BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Housmans Bookshop - ECPv6.16.4//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: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 BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST DTSTART:20270328T010000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT DTSTART:20271031T010000 END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260307T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260307T203000 DTSTAMP:20260617T232439 CREATED:20260211T131259Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260211T131419Z UID:75710-1772910000-1772915400@housmans.com SUMMARY:BOOK LAUNCH: The Mixed + Multiracial Guide To Wellbeing with Namalee Bolle DESCRIPTION:Join us for a celebratory evening of radical mixed + multiracial discussion!\n\n\n\n“What aaaaarrrrrrrrrreeeeeee you?!”If you just had that familiar sinking feeling\, this book is for you. Do you point out how alienating and othering that question is? Stand your ground and explain that you don’t have to justify your existence with a pie chart and a family tree? Or keep the peace\, bite your tongue and smile politely at yet another person treating you like a science project? While each mixed person’s experience is different\, there are common threads from living in a monoracial world that weave their way into your life. This book explores ways for mixed and multiracial people to recognise how their identity has shaped their life\, handle common challenges\, and resist othering and erasure.Informed by experience and expertise from both sides of the therapist’s couch\, the Mixed + Multiracial Guide to Wellbeing shows you how to handle microaggressions\, confront systemic issues\, and control your own story. \n\n\n\nThe Mixed + Multiracial Guide to Wellbeing is a timely\, compassionate and quietly radical book that speaks to a fast-growing yet persistently overlooked readership.   \n\n\n\nReviews: \n\n\n\n‘Namalee Bolle successfully brings her readers into an impressive gathering of voices that give depth and breadth to the mixed and multiracial experience. This book invites us all to bring a deeper understanding to our own identities\, and the ways we find belonging and meaning in the world’ \n\n\n\nMarcia Bonato Warren MA MA LPC\, author of Movement and Identity: Multiculturalism\, Somatic Awareness\, and Embodied Code-Switching \n\n\n\n‘Bolle examines the complexities of mixed-race identity and confronts them with thoughtful\, tangible solutions. The Mixed + Multiracial Guide to Wellbeing is a relatable and fascinating read for anyone who’s ever fielded the question\, “What are you?” And essential for anyone who’s asked it’ \n\n\n\n Nabil Ayers\, author of My Life in the Sunshine \n\n\n\nOUR SPEAKERS: \n\n\n\nNamalee Bolle is a London-based multidisciplinary artist\, transpersonal transcultural integrative psychotherapist and award winning writer. She is British born of Sri-Lankan and Dutch-Jewish heritage and her work explores themes of multicultural identity\, intergenerational trauma and post-traumatic thriving. With a background as SUPERSUPER! magazine co-founder Namalee was featured in Pioneers: A Renaissance in South Asian Creativity at the British Maritime Museum. Her work has been published in The Guardian\, I-D\, Dazed\,The London Evening Standard\, Vogue and ShowSTUDIO. \n\n\n\nJassa Ahluwalia is a British actor\, writer\, filmmaker and trade unionist. Born in Coventry to a white English mum and a brown Punjabi dad\, he came to prominence as Rocky in the hit BBC Three series Some Girls\, followed by starring roles in Unforgotten\, Ripper Street\, and Peaky Blinders. Jassa created the hashtag #BothNotHalf to explore mixed identity in light of his own British-Indian heritage. His TEDx talk on How Language Shapes Identity has clocked up over 170k views and his BBC One documentary Am I English? won an Asian Media Award in 2022. His book Both Not Half: A Radical New Approach to Mixed Identity is out now from Bonnier Books. \n\n\n\nNamalee and Jassa will talk for around 45 minutes to 1hr followed by a Q&A with the audience. \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-the-mixed-multiracial-guide-to-wellbeing-with-namalee-bolle/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,Feminist event,In Store,Literary Event ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/webp:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/9781805013655.webp END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260305T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260305T203000 DTSTAMP:20260617T232439 CREATED:20260211T135216Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260219T172209Z UID:75725-1772737200-1772742600@housmans.com SUMMARY:BOOK LAUNCH: Frontierlands by Hazel Sheffield DESCRIPTION:‘Hazel Sheffield’s book is a warming remedy to the creeping nihilism many feel about the places where they live\,’ Jen Calleja \n\n\n\nWe are delighted to welcome Hazel Sheffield to the shop to discuss her inspiring new book about Britain’s abandoned and neglected places and the opportunities they present for communities\, and how they can help us face the challenges of climate change. \n\n\n\n‘Frontierlands’ are Britain’s forgotten places. Silt-filled harbours\, overgrown forests\, sunken railway tracks and empty buildings. All once economic engines\, now abandoned by investors and the state.But they are home to local communities\, and amongst them\, some remarkable pioneers working together to repair\, rebuild and prepare for the future.Hazel Sheffield takes her readers on a journey that begins at the coastline and travels inward via hoardings and railway arches\, factories\, streets and neighbourhoods to our homes. Moving from Watchet harbour in the South West to Gateshead in the North East\, from Lancashire to London and the South East\, she introduces us to the people who are acting to shape their own destinies – people with first-hand knowledge of the problems Britain faces and with clear ideas how to make things better.This is a book about regeneration\, reclaiming power\, and the hope that comes from community action. About people questioning how the world works and determined to do things differently in the face of economic upheaval and climate crisis. People learning to build a new world\, challenging us all to think about how we should live in the face of certain change. \n\n\n\nImmersive and inspiring\, Frontierlands challenges us to reconnect with and reclaim our environment\, showing that it is possible to regenerate\, reskill and create opportunities for industry\, and to address the challenges of climate change \n\n\n\nNadia Idle (Novara Media) will chair a discussion about the book for 45 minutes to an hour. The audience are invited to share their experiences. Hazel will be signing books after the event. \n\n\n\nHazell will speak about the book for around 45 minutes- 1hr followed by a q&a. She will be signing books after the event.As 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-frontierlands-by-hazel-sheffield/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,In Store,Literary Event ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/image0.jpeg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260228T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260228T220000 DTSTAMP:20260617T232439 CREATED:20260114T153316Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260114T153319Z UID:75050-1772305200-1772316000@housmans.com SUMMARY:HOUSMANS POETRY SERIES: Joseph Minden launches Answerlands DESCRIPTION:We are BUZZING to be keeping off our 2026 Poetry Series with the brilliant Joseph Minden\, who’ll be launching is latest collection Answerlands\, published late last year by Carcanet. Joining Joseph we have Kat Addis\, Joseph Persad\, Dolly Rae Star and Verity Spott. \n\n\n\nThis is a free event\, but please RSVP below. Also please feel free to BYOB. \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/housmans-poetry-series-joseph-minden-launches-answerlands/ CATEGORIES:Book Talk,In Store ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Poetry-Series-3.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260226T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260226T203000 DTSTAMP:20260617T232439 CREATED:20260114T122210Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260114T124410Z UID:74976-1772132400-1772137800@housmans.com SUMMARY:MAY WE FEED THE KING: Writing Radical Fiction Today with Rebecca Perry & Misha Honcharenko DESCRIPTION:Perry combines effortless exactitude with canny ambiguity to create a novel that is always as stimulating as it is enchanting. ‘May We Feed the King’ is a rare achievement\, I absolutely loved it. \n\n\n\nClaire-Louise Bennett \n\n\n\nWe are delighted to welcome two of the most exciting writers working in Britain today\, Rebecca Perry and Misha Honcharenko\, to Housmans for our first creative writing event of the year. The talk will be focused on Rebecca’s new novel May We Feed The King (Granta)\, a ‘serial and dreamlike’ (Jessie Burton) work of avant-garde historical fiction that tells the story of ‘ a curator\, who spends her time dressing the rooms of historic buildings to bring them to life. But in the lush private quarters of a medieval palace\, she finds herself so transfixed by the reign of an almost-forgotten King that the edges of her life begin to blur.’ Interviewing Rebecca about the book we welcome back Misha Honcharenko\, a queer Ukrainian artist and writer whose incredible debut novel Trap Unfolds Me Greedily (Sissy Anarchy) we launched at Housmans back in 2024. The are two writers whose work is in equal parts inventive and alert to the historical circumstances under which it is produced. As the current global order continues to dissolve before our eyes\, we ask: what can\, or should\, ‘fiction’ be now? \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/may-we-feed-the-king-writing-radical-fiction-today-with-rebecca-perry-misha-honcharenko/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,Feminist event,In Store ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/May-We-Feed-the-King-Jacket-1.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260213T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260213T203000 DTSTAMP:20260617T232439 CREATED:20260114T123912Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260114T123915Z UID:75033-1771009200-1771014600@housmans.com SUMMARY:Housmans Valentine's Day Special: COURTING DISASTER with Zoë McGee DESCRIPTION:Fan of a Romantic Period Drama? Can’t stand the stuff? Either way\, we’ve got the event for you. Come and deconstruct Romance this Valentine’s Day with Housmans and Zoë McGee \n\n\n\nWe’ll be discussing Zoë’s fabulous new work of Romantic Deconstruction: Courting Disaster: Reading Between the Lines of the Regency Novel. \n\n\n\nWhat do #MeToo and Jane Austen have in common? More than you might think. \n\n\n\nEver since the novel was invented\, women have used it as a platform for sharing ideas about sexual consent. Dr Zoë McGee reveals how Jane Austen\, Frances Burney and their now-overlooked contemporaries used their stories to try to change society’s mind about rape culture – and to reassure survivors they were not alone. \n\n\n\nCourting Disaster takes a timely deep-dive into a series of classic novels\, comparing them with both historic court records and current events to show that our arguments about consent are not a new phenomenon. With the wit and wryness of a courtship novel\, McGee reads between the lines to unveil a quiet feminist movement that still resonates today. Because every novel about marriage is also a novel about consent. \n\n\n\nIn an era that’s clamouring for a return to the values of the past\, Courting Disaster asks what that would really mean\, and whether anyone actually liked it back then anyway. \n\n\n\nZoë McGee has a PhD from Queen Mary University of London and an MSt in eighteenth-century studies from the University of Oxford. She has spoken at conferences internationally and now performs at very nerdy stand-up comedy nights. Among other things\, she has worked as a university teacher\, a bookseller and a professional board-game-explainer. She owns too many books and is a competitive ballroom dancer in her spare time. \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/housmans-valentines-day-special-courting-disaster-with-zoe-mcgee/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,In Store ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/81G8dDnlwRL._AC_UF8941000_QL80_.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260205T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260205T203000 DTSTAMP:20260617T232439 CREATED:20251117T181937Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260127T123947Z UID:73851-1770318000-1770323400@housmans.com SUMMARY:SOLD OUT! THE LOG BOOKS: VOICES OF QUEER BRITAIN AND THE HELPLINE THAT LISTENED with Tash Walker &Adam Zmith DESCRIPTION:please note this event is now sold out. To be added to a waiting list please email shop@housmans.com\n\n\n\n\n\nAn intimate history of LGBTQ+ life over four decades\, discovered in a stash of forgotten\, handwritten notes.\n\n\n\nSwitchboard was founded at Housmans\, and operated out of our premises for many years. So we are honored to start LGBT+ History Month by launching a book that covers an intimate part of Switchboard’s proud history and we look forward to welcoming its authors Tash Walker and Adam Zmith to the shop for an evening of discussion and celebration. \n\n\n\n‘A fantastic journey through an overlooked archive bursting with humanity and real life on every page.’ Dan Snow \n\n\n\nIn a crawlspace at the offices of Switchboard\, a queer helpline in operation since 1974\, lies dozens of log books kept by volunteers describing the phone calls they had taken: a teenager whose parents had kicked them out of their home for dressing as the wrong gender; a lesbian terrified of having her baby taken away from her; a man arrested for chatting up another man in a public toilet; a young person wanting to know how to come out. These logs were traces of tens of thousands of queer lives\, a bridge to a past hidden from people like Tash Walker and Adam Zmith in their youth\, captured by people who lent an ear to those in need. Walker and Zmith came of age in the time of Section 28\, a law which banned councils and schools ‘promoting the teaching of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship’. In recovering these logs\, they encountered people grappling with feelings\, questions and problems both familiar and different. They set out to learn from – and sometimes speak to – people on both sides of the calls. Charged with joy\, gossip\, sensuality\, heartbreak and sometimes fear\, and with a potent relevancy to the world today\, Walker and Zmith have collected these stories in The Log Books. They capture queer lives in stunning detail\, embarking on a journey of both collective history and self -discovery\, propelling it into the foreground of our national history. \n\n\n\n‘Essential reading\, grounded in the past while also explaining the urgency of LGBTQ+ politics today.’TOM RASMUSSEN\, author of Diary of a Drag Queen \n\n\n\n‘Hauntingly beautiful\, this is a testament to the ongoing courage and care so profound in our community. I was enchanted at every page. Completely life – changing.’ DAN GLASS\, author of Queer Footprints \n\n\n\nOUR SPEAKERS: \n\n\n\nTash Walker is a writer\, podcast producer and community organiser who has worked with institutions such as the Barbican\, BBC\, and Queer Britain; they were a member of Switchboard’s board for eight years. \n\n\n\nAdam Zmith is a writer and multi-format producer; his book Deep Sniff: A History of Poppers and Queer Futures won the Polari First Book Prize. He writes theatre shows\, talks and podcasts\, including Press Play Turn On which won Podcast of the Year at the British Podcast Awards 2024. \n\n\n\n\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\nplease note this event is now sold out. To be added to a waiting list please 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-the-log-books-voices-of-queer-britain-and-the-helpline-that-listened-with-tash-walker-adam-zmith/ CATEGORIES:In Store,Literary Event,Online event ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/The-Log-Books_cover.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260121T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260121T203000 DTSTAMP:20260617T232439 CREATED:20251218T154432Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260112T170649Z UID:74506-1769022000-1769027400@housmans.com SUMMARY:SOLD OUT! CONTESTED COMMONS: A History of Protest and Public Space in England DESCRIPTION:please note this event is now sold out. To be added to a waiting list please email shop@housmans.com\n\n\n\n\n\nFor our first event of the year we welcome Proffessor Katrina Navickas to the shop to discuss what is an increasingly urgent political issue in our current cultural climate. Her recent book\, Contested Commons is a radical history of the increasing restrictions against protest in England’s public spaces. The work is a gripping overview of increasingly restrictive policing and legislation against protest in public spaces. It tells the long history of contests over Trafalgar Square\, Hyde Park\, Cable Street and Kinder Scout\, as well as sites in towns and rural areas across the country. Navickas reveals how protesters claimed these spaces as their own commons\, resisting their continuing enclosure and exclusion by social and political elites. She investigates famous and less well-known demonstrations and protest marches\, from early democracy\, trade union movements and the Suffragettes to anti-fascist\, Black rights and environmental campaigners in more recent times. Contested Commons offers positive as well as troubling lessons on how we protect the right to protest. \n\n\n\nKatrina Navickas is Professor of History at the University of Hertfordshire. She is the author of Protest and the Politics of Space and Place\, 1789–1848 (2016) and Loyalism and Radicalism in Lancashire\, 1798–1815 (2009). She will be joined in conversation with Daniel Frost. They will discuss the book and its themes for around 45 minutes\, followed by a open discussion with the audience. \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\nplease note this event is now sold out. To be added to a waiting list please 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-talk-contested-commons-a-history-of-protest-and-public-space-in-england/ CATEGORIES:Book Talk,In Store ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/9781836391005-2-wpv_720x.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20251206T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20251206T203000 DTSTAMP:20260617T232439 CREATED:20251125T114740Z LAST-MODIFIED:20251204T173148Z UID:74099-1765047600-1765053000@housmans.com SUMMARY:CANCELLED: A Short History of Queer Parenting with Kirsty Loehr DESCRIPTION:Kirsty Loehr’s first book A Short History of Queer Women\, a brilliantly written and incisive history of female same-sex desire was one of Housmans’ best-selling titles in 2024. So we are DELIGHTED that she’s back with another brilliantly written and incisive (and warm and funny!!) history\, this time of Queer Parenting! \n\n\n\nQueer families\, Kirsty argues\, have always existed. Even Sappho had a daughter named Cleis! For centuries\, the women of ‘The Golden Orchid Society’ in Qing-dynasty China were getting married and raising daughters together – platonically\, obviously… And Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson’s fabulously bisexual open marriage proved women really can have it all – a husband\, two kids\, a writing career and Virginia Woolf. Maybe you’re exploring your options. Maybe you don’t want kids but you have questions. Either way\, Kirsty Loehr provides another rollicking guide to the ups and downs of queer parenthood through the ages. \n\n\n\nDUE TO UNFORSEEN CIRCUMSTANCES THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED. WE APOLOGISE FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE CAUSED. \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-a-short-history-of-queer-parenting-with-kirsty-loehr/ CATEGORIES:Feminist event,In Store,Literary Event,Online event END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20251205T183000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20251205T203000 DTSTAMP:20260617T232439 CREATED:20251126T153247Z LAST-MODIFIED:20251126T153250Z UID:74143-1764959400-1764966600@housmans.com SUMMARY:TALK: Protecting Cultural Practices While Under Occupation in Palestine DESCRIPTION:Please RSVP with the link below\, or by emailing marwan.darweish@coventry.ac.uk \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/talk-protecting-cultural-practices-while-under-occupation-in-palestine/ CATEGORIES:In Store ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Invitation_Housmans.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20251204T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20251204T203000 DTSTAMP:20260617T232439 CREATED:20251029T162604Z LAST-MODIFIED:20251029T175834Z UID:73249-1764874800-1764880200@housmans.com SUMMARY:BOOK LAUNCH: SEA NOW: Eva Meijer in conversation with Lucy Mercer DESCRIPTION:event for an exciting Dutch writer supported by Arts Council England and New Dutch Writing.\n\n\n\n‘Sea Now joins Meijer’s rich oeuvre of novels and philosophical meditations on multispecies coexistence. One could read this novel as the story of two characters—the Netherlands and the sea—posing a question of each other: What am I? What and who is “the Netherlands”? What and who is “the sea”? The first question implicates uncomfortable stories of value: Who determines the status quo that decides who or what (a foreigner?\, a painting?) deserves to be saved\, who or what (a US-trained scientist?\, the Dutch language?) would count as a loss?’ \n\n\n\nMandy-Suzanne Wong\, Asymptote \n\n\n\n‘One of the unanticipated highlights of my reading year…a fabulist disaster novel\, doubling as identity-of-the-nation commentary…playful\, with a dry sly omniscient voice…a little bit as though Stephen Baxter’s Flood (2008) (or Japan Sinks) had been rewritten by Italo Calvino….the cumulative effect of this wide-ranging\, generous narrative attention is a constant sense of motion\, and a lightness of touch that allows Meijer to move smoothly from\, say\, haunting elegy to academic satire to a more serious intellectual point… Simply as a page-to-page reading experience\, Sea Now is consistently fresh and interesting: You never quite know where its eye will fall next.’ \n\n\n\nNiall Harrison\, Locus \n\n\n\nHousmans are very excited to welcome the celebrated writer\, philosopher\, and visual artist\, Eva Meijer to the shop to launch her novel Sea Now\, newly translated into English by Anne Thompson Melo. This work is a profound meditation on the relationship between the human and non-human and a biting satire of governmental ineptitude in the face of climate change. As the sea swallows a nation\, the prime minister holds a daily press conference and scientists try to find an explanation\, without success. A climate activist\, a young poet\, and an oceanographer journey across the new sea and return to confront all that has been lost\, as a coming-of-age adventure story is braided with a clarion call to wake up to the defining challenge of our age. Eva will be joined in conversation by the poet and academic Lucy Mercer\, author of Emblem (Prototype\, 2022) and Afterlife (forthcoming from Fitzcarraldo Editions.) The two will talk for around 45 minutes to 1 hour followed by an open discussion. \n\n\n\nOur Speakers \n\n\n\nEva Meijer is a philosopher\, visual artist\, writer and singer- songwriter. Their fiction and non-fiction has been translated into over twenty languages. Since the publication of their first novel in 2011\, their works have received numerous awards\, including the Halewijnprijs honouring their oeuvre. Meijer’s books have been met enthusiastically by the Dutch but also international press including reviews in the Guardian\, Der Spiegel and New York Review of Books. \n\n\n\nLucy Mercer‘s first collection Emblem (Prototype\, 2022) was a Poetry Book Society Choice. Her nonfiction essay on wax and mortality\, Afterlife\, is forthcoming with Fitzcarraldo Editions. \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-sea-now-eva-meijer-in-conversation-with-lucy-mercer-2/ CATEGORIES:In Store,Literary Event,Online event ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Sea-Now-Web-Cover-spine-1-1.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20251126T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20251126T210000 DTSTAMP:20260617T232439 CREATED:20251110T172422Z LAST-MODIFIED:20251110T172426Z UID:73526-1764183600-1764190800@housmans.com SUMMARY:Housmans Poetry Series: Prudence Bussey-Chamberlain launches 'Grief is a Thing in Pleather' DESCRIPTION:Join us for another poetry evening\, this time in collaboration with our great friends Osmosis Press\, launching a new collection\, ‘Grief is a Thing in Pleather’\, from Prudence Bussey-Chamberlain. Prudence will be reading from the book alongside a host a fabulous guest readers (tbc). \n\n\n\nThis is a free event\, but please RSVP below. Feel free to 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/housmans-poetry-series-prudence-bussey-chamberlain-launches-grief-is-a-thing-in-pleather/ CATEGORIES:Feminist event,In Store,Literary Event ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Poetry-Series-2.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20251124T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20251124T203000 DTSTAMP:20260617T232439 CREATED:20250827T122307Z LAST-MODIFIED:20251118T172527Z UID:69711-1764010800-1764016200@housmans.com SUMMARY:SOLD OUT! The First Jasmines by Saima Begum DESCRIPTION:PLEASE NOTE THIS EVENT IS NOW SOLD OUT. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE ADDED TO A WAITING LIST PLEASE EMAIL SHOP@HOUSMANS.COM\n\n\n\nHousmans and Hajar Press are delighted to celebrate the launch of this important\, magnificent novel. Saima Begum’s The First Jasmines follows two sisters\, Lucky and Jamila\, after they are captured by the military while on the way to visit their mother in what was then called East Pakistan\, in 1971. \n\n\n\nLocked in a room in an unknown village-turned-camp by the river\, the women look through a lone barred window onto white jasmines blooming day and night. Meanwhile\, around the camp\, deadly guerrilla fighters from the Bengali Mukti Bahini gather to take back territory from the Pakistan Army. \n\n\n\nAs Bangladesh crowns painfully into the world\, Lucky and Jamila must choose between heartbreak and secrecy to return from an unspoken violence. \n\n\n\nWe are extremely lucky to have Saima Begum with us on the night\, joined in conversation by Shahnaz Ahsan. We anticipate this will be a popular event so please book ahead to avoid dissapointment. \n\n\n\nOUR SPEAKERS: \n\n\n\nSaima Begum is a British-Bangladeshi writer based in North London. She won the MFest Short Story Competition in 2021. The First Jasmines is her first novel. \n\n\n\nShahnaz Ahsan is an author\, columnist and award-winning food writer. ​Her latest book is The Jackfruit Chronicles: Memories and Recipes from a British-Bangladeshi Kitchen\, published by HarperNorth. Her debut novel Hashim & Family was an Observer Best Book of 2020 and was shortlisted for the Guardian Not the Booker Prize. ​ \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-first-jasmines-by-saima-begum/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,In Store,Literary Event ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/The-First-Jasmines-RGB-300.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20251119T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20251119T203000 DTSTAMP:20260617T232439 CREATED:20251023T134405Z LAST-MODIFIED:20251105T161023Z UID:72798-1763578800-1763584200@housmans.com SUMMARY:BOOK LAUNCH: FERAL CLASS with Marc Garrett DESCRIPTION:Untamed\, Unheard\, Unstoppable… a moving memoir about being a working-class artist… Art on the Margins\, Life Without Permission \n\n\n\nFeral Class is Marc Garrett’s deeply personal and thought-provoking exploration of his early years\, chronicling his journey as a working-class artist navigating a world that often rejects them. Through humorous\, vivid storytelling and incisive critique\, Garrett explores how his upbringing shaped his identity\, forging a path that defied societal expectations. How can one survive\, let alone thrive\, as part of what Garrett describes as the feral class: a group of individuals who\, like him\, exist outside traditional institutions and thrive in the margins\, using resourcefulness and rebellion to carve out their own artistic spaces? \n\n\n\nWeaving together personal memories\, political reflections\, and the struggles of working-class artists\, Feral Class challenges the elitism of the art world. It celebrates the radical potential of those who refuse to conform. Garrett’s narrative is both an intimate self-portrait and a rallying cry for artists who refuse to be tamed. Passionate\, unfiltered\, and insightful\, this book is an essential read for anyone interested in the intersections of class\, creativity\, and resistance. \n\n\n\nBio: Marc Garrett’s life and work embody the intersection of art\, technology\, and social change\, shaped by his working-class upbringing and a commitment to challenging institutional hierarchies. Growing up in Southend-On-Sea\, he explored creative expression through street art\, pirate radio\, and early online activism before co-founding Furtherfield in 1996 with Ruth Catlow\, an artist-led community resisting the commercialisation of the art world. Despite personal challenges\, including a cancer diagnosis in 2022\, Garrett continues to focus on ideas and questions that acknowledge and engage working-class and feral-class contexts as a springboard for more extensive dialogues on creating conditions for social change across art\, technology\, and ecology. \n\n\n\nMarc will be joined in conversation with the imitable Cassie Thornton. Cassie is an artist and activist who makes a “safe space” for the unknown\, for disobedience\, and for unanticipated collectivity. She uses social practices including institutional critique\, insurgent architecture\, and “healing modalities” like hypnosis and yoga to find soft spots in the hard surfaces of capitalist life. Cassie has invented a grassroots alternative credit reporting service for the survivors of gentrification\, has hypnotized hedge fund managers\, has finger-painted with the grime found inside banks\, has donated cursed paintings to profiteering bankers\, and has taught feminist economics to yogis (and vice versa). Her 2020 book\, The Hologram: Feminist\, Peer-to-Peer Health for a Post-Pandemic Future\, is available from Pluto Press. \n\n\n\nAs always\, tickets are priced on a sliding scale. If you are unable to pay for a ticket please choose the ‘unwaged’ option. \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-feral-class-with-mark-garrett/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,Discussion group,In Store,Literary Event ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/2804f30f-229a-437f-9b9a-e584c707a3d4_800x1236-1.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20251108T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20251108T203000 DTSTAMP:20260617T232439 CREATED:20250917T162720Z LAST-MODIFIED:20251103T134542Z UID:70436-1762628400-1762633800@housmans.com SUMMARY:BOOK LAUNCH: Bourgeois Coldness: Henrike Kohpeiß in conversation with Lilly Markaki DESCRIPTION:Foregrounding affect\, this timely book provides an inestimable philosophical argument for the centrality of Blackness in critical examinations of capitalism’s violence.\n\n\n\n \n\n\n\nDenise Ferreira da Silva\n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n \n\n\n\nElegant and erudite in equal measure\, this book will stand as a landmark diagnosis of the practices of denial in our time.\n\n\n\n \n\n\n\nAndreas Malm\n\n\n\nWe are delighted to welcome an incredibly exciting scholar\, Henrike Kohpeiß\, to the shop to launch the new English translation of her book Bourgeois Coldness. \n\n\n\n‘Bourgeois coldness’ refers to an affective strategy that offers an explanation for how self-preservation works. Bourgeois coldness is one of the most advanced affective and aesthetic forms of preserving the structure of the colonial status quo. It creates an affective shelter in the world\, unencroached upon by the immediate consequences of its many catastrophes. It functions like air conditioning – a complex technology which reliably stabilises the climate until those inside consider it natural. Bourgeois spaces – institutional and affective – stay cool and pleasant. But outside it’s burning.Canonical critical theory by Adorno and Horkheimer enters a dialogue with Black studies through Hartman and Moten. \n\n\n\nHenrike will be in conversation with Dr Lilly Markaki from Royal Holloway\, University of London. They’ll discuss the text and it’s key conceits for around 45 minutes-1hr\, followed by an open discussion. We look forward to seeing you there! \n\n\n\nOur Speakers: \n\n\n\nHenrike Kohpeiß is a philosopher in Berlin\, working on social and political philosophy\, critical theory\, affect studies\, Black studies and feminist philosophy. She regularly publishes work in academic journals and criticism in magazines. She organises and hosts events in Berlin\, such as the conversation series ‘Feelings at the end of the world’ at Volksbühne. Bourgeois Coldness is her first book\, and was published in German in 2023 by Campus Verlag. \n\n\n\nLilly Markaki is Lecturer in Race and Culture in Film and Media at Royal Holloway\, University of London. Bridging critical theory\, visual culture studies\, media theory\, and Black radical and anti-colonial thought\, their work investigates the relationship between aesthetics and politics\, exploring how insurgent practices—whether philosophical\, poetic\, or visual—can generate forms of solidarity that unsettle colonial-modern ontologies and anthropocentric logics. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAs always\, tickets are priced on a sliding scale. If you are unable to pay for a ticket please choose the ‘unwaged’ option. \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/launch-bourgeois-coldness-with-henrike-kohpeis-divided-publishing/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,In Store,Literary Event ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/BC_cover_web_v2.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20251106T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20251106T203000 DTSTAMP:20260617T232439 CREATED:20251013T200720Z LAST-MODIFIED:20251015T141522Z UID:72034-1762455600-1762461000@housmans.com SUMMARY:BOOK LAUNCH: Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature with Alyssa Battistoni (in conversation with Helen Hester) DESCRIPTION:Housmans are very excited to welcome Dr Alyssa Battistoni to the shop to discuss her vital work of political theory\, Free Gifts: Capitalism and The Politics of Nature. Capitalism is typically treated as a force for relentless commodification. Yet it consistently fails to place value on vital aspects of the nonhuman world\, whether carbon emissions or entire ecosystems. In Free Gifts\, Alyssa Battistoni explores capitalism’s persistent failure to value nature\, arguing that the key question is not the moral issue of why some kinds of nature shouldn’t be commodified\, but the economic puzzle of why they haven’t been. To understand contemporary ecological problems from biodiversity collapse to climate change\, she contends\, we have to understand how some things come to have value under capitalism—and how others do not. To help us do so\, Battistoni recovers and reinterprets the idea of the free gift of nature used by classical economic thinkers to describe what we gratuitously obtain from the natural world\, and builds on Karl Marx’s critique of political economy to show how capitalism fundamentally treats nature as free for the taking. This novel theory of capitalism’s relationship to nature not only helps us understand contemporary ecological breakdown\, but also casts capitalism’s own core dynamics in a new light. \n\n\n\nBattistoni addresses four different instances of the free gift in political economic thought\, each in a specific domain: natural agents in industry\, pollution in the environment\, reproductive labor in the household\, and natural capital in the biosphere. In so doing\, she offers new readings of major twentieth-century thinkers\, including Friedrich Hayek\, Simone de Beauvoir\, Garrett Hardin\, Silvia Federici\, and Ronald Coase. Ultimately\, she offers a novel account of freedom for our ecologically troubled present\, developing a materialist existentialism to argue that capitalism limits our ability to be responsible for our relationships to the natural world\, and imagining how we might live freely while valuing nature’s gifts. \n\n\n\nWe are delighted to also welcome to Housmans Professor Helen Hester\, author of\, among other brilliant titles\, shop favourite\, Xenofeminism\, to interview Alyssa. \n\n\n\nOUR SPEAKERS \n\n\n\nAlyssa Battistoni is assistant professor of political science at Barnard College. She is the coauthor of A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal. Her writing has appeared in The Nation\, The Guardian\, Boston Review\, n+1\, Dissent\, The New Statesman\, Jacobin\, and New Left Review. \n\n\n\nHelen Hester is Professor of Gender\, Technology and Cultural Politics at the University of West London. Her research interests include technofeminism\, social reproduction\, and theories of work\, and she’s a member of the international working group Laboria Cuboniks. Her books include Beyond Explicit: Pornography and the Displacement of Sex (SUNY Press\, 2014)\, Xenofeminism (Polity\, 2018)\, and Post-Work (Bloomsbury). \n\n\n\nThe two will talk for around 45 minutes-1hr followed by an open discussion and book signing. \n\n\n\nAs always\, tickets are priced on a sliding scale. If you are unable to pay for a ticket please choose the ‘unwaged’ option. \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-free-gifts-capitalism-and-the-politics-of-nature-with-alyssa-battistoni-in-conversation-with-helen-hester/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,Discussion group,In Store,Literary Event ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/avif:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/9780691263465.avif END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20251103T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20251103T203000 DTSTAMP:20260617T232439 CREATED:20251015T150327Z LAST-MODIFIED:20251015T150330Z UID:72483-1762196400-1762201800@housmans.com SUMMARY:BOOK LAUNCH: WE ARE STILL HERE: STUDENT VOICES FROM GAZA DESCRIPTION:Housmans are honored to be hosting the launch event for this courageous book. \n\n\n\n We Are Still Here is an anthology of raw\, unfiltered\, and courageous voices featuring short and long stories\, poems\, essays\, and testimonies written by students from Gaza’s universities\, edited by Prof. Zahid Pranjol and Dr. Jacob Norris published by Daraja Press. Throughout the evening we host readings from Gazan students\, both via video recording and live in the shop\, followed by an open discussion with the book’s editor Zahid Pranjol. \n\n\n\nAlongside the book\, we will be selling Palestinian food\, tote bags and stickers that support local Palestinian businesses in London. \n\n\n\nThis is a free event. Please RSVP below. \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-we-are-still-here-student-voices-from-gaza/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,In Store,Literary Event ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-5.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20251029T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20251029T203000 DTSTAMP:20260617T232439 CREATED:20250930T105154Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250930T105542Z UID:70878-1761764400-1761769800@housmans.com SUMMARY:An Evening with Richard Norton-Taylor DESCRIPTION:Richard Norton-Taylor is a living legend: on staff at The Guardian since the early 70s\, and now working at Declassified UK\, he is most known as one of the finest\, and uncompromising\, journalists working today. Housmans are delighted that he has agreed to join for an evening to reflect on his career\, on the state of modern warfare and surveillance culture and the relationships between state surveillance programmes and the modern media\, as covered in his recent book The State of Secrecy (copies of which will be available on the evening).  \n\n\n\nRichard will talk for around an 45 minutes to an hour\, followed by a Q&A and a book signing. \n\n\n\nAs always\, tickets are priced on a sliding scale. If you are unable to pay for a ticket please select the ‘unwaged’ option. \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/an-evening-with-richard-norton-taylor/ CATEGORIES:In Store ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/avif:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/2200.avif END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20251023T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20251023T220000 DTSTAMP:20260617T232439 CREATED:20250910T164157Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250910T164200Z UID:70128-1761246000-1761256800@housmans.com SUMMARY:POETRY Imogen Cassels & Fintan Calpin DESCRIPTION:We’re extremely excited for the next Housmans poetry series featuring a double launch for two brilliant poets. We will have the frighteningly sharp\, inimitable Imogen Cassels launching her latest pamphlet\, Peach Machine (from The Last Books) and the terrifyingly brilliant\, irreplaceable Fintan Calpin launching his Terminal City (recently published by Veer2). \n\n\n\nTHIS IS A FREE EVENT. PLEASE FEEL FREE TO BYOB. SEE YOU THERE! \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/poetry-imogen-cassels-fintan-calpin/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,In Store,Literary Event ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/tickets-5.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20251022T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20251022T203000 DTSTAMP:20260617T232439 CREATED:20251007T144059Z LAST-MODIFIED:20251021T144903Z UID:71748-1761159600-1761165000@housmans.com SUMMARY:HOUSMANS x FESTIVAL OF URBAN LIBERATION DESCRIPTION:Reclaiming The Public Space: Community Centres as Hubs of Solidarity & Action\n\n\n\n\n\nAs part of the FESTIVAL OF URBAN LIBERATION (F.O.U.L) we welcome a series of thinkers and activists whose praxis is rooted community organising. \n\n\n\nTime is incorporated in a consumerist manner putting life in a private bubble shaped in the next viral trend. Public space is gradually lost under the dismantling of communities and broken social bonds. Community centers are one of the few remaining grounds of unmediated direct communication and social creation. The need to preserve them is not a necessity but a shout of solidarity and fraternity in a rapidly dehumanising individualistic world. \n\n\n\nWe call everyone to share their experience about community centers and interconnect. With comrades from TRAs and community centers in Southwark\, Dashwood community center (Thamesmead Housing Action) and Pamela and Malo from Fortaleza Latina and TFFB (Tottenham Family Fight Back) \n\n\n\nThis is a free event but please RSVP below. \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/housmans-x-festival-of-urban-liberation/ CATEGORIES:Discussion group,In Store ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/hausmans.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20251016T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20251016T203000 DTSTAMP:20260617T232439 CREATED:20250910T165440Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250910T165505Z UID:70135-1760641200-1760646600@housmans.com SUMMARY:the87press & Housmans Bookshop present: Hummingbirds 7.0\, a literary salon DESCRIPTION:Join the87press for a very special Hummingbirds event featuring Alia Al Ghussain and Rayya El Zein to celebrate the launch of Filling the Head: Listening to Rap in Arabic (Indiana University Press\, 2025). \n\n\n\nBased on ethnographic research in Ramallah (Palestine)\, Amman (Jordan)\, and Beirut (Lebanon)\, Filling the Head reveals how youths in these cities have maneuvered the challenges of making music while also navigating shifting geopolitical landscapes. Through these everyday experiences of being moved by music or ideas\, Rayya El Zein explores how ordinary patterns of motion and emotion provide a space for political engagement when spectacular political movements like protests\, strikes\, or revolutions feel far away\, forced\, or otherwise impossible. In contrast to existing narratives that equate rap with popular political resistance against oppressive regimes\, she argues instead for affective engagement through istifzaz―provocation or surprise―as well as yearning. Within this avant-garde genre\, there is no design to reach the masses with a political message; in fact\, as El Zein demonstrates\, the refusal of artists to confine their lyrical or musical experimentation to an ethos of resistance creates an aesthetic whose lack of singular politics defines it. \n\n\n\nHummingbirds is a literary salon curated by the87press aiming to hold space for authors and interlocutors to have conversations about recently published work. This iteration charts a new thread in that conversation which aims to bring academic publishing to a community audience. \n\n\n\nHost: Azad Ashim Sharma\, Founding Director of the87press. \n\n\n\nInterlocutor: Alia Al Ghussain \n\n\n\nAuthor: Rayya El Zein \n\n\n\nTICKETS CAN BE BOOKED HERE: \n\n\nRegister on EventbriteShare 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-7-0-a-literary-salon/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,Discussion group,Feminist event,In Store,Literary Event ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/1-2.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20251015T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20251015T203000 DTSTAMP:20260617T232439 CREATED:20250910T153442Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250917T154708Z UID:70103-1760554800-1760560200@housmans.com SUMMARY:DOUBLE LAUNCH: Danny Hayward AND Matthew Goulish DESCRIPTION:Housmans and both are worse are delighted to be launching two new excellent essay collections\, Training Exercises by Danny Hayward and Kingfisher by Matthew Goulish. ‘both are worse‘ publish short prose books that make an engaging comment on the state of poetry and/or poetics\, stretches some horizons\, pushes out beyond an impasse\, heaps up obstructions\, or makes life more difficult or liveable in any way that seems compelling\, vital\, or beautiful. Studies of single authors\, histories of communities or forms\, manifestos\, treatises on metre\, philosophies of phonation\, provocations of every stripe and blotch\, dream diaries\, long jokes\, spreadsheets or inscrutable swirls of one-dimensional Venn diagrams are all possible: anything that works. \n\n\n\nABOUT THE BOOKS:\n\n\n\nDanny Hayward‘s Training Exercises:\n\n\n\n‘Organized violence committed on ordinary speech’ is therapy for those who don’t believe in literature as value. Training Exercises is an unpacking of that dictum: seven short essays\, letters\, reports and anti-biographies written to overcome the feeling of resistance to the defacement of what strikes us as true. An anti-purge written out by lipstick or hammer\, scrawled over the top of itself and run through a translation program that turns everything upside inside down\, its pieces include: a polemic against catharsis; a letter to the poet Dom Hale on his book Seizures; and a series of on-the-spot reports on the UK Illegal Migration Bill\, East London poetry readings\, the politics of the war in Ukraine\, and a conversation about the meaning of damage in contemporary literature. \n\n\n\n‘First you learn to write down your ideas\, then you learn again how to write all of your lurid political and intellectual and intimate disappointments and all of your childhood hopes over the top of them’. Jack Spicer scrawled the name of his book in pink lipstick on the cover of the academic journal he had published in: Training Exercises scrawls itself on top of that. \n\n\n\nDanny Hayward‘s most recent poetry collection is Loading Terminal (87 Press\, 2022). More recent work\, along with an earlier collection of critical essays\, can be accessed at Free Trials \n\n\n\nMatthew Goulish’s Kingfisher: \n\n\n\nThe dramaturg\, writer\, and teacher Matthew Goulish reflects on the practice of reading poetry\, of reading just one poem: ‘Kingfisher’ by Ed Roberson. How to attend\, to follow the course of poem as a waterway\, to recognise in its surface tension impending drops\, hidden obstacles\, and disguised turns? How also and at the same time to attend to an interruption – an accidental sighting – with equal curiosity? Sincerity follows the lines of the poem inside and outside\, inward and outward\, drawing in a series of correspondences and correspondents\, roots and sources\, until reading becomes a collective endeavor; the words of Ed Roberson\, Michelle Sherburne\, Renee Gladman\, and Lyn Hejinian are also here. As the subject of this particular poem surfaces\, to catch a glimpse is not so obviously a gift: the practice of catching sight might also be injurious to another’s freedom. And so we follow the trail of the poem through Smuggler’s Notch. \n\n\n\nAbout the author: Matthew Goulish co-founded Every house has a door in 2008 with Lin Hixson. He is dramaturg\, writer\, and sometimes performer with the company. He was a founding member of Goat Island\, the Chicago-based performance group that existed from 1987 to 2009. His books include 39 microlectures – in proximity of performance (Routledge\, 2001)\, The Brightest Thing in the World – 3 Lectures from the Institute of Failure (Green Lantern Press\, 2012)\, Work from Memory: In Response to In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust\, co-authored with Dan Beachy-Quick (Ahsahta Press\, 2012) and Pitch and Revelation—Reconfigurations of Reading\, Poetry\, and Philosophy through the Work of Jay Wright\, co-authored with Will Daddario (Punctum Books\, 2022). His essays have appeared in Richard Rezac Address (University of Chicago Press\, 2018)\, Propositions in the Making – Experiments in a Whiteheadian Laboratory (Rowman & Littlefield\, 2020)\, and many other journals and anthologies. He teaches in the Writing Program of The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. \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\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/double-launch-danny-haywood-and-matthew-goulish/ CATEGORIES:Book Talk,In Store,Literary Event ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Untitled-design-3-edited.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20251011T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20251011T203000 DTSTAMP:20260617T232439 CREATED:20250917T160800Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250917T161058Z UID:70424-1760209200-1760214600@housmans.com SUMMARY:ACTIVIST TALK: 'ALL HANDS ON DECK' with Jan Goodey DESCRIPTION:We welcome legendary activist Jan Goodey to the shop to help celebrate the launch of his essential new book All Hands On Deck: Climate Activism and the way ahead\, out now from PM Press. A member of Just Stop Oil\, and among those imprisoned for his climate actions\, Jan is a seasoned and courageous activist. For more than 30 years\, he has been on the front lines of direct-action environmentalism and anti-capitalism in the UK. Jan has helped shut down offensive companies and been part of successful protest camps to save Britain’s ancient woodlands. But\, as he argues in his new pamphlet\, it’s not enough. Climate breakdown continues unabated; the gap between haves and have-nots is growing. \n\n\n\nThis is a free event. Please book a free ticket below. You can also reserve a copy of the book\, or choose the ‘solidarity’ option to make a voluntary donation to Housmans. \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/activist-talk-all-hands-on-deck-with-jan-goodey/ CATEGORIES:In Store,Literary Event ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Copy-of-Glasgow.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20251008T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20251008T203000 DTSTAMP:20260617T232439 CREATED:20250910T142854Z LAST-MODIFIED:20251008T132245Z UID:70091-1759950000-1759955400@housmans.com SUMMARY:SOLD OUT: 'The Feminist Art of Walking'\, Rose Morag in discussion with Anna Minton DESCRIPTION:We are delighted to welcome feminist writer and academic Morag Rose to the shop to discuss her brilliant and essential new book The Feminist Art of Walking; a vital intervention in the growing field of ‘literature about walking.’ \n\n\n\nThe allure of the city is powerful\, but not universally accessible. For many women\, it can be exclusionary\, exploitative and dangerous. In The Feminist Art of Walking\, Morag Rose shows how women can and do claim their place in the public space. \n\n\n\nSetting off to explore cities and towns across Britain\, she traces local histories and personal stories and attunes herself to the wider resonances of women’s rights amidst alienating capitalist cityscapes. Craving connection and comradeship\, she discovers a unique and inclusive approach to walking\, celebrating diverse women who transform walking into an art form and act of resistance. \n\n\n\nBy experiencing the pleasures and pains of pedestrian exploration\, she shows us how to reconnect with and become enchanted by our streets. \n\n\n\nOUR SPEAKERS: \n\n\n\nMorag Rose is a walking artist activist and academic. She is founder of the Loiterers Resistance Movement and a senior lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Liverpool. Her work focuses on public space\, regeneration\, access\, equality\, psychogeographies and the power of creative\, communal walking. In discussion with Morag we welcome back to Housmans Anna Minton. Anna spent a decade in journalism\, and went on to write ‘Ground Control: Fear and Happiness in the Twenty-First Century City ‘ and ‘Big Capital: Who is London 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 + 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\nPLEASE NOTE THIS EVENT IS NOW SOLD OUT. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE ADDED TO A WAITING LIST PLEASE EMAIL AL@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-the-feminist-art-of-walking-by-rose-morag/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,In Store ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Chosen-design-edit-2.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250924T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250924T203000 DTSTAMP:20260617T232439 CREATED:20250805T153440Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250805T161139Z UID:69091-1758740400-1758745800@housmans.com SUMMARY:BOOK TALK: ENGLAND'S MILITARY HEARTLAND DESCRIPTION:‘A thoughtful and human account of the enmeshment of the military into the landscapes of everyday life […] As we enter a renewed phase of militarised geo-politics\, this work becomes more urgent than ever.’— Gargi Bhattacharyya\, Director of the UCL Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Racism and Racialisation \n\n\n\nIn association with King’s College London\, Housmans are delighted to host a talk around an essential new book: ENGLAND’S MILITARY HEARTLAND: Preparing for War on Salisbury Plain. This wonderful\, alarming and brilliantly written book explores the vital\, but underdiscussed\, interrelations between British military and civic life. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDuring the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan\, the armed forces became increasingly visible – partly due to public alarm at the number of fatalities but also as a result of interventions by government\, media and military leaders. Today the world is undergoing a terrifying arms race in which powerful arms companies are competing to produce new generations of killing technology\, including AI and nuclear weapons. Many people feel powerless to stop their governments spending more and more on defence\, and being complicit in ongoing war crimes. \n\n\n\nIn all this it’s important to remember that the military are a public institution and depend on taxpayers. The public has a right to understand the costs and consequences of maintaining a labour force for war-fighting\, especially one that works closely with major arms companies and contributes heavily to global carbon emissions. \n\n\n\nENGLAND’S MILITARY HEARTLAND introduces a ten-year investigation of the military training area on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire\, England and explores what it means to live next to a military base. The book questions how war blurs the boundaries between military and civilian\, and what can or cannot be addressed by the use of lethal violence\, sanctioned and organised by the state. To explore this we bring together a group of scholars and activists\, working on land justice and military ecological damage\, to think about how we resist the drive to war at home. \n\n\n\nWhat is it like to live next door to a British Army base? England’s military heartland provides an eye-opening account of the sprawling military presence on Salisbury Plain\, drawing on a wide range of voices from both sides of the divide. \n\n\n\nTargeted for expansion under government plans to reorganise the UK’s global defence estate\, the Salisbury ‘super garrison’ offers a unique opportunity to explore the impact of the military footprint in a particular place. But this is no ordinary environment: as well as being the world-famous site of Stonehenge\, the grasslands of Salisbury Plain are home to rare plants and wildlife. \n\n\n\nHow does the army take responsibility for conserving this unique landscape as it trains young men and women to use lethal weapons? Are its claims that its presence is a positive for the environment anything more than propaganda? This book investigates these questions against the backdrop of a historic landscape inscribed with the legacy of perpetual war. \n\n\n\nUrgent\, important\, and poignantly recounted.’— Laleh Khalili\, author of Sinews of War and Trade \n\n\n\n‘Exposes the remarkable extent to which militarisation is shaping not only the lives of humans\, but the character and quality of the land on which they and other creatures live.’— Cynthia Enloe\, author of Twelve Feminist Lessons of War \n\n\n\nOUR SPEAKERS: \n\n\n\nSaskia Papadakis is a social researcher with expertise in the UK environmental movement\, anti-racism and British Black Power\, and socio-spatial inequalities in the UK. She organises across grassroots migrants’ rights groups in London. \n\n\n\nAntonia Dawes is a lecturer and writer at King’s College London. She works on racism\, antiracism and cultural theory. Her first book Race Talk (2020) is about race and racism in southern Italy. At this event she will speak on her new book England’s Military Heartland\, co-authored with Vron Ware\, Mitra Pariyar and Alice Cree. \n\n\n\nKhem Rogaly researches the political economy of the military and its role in climate crisis. His most recent report for the thinktank Common Wealth explored the potential for a just transition away from military production through interviews with workers. He will speak about the Khaki Economy in England’s Military Heartland in relation to the escalating arms race today. \n\n\n\nRachael Milliner is a member of the Museum of Enclosure\, an emergent\, itinerant\, internationalist\, political education project collecting oral histories of dispossession in England. Representing the project\, they will discuss how access to enclosed and militarised land is vital to performing memory work and relational accountability\, calling for further interventions in dominant British property culture. \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-talk-englands-military-heartland/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,In Store ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/9781526174840.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250917T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250917T203000 DTSTAMP:20260617T232439 CREATED:20250807T161902Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250807T161904Z UID:69142-1758135600-1758141000@housmans.com SUMMARY:Book Talk: THE MERCY STEP: Marcia Hutchinson in conversation with Mel Pennant DESCRIPTION:Gosh this is an exciting one! Join us for a wonderful evening with two incredible authors from the Windrush generation: Marcia Hutchinson and Mel Pennant. The two will be discussing Marcia’s fantastic recent novel\, The Mercy Step. \n\n\n\nBradford\, December 1962. A precocious Mercy makes her reluctant entrance into the world\, torn from the warm embrace of her mother’s womb\, to a chaotic household that seems to have no place for her. Her siblings do not understand her\, her mother’s attention is given to the Church\, and the entire family lives at the whims of her father’s quick temper.  \n\n\n\nLeft to herself\, Mercy finds solace in books\, her imagination\, and the quiet comfort of her faithful toy\, Dolly. But escapism has its limits\, and as the grip of family\, faith and fear threatens to close in\, Mercy learns she must act if she wants a different future; one where she is seen\, heard\, and her family set free.  \n\n\n\nThe Mercy Step is a sharply-witted and tender portrait of a young girl’s quiet rebellion\, and her refusal to be broken.  \n\n\n\nMarcia and Mel will read from and discuss the book for around 45 minutes-1hr followed by a Q&A. Expect conversations around the Black British Experience\, women’s writing and Britain in the 60s! Hope to see you there. \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-talk-the-mercy-step-marcia-hutchinson-in-conversation-with-mel-pennant/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,In Store,Literary Event ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/717pYt1ZBTL._SL1500_-1.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250730T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250730T203000 DTSTAMP:20260617T232439 CREATED:20250705T114049Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250705T114052Z UID:68311-1753902000-1753907400@housmans.com SUMMARY:BOOK LAUNCH: A Social History of Analytic Philosophy with Christoph Schuringa DESCRIPTION:‘Christoph Schuringa’s A Social History of Analytic Philosophy achieves the impossible: while it follows a clear line of interpretation – analytic philosophy is not politically neutral\, it is deeply rooted in capitalist liberalism and its struggle against Leftist engagement -\, it develops this line in a vast and complex narrative full of fascinating historical and personal details\, from the Cambridge beginnings of analytic thought (Russell\, Moore) through the key role of analytic philosophy in McCarthy purges up to how analytic approach was crucial in including anti-colonial and feminist orientations into the liberal frame (Appiah). Schuringa’s book is unputdownable – applied to it\, this term is not a cliché but a simple description of its effect on a reader.‘ \n\n\n\n – Slavoj Žižek \n\n\n\nIn the English speaking world\, self-described ‘analytic philosophy’ has become the predominant method of philosophical inquiry\, at least within the majority of university philosophy departments. By some\, it is celebrated for it’s exhalting of rigorousness and pursuit ‘the empirical.’ Others find these theoretical claims to be dubious and naieve. Christoph Schuringa\, in its brilliantly argued book\, A Social History of Analytic Philosophy\, argues that the enduring power of analytic philosophy can only be understood by examining its social history. The mode tends to think of itself as concerned with eternal questions\, transcending the changing scenes of history. It thinks of itself as apolitical. Schuringa\, however\, convincingly shows that the opposite is true. \n\n\n\nThe origins of analytic philosophy are in a set of distinct movements\, shaped by highly specific sets of political and social forces. Only after the Second World War were these disparate\, often dynamic movements joined together to make ‘analytic philosophy’ as we know it. In the climate of McCarthyism\, analytic philosophy was robbed of political force. \n\n\n\nTo this day\, analytic philosophy is the ideology of the status quo. It may seem arcane and largely removed from the real world\, but it is a crucial component in upholding liberalism\, through its central role in elite educational institutions. As Schuringa concludes\, the apparently increasing friendliness of analytic philosophers to rival approaches in philosophy should be understood as a form of colonization; thanks to its hegemonic status\, it reformats all it touches in service of its own imperatives\, going so far as to colonize decolonial efforts in the discipline. \n\n\n\nChristoph Schuringa studied philosophy at King’s College\, Cambridge and Birkbeck College\, University of London. He has published widely on the history of philosophy and on Marx and Marxism\, and is associate professor of philosophy at Northeastern University\, London. He is Editor of the Hegel Bulletin\, and his writing has appeared in Jacobin\, New Left Review\, European Journal of Philosophy and elsewhere. \n\n\n\nHe will be joined in conversation with Jonathan Egid\, lecturer in Philosophy at SOAS. Jonathan recently completed my PhD at King’s College London on the Ḥatäta Zär’a Ya‛ǝqob and the controversy over its authorship. Beyond the aim of clarifying this intractable debate\, and bringing neglected works to a wider audience\, Jonathan is interested in thinking about different ways of writing the history of philosophy\, in particular what a truly global history of philosophy would look like. \n\n\n\nThe two will talk for around 45 minutes to 1 hour\, followed by a Q&A. Please do feel free to bring your own drinks. \n\n\n\nDoors open at 6:45\, talk 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-a-social-history-of-analytic-philosophy-with-christoph-schuringa-2/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,In Store ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/9781804292099.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250729T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250729T203000 DTSTAMP:20260617T232439 CREATED:20250617T130155Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250621T151241Z UID:67943-1753815600-1753821000@housmans.com SUMMARY:Book Launch: THREE REVOLUTIONS: Simon Hall in conversation with Owen Hatherley DESCRIPTION:Simon Hall and Owen Hatherley will be joining us to discuss Simon’s fascinating new book\, THREE REVOLUTIONS: Russia\, China\, Cuba and the Epic Journeys That Changed The World. \n\n\n\nFrom the streets of Petrograd during the heady autumn of 1917\, to Mao’s stunning victory in October 1949\, and Fidel’s triumphant arrival in Havana\, in January 1959\, the history of the twentieth century was transformed in dramatic and profound ways by the Russian\, Chinese\, and Cuban revolutions. \n\n\n\nIn Three Revolutions\, the stories of these epoch-defining events are told together for the first time. At the heart of each revolution was an epic journey: Lenin’s 1917 return to Russia from exile in Switzerland; Mao’s ‘Long March’ of 1934–35\, covering some 6\,000 miles across China; and Fidel Castro’s return to Cuba in 1956 following his exile in Mexico. Told in tandem with these are the corresponding journeys of three extraordinary journalists – John Reed\, Edgar Snow and Herbert L. Matthews – whose electric testimony from the frontlines of each revolution would make a decisive contribution to how these revolutions were understood in the wider world. \n\n\n\nHere\, in Simon Hall’s masterful retelling\, these six remarkable journeys are brought vividly to life. Featuring a stellar cast\, extraordinary drama and an epic sweep\, Three Revolutions raises fundamental questions about the nature of political power\, the limits of idealism and the role of the journalist – questions that remain of utmost urgency today. \n\n\n\nOur Speakers: \n\n\n\nSimon Hall is the Professor of Modern History at the University of Leeds. He previously studied at Sheffield and Cambridge\, and held a Fox International Fellowship at Yale. His previous books include 1956: The World in Revolt and Ten Days in Harlem: Fidel Castro and the Making of the 1960s. \n\n\n\nOwen Hatherley is the author of many books on aesthetics and politics\, including Landscapes of Communism\, Trans-Europe Express and Modern Buildings in Britain. His latest book\, The Alienation Effect explores how Central European Émigrés transformed Britain in the 20th century. He is a commissioning editor at Jacobin. \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-three-revolutions-simon-hall-in-conversation-with-owen-hatherley-2/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,In Store,Literary Event,Online event ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Three-Revolutions-54-533x815-1.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250726T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250726T203000 DTSTAMP:20260617T232439 CREATED:20250630T110252Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250723T172218Z UID:68198-1753556400-1753561800@housmans.com SUMMARY:BOOK LAUNCH: FASCIST YOGA with STEWART HOME DESCRIPTION:We are very\, very\, very exited to be welcoming the dazzling provocateur\, artist and all-round London legend STEWART HOME back to Housmans to talk about his latest book\, Fascist Yoga: Grifters\, Occultists\, White Supremacists\, and the New Order In Wellness\, a dazzling exposé on the violent politics and occultic fascism that underpins much of the history of contemporary yoga. As ever\, Stewart Home shows that nothing is sacred. \n\n\n\nThe practice of yoga promises peace\, self-realisation and release\, thanks to the power of its ‘mystic’ Indian origins. But what if this is just hype? In Fascist Yoga\, Stewart Home sweeps away the half-truths to tell a new origin story of the world’s first modern yogi – a Californian escapologist who added some Hindu fairy dust to gym and circus exercises. \n\n\n\nEver since\, the world of yoga has been full of grifters\, occultists and white supremacists\, all out to exploit and recruit via the medium of exercise. From cult leaders to brainwashed followers\, TV celebrities and fake gurus\, the story of yoga has involved some of the strangest currents of humanity. \n\n\n\nToday\, the COVID pandemic has activated elements within the modern yoga movement to espouse far-right conspiracies\, and QAnon’s fascist political programmes mirror some of yoga’s key early proponents. \n\n\n\nInterviewing Stewart about the book we have the legendary poet Sascha Aurora Akhtar! Sascha was born in Pakistan. Since that was obviously a mistake\, she fled as soon as possible to an environment where women could be wacky. What was born was a hydra. Each head a different medium\, via which to transmit her wyrd and whimsical witchery. She graduated from Bennington College in 1999. She has written all too many poems\, out of which some have managed to become titled collections. Her films include Ana-el-Haqq (2002) and The Sea and Medusa (2006). In 2003 she received a fellowship from the Creative Writing department at UMASS Amherst where she worked with James Tate\, Sabina Murray and Peter Gizzi. In 2005 and 2006\, she performed in Butoh-based dance pieces at Chisenhale Dance Space in London. She recently was part of a year-long initiative by the International Museum of Women in San Francisco\, exhibiting work by women artists from around the globe. Her photographic work was on display at Gallery 27 on Cork Street in September 2007 and an exhibition of her works is upcoming in Spring 2008 at The Commune in Karachi\, Pakistan. She spends her time in London and Pakistan and is the co-producer of the successful La Langoustine Est Morte reading series. \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\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-fascist-yoga-with-stewart-home/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,In Store ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/avif:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/9780745351124.avif END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250721T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250721T213000 DTSTAMP:20260617T232439 CREATED:20250705T123301Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250721T155208Z UID:68323-1753124400-1753133400@housmans.com SUMMARY:POETRY READING: GHAYATH ALMADHOUN AND LOTTE L.S. DESCRIPTION:We welcome the Syrian-Palestinian Ghayath Almadhoun to the shop to read from his incredible collection I HAVE BROUGHT YOU A SEVERED HAND\, reacently translated into English by Catherine Cobham and published by Divided Publishing. \n\n\n\nFluid and unselfconscious\, Ghayath Almadhoun writes love poems in the shape of nightmares: I have brought you a severed hand is a surreal mix of absurd humour\, straight lust and dead seriousness. Caught between two exiles\, the one inherited from his Palestinian father and the one he chose and lives\, Almadhoun attempts to explain water and tame hope. \n\n\n\nReading alongside him\, and joining him in discussion we have Lotte L.S. one of the finest British poets working today in a radical left tradition. \n\n\n\nThis is a free event\, but we ask that you RSVP using the link below. Drinks will be available\, but please do feel free to BYOB. \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/poetry-reading-ghayath-almadhoun-and-lotte-l-s/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,In Store ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/tickets-3-1.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250716T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250716T203000 DTSTAMP:20260617T232439 CREATED:20250617T125025Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250630T104237Z UID:67576-1752692400-1752697800@housmans.com SUMMARY:CANCELED: CARCERAL APARTHEID: Brittany Friedman in conversation with Ali Meghji DESCRIPTION:Please note this has event has been cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances. We apologise for any inconvenience caused. \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-carceral-apartheid-brittany-friedman-in-conversation-with-ali-meghji/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,Feminist event,In Store ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/9781469683409.jpeg END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR