guide To Your Rights\, has been a long time staple of the Housmans catalogue and one of our bestselling titles\, it is an essential and accessible guide for those interested in activism and direct action. In Your Right To Protest he expands on many of the themes explored in the first book and brings together everything you need to know when taking a stand. Whether you are marching on the streets or making your voice heard from your own front room\, organising in your workplace or writing a letter to your MP\, this essential guide equips you with your fundamental rights and the laws that protect you – as well as the ones you might inadvertently break. \n\n\n\nFrom attending a demonstration to when the police can – and can’t – stop you\, this book has your back. In it\, you’ll find up-to-date information on a whole range of topics\, including: \n\n\n\n– Public assembly and who to notify when you’re on the move \n\n\n\n– Striking in the workplace and action your employer can take against you \n\n\n\n– Direct action and when it crosses over into trespass \n\n\n\n– Stop and search and how to access help if you are arrested \n\n\n\n– Online activism and what to do if you accidentally libel someone \n\n\n\nFor activists new and old alike\, Your Right to Protest is the indispensable guide to using your voice for what you believe in. \n\n\n\nThis is likely to be a very popular event and advance booking is strongly recommended. \n\n\n\nAs 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. \n\n\n\nIf you choose ‘book + event entry’ or ‘special bundle’\, 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. \n\n\n\nDoors Open at 7pm\, Event Starts 7:30 \n\n\n\nFeel free to Bring Your Own Bottle! \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nShare this:\n Share on X (Opens in new window)\n X\n \n Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)\n Facebook\n \n Share on Insta (Opens in new window)\n Insta\n Like this:Like Loading... URL:https://housmans.com/event/book-launch-your-right-to-protest-by-christian-weaver/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,In Store ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Your-Right-to-Protest-cover-scaled-1.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241019T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241019T213000 DTSTAMP:20260403T223523 CREATED:20240912T154300Z LAST-MODIFIED:20240912T154304Z UID:60215-1729364400-1729373400@housmans.com SUMMARY:BOOK LAUNCH: BRASSROOTS DEMOCRACY by Benjamin Barson DESCRIPTION:This is gonna be a good one…Jazz! Theory! LIVE MUSIC!! \n\n\n\nHousmans will be hosting the wonderful scholar and musician Benjamin Barson for the official UK launch of his seminal new book\, Brassroots Democracy: Maroon Ecologies and the Jazz Commons. \n\n\n\nA new understanding of the birth of jazz through a fine-grained social history of early African American musicians. Brassroots Democracy recasts the birth of jazz\, unearthing vibrant narratives of New Orleans musicians to reveal how early jazz was inextricably tied to the mass mobilization of freedpeople during Reconstruction and the decades that followed. Benjamin Barson presents a “music history from below\,” following the musicians as they built communes\, performed at Civil Rights rallies\, and participated in general strikes. Perhaps most importantly\, Barson locates the first emancipatory revolution in the Americas—Haiti—as a nexus for cultural and political change in nineteenth-century Louisiana. In dialogue with the work of recent historians who have inverted traditional histories of Latin American and Caribbean independence by centering the influence of Haitian activists abroad\, this work traces the impact of Haitian culture in New Orleans and its legacy in movements for liberation. \n\n\n\nBrassroots Democracy demonstrates how Black musicians infused participatory music practice with innovative forms of grassroots democracy. Late nineteenth-century Black brass bands and activists rehearsed these participatory models through collective performance that embodied the democratic ethos of Black Reconstruction. Termed “Brassroots Democracy\,” this fusion of political and musical spheres revolutionized both. Brassroots Democracy illuminates the Black Atlantic struggles that informed music-as-world-making from the Haitian Revolution through Reconstruction to the jazz revolution. The work theorizes the roots of the New Orleans brass band tradition in the social relations grown in maroon ecologies across the Americas. Their fruits contributed to the socio-sonic commons of the music we call jazz today. \n\n\n\nBenjamin will be in conversation with seasoned music broadcaster and writer John Stevenson and WILL ALSO be putting his theories into practice and performing live music for us. Advanced booking strongly recommended. This is going to be part book talk part concert\, as always\, please feel free to BYOB. \n\n\n\n“Musician\, composer\, scholar Benjamin Barson places the origins of the music dubbed ‘jazz’ in its rightful place: the Black Radical Tradition. Deftly braiding the political and cultural histories of revolutionary Haiti\, Black Reconstruction\, the laboring and creative lives of workers and peasants of the Black Atlantic\, African and Indigenous memory in song\, story\, and dance\, Black feminist blues\, and resistance to racial capitalism\, he weaves a powerful story of how Black revolt and brass bands transformed the port city of New Orleans into a portal to musical revolution. From now on\, Brassroots Democracy should be our starting point—both for understanding the past and imagining an emancipatory future.” – Robin D.G. Kelley \n\n\n\nOUR SPEAKERS \n\n\n\nBenjamin Barson is a historian\, baritone saxophonist\, and political activist. He is an assistant professor of music at Bucknell University. His work has been published in Black Power Afterlives: The Enduring Significance of the Black Panther Party (2020)\, Routledge Handbook on Jazz and Gender (2021) and Routledge Guide to Ecosocialism (2021). \n\n\n\nJohn Stevenson is a seasoned communications professional\, encompassing freelance broadcasting and writing for diverse publications including The Guardian\, The Independent\, The Times\, Caribbean Beat and UK Jazz News. An alumnus of the University of the West Indies (Cave Hill) and King’s College London\, John has an abiding interest in arts and culture from around the world\, especially the music of Africa and the African diaspora. He currently co-produces and co-hosts the monthly music radio programme\, Nighthawks at the Virtual Diner\, on www.thethursdaynightshow.com \n\n\n\nAs 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. \n\n\n\nIf you choose ‘book + event entry’ or ‘special bundle’\, 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. \n\n\n\nDoors Open at 7pm\, Event Starts 7:30 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nShare this:\n Share on X (Opens in new window)\n X\n \n Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)\n Facebook\n \n Share on Insta (Opens in new window)\n Insta\n Like this:Like Loading... URL:https://housmans.com/event/book-launch-brassroots-democracy-by-benjamin-barson/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,In Store,Literary Event ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Cover.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241023T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241023T220000 DTSTAMP:20260403T223523 CREATED:20240926T152424Z LAST-MODIFIED:20240926T152428Z UID:60799-1729710000-1729720800@housmans.com SUMMARY:BOOK LAUNCH: 'The Picture of Contented New Wealth' - Tariq Godard in conversation with Alex Niven DESCRIPTION:It’s spooky season! Help us celebrate All Hallows Eve by welcoming Tariq Godard to the shop for the (re)launch of his acclaimed work of political horror: The Picture of Contented New Wealth. One of the most important and era defining satires on Neoliberal Britain written during the dying days of New Labour\, and anticipating\, in it’s send-up of Thatcher’s premier\, the cultural brutality of the Austerity years\, The Picture of Contented New Wealth is as a vital and haunting now as it’s ever been. \n\n\n\nIn the brilliant red doom of a Hampshire sunset\, Brigit Conti can hear a voice behind her ears that is not her own. Bed-bound and complaining of a rare bone disease that no doctor can diagnose\, her husband fears that the house they have purchased is a portal through which an older\, more malign energy has passed\, possessing his wife and son. Through their successive deterioration\, his secular and agnostic world-view undergoes a metamorphosis\, drawing him to a strange man from the hills: the Rector\, their unlikely saviour. \n\n\n\nOr are he and his family merely victims of their own self-serving yuppie way of life? \n\n\n\nThe Picture of Contented New Wealth is a gothic tragedy set in the 1980s\, bringing proper characterization and a literary sensibility to the traditional horror story. Its mix of generic elements and mystical realism deal with the irreducibility of evil and its successful normalization in to our daily and dominant reality. \n\n\n\nTARIQ GODDARD is the author of seven novels including his 2002 debut\, the Whitbread (latterly Costa) Prize shortlisted ‘Homage to a Firing Squad’ & 2017’s ‘Nature and Necessity’. He has been nominated for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize\, & the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize & has co-edited two collections of essays\, ‘The Repeater Book of the Occult’ & ‘The Repeater Book of Heroism’. His last book ‘High John the Conqueror’ was published by Repeater Books in 2022. \n\n\n\nTariq will be joined in conversation with ALEX NIVEN. Alex Niven comes from the north-east of England. He writes regularly for the Guardian\, Tribune and New Statesman\, and has also contributed to publications including the New York Times\, the Independent\, Pitchfork\, The Face and VICE. He is the author of New Model Island (Repeater\, 2019)\, and The North Will Rise Again (Bloomsbury). He is currently Lecturer in English Literature at Newcastle University\, he helped to start the radical publisher Repeater Books in 2014. \n\n\n\nAs 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. \n\n\n\nIf you choose ‘book + event 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. \n\n\n\nDoors Open at 7pm\, Event Starts 7:30. \n\n\n\nPLEASE FEEL FREE TO BYOB \n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nShare this:\n Share on X (Opens in new window)\n X\n \n Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)\n Facebook\n \n Share on Insta (Opens in new window)\n Insta\n Like this:Like Loading... URL:https://housmans.com/event/book-launch-the-picture-of-contented-new-wealth-tariq-godard-in-conversation-with-alex-niven/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,Literary Event ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/61GhOjBYsgL._SL1262_.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241030T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241030T220000 DTSTAMP:20260403T223523 CREATED:20240917T105826Z LAST-MODIFIED:20241030T151617Z UID:60351-1730314800-1730325600@housmans.com SUMMARY:An evening with Richard Seymour DESCRIPTION:Housmans are thrilled to be welcoming Richard Seymour to the shop for a double book launch! Richard is one of the country’s pre-eminent leftist thinkers and writers and we are extremely lucky to help celebrate his latest polemic\, from Verso\, Disaster Nationalism: The Downfall of Liberal Civilization as well as the new paperback re-issue of The Twittering Machine: How Capitalism Stole Our Social Life\, from Indigo Press. \n\n\n\nIn Disaster Nationalism\, Seymour argues that the rise of the new far right has left the world grappling with a profound misunderstanding. While the spotlight often shines on the actions of charismatic leaders such as Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro\, the true peril lies elsewhere. Defeating these people will not stem the tide driving them forward. They are merely the embodiment of profound forces that are rarely understood. Propelled through the vast networks of social media and fueled by far-right influencers\, enthralled by images of disaster and fantasies of doom\, they have emerged from a reservoir of societal despair\, fear\, and isolation. Within this seething cauldron\, we witness not only the surge of far-right political movements but also the sparks of individual and collective violence against perceived enemies\, from ‘lone wolf’ killers to terrifying pogroms. Should a new fascism emerge\, it will coalesce from these very elements. This is disaster nationalism. Seymour delves deep into this alarming development in world politics\, dissecting its roots\, its influencers\, and the threats it poses. With meticulous analysis and compelling storytelling\, Seymour offers a stark warning. The battle against disaster nationalism is not just political; it is a struggle for our collective soul and the future of civilization itself. Unless we understand the deeper forces propelling the far-right resurgence\, we have little chance of stopping it. \n\n\n\nIn surrealist artist Paul Klee’s The Twittering Machine\, the bird-song of a diabolical machine acts as bait to lure humankind into a pit of damnation. Seymour argues that this is a chilling metaphor for our relationship with social media. Former social media executives tell us that the system is an addiction-machine. We are users\, waiting for our next hit as we like\, comment and share. We write to the machine as individuals\, but it responds by aggregating our fantasies\, desires and frailties into data\, and returning them to us as a commodity experience. \n\n\n\nThrough journalism\, psychoanalytic reflection and insights from users\, developers\, security experts and others\, Seymour probes the human side of the machine\, asking what we’re getting out of it\, and what we’re getting into. \n\n\n\nFor the first half of the event Richard will be in conversation and discuss the themes and arguments of both books\, before this broadens out into an audience Q&A. After this we encourage milling about and then usually head to the pub. \n\n\n\nFeel free to BYOB. \n\n\n\nAs 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. \n\n\n\nIf you choose ‘book + event entry’ or ‘special bundle’\, 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. \n\n\n\nDoors Open at 7pm\, Event Starts 7:30 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \nShare this:\n Share on X (Opens in new window)\n X\n \n Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)\n Facebook\n \n Share on Insta (Opens in new window)\n Insta\n Like this:Like Loading... URL:https://housmans.com/event/an-evening-with-richard-seymour/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,In Store ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/preeti-insta-3-1.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241120T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241120T210000 DTSTAMP:20260403T223523 CREATED:20241008T130118Z LAST-MODIFIED:20241120T125325Z UID:61132-1732129200-1732136400@housmans.com SUMMARY:BOOK LAUNCH How the Railways Will Fix the Future: Rediscovering the Essential Brilliance of the Iron Road by Gareth Dennis DESCRIPTION:Please join us for what is promising to be a really engaging and informative talk with railway engineer and transport policy specialist Gareth Dennis. His new book How the Railways Will Fix the Future: Rediscovering the Essential Brilliance of the Iron Road shows why the railways are key to the fight for a better world for us all. \n\n\n\nThe world’s railways were almost entirely created by capital and empire for extraction and exploitation\, so what right do they have to exist and how can they be harnessed for good? Railway engineer and writer Gareth Dennis builds a case not simply for railways as a common good\, but argues that railways are a critical tool for humanity to survive and thrive. Whether it’s the power of organised labour\, the threats and opportunities of new technology\, the distribution of democratic power or the calamitous impacts of climate change\, railways can act as a lens through which to understand the future and the part they can play in it.Dennis takes us across the globe\, from Virgin Hyperloop’s abandoned test track in the Nevada desert to the overcrowded stations of the North of England\, exploring how railways can shape and inform choices about our future\, and in turn detailing how taking a long-term view can help shape transport for the better. With his deep knowledge of railways and his unique view of history and politics\, he equips us with the tools to answer those imperative questions: what and who should our railways be for? \n\n\n\nAs 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. \n\n\n\nIf you choose ‘book + event entry’ or ‘special bundle’\, 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. \n\n\n\nDoors Open at 7pm\, Event Starts 7:15 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n \nShare this:\n Share on X (Opens in new window)\n X\n \n Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)\n Facebook\n \n Share on Insta (Opens in new window)\n Insta\n Like this:Like Loading... URL:https://housmans.com/event/book-launch-how-the-railways-will-fix-the-future-rediscovering-the-essential-brilliance-of-the-iron-road-by-gareth-dennis/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,In Store ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/How-The-Railways-Will-Fix-The-Future-cover.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241206T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241206T210000 DTSTAMP:20260403T223523 CREATED:20241023T151934Z LAST-MODIFIED:20241204T171315Z UID:61475-1733511600-1733518800@housmans.com SUMMARY:BOOK LAUNCH: 'Cities Made Differently' by DAVID GRAEBER & NIKA DUBROVSKY DESCRIPTION:We are honored to be welcoming Nika Dubrovsky to Housmans on December 6th to celebrate the publication of a marvelous new text\, co-written with the late David Graeber\, called Cities Made Differently. Joining Nika in conversation will the inimitable organiser and writer James Schneider. \n\n\n\nFull of playful graphics\, provocative questions\, and curious facts\, this book asks what makes a city and how we might make them differently. \n\n\n\nWhat makes a city a city? Who says? Drafted over decades out of a dialogue between artist and author Nika Dubrovsky\, the late anthropologist David Graeber\, and Nika’s then four-year-old son\, this delightful and provocative book Cities Made Differently opens a space for invention and collaboration. Fusing anthropology\, literature\, play\, and drawing\, the book is essentially a visual essay that asks us to reconsider our ideas about cities and the people who inhabit them. Drawing us into a world of history and myth\, science and imagination\, Graeber and Dubrovsky invite us to rethink the worlds we inhabit—because we can\, and nothing is too strange or too wonderful to be true. \n\n\n\nWith inspired pictures and prompts\, Cities Made Differently asks what a city is\, or could be\, or once was. Sleeping at the bottom of the ocean? Buried in lava? What were those cities of long ago\, and what will the cities of the future be? They might be virtual\, ruled by AI\, or islands of beautiful architecture afloat in seas of greenery. They might be utopian places of refuge or refugee camps as far as the eye can see. On land\, underground or aloft\, excavated or imagined\, cities\, this book tells us in provocative and funny ways\, can be anything we want them to be—and what we want them to be can tell us something about who we are\, what it is to be human\, and what’s possible when we make way for wonder. \n\n\n\nPlease feel free to bring your own drinks. We look forward to seeing you and contemplating together what a city is\, and what it could be\, and honoring the memory of our lost and much loved comrade David. \n\n\n\nAdvanced booking strongly recommended. \n\n\n\nAs 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. \n\n\n\nIf you choose ‘book + event 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. \n\n\n\nDoors Open at 7pm\, event starts circa 7:15. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nShare this:\n Share on X (Opens in new window)\n X\n \n Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)\n Facebook\n \n Share on Insta (Opens in new window)\n Insta\n Like this:Like Loading... URL:https://housmans.com/event/book-launch-cities-made-differently-by-david-graeber-nika-dubrovsky/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,In Store,Literary Event ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/91voyX7S6L._SL1500_.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250111T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250111T203000 DTSTAMP:20260403T223523 CREATED:20241219T112821Z LAST-MODIFIED:20241219T123228Z UID:63216-1736622000-1736627400@housmans.com SUMMARY:BOOK TALK: Reasons to Rebel by Sheila Rowbotham DESCRIPTION:Please join us for a evening with celebrated socialist-feminist Sheila Rowbotham\n\n\n\n\n\nWe are thrilled to welcome Sheila Rowbotham back to Housmans and to celebrate the latest volume of her memoirs\, Reasons to Rebel: My Memories of the 1980s\, a defiant\, thrilling\, at times greatly moving\, reflection on the the Thatcher era. It was the worst of times\, it was the best of times… \n\n\n\n“The 1980s were a shock. Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government battered left movements\, painfully disrupted working-class peoples’ livelihoods and pressed down on many groups who faced discrimination. There was no shortage of reasons to rebel. Along with thousands upon thousands of others I opposed not just the repressive laws\, but the fundamental tenets of the new right. Hanging on to visions of creative utopias\, we strove for new ways of organizing and relating to others and we sought to connect a liberatory sexual politics with rebellions against many kinds of inequality. We argued wrote\, campaigned\, demonstrated\, picketed.We established alternative cooperative projects\, secured reforms through local government and made direct international links. Resourceful resistance slowed down the onslaught but we were contending not simply with the doctrinal resolve of a right-wing government. We faced something larger\, something that could not be voted out – a more ruthless global capitalism\, geared to profits which was prepared to dump hard-won social provision and neglect to conserve even basic infrastructure.” \n\n\n\nSheila Rowbotham is an English socialist feminist theorist and historian. She is the author of many books in the field of women’s studies\, including Hidden from History (1973)\, Beyond the Fragments (1979)\, A Century of Women (1997) and Threads Through Time (1999)\, as well as the 2021 memoir Daring to Hope: My Life in the 1970s. \n\n\n\nAs 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. \n\n\n\nIf you choose ‘book + event 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. \n\n\n\nDoors Open at 7pm \n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nShare this:\n Share on X (Opens in new window)\n X\n \n Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)\n Facebook\n \n Share on Insta (Opens in new window)\n Insta\n Like this:Like Loading... URL:https://housmans.com/event/book-talk-reasons-to-rebel-by-sheila-rowbotham/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Sheil-Rowbotham-1.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250212T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250212T210000 DTSTAMP:20260403T223523 CREATED:20250113T110959Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250212T175101Z UID:63617-1739386800-1739394000@housmans.com SUMMARY:Celebrating David Graeber DESCRIPTION:On February 12\, 2025 — his birthday — we will be celebrating the life and thought of the much missed David Graeber. Joining us will be David’s friend\, the writer\, activist\, and organizer James Schneider and the philosopher Sophie Scott Brown\, who has recently written a new foreword for the 20th-anniversary reissue of Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology. Joining us from New York will be David’s wife and long term collaborator\, Nika Dubrovsky. James\, Sophie and Nika will discuss David’s life and work\, his principals of anarchism and anthropology\, before we open things up for a wider conversation with our audiences in London and New York. \n\n\n\nThis a free event. There is limited capacity in the shop so please RSVP below to ensure attendance. If your plans change and you are unable to attend please email us at shop@housmans.com so your space can be made available to someone else. \n\n\n\nThis event is a celebration and in the spirit of that you are free to byob. A small amount of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks will be available at Housmans too. \n\n\nShare this:\n Share on X (Opens in new window)\n X\n \n Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)\n Facebook\n \n Share on Insta (Opens in new window)\n Insta\n Like this:Like Loading... URL:https://housmans.com/event/celebrating-david-graeber/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,Literary Event ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/avif:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/David-Graeber-009-1.avif END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250219T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250219T203000 DTSTAMP:20260403T223523 CREATED:20250114T115739Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250114T120252Z UID:63723-1739991600-1739997000@housmans.com SUMMARY:BOOK TALK: Neuroqueer: A Neurodivergent Guide to Love\, Sex\, and Everything in Between by Cj Debarra DESCRIPTION:We are delighted to be welcoming the wonderful journalist and public speaker CJ DeBarra to talk about their essential guide to love\, sex and dating while neurodivergent. \n\n\n\nHitting their mid-thirties and still uncertain about relationships\, sex\, and love\, CJ DeBarra launched into a quest for understanding. Growing up in West Cork\, Ireland\, CJ knew they were ADHD\, but its implications remained mysterious. To write this book\, they drew on academic research\, medical studies\, the lived experience of other queer ADHD individuals\, and their background as an ADHD journalist. CJ fearlessly explored the raw realities of heartbreak\, love\, and sexuality\, and delved into the complexities of desire\, the impact of distractions during intimacy\, the role of dopamine\, and the allure of unconventional sexual experiences. Moreover\, CJ sheds light on alarmingly low diagnosis rates for women\, transgender individuals\, and non-binary individuals\, urging readers to advocate for improved healthcare. \n\n\n\nThis book also has a wider focus\, which explores the reasons why the diagnosis rates are so low for women\, transgender and non-binary folk\, why this matters\, and why we should be demanding better healthcare. \n\n\n\nJoin CJ on a voyage of self-discovery\, where vulnerability\, courage\, and unwavering determination unravel the mysteries of relationships\, sex\, and love for ADHD individuals and their loved ones. \n\n\n\nAs 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. \n\n\n\nIf you choose ‘book + event entry’ or ‘special bundle’\, 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. \n\n\n\nDoors Open at 6:45pm\, Event Starts 7:00 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nShare this:\n Share on X (Opens in new window)\n X\n \n Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)\n Facebook\n \n Share on Insta (Opens in new window)\n Insta\n Like this:Like Loading... URL:https://housmans.com/event/book-talk-neuroqueer-a-neurodivergent-guide-to-love-sex-and-everything-in-between-by-cj-debarra/ CATEGORIES:Book Talk,In Store ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/9781911227236_360x.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250226T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250226T203000 DTSTAMP:20260403T223523 CREATED:20250114T123508Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250224T102110Z UID:63649-1740596400-1740601800@housmans.com SUMMARY:Book Launch: PINK-PILLED: Women and The Far Right DESCRIPTION:Housmans are very excited to be hosting the London launch for this daring investigation into how women are recruited by the far right online. \n\n\n\nAs the far right has gained popularity and acceptance around the world\, its ranks have swelled with an unlikely category of members: women. \n\n\n\nWomen play significant roles in far-right movements\, acting as propagandists\, prizes to be won and mother-warriors of the nation. But up to now their activities have been largely overlooked. In Pink-pilled\, journalist Lois Shearing interviews leading experts and infiltrates communities of tradwives and femtrolls to provide a cutting-edge account of how the far right uses the internet to recruit women. Shining a light on women’s experiences within these movements\, Shearing reveals horrifying examples of misogyny and violence. \n\n\n\nUnderstanding how and why women join movements that explicitly aim to restrict their autonomy is essential if we want to fight back. Pink-pilled offers key insights for countering women’s radicalisation and building communities resistant to far-right thought. \n\n\n\nLois Shearing is a freelance journalist and author. They are the author of Bi the Way: The Bisexual Guide to Life (2021) and the co-editor of It Ain’t Over Til the Bisexual Speaks: An Anthology of Bisexual Voices (2024). Their writing on sex\, sexuality\, gender\, relationships\, digital culture\, and politics has appeared in Cosmopolitan\, The Independent\, Mashable\, The Metro\, and Gay Times\, among others. \n\n\n\nWe are delighted to welcome back to Housmans the brilliant Maya Oppenheim\, former Women’s Correspondent for The Independent and author of The Pocket Guide to the Patriarchy\, to join Lake in conversation. The two will talk about roughly 45 minutes\, followed by a Q&A. \n\n\n\nAs 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. \n\n\n\nIf you choose ‘book + event entry’ or ‘special bundle’\, 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. \n\n\n\nDoors Open at 6:45pm\, Event Starts 7:00 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nShare this:\n Share on X (Opens in new window)\n X\n \n Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)\n Facebook\n \n Share on Insta (Opens in new window)\n Insta\n Like this:Like Loading... URL:https://housmans.com/event/book-launch-pink-pilled-women-and-the-far-right/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,Feminist event ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/9781526170699.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250301T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250301T203000 DTSTAMP:20260403T223523 CREATED:20250128T153445Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250128T153449Z UID:64098-1740855600-1740861000@housmans.com SUMMARY:BOOK LAUNCH: Christopher Hill:The Life of a Radical Historian by Michael Braddick DESCRIPTION:“A splendid biography. Even those who know Hill’s work will learn a great deal. Braddick reveals Hill as a profound historical thinker and a vital voice in contemporary discussions of the English Revolution.”  John Rees\, author of The Fiery Spirits \n\n\n\n\nWe are delighted to welcome Professor Michel Braddick to Housmans to discuss his brilliant\, facinating and wonderfully detailed biography of the great Marxist Historian Christopher Hill. \n\n\n\nChristopher Hill was one of the leading historians of his generation. His work across more than fifteen books and dozens of articles fundamentally rewrote the way we understand the English Revolution and the development of the modern British state. While his career brought many of the trappings of establishment respectability — he was both a Fellow of the British Academy and the Master of Balliol College\, Oxford — he was also seen as a threat to that very same establishment. Under surveillance by the security services for decades\, in the 1980s Hill was publicly accused of having been a Soviet agent during the war. His was a Cold War life\, as well as a scholarly one.In this brilliant work of biography\, Michael Braddick charts Hill’s development from his abandonment of the respectable\, provincial Methodism of his youth\, through his embrace of Marxism\, to his membership and eventual break with the Communist Party\, as well as his celebrated intellectual career. While many of his books — not least the thrilling work of historical resurrection The World Turned Upside Down and God’s Englishman\, his classic biography of Oliver Cromwell — are still widely read and admired\, his intellectual reputation was damaged by sustained academic criticism in the politically charged atmosphere of the 1980s.Braddick’s judicious biography not only situates Hill’s life and work in their historical context but seeks to rescue Hill for a new generation of readers. \n\n\n\nMichael Braddick is a Fellow of All Souls College\, Oxford\, having previously worked at the University of Sheffield. He has held academic positions and visiting Fellowships in the United States\, Australia\, France\, and Germany. He has written extensively on state formation\, the English Revolution and political engagement and agency in early modern England\, Ireland and the British Atlantic. His books include The Common Freedom of the People: John Lilburne and the English Revolution\, God’s Fury\, England’s Fire: A New History of the English Civil Wars\, and A Useful History of Britain: The Politics of Getting Things Done. \n\n\n\nAs 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. \n\n\n\nIf you choose ‘book + event entry’ or ‘special bundle’\, 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. \n\n\n\nDoors Open at 6:45pm\, Event Starts 7:00 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nShare this:\n Share on X (Opens in new window)\n X\n \n Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)\n Facebook\n \n Share on Insta (Opens in new window)\n Insta\n Like this:Like Loading... URL:https://housmans.com/event/book-launch-christopher-hillthe-life-of-a-radical-historian-by-michael-braddick/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/81dGZGsVUYL._SY466_.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250308T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250308T203000 DTSTAMP:20260403T223523 CREATED:20250122T125714Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250226T152254Z UID:63862-1741460400-1741465800@housmans.com SUMMARY:Book Talk: Celebrating 35 years of 'The Sexual Politics of Meat' With Carol J. Adams DESCRIPTION:The inimitable Carol J Adams will be returning to Housmans this Spring to join us in celebrating 35 years since the publication of her seminal work of Feminist-Vegan critical theory The Sexual Politics of Meat. \n\n\n\nFirst published in 1990\, Carol J. Adams’ revolutionary work has engaged\, enraged\, inspired and challenged readers with its exploration of the interplay between society’s ingrained cultural misogyny and its obsession with eating animals and masculinity. This iconic book\, referenced in rock songs\, feminist artwork and even a Law and Order SVU episode\, continues to change the lives of its readers today.Published to celebrate the book’s 35th anniversary\, this Bloomsbury Revelations edition includes a new introduction that reflects on how recent events continue to prove the relevance of this influential work. \n\n\n\nCarol will be in conversation with Dr Corey Wrenn from the University of Kent. They will discuss The Sexual Politics of Meat at length\, focusing on how its themes still resonate today\, what has changed and what has stayed the same. This will be followed by a Q&A. \n\n\n\nOur Speakers \n\n\n\nCarol Adams is a feminist-vegan advocate\, activist\, and independent scholar and the author of numerous books including The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory. It has been translated into German\, Chinese\, Japanese\, Korean\, Turkish\, Portuguese\, Polish\, Spanish\, and French. She is also the co-editor of several important anthologies\, including most recently Ecofeminism: Feminist Intersections with Other Animals and the Earth (with Lori Gruen) and The Good it Promises; The Harm it Causes: Critical Essays on Effective Altruism published in 2023 (co-edited with Alice Crary and Lori Gruen). The Carol J. Adams Reader: Writings and Conversations 1995-2015 appeared in the fall of 2016. \n\n\n\nShe has a Masters of Divinity from Yale University. In the 1970s\, alongside her spouse\, the Rev. Bruce Buchanan\, she started a Hotline for Battered Women in Western New York. She is the author of Woman-Battering (1995) in Fortress Press’s Creative Pastoral Care and Counseling Series. With Marie Fortune\, she edited Violence Against Women and Children: A Christian Theological Sourcebook (1995). She also wrote a training manual\, Pastoral Care for Domestic Violence:  Case Studies for Clergy – for Christian Audiences – Training Manual (2007) published by the FaithTrust Institute. She wrote one of the earliest articles theorizing why batterers harm animals\, Woman-Battering and Harm to Animals.Dr. Corey Wrenn is Senior Lecturer of Sociology with the School of Social Sciences and Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of Social and Political Movements at the University of Kent. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology with Colorado State University in 2016. She was awarded Exemplary Diversity Scholar\, 2016 by the University of Michigan’s National Center for Institutional Diversity. She served as council member with the American Sociological Association’s Animals & Society section (2013-2016)\, was elected Chair in 2018\, and co-founded the International Association of Vegan Sociologists in 2020. She serves as Book Review Editor for Society & Animals\, Consulting Editor for Psychology of Human-Animal Intergroup Relations\, and past Editor for The Sociological Quarterly\, is a member of The Vegan Society’s Research Advisory Committee\, and hosts Sociology & Animals Podcast. She is the author of A Rational Approach to Animal Rights: Extensions in Abolitionist Theory (Palgrave MacMillan 2016)\, Piecemeal Protest: Animal Rights in the Age of Nonprofits (University of Michigan Press 2019)\, Animals in Irish Society (SUNY Press 2021)\, Vegan Witchcraft: Contemporary Magical Practice and Multispecies Social Change (forthcoming\, Routledge\, and Vegan Feminism: History\, Theory\, Activism (forthcoming\, Bloomsbury). \n\n\n\nAs 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. \n\n\n\nIf 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. \n\n\n\nDoors Open at 6:45pm\, Event Starts 7:00 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nShare this:\n Share on X (Opens in new window)\n X\n \n Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)\n Facebook\n \n Share on Insta (Opens in new window)\n Insta\n Like this:Like Loading... URL:https://housmans.com/event/book-talk-celebrating-35-years-of-the-sexual-politics-of-meat-with-carol-j-adams/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,Feminist event,In Store ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/9798765123669.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250319T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250319T203000 DTSTAMP:20260403T223523 CREATED:20250204T122050Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250204T122148Z UID:64320-1742410800-1742416200@housmans.com SUMMARY:BOOK LAUNCH: The Psychic Lives of Statues by Rahul Rao DESCRIPTION:The Psychic Lives of Statues\n\n\n\nReckoning with the Rubble of Empire\n\n\n\n\n\nFrom Cape Town to Bristol and Richmond\, statues have become sites of resistance and contestation of our imperial past and postcolonial present. \n\n\n\nWe are very excited to be launching The Psychic Lives of Statues by Rahul Rao which offers an insightful exploration of these global controversies\, demonstrating that beneath their surface lie deeper struggles over race\, caste\, and the politics of decolonisation. \n\n\n\nRao takes readers on a journey through South Africa\, England\, the US\, Ghana\, India\, Australia\, and Scotland\, revealing how statue controversies have dramatically rearranged the canon of anticolonial political thought. By examining these debates through a personal and literary lens\, Rao addresses the multifaceted issues of justice\, cultural memory\, and belonging. The Psychic Lives of Statues examines both the toppling of colonial statues and the raising of postcolonial ones\, demonstrating that the statue form as a medium of representation and a bid for immortality is by no means obsolete. Engaging with artists\, scholars\, and activists\, Rao provides fresh perspectives on how societies grapple with and reinterpret the past and present through iconography. \n\n\n\nRahul Rao is a Reader in International Political Thought in the School of International Relations at the University of St Andrews\, and Professorial Research Associate at SOAS University of London. He is the author of two books – Third World Protest: Between Home and the World (2010) and Out of Time: The Queer Politics of Postcoloniality (2020)\, both published by Oxford University Press. He is a member of the Radical Philosophy editorial collective. \n\n\n\nAdvanced booking strongly recommended. Doors open at 6:45\, event starts 7:00. \n\n\n\nAs 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. \n\n\n\nIf 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. \n\n\n\nDoors Open at 6:45pm\, Event Starts 7:00 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nShare this:\n Share on X (Opens in new window)\n X\n \n Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)\n Facebook\n \n Share on Insta (Opens in new window)\n Insta\n Like this:Like Loading... URL:https://housmans.com/event/book-launch-the-psychic-lives-of-statues-by-rahul-rao/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,In Store ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/9780745350769.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250326T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250326T203000 DTSTAMP:20260403T223523 CREATED:20250204T125622Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250204T125643Z UID:64335-1743015600-1743021000@housmans.com SUMMARY:BOOK TALK: Alt Reich by Nafeez Ahmed DESCRIPTION:An evening with Dr Nafeez Ahmed\, discussing his latest work of essential investigative journalism\, ALT REICH: The Network War To Destroy The WestFrom Within\n\n\n\nWhy does Elon Musk suddenly care about what’s happening in Britain? \n\n\n\nOver the last 100 years\, a shadowy network of American\, British and European extremistsinspired by Nazi eugenics has worked feverishly to shape an insidious new fascism\, masquerading under the banner of ‘freedom’. This is all revealed and expounded in Alt Reich\, the new\, vital\, book from award-winning journalist Dr Nafeez Ahmed who will be joining us to discuss the far-right’s rise to the mainstream and reveal why and how this network emerged\, who is behind it\, how it works\, and what it wants: to replace Western democracies with a global techno-authoritarian order that protects elite power in an age of planetary poly-crisis. \n\n\n\nAhmed explains Musk’s pivotal role in the network behind Trump’s return and the forming of a new ‘techno-utopian fascism’ that merges corporate tech power with the state. Musk and X are part of a broader network of billionaire oligarchs with questionable views on race\, tech platforms\, and far-right groups that are fed up with democracy as we know it. Russian President Vladimir Putin is an integral player in this network. And this has significant implications that the Western national security establishment ignores at everyone’s peril. \n\n\n\nDr Nafeez Ahmed is a renowned systems theorist\, change strategist and award-winninginvestigative journalist\, formerly of The Guardian and VICE\, who 15 years ago predicted themeteoric rise of the far-right across the West. A bestselling author of seven books including AUser’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilization\, he is Byline Times’ Special Investigations Reporter AtLarge. His work has been officially used by the 9/11 Commission\, the London bombingscoroner’s inquest and cited in the Congressional Record\, as well as in the UK House ofCommons and House of Lords – including in multiple parliamentary select committee inquiries. \n\n\n\nAdvanced booking strongly recommended. Doors open at 6:45\, event starts 7:00. \n\n\n\nAs 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. \n\n\n\nIf 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. \n\n\n\nDoors Open at 6:45pm\, Event Starts 7:00 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nShare this:\n Share on X (Opens in new window)\n X\n \n Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)\n Facebook\n \n Share on Insta (Opens in new window)\n Insta\n Like this:Like Loading... URL:https://housmans.com/event/book-talk-alt-reich-by-nafeez-ahmed/ CATEGORIES:Book Talk,In Store,Literary Event ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Screenshot-2024-11-14-at-17.53.52-600x914-1.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250329T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250329T203000 DTSTAMP:20260403T223523 CREATED:20250204T131320Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250211T115029Z UID:64353-1743274800-1743280200@housmans.com SUMMARY:BOOK LAUNCH: Renters Unite by Jacob Stringer DESCRIPTION:Join us for an evening with Jacob Stringer as he discusses his vital new book Renters Unite: How Tenant Unions Are Fighting the Housing Crisis\n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n‘Eye-opening\, practical\, thoughtful and revolutionary‘ \n\n\n\n– Danny Dorling\, author of Peak Injustice: Solving Britain’s Inequality Crisis \n\n\n\n‘A birds-eye view of tenant organizing across the global north that touches down in moving stories of everyday struggle\, Renters Unite! is a generous and urgent reflection on the diversity of tactics in our movement—to turn individual fear into collective defiance\, to deepen our roots in our communities\, and to scale up our work to win the housing and the world we deserve‘  \n\n\n\n– Tracy Rosenthal\, co-author of Abolish Rent \n\n\n\nHousmans is delighted to welcome long-time organizer Jacob Stringer to the shop to talk about his essential new book\, penned from the front lines of the housing crisis. \n\n\n\nAs housing crises proliferate around the world\, so does the fightback. A new generation of tenants’ unions are rising up to demand good\, affordable housing for all. From the streets of Los Angeles to the avenues of Berlin\, these unions are rewriting the playbook on community empowerment and direct action. Stringer navigates the joys and perils of a new and exciting form of political organising. Through vivid storytelling and analysis\, this book takes readers to the frontlines to expose the brutality of criminal landlords and exploitative housing.It’s time to say no to bad landlords and join the movement for housing justice! \n\n\n\nJacob Stringer is a housing and social movements researcher\, and a member of London Renters Union. His work has appeared in openDemocracy. He will be in conversation with researcher and activist Jess Adams from Newcastle University. Jess works in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Research Institutes: the Institute for Social Science\, the Humanities Research Institute and Institute for Creative Arts Practice. Her research uses a militant methodology to understand contemporary notions of participation via an examination of her experience of participating in Corbynism and post-Corbynism. \n\n\n\nAdvanced booking strongly recommended. Doors open at 6:45\, event starts 7:00. \n\n\n\nAs 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. \n\n\n\nIf 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. \n\n\n\nDoors Open at 6:45pm\, Event Starts 7:00 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nShare this:\n Share on X (Opens in new window)\n X\n \n Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)\n Facebook\n \n Share on Insta (Opens in new window)\n Insta\n Like this:Like Loading... URL:https://housmans.com/event/book-lauch-renters-unite-by-jacob-stringer/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,In Store ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Stringer-RU.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250405T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250405T203000 DTSTAMP:20260403T223523 CREATED:20250113T163030Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250113T163102Z UID:63694-1743879600-1743885000@housmans.com SUMMARY:Book Talk: THE WAGES OF DREAM WORK: Class Composition & the Social Reproduction of Cultural Labor DESCRIPTION:Housmans are absolutely delighted to be welcoming Stevphen Shukaitis and Joanna Figiel to the shop to discuss their essential new book from Minor Compositions:The Wages of Dreamwork. Class Composition & the Social Reproduction of Cultural Labor. \n\n\n\nSurviving as a cultural or artistic worker in the city has never been easy. Creative workers find themselves celebrated as engines of economic growth\, economic recovery and urban revitalization even as the conditions for our continued survival becomes more precarious. How can you make a living today in such a situation? That is\, how to hold together the demands of paying the rent and bills while managing all the tasks necessary to support one’s practice? How to manage the tensions between creating spaces for creativity and imagination while working through the constraints posed by economic conditions? \n\n\n\nIn a more traditional workplace it is generally easy to distinguish between those who planned and managed the labor process and those who were involved in its executions: between the managers and the managed. For creative workers these distinctions become increasingly hard to make. Today the passionate and self-motivated labor of the artisan increasingly becomes the model for a self-disciplining\, self-managed labor force that works harder\, longer\, and often for less pay precisely because of its attachment to some degree of personal fulfillment in forms of engaging work. And that ain’t no way to make a living\, having to struggle three times as hard for just to have a sense of engagement in meaningful work. \n\n\n\nThe Wages of Dreamworkinvestigates how cultural workers in the modern metropolis manage these competing tensions and demands. Does the cultural economy treat you as a tool? If so\, perhaps it’s time to rethink how to down tools in this metropolitan factory. \n\n\n\nAs 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. \n\n\n\nIf you choose ‘book + event entry’ or ‘special bundle’\, 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. \n\n\n\nDoors Open at 6:45pm\, Event Starts 7:00 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nShare this:\n Share on X (Opens in new window)\n X\n \n Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)\n Facebook\n \n Share on Insta (Opens in new window)\n Insta\n Like this:Like Loading... URL:https://housmans.com/event/book-talk-the-wages-of-dream-work-class-composition-the-social-reproduction-of-cultural-labor/ CATEGORIES:Book Talk,Literary Event ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/9781570274077.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250425T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250425T210000 DTSTAMP:20260403T223523 CREATED:20250324T131854Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250422T112547Z UID:65765-1745607600-1745614800@housmans.com SUMMARY:CANCELLED: the87press & Housmans Bookshop present: Hummingbirds 5.0\, a literary salon DESCRIPTION:SADLY THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED. WE APOLOGISE FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE. \n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n \nShare this:\n Share on X (Opens in new window)\n X\n \n Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)\n Facebook\n \n Share on Insta (Opens in new window)\n Insta\n Like this:Like Loading... URL:https://housmans.com/event/the87press-housmans-bookshop-present-hummingbirds-5-0-a-literary-salon/ CATEGORIES:Book Talk,Literary Event ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/IMG_2439.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250429T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250429T213000 DTSTAMP:20260403T223523 CREATED:20250324T150252Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250408T160822Z UID:65778-1745953200-1745962200@housmans.com SUMMARY:ON TONY BENN: Andy Beckett and Melissa Benn in Conversation DESCRIPTION:To celebrate the long-awaited publication of Tony Benn’s political writings\, as well as the paperback edition of The Searchers\, we welcome Andy Beckett and Melissa Benn to the shop for a conversation on Benn\, his fellow Labour renegades and the future of the Labour left. \n\n\n\n\n\nWe are delighted to be welcoming Melissa Benn to the shop to the celebrate the centenary anthology of her father Tony Benn’s speeches\, writings and interviews. The book is a timely reminder of his political potency and the urgency of his agenda across a wide set of issues: the consequences of empire\, the need to embrace industrial change\, reform of the state machine and the management of politics. Joining Melissa we have Andy Beckett\, journalist for The Guardian\, The Economist and The London Review of Books. We also be launching the paperback edition of Andy’s brilliant book The Searchers: Five Rebels\, Their Dream of a Different Britain\, and Their Many Enemies\, a book about Benn and the Labour Left politicians he collaborated with and inspired. \n\n\n\nAdvanced booking strongly recommended. Doors open at 6:45\, event starts 7:00. \n\n\n\nAs 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. \n\n\n\nIf 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. \n\n\n\nDoors Open at 6:45pm\, Event Starts 7:00 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nShare this:\n Share on X (Opens in new window)\n X\n \n Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)\n Facebook\n \n Share on Insta (Opens in new window)\n Insta\n Like this:Like Loading... URL:https://housmans.com/event/on-tony-benn-andy-beckett-and-melissa-benn-in-conversation/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,In Store,Literary Event ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/preeti-insta-12-1024x1024-1.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250430T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250430T203000 DTSTAMP:20260403T223523 CREATED:20250128T131839Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250128T132353Z UID:64080-1746039600-1746045000@housmans.com SUMMARY:BOOK TALK: SQUATTING LONDON with Samuel Burgum DESCRIPTION:Squatting in London has a rich and diverse history. Today\, squatters live a marginalised\, stigmatised and criminalised existence\, yet they persist. Behind the glittering façade of shiny new buildings\, London is a network of vacant offices\, boarded-up shops and dilapidated pubs that host some of the city’s poorest and most determined citizens\, exiled and increasingly pushed to the margins. \n\n\n\nWe are very excited to welcome Samuel Burgum to Housmans to talk about his vital new book about a facinating\, and much neglected\, part of our urban history. Squatting London: The Politics of Property is an account of the real lives of the city’s squatters: their ambitions and struggles. Squatting is a challenge to the logic of property which underpins the city. By finding refuge\, staying put\, creating spaces and participating in counter-cultures\, squats are political acts. They sit in direct opposition to the speculation\, gentrification and regeneration that controls London today. \n\n\n\nFrom wasted office blocks transformed into a life-saving homeless shelter\, to temporary art exhibitions and raves; from an empty doctor’s surgery\, to a library closed by cuts; from mutual aid networks set up during the pandemic\, to restaurants\, shops\, offices and pubs – Squatting London is an alternative\, underground and rebellious ethnographic account of a city you thought you already knew. \n\n\n\nSamuel Burgum is an urban sociologist\, currently conducting a Leverhulme-sponsored ethnographic project on squatting in the context of the UK’s housing crisis. He is the author of Occupying London: Post-Crash Resistance and the Limits of Possibility. He has written for various journals\, including Antipode\, The Sociological Review and Journal for Cultural Research. \n\n\n\nAs 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. \n\n\n\nIf you choose ‘book + event entry’ or ‘special bundle’\, 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. \n\n\n\nDoors Open at 6:45pm\, Event Starts 7:00 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nShare this:\n Share on X (Opens in new window)\n X\n \n Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)\n Facebook\n \n Share on Insta (Opens in new window)\n Insta\n Like this:Like Loading... URL:https://housmans.com/event/book-talk-squatting-london-with-samuel-burgum/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,In Store ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/avif:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/9780745341439-1.avif END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250521T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250521T203000 DTSTAMP:20260403T223523 CREATED:20250422T111633Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250521T141049Z UID:66091-1747854000-1747859400@housmans.com SUMMARY:The Politics of Motherhood: Alex Bollen & Helen Charman in conversation DESCRIPTION:We are very excited to welcome two brilliant contemporary feminist thinkers to Housmans; their projects address ‘motherhood’ and the figure of the mother\, as the urgent political categories that they are. \n\n\n\nAlex Bollen is a Postnatal Practitioner with the National Childbirth Trust and researcher with over 20 years of experiance\, in Motherdom: Breaking Free from Bad Science and Good Mother Myths she picks apart the pernicious histories of what she refers to as ‘Good Mother Myths.’ These myths are deployed to censure mothers and blame them for society’s problems. Incensed by the way bad science is used to shame mothers\, she decided to set the record straight. With meticulous research and keen insight\, Motherdom exposes both the shaky science and unjustified prescriptions about how mothers should ‘naturally’ behave. Competing visions of birth – ‘natural’ versus ‘medical’ – mean women can be criticised whatever happens\, raising the odds that birth will be a damaging\, even deadly\, experience. Mothers are judged and belittled whether they breast- or bottle-feed their babies. Bogus claims about brain development and dodgy attachment theories mean that whatever mothers do\, it is never enough. This must stop\, she says. We must replace Good Mother myths with a realistic approach to parenting. Alex Bollen proposes ‘motherdom’\, a more expansive conception of motherhood\, which values and respects the different ways people raise their children. Instead of finding fault with mothers\, Motherdom shifts our focus to the relationships and resources children need to flourish. \n\n\n\nAlex will be in conversation with Helen Charman whose book Mother State\, not even out in paperback yet\, already has a well deserved reputation as one of the major works of Marxist-Feminist thinking produced this decade. In it\, Helen argues that motherhood must be conceived within poltical terms and that we must take a wider historically cohesive view of the figure of the mother\, who is both monstered\, and legislated againist\, by the state\, whilst also being held up as sort of ideal of reactionary political femininity. From the blurb: “In Mother State\, Helen Charman writes a new history of Britain and Northern Ireland. Beginning with Women’s Liberation and ending with austerity\, the book follows mothers’ fights for an alternative future. Alongside the mother figures that loom large in British culture\, from Margaret Thatcher to Kat Slater\, we meet communities of lesbian squatters\, anti-nuclear campaigners\, the wives of striking miners and teenage mothers protesting housing cuts: groups who believed that if you want to nourish your children\, you have to nourish the world around them too. Here we see a world where motherhood is not a restrictive identity but a state of possibility. ‘Mother’ ceases to be an individual responsibility\, and becomes an expansive collective term to organize under\, for people of any gender\, with or without children of their own. It begins with an understanding: that to mother is a political act.” \n\n\n\nAdvanced booking strongly recommended. \n\n\n\nDoors open at 6:45\, event starts 7:00. \n\n\n\nAs 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. \n\n\n\nIf 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. \n\n\n\nDoors Open at 6:45pm\, Event Starts 7:00 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nShare this:\n Share on X (Opens in new window)\n X\n \n Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)\n Facebook\n \n Share on Insta (Opens in new window)\n Insta\n Like this:Like Loading... URL:https://housmans.com/event/the-politics-of-motherhood-alex-bollen-helen-charman-in-conversation/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/preeti-insta-13.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250609T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250609T203000 DTSTAMP:20260403T223523 CREATED:20250521T140843Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250521T140846Z UID:66888-1749495600-1749501000@housmans.com SUMMARY:BOOK LAUNCH: Hermaphrodite Logic: A History of Intersex Liberation by Juliana Gleeson DESCRIPTION:We are delighted to be welcoming Juliana Gleeson\, one of the co-editors of the much acclaimed Transgender Marxism\, back to Housmans to celebrate the publication of her new book: Hermaphrodite Logic: A History of Intersex Liberation. In this work\, Gleeson examines the history of the Intersex Liberation Movement\, and reveals the means by which it interrogated systemic medical abuses of intersex people and reshaped our understanding of ‘sex.’ Blending philosophical insights and personal testimonies\, Gleeson argues that intersex people have been harmed not just for therapeutic reasons but to ease professional and parental anxieties. \n\n\n\nJuliana will be in conversation with the philosopher Billie Cashmore. They will talk for around 45 minutes or so\, followed by an audience Q&A. \n\n\n\nOur Speakers: \n\n\n\nJuliana Gleeson is a writer\, comedian and historian. She has published essays in outlets including Viewpoint Magazine\, Invert Journal and VICE\, and performed internationally at a wide range of communist and queer cultural events. She is the co-editor of Transgender Marxism. \n\n\n\nBillie Cashmore is a PhD student in Philosophy at Kingston University. Her work is on the challenge posed to philosophy by the Black Radical Tradition\, particularly concerning the concepts of value\, narrative and relation. Her first book We Hear Only Ourselves was published by Zer0 Books in 2023. \n\n\n\nAdvanced booking strongly recommended. \n\n\n\nDoors open at 6:45\, event starts 7:00. \n\n\n\nAs 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. \n\n\n\nIf 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. \n\n\n\nDoors Open at 6:45pm\, Event Starts 7:00 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \nShare this:\n Share on X (Opens in new window)\n X\n \n Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)\n Facebook\n \n Share on Insta (Opens in new window)\n Insta\n Like this:Like Loading... URL:https://housmans.com/event/book-launch-hermaphrodite-logic-a-history-of-intersex-liberation-by-juliana-gleeson/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,In Store ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/webp:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/81dgF0BdAgL._SL1500_-600x900-1.webp END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250611T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250611T203000 DTSTAMP:20260403T223523 CREATED:20250514T130350Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250602T113456Z UID:66745-1749668400-1749673800@housmans.com SUMMARY:BOOK LAUNCH: EVERY MONUMENT WILL FALL: Dan Hicks in conversation with Dr Mai Musié & Onyekachi Wambu DESCRIPTION:Every Monument Will Fall: A Story Of Remembering And Forgetting\n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n‘An extraordinary intervention. If you want to understand the stakes and the limitations of contemporary conflict over culture and colonial history this bold\, provocative book is an indispensable resource’ — Paul Gilroy\n\n\n\n \n\n\n\nThe culture war is over. If you want it to be. It wasn’t even a culture war; it was a war on culture. A sustained attack\, Dan Hicks argues\, in the form of the weaponisation of civic museums\, public art\, and even universities – and one that has a deeper history than you might think. \n\n\n\nWe are delighted to welcome Professor Dan Hicks back to Housmans to discuss his incredible new book Every Monument Will Fall: A Story Of Remembering And Forgetting\, a beautifully written\, polemical but generous work. Tracing the origins of contemporary conflicts over art\, heritage\, memory\, and colonialism\, Every Monument Will Fall joins the dots between the building of statues\, the founding of academic disciplines like archaeology and anthropology\, and the warehousing of stolen art and human skulls in museums – including the Pitt Rivers Museum\, where he is a curator. \n\n\n\nPart history\, part biography\, part excavation\, the story runs from the Yorkshire wolds to the Crimean War\, from southern Ireland to the frontline of the American Civil War\, from the City of London to the University of Oxford – revealing enduring legacies of militarism\, slavery\, racism and white supremacy hardwired into the heart of our cultural institutions. \n\n\n\nEvery Monument Will Fall offers an urgent reappraisal of how we think about culture\, and how to find hope\, remembrance and reconciliation in the fragments of an unfinished violent past. Refusing to choose between pulling down every statue\, or living in a past that we can never change\, the book makes the case for allowing monuments to fall once in a while\, even those that are hard to see as monuments\, rebuilding a memory culture that is in step with our times. \n\n\n\nOUR SPEAKERS: \n\n\n\nDan Hicks MA (Oxon)\, PhD\, FSA\, MCIfA (born 1972) is Professor of Contemporary Archaeology at the University of Oxford\, Curator at the Pitt Rivers Museum\, and a Fellow of St Cross College\, Oxford. Dan works on the material and visual culture of the human past\, up to and including the modern\, colonial\, contemporary and digital worlds\, and on the history of Archaeology\, Anthropology Art\, and Architecture. His curatorial work has ranged widely\, and has included the co-curated exhibition and book Lande: the Calais “Jungle” and Beyond in 2019 and Victor Ehikhamenor at St Paul’s Cathedral in London in 2022. You can read a 2025 interview about his background\, career and writing on the Society of Antiquaties of London website here. \n\n\n\nDan’s latest book is Every Monument Will Fall: a story of remembering and forgetting\, published with Penguin (Hutchinson Heinemann)\, and he also recorded the audio book for Every Monument Will Fall. \n\n\n\nDan has published nine authored and edited books\, and has written articles\, essays and op-eds for a variety of journals\, magazines and newspapers\, for a wide range of audiences: from the Times Literary Supplement to The Art Newspaper\, Apollo Magazine\, Art Review\, Artnet\, Architectural Review\, Frieze Magazine\, Hyperallergic\, The Guardian\, The Telegraph\, and The Independent. Dan has regularly appeared on live Radio and TV news and in documentaries\, including BBC News at Ten\, Channel 4 News\, Sky News\, LBC\, Times Radio\, and BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time\, The Moral Maze\, The World Tonight\, Front Row\, The Today Programme and Making History. \n\n\n\nDr Mai Musié’s research focuses on race and ethnicity in the ancient world. She is also interested in medieval manuscripts\, particularly from Ethiopian-Eritrean traditions. She is passionate about exploring the interconnectivity between the ancient Mediterranean world and North-East Africa. \n\n\n\n​Mai arrived in the UK aged 8 as a child refugee of the Ethiopian-Eritrean civil war. As a young child she spent many happy days in South Lambeth Tate Library exploring stories written about the ancient world\, particularly Greek myths. Mai went on to study Classical Civilisation at university and forged a career in engaging the public with the ancient and medieval world. \n\n\n\nOnyekachi Wambu is a respected writer and journalist. He was born in Nigeria in 1960 and arrived in Britain after the Biafran War. In the late 1980s he edited the Voice newspaper\, and has directed documentaries for the BBC\, Channel 4 and PBS. He is the Executive Director of the African Foundation for Development. His most recent book\, Empire Windrush: Reflections on 75 Years & More of the Black British Experience\, was published in 2023. Onyekachi is also currently working with the All Party-Parliamentary Group on Afrikan-Reparations which in March 2025 published the Laying Ancestors to Rest Policy Brief. \n\n\n\nAdvanced booking strongly recommended. \n\n\n\nDoors open at 6:45\, event starts 7:00. \n\n\n\nAs 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. \n\n\n\nIf 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. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nShare this:\n Share on X (Opens in new window)\n X\n \n Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)\n Facebook\n \n Share on Insta (Opens in new window)\n Insta\n Like this:Like Loading... URL:https://housmans.com/event/book-launch-every-monument-will-fall-by-dan-hicks/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,In Store ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/webp:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/81lSLUc-JnL._SL1500_-600x938-1.webp END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250618T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250618T203000 DTSTAMP:20260403T223523 CREATED:20250524T120501Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250524T122448Z UID:66989-1750273200-1750278600@housmans.com SUMMARY:Book talk: Drax of Drax Hall with Paul Lashmar DESCRIPTION:How One British Family Got Rich (and Stayed Rich) from Sugar and Slavery\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWe are delighted that celebrated journalist Paul Lashmar will be joining us for an evening at Housmans to discuss his latest book\, Drax of Drax Hall: How One British Family Got Rich (and Stayed Rich) from Sugar and Slavery. A brilliantly detailed and probing study of a how powerful British family came by their wealth through the worst kind of brutal\, dehumanising violence. \n\n\n\nWith a forward by David Olusoga\, this book\, which spans 400 years and 18 generations\, tells a story that has never been told. While all the British landed gentry profited from chattel slavery in the West Indies\, the Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax family of Dorset pioneered it. \n\n\n\nIt all started when James Drax\, one of the first settlers in Barbados in 1627\, effectively founded the British sugar industry. His descendants went on to write the book on how to run a slave plantation. For more than two hundred years\, the family enslaved up to 330 people at any time and became enormously rich. Today\, the bloodline is unbroken\, and former Tory MP Richard Drax heads the family from his vast Charborough Estate in Dorset. With physical assets worth at least £150m—not to mention the 621-acre sugar plantation in Barbados\, the Drax Hall Estate—he was the wealthiest landowner in the House of Commons. Unseated in 2024\, he remains a hero amongst hard-right culture warriors for his refusal to make any reparations for his family’s role in slavery. \n\n\n\nDrax of Drax Hall lifts the lid on the grotesque history of this family. Through enclosure at home and enslavement abroad\, their exploits expose the ugly realities of colonialism and empire—the legacies of which we have yet to fully confront today. \n\n\n\nPaul Lashmar is Reader in Journalism at City St George’s\, University of London. He has taken an interest in the history of slavery since he developed a Channel 4 series on Britain’s slave trade in 1999. He has been an investigative journalist in television and print\, and on the staff of The Observer\, Granada Television’s World in Action current affairs series and The Independent. He is the author\, co-author or co-editor of six books. He lives in Dorset. \n\n\n\nAdvanced Booking Strongly Recommended. \n\n\n\nDoors open at 6:45\, event starts 7:00. \n\n\n\nAs 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. \n\n\n\nIf 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. \n\n\n\nDoors Open at 6:45pm\, Event Starts 7:00 \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nShare this:\n Share on X (Opens in new window)\n X\n \n Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)\n Facebook\n \n Share on Insta (Opens in new window)\n Insta\n Like this:Like Loading... URL:https://housmans.com/event/book-talk-drax-of-drax-hall-with-paul-lashmar/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,In Store,Literary Event ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/5508.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250625T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250625T203000 DTSTAMP:20260403T223523 CREATED:20250603T112648Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250623T154612Z UID:67539-1750878000-1750883400@housmans.com SUMMARY:BOOK LAUNCH: REMEMBERING WOMEN by Christine Lehnen DESCRIPTION:Women do have a history of their own. All we need to do is remember it. \n\n\n\nWe are delighted to welcome Dr Christine Lehnen to Housmans to discuss her illuminating new investigation\, Remembering Women\, that looks back at our collective memory to explore the myriad ways that women in the past have enjoyed a more egalitarian life \n\n\n\nDue to advances in bioarchaeological methods\, scientists have discovered that one out of three women in Ancient Scythia was an active warrior buried with her weapons. Far from being confined to their homes\, these women rode out to hunt\, travelled to distance places\, or used weapons to fend off their enemies. These warriors were no exceptions to the rule\, with women enjoying a significantly higher degree of equality than their Greek contemporaries. \n\n\n\nRemembering Women argues that there is a historical precedent for a fairer society. From reappraisals of well-known objects such as the earliest human bone calendars from the Stone Age to revelatory findings of innovative bioarcheological methods used on human remains from Ancient Scythia\, evidence is accumulating that there were places in the past where all women were allowed to thrive. \n\n\n\nInterweaving new findings from archaeology with the stories of her mother and grandmothers\, as well as her everyday experiences as a woman living today\, Lehnen explores our collective memory of women and argues that it needs to change if we are to create an egalitarian society. Remembering Women follows the traces left in the material\, literary\, and archaeological record by our foremothers\, and their heirlooms\, artwork and stories\, to take a fresh look at our life in the present. \n\n\n\nChristine will be joined in conversation by the writer and wild-swimmer Emma Simpson\, author of Breaking Waves. They will be in conversation for around 45 minutes to an hour\, followed by a Q&A. \n\n\n\nOur Speakers: \n\n\n\nCHRISTINE LEHNEN is a lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Exeter. She is a regular contributor on feminism\, culture\, history\, archaeology and public memoryfor outlets such as Aeon\, Psyche\, The Wire\, Antigone\, New Lines\, Magazine\, and Deutsche Welle. \n\n\n\nEMMA SIMPSON is a wild swimmer and writer specialising in narrative non-fiction. Having spent a couple of decades being distracted by a career as an air traffic controller and experiencing two life-wrenching events\, she rediscovered her pen and passion for storytelling at the same time as discovering how transformational cold-water swimming was for hert health\, wellbeing\, and sense of connection with the world. She explores these themes in her compelling\, moving book Breaking Waves. \n\n\n\nDoors open at 6:45\, event starts 7:00. \n\n\n\nPLEASE NOTE: Our website has been malfunctioning and we are currently unable to sell tickets through it. For the time being events will be free but please RSVP using the link below. Please only RSVP if you are certain to come to the event\, as we need to keep a cap on the volume of attendees for health and safety reasons. \n\n\nShare this:\n Share on X (Opens in new window)\n X\n \n Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)\n Facebook\n \n Share on Insta (Opens in new window)\n Insta\n Like this:Like Loading... URL:https://housmans.com/event/book-launch-remembering-women-by-christine-lehnen/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,Feminist event,In Store ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Remembering-Women-HB-Cover.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250701T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250701T203000 DTSTAMP:20260403T223523 CREATED:20250521T133641Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250621T151825Z UID:66865-1751396400-1751401800@housmans.com SUMMARY:SOLD OUT: Friends in Common by Laura C. Forster and Joel White DESCRIPTION:Housmans are delighted to be welcoming Laura C. Forster and Joel White to the shop for a dicussion of their wonderful\, exhilarting book on the radical potential of friendship! \n\n\n\nFriendship is full of revolutionary potential in the face of a profoundly anti-social capitalist system. Friends in Common explores friendship as a radical practice\, capable of upending hierarchies and producing social change.Friendship can transcend social boundaries and political borders. It is vital in building communities and underpinning solidarity. But its transformative potency ensures that it is heavily policed and restrained by the state. Understanding the radical possibilities of friendship can help us rethink our approach to family\, work and politics\, and show us new routes to resistance and ways to open up spaces of solidarity and escape. The dissonance created by comparing societal expectations around friendship and a lonely reality\, especially in the wake of an isolating global pandemic\, is deeply alienating. Friends in Common shows that friendship as a political practice is foundational to strengthening revolutionary ideas and projects\, and is the antidote to capitalist despair. \n\n\n\nLaura and Joel will talk us through the book and its major themes and arguments for around 45 minutes\, followed by an audience Q&A. \n\n\n\nOur Speakers: \n\n\n\nLaura C. Forster is a writer and historian based in Newcastle. She is a lecturer in Modern History at the University of York\, and has written for Tribune\, ROAR\, and DOPE. \n\n\n\nJoel White is a writer and campaigner based in Glasgow. His writing has appeared in Tribune\, the LRB Blog\, Radical Philosophy\, The Guardian\, and The Wire. \n\n\n\nDoors open at 6:45\, event starts 7:00. \n\n\n\nAs 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. \n\n\n\nIf 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. \n\n\n\nDoors Open at 6:45pm\, Event Starts 7:00 \n\n\n\nTHIS EVENT HAS NOW SOLD OUT. Please call us or email shop@housmans.com to be added to the waitlist. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nShare this:\n Share on X (Opens in new window)\n X\n \n Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)\n Facebook\n \n Share on Insta (Opens in new window)\n Insta\n Like this:Like Loading... URL:https://housmans.com/event/book-talk-friends-in-common-by-laura-c-forster-and-joel-white/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,In Store ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/avif:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/9780745350585.avif END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250705T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250705T203000 DTSTAMP:20260403T223523 CREATED:20250610T125434Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250612T102731Z UID:67713-1751742000-1751747400@housmans.com SUMMARY:POETRY READING: Pamemar Press x Tripwire Journal Leslie Kaplan translations DESCRIPTION:We are very excited to be welcoming our friends Tripwire Journal [who are joining us all the way from California!] and Pamenar Press to celebrate the work of a very important writer indeed: Leslie Kaplan. We are very lucky to be hosting the launch of TWO Kaplan books available in English for the first time. \n\n\n\nThe French poet\, playwright\, and novelist Leslie Kaplan has been an important writer of the French left. She has published over twenty books in all three genres\, many of which have been translated into German\, Swedish\, Spanish\, Danish\, Norwegian\, and now\, English. Her first book\, L’exces l’usine (1982)\, gained the attention of writers such as Marguerite Duras and Maurice Blanchot\, and became an important book for the ‘68 generation. In 2018 Commune Editions published Excess—The Factory\, translated by Julie Carr and Jennifer Pap. This was the first English language edition of the book. \n\n\n\nNow\, from Pamenar Press we have the first English edition of The Book of Skies\, also translated by Julie Carr and Jennifer Pap. Like its predecessor Excess—The Factory this collection emerged from Kaplan’s experience of participating in the national strike and social revolution of 1968 in France. Early in ‘68 Kaplan\, like others\, left her studies in order to take on factory work\, as an aspect of revolutionary practice. Excess—the Factory famously put the factory experience on the page in sparse and original language. The Book of Skies takes place in the period just after ‘68 as the speaker now observes the places\, landscapes\, and people surrounding and relying on factory production in French cities\, small and large. As the speaker moves from site to site\, she finds possibility within the social spaces of the market\, the street\, the café\, and even the factory itself. While class and gendered violence threaten to shut down hopes for freedom and renewal\, the sky\, as reality and as figure\, functions as an aperture\, drawing our attention upward and outward\, even or especially when domestic and work-spaces are most violent or suffocating. \n\n\n\nAlongside this\, we are delighted that our comrade David Buuk from Tripwire will be joining us to launch a new English edition of Kaplan’s novella\, Miss Nobody Knowsp; about the lived aftermath of May ’68: its hopes and failures and how they continue to resonate today.A book described by Jean-Luc Godard as ‘so strong and graceful\, so… so… so… as if the novel were suspended between the animal and the human.” \n\n\n\n“Ostensibly about the May ’68 strike and a man who cannot deal with its aftermath\, but really a love story to these moments when suddenly the utopian comes into view and no longer feels impossible. It’s a book to read right now so as to remember that there have been moments when people come together in the name of possibility\, rather than in rage.” —Juliana Spahr \n\n\n\nThis is a free event but please RSVP using the link below. BYOB. \n\n\nShare this:\n Share on X (Opens in new window)\n X\n \n Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)\n Facebook\n \n Share on Insta (Opens in new window)\n Insta\n Like this:Like Loading... URL:https://housmans.com/event/poetry-reading-pamemar-press-x-tripwire-journal-leslie-kaplan-translations/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,In Store ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/tickets2.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250709T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250709T203000 DTSTAMP:20260403T223523 CREATED:20250617T130404Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250708T125752Z UID:67905-1752087600-1752093000@housmans.com SUMMARY:BOOK TALK: YOUR LIFE IS NOT A (FUCKING) STORY with Simon Critchley DESCRIPTION:Housmans are delighted to welcome Simon Critchley to the shop to discuss a new volume of essays\, ‘Your Life Is Not a (Fucking) Story‘ published by everyday analysis. In this collection of his recent articles\, Critchley – one of the most important living philosophers – takes us through his reflections on death\, questions of doubt and reason\, the legacy of David Bowie\, the nature of fear and empathy in a broken society and a critique of narrative identity – among other things. Your Life Is Not a Story explores the contemporary world and its psychological impact on us\, offering us a way to see our situation different and resist its tricks and contrivances. \n\n\n\nDoors open at 6:45\, event starts 7:00. \n\n\n\nThis is a free event. \n\n\nShare this:\n Share on X (Opens in new window)\n X\n \n Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)\n Facebook\n \n Share on Insta (Opens in new window)\n Insta\n Like this:Like Loading... URL:https://housmans.com/event/book-talk-your-life-is-not-a-fucking-story-with-simon-critchley/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,In Store,Literary Event ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/ea-coverconcepts-critchley_page_1.png END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR