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: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:20260503T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260503T203000 DTSTAMP:20260619T110630 CREATED:20260503T161001Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260503T161003Z UID:78547-1777834800-1777840200@housmans.com SUMMARY:BOOK LAUNCH: PRIVATISING HUMANITY BY KATE BAYLIS DESCRIPTION:JOIN KATE BAYLIS AND ADRIENNE BULLER FOR AN ESSENTIAL CONVERSATON ON HOW BASIC HUMAN NEEDS BECOME FINANCIAL ASSETS.\n\n\n\n Privatising Humanity is a powerful exposé of how finance turns our basic human needs into assets. \n\n\n\nWe have entered a new era of turbo-charged financial extraction. Having amassed huge reserves\, global finance capital is seeking out fresh areas for profitable investments. Virtually all aspects of our lives are now targeted by someone seeking to make a profit. \n\n\n\nIn Privatising Humanity\, Kate Bayliss shows how wealthy investors\, including asset managers\, target our essential services. When it comes to investments in these sectors\, shareholder profits are funded by us\, the end-users and tax-payers who simply wish to meet our basic human needs for water\, warmth and shelter. We have no alternative but to pay into these structures that often generate massive returns for investors and dysfunctional systems for society. \n\n\n\nUnpacking the details of these processes in three sectors in the UK – water\, energy and housing – Bayliss exposes the harmful consequences of this model\, which is contributing to deepening inequality. \n\n\n\nKate Baylis will joined by Adrienne Buller\, author of The Value of a Whale: On the Illusions of Green Capitalism (a Housmans Top 10 for many months in 2022). They with be in conversation for around 45 minutes to an hour\, followed by a q&a and signing session. \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-privatising-humanity-by-kate-baylis/ CATEGORIES:In Store,Literary Event ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/81Fwp1BcN2L._SL1500_-1.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260505T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260505T203000 DTSTAMP:20260619T110631 CREATED:20260330T124842Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260330T124846Z UID:77136-1778007600-1778013000@housmans.com SUMMARY:BOOK TALK: PUNK SPIRIT! DESCRIPTION:AN ORAL HISTORY OF PUNK ROCK\, SPIRITUALITY AND LIBERATION\n\n\n\nWe are super excited to welcome John Malkin over from California to talk about his incredible\, and as far as we can tell\, unique\, book: Punk Spirit! We’ve had countless books about punk (not to mention zines) pass through Housmans over the year but none that quite approach the topic from this angle. \n\n\n\nPunk Spirit! is an oral history that examines this movement from many unique perspectives\, bringing together well-known and cutting-edge bands including Sex Pistols\, Minor Threat\, Dead Kennedys\, The Ramones\, Gang of Four\, Pussy Riot\, Crass\, Talking Heads\, Propagandhi\, The Slits\, Bad Religion\, Shelter\, Rebel Riot\, Blackfire\, and many others. \n\n\n\nPunk Spirit! ventures into the emotional and personal experiences of punk artists and activists from around the world and highlights intelligent\, thoughtful\, and humorous discussions on liberation\, spirituality\, and living freely. They discuss a myriad of topics from creativity and anger to freedom from suffering and the ways that punk rock has opposed or embodied religious and moral tenets. Chapters dive deeply into a variety of interconnected realms of punk rock such as the subgenre of straight edge\, Krishnacore and Taqwacore\, evangelical punk concerts in southern California churches\, illegal punk concerts in East German churches\, anti-religious sentiment within punk rock\, the vital connections between punk and self-expression\, and the myriad ways punk rock has been combined with spiritual and religious traditions to illuminate ideas from science\, atheism\, Buddhism\, Christianity\, Judaism\, Islam\, and other ways of being in the world. \n\n\n\nAnd complete with a forward by one of our favorite writers\, Penny Rimbaud! How could we have said no?! \n\n\n\nJohn Malkin is a journalist\, musician\, activist\, photographer and filmmaker. He is the author of Punk Revolution!: An Oral History of Punk Rock Politics and Activism \, and his interviews and writings have been published in internationally including Adbusters\, Punk Planet\, Razorcake\, Spirituality & Health\, Z Magazine\, Ode\, In These Times\, Sojourners\, The Sun\, Film International\, Shambhala Sun\, Tricycle\, Friends Journal\, The Santa Cruz Sentinel\, The Monterey Herald\, and others. He lives in Santa Cruz\, California with his wife and son. \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 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-punk-spirit/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,In Store ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Punk-Spirit-cover.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260508T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260508T203000 DTSTAMP:20260619T110631 CREATED:20260415T135408Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260507T141651Z UID:77744-1778266800-1778272200@housmans.com SUMMARY:SOLD OUT: REVOLUTIONARY FORGIVENESS: D. K. RENTON in conversation with Barnaby Raine DESCRIPTION:THIS EVENT IT NOW SOLD OUT. TO BE ADDED TO A WAITING LIST PLEASE EMAIL SHOP@HOUSMANS.COM\n\n\n\nHousmans are delighted to welcome the legendary theorist\, thinker and lawyer D.K. Renton to launch what we believe may be one of the most original\, and vital\, works of left wing thought to appear in recent years. He will be joined in conversation by the scholar and journalist Barnaby Raine. \n\n\n\n \n\n\n\nForgiveness is necessary in the long fight for a just world—but it is only possible after the oppressed are victorious \n\n\n\nFor too long\, revolutionary social movements have reconciled to defeat. We must start winning again. Forgiveness is a crucial strategy for remaking the world\, to secure and sustain victories\, to transform one-time enemies into friends. With deep political commitment\, D. K. Renton makes the case for forgiveness—but of a particularly unruly sort. Tracing the tragic abuse of Eleanor Marx and Jane Wells\, the mistakes of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission\, and the redemption of televangelist Tammy Faye\, Renton urges us to forgive\, but only after tearing down the citadels of the rich. \n\n\n\nRevolutionary Forgiveness connects collective struggle with the individual’s search for justice to demand a better future for all—when the oppressed will be magnanimous in power\, and even former oppressors will be free. \n\n\n\n“Renton rescues ‘forgiveness’ from the pulpit and returns it\, bloodied but lucid\, to history.” \n\n\n\n— Richard Seymour\, author of Disaster Nationalism \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\nTHIS EVENT IT 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-revolutionary-forgiveness-by-d-k-renton/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,In Store,Literary Event ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/1.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260512T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260512T203000 DTSTAMP:20260619T110631 CREATED:20260414T150925Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260414T150927Z UID:77718-1778612400-1778617800@housmans.com SUMMARY:BOOK LAUNCH: THE ASSET CLASS: HETTIE O'BRIEN IN CONVERSATION WITH DAN HANCOX DESCRIPTION:‘PART WAKE-UP CALL\, PART FINANCIAL THRILLER’ (SHAMI CHAKRABARTI) The Asset Class is an equal parts thrilling and enraging work of vital financial journalism\, lifting the lid on the relentlessly destructive force of private equity. We are thrilled to welcome the book’s author Hettie O’Brien to Housmans to be interviewed about the book by celebrated journalist Dan Hancox.\n\n\n\nA thrilling\, eye-opening investigation into private equity\, a secretive wing of the finance industry that is so relentlessly destructive\, it could have been created to undermine our way of life. You don’t know their names\, but they own the house you rent. They own your hospitals\, nurseries and care homes\, the media you consume and the companies you work for. They even own the tools your union uses to fight back. Business is a contest – and they say their people are built to win. But when does competition become a struggle to the death? For decades\, private equity firms have infiltrated every corner of modern life. Wielding debt as a weapon\, they push vital services into crisis. Their cover story: that this is merely the ‘creative destruction’ essential to growth. Old-school capitalists say they’re dismantling everything that made our economies work. \n\n\n\nIn The Asset Class\, reporter Hettie O’Brien penetrates a hidden empire of billion-dollar deals and covert financial warfare. From Copenhagen to San Francisco\, Barcelona to the Yorkshire Dales\, she follows the money\, the ideological roots and the trail of destruction. What she finds is chilling: private equity isn’t just reshaping the economy – it’s selling out the foundations of Western society. The new owners think they can hide in the shadows. But the owned are fighting back. \n\n\n\nHettie will be interviewed by Dan Hancox\, Guardian journalist and author of Multitudes: How Crowds Made the Modern World (Verso\, 2024). They will talk about the book for about 45 minutes followed by a q&a. \n\n\n\nTo avoid disappointment\, please do book a ticket ahead of the event. \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-asset-class-hettie-obrien-in-conversation-with-dan-hancox/ CATEGORIES:Book Talk,In Store ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/9781399619295.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260513T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260513T203000 DTSTAMP:20260619T110631 CREATED:20260417T171018Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260428T100818Z UID:77964-1778698800-1778704200@housmans.com SUMMARY:'Bored Stiff: the punk 'zine and scene that refused to die' an evening with Terry Macalister\, Gaye Advert and Emilia Elfrida DESCRIPTION:FREE ENTRY BUT PLEASE RSVP USING THE FROM AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE \n\n\n\n\n\nThis event celebrates a Bored Stiff book half a century after a fanzine of that name burst into life at the height of the punk “explosion.” \n\n\n\nOriginal creator Terry Macalister has brought together in contemporary time a group of musicians\, photographers and club owners who made the punk scene what it was then and what it has become now. \n\n\n\nLaid out in the original way using marker pens and manual typewriters\, Bored Stiff\, the book\, is a totally original and authentic window into what academics have called a “significant cultural intervention.” \n\n\n\nWith the help of Martin Hand – a graphic designer\, Bored Stiff contains interviews with band members from the likes of The Adverts\, Penetration and the Menstrual Cramps as well as folk such as Andrew Czezowski and Susan Carrington who created the Roxy and Vortex punk clubs. \n\n\n\nThere are also copies in this new book of the original fanzine which include live reviews from the late 1970s of the Sex Pistols\, 999 and Iggy Pop and harnesses the raw energy of the early days of punk. \n\n\n\nGaye Advert\, the bassist of the Adverts\, will be at the book launch to talk about her role in the early punk scene along with Emilia Elfrida\, vocalist and songwriter of today’s self-styled lesbian punk band\, the Menstrual Cramps. \n\n\n\nThey will discuss why punk happened\, what it means to them and why it has survived albeit in different form 50 years on. Terry and Martin will explain how they put together the new version of Bored Stiff and why they insist on an analogue production that eschews the superficial glamour of the digital print world. \n\n\n\nTerry Macalister is the original creator of Bored Stiff and the author of the new compilation of old and new material. Excited by the success of the early fanzine\, Terry went on to spend his life in national journalism\, most notably as a specialist editor on The Guardian. \n\n\n\nHe is the author of several books including Crude Britannia (Pluto Press) and Polar Opposites (Guardian ebooks)\, executive producer of The Oil Machine film and co-producer of the forthcoming Earth Mother documentary. He is the founder of a Cambridge-based protest choir and sees himself now more as artist and activist than journalist.FREE ENTRY BUT PLEASE RSVP USING THE FROM AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE \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/bored-stiff-the-punk-zine-and-scene-that-refused-to-die-an-evening-with-terry-macalister-gaye-advert-and-emilia-elfrida/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/1-1.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260519T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260519T203000 DTSTAMP:20260619T110631 CREATED:20260420T165741Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260513T160250Z UID:78027-1779217200-1779222600@housmans.com SUMMARY:BOOK LAUNCH: The Forest Fights Back with Jessica den Outer DESCRIPTION:Join Us For A Discussion Of A Global Movement for the Rights of Nature with Jessica den Outer in conversation with Grant Wilson \n\n\n\nAs the world grapples with the escalating climate crisis\, ecosystems are collapsing\, and the planet’s future hangs in the balance. For centuries\, our legal systems have treated nature as something to be owned and exploited\, but a bold new movement is challenging this paradigm. \n\n\n\nIn The Forest Fights Back\, Jessica den Outer explores a groundbreaking global movement—Rights of Nature—taking on the legal system to recognise the rights of rivers\, forests\, and mountains to exist\, flourish\, and sustain their ecological balance. From the fight for the Whanganui River in New Zealand to the battle for Spain’s Mar Menor lagoon\, den Outer highlights the campaigns led by grassroots communities\, telling stories of determination and legal ingenuity. \n\n\n\nThis movement goes beyond law – it represents a cultural shift that could reshape how we live\, think\, co-exist and advocate for nature. \n\n\n\nOur Speakers: \n\n\n\nJessica den Outer is an expert in environmental law who advocates globally for the Rights of Nature. Since 2017\, she’s been consulted and has spoken for institutions like the UN and Harvard. She founded the NGO ‘Stichting Rechten van de Natuur’ and has received numerous awards for her pioneering work. She will be in conversation with Grant Wilson\, Executive Director of Earth Law Center. He is an expert on the Rights of Nature\, ecocentric law\, and international environmental law. \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-forest-fights-back-with-jessica-den-outer/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/9780745351490-1-1.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260520T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260520T203000 DTSTAMP:20260619T110631 CREATED:20260507T140757Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260507T140800Z UID:78638-1779303600-1779309000@housmans.com SUMMARY:HAJAR READS DESCRIPTION:‘At this\, the man turned in their direction and smiled; he played not for the dream of success but because this new world necessitated beauty of all kinds. The new world was not just labour\, but labour for the sake of life-making.’\n\n\n\n— Lola Olufemi\, Experiments in Imagining Otherwise \n\n\n\nJoin us for Hajar Reads: Play. In this reading and discussion group\, we’ll reflect on play as a life-affirming practice\, considering how embracing play and playfulness can open us up to more expansive ways of thinking\, creating and living. \n\n\n\nWe’ll use short extracts from selected Hajar Press titles—including Experiments in Imagining Otherwise (Lola Olufemi)\, COOP (Nida Sajid) and Seeing for Ourselves (Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan)—as a starting point for our discussion. \n\n\n\nExtracts will be shared in advance of the session\, but there’s no expectation to have read them all to take part—just come along ready to listen\, think and share! \n\n\n\nThis session\, hosted by Hajar Press\, will be facilitated by Amber Obasi from Hajar Press and Dr Durre Shahwar. \n\n\n\nDr Durre Shahwar is an interdisciplinary writer\, researcher\, and artist. She is the author of One of the Good Ones\, a pamphlet accompanying her solo photo exhibition on archives\, seeking sanctuary\, and documentation\, exhibited and published in 2026 by Ffotogallery\, Cardiff. She is co-editor of Gathering: Women of Colour on Nature (2024) and Just So You Know (2020). Durre has a PhD in autofiction and Pakistani-Welsh identity from Cardiff University and was the recipient of a Future Wales Fellowship. Her work deconstructs established frameworks to present counter-narratives that capture the complexities of lived experiences when situated within social\, cultural\, political and geographical landscapes. Durre divides her time between South London and Cardiff and is currently working on her debut non-fiction book. \n\n\n\nPlease note this an externall organised event\, tickets can be booked by clicking the link 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/hajar-reads/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/1.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260527T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260527T203000 DTSTAMP:20260619T110631 CREATED:20260415T142253Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260511T093611Z UID:77755-1779908400-1779913800@housmans.com SUMMARY:BOOK LAUNCH: THE PLOT IS ON FIRE: Manuela Zechner in conversation with Max Haiven DESCRIPTION:We are delighted to welcome Manuela Zechner to Housmans to talk about her truly original and radical work in postcolonial eco-theory. \n\n\n\nAs myths of progress and modernisation collapse in the relentless polycrisis of our time\, how do we strengthen other plots—in community\, practice and struggle? How do we come together as movements for earthcare? \n\n\n\nThe Plot is on Fire: Care Struggles after Progress\, Plantation and Patriarchy weaves stories\, proposals\, and analyses around a key domain of living reproduction in crisis: agriculture. Looking at peasant\, indigenous\, and transecofeminist practices\, it formulates another plot on how we want to sustain life collectively—beyond progress\, plantation\, and patriarchy. \n\n\n\nRecovering and repurposing old and new technologies\, and breaking down the division between rural and urban\, the ground is made fertile for growing other futures. Alongside writers like Ursula Le Guin and Octavia Butler\, this work of radical political theory raises critical questions about technology and storytelling\, as matters of care and community. \n\n\n\nManuela will be in conversation with Max Haiven author of Palm Oil: The Grease of Empire (Pluto). They will talk for around 45 minutes to an hour followed by a 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\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-plot-is-on-fire-manuela-zechner-in-conversation/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,In Store ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/9780745352084.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260529T080000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260529T170000 DTSTAMP:20260619T110631 CREATED:20260429T135620Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260512T191407Z UID:78278-1780041600-1780074000@housmans.com SUMMARY:HOUSMANS POETRY SERIES DESCRIPTION:INTRODUCING THE FIRST IN OUR POET’S PROSE SEQUENCE\n\n\n\n \n\n\n\nWe are delighted to welcome two extremely exciting poets to Housmans for the first installment of our Summer Poetry Series. This season we’re going to be doing something a bit different and focusing instead on the work that poets produce outside of ‘traditional’ lyric modes; focusing instead on prose; novels; novellas; novelettes; essays; criticism; chunks of memoir and ‘hybrid’ lumps. \n\n\n\nOpening the series we have two poets whose work (and dual radiant vibe) need very little introduction (to those who’ve been following literary avant-gardes in Britain for the last decade or so): Kirsty Dunlop and Maria Sledmere. Between them they compose the centripetal force of Glasgow’s celebrated post-internet DIY publishing project SPAM and have produced a truly terrifying volume of exceedingly brilliant poetry collections\, scholarly work and experiments. \n\n\n\nAt Housmans they will be discussing their recent experiments in fiction writing: Kirsty’s Centrefolding and Maria’s The Indigo Hours. \n\n\n\nCentrefolding follows an unnamed protagonist who shifts\, sprints\, swerves and transmorphs through the “Centre!” (exclamation mark required)\, a research institute in some northern British city\, in our current jittery moment. Glitches in reality abound: expect research into alien life that goes nowhere\, an underground hospital\, an Entrepreneur-in-Residence\, and ‘lingerers’ slithering under glass doors (you know\, like a worm). Daisy Lafarge says it is her ‘dream novelette: gossipy\, pacy\, and full of gorgeous swerves of language. With enviable wit and inventiveness’. \n\n\n\nThe Indigo Hours is an immersive\, radiant text that moves between autofiction\, essay\, and poetic prose to document the textures of contemporary longing. Centred around a seasonal arc and filtered through the ambient melancholia of late capitalism\, the work refracts emotional experience through media\, memory\, pop culture\, and shifting landscapes—from Berlin pools to prairie towns\, from night buses to art galleries. Sledmere’s sentences are lush\, recursive\, and sensorily attuned\, sustaining a rhythmic\, diaristic lyricism that continually folds the personal into the atmospheric. What emerges is a powerful reckoning with intimacy\, grief\, and temporality at the edges of digital and embodied life. ‘Maria Sledmere tells a post-Romantic tale of moonlit precarity and passion among pools & thunderstorms & prairies & airports…’ says Poppy Cockburn. \n\n\n\nBoth poets will read from their work\, discuss shared ideas\, themes\, feelings and forms. As always with our poetry series\, we encourage you to byob and the spirit of celebration and conversation. If we have time we might engage in a more general conversation on the nature of poetry\, prose and other aesthetic modes gurgling up thru this current zombied epoch of slow collapse and cultural amnesia. (‘Why do all the poets write novels now\, anyway??’ we might ask.) \n\n\n\nThis is a free event\, but we have limited capacity so please do book ahead using the link below. \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-2/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Poetry-Series2-1.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260601T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260601T203000 DTSTAMP:20260619T110631 CREATED:20260526T161718Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260601T160454Z UID:79112-1780340400-1780345800@housmans.com SUMMARY:BOOK TALK: Adrift in the South by Xiao Hai DESCRIPTION:When Xiao Hai turned fifteen\, his family paid a vocational-school teacher 1\,200 yuan to find him a factory job in Shenzhen. So began fifteen years spent moving between the garment mills and electronics factories of China’s fast-growing southern cities. \n\n\n\nAdrift in the South is a memoir of life as a migrant labourer in the twenty-first century\, making iPhones and baby clothes\, hand-stitching football shirts and cutting plastic into radios. Here\, Xiao Hai reveals the alienation and tedium of factory life\, the small indignities and indifference of the larger system. And he tells the story of how poetry led him somewhere unexpected: to join a small community of artists living\, working\, and studying together on the outskirts of Beijing. \n\n\n\nThis memoir is a landmark text from China’s migrant worker literature movement\, a grassroots group of writers providing an unvarnished account of what life is like for the 300 million migrant workers powering the world’s second-biggest economy. \n\n\n\nXiao Hai will conversation for around 45 minutes to an hour\, followed by a q&a and signing session. \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-adrift-in-the-south-by-xiao-hai/ CATEGORIES:In Store,Literary Event ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/9781738536269.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260610T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260610T203000 DTSTAMP:20260619T110631 CREATED:20260520T155651Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260603T143014Z UID:78952-1781118000-1781123400@housmans.com SUMMARY:BOOK LAUNCH: Privatising humanity by Kate Bayliss DESCRIPTION:Kate Bayliss in conversation with Adrienne Buller\n\n\n\nPRIVATISING HUMANITY is a powerful exposé of how finance turns our basic human needs into assets. \n\n\n\nWe have entered a new era of turbo-charged financial extraction. Having amassed huge reserves\, global finance capital is seeking out fresh areas for profitable investments. Virtually all aspects of our lives are now targeted by someone seeking to make a profit. \n\n\n\nKate Bayliss shows how wealthy investors\, including asset managers\, target our essential services. When it comes to investments in these sectors\, shareholder profits are funded by us\, the end-users and tax-payers who simply wish to meet our basic human needs for water\, warmth and shelter. We have no alternative but to pay into these structures that often generate massive returns for investors and dysfunctional systems for society. \n\n\n\nUnpacking the details of these processes in three sectors in the UK – water\, energy and housing – Bayliss exposes the harmful consequences of this model\, which is contributing to deepening inequality. \n\n\n\nKate will be joined in conversation by Adrienne Buller\, author of The Value of a Whale: On the Illusions of Green Capitalism. \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-privatising-humanity-by-kate-baylis-2/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/81Fwp1BcN2L._SL1500_-2.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260613T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260613T203000 DTSTAMP:20260619T110631 CREATED:20260519T154859Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260519T154902Z UID:78888-1781377200-1781382600@housmans.com SUMMARY:The Word in Others' Mouths: Susan Rudy and Shelly Harder in conversation DESCRIPTION:The Word in Others’ Mouths:\n\n\n\nSusan Rudy and Shelly Harder in conversation\n\n\n\n \n\n\n\nSusan Rudy and Shelly Harder come together to launch new chapbooks from Ottawa’s above/ground press.  \n\n\n\nRudy’s Consequences gathers a thousand sentences — from feminist theorists\, queer poets\, songs\, private conversations\, and decades of notebooks — stripping them of hierarchy and ownership\, letting Brossard and Bronski Beat and Butler sit side by side\, voices refracting across queer and trans thought\, motherhood\, desire\, and the ongoing problem of telling the truth about a body.  \n\n\n\nHarder’s pinion begins in the 2020 lockdowns. Alternating between narrative and lyric\, this collection explores isolation\, fragility\, and interconnection with humour and yearning. \n\n\n\nBoth books know that language was not built for us\, and both find forms that work anyway. This evening brings their authors into conversation about writing queerly\, playing at the edges of genre and gender\, and what it means to claim a word that began in someone else’s mouth. \n\n\n\n \n\n\n\nTHIS IS A FREE EVENT BUT PLEASE RSVP BELOW. \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-word-in-others-mouths-susan-rudy-and-shelly-harder-in-conversation/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Poetry-Series.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260615T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260615T203000 DTSTAMP:20260619T110631 CREATED:20260520T152716Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260520T152719Z UID:78933-1781550000-1781555400@housmans.com SUMMARY:BOOK TALK: Absolute Ethical Life: Michael Lazarus in conversation with Bruno Leipold DESCRIPTION:Aristotle\, Hegel and Marx: Michael Lazarus In Conversation with Bruno Leipold\n\n\n\n\n\nKarl Marx gave us not just a critique of the political economy of capital but a way of confronting the impoverished ethical quality of life we face under capitalism. Interpreting Marx anew as an ethical thinker\, Absolute Ethical Life provides crucial resources for understanding how freedom and rational agency are impacted by a social world formed by value under capitalism\, with consequences for philosophy today. \n\n\n\nMichael Lazarus situates Marx within a shared tradition of ethical inquiry\, placing him in close dialogue with Aristotle and Hegel. Lazarus traces the ethical and political dimensions of Marx’s work missed by Hannah Arendt and Alasdair MacIntyre\, two of the most profound critics of modern politics and ethics. Ultimately\, the book claims that Marx’s value-form theory is both a continuation of Aristotelian and Hegelian themes and at the same time his most distinctive theoretical achievement. \n\n\n\nIn this normative interpretation of Marx\, Lazarus integrates recent moral philosophy with a historically specific analysis of capitalism as a social form of life. He challenges contemporary political and economic theory to insist that any conception of modern life needs to account for capitalism. With a robust critique of capitalism derived from the determinations of what Marx calls the “form of value\,” Lazarus argues for an ethical life beyond capital. \n\n\n\nMichael Lazarus will be joined in conversation with Bruno Leipold. We expect the conversation to last from around 45 minutes to an hour\, followed by an open discussion with the audience. \n\n\n\nOur Speakers: \n\n\n\nMichael Lazarus is Lecturer in Political Theory in the Department of Political Economy at King’s College London. Before coming to King’s\, he was Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow at Yale University and Deakin University Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Alfred Deakin Institute. He holds a PhD in Politics from Monash University. His research covers major themes and thinkers in political theory\, political economy and moral philosophy.Absolute Ethical Life: Aristotle\, Hegel and Marx\, published by Stanford University Press\, is his first book. He is currently working on a second book project related to the ideas of labour\, money and colonialism in Adam Smith and G.W.F. Hegel. In addition to his many scholarly publications\, he regularly writes for non-academic venues. \n\n\n\nBruno Leipold teaches at the London School of Economics. He works on the thought of Karl Marx\, the republican political tradition\, democratic theory and nineteenth-century political thought. He is the author of Citizen Marx (Princeton University Press\, 2024) and the co-editor of Radical Republicanism (Oxford University Press\, 2020). Before coming to the LSE\, he held post-doctoral positions at The New Institute\, the European University Institute and the Goethe University Frankfurt\, and he received his DPhil from the University of Oxford. \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-absolute-ethical-life-michael-lazarus-in-conversation-with-bruno-leipold/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,In Store ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/372332.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260616T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260616T203000 DTSTAMP:20260619T110631 CREATED:20260519T150835Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260610T144326Z UID:78873-1781636400-1781641800@housmans.com SUMMARY:BOOK LAUNCH: THE NEXT FIX by KOJO KORAM DESCRIPTION:The question is no longer if we should legalise drugs. It’s: what happens when we do? \n\n\n\nThe future of drugs is here\, and it’s dangerously unequal. Over the last decade\, the status quo around drugs has collapsed. Drugs once sold as safe cures have been revealed as ineffective or dangerous\, while substances criminalised for generations are being reborn as breakthrough mental health treatments\, wellness supplements\, Silicon productivity tools and billion-dollar investment opportunities. How did this reversal happen — and who stands to benefit? \n\n\n\nJoin us as we welcome the brilliant Kojo Koram to Housmans to celebrate the launch of his essential\, brilliant and harrowing new book. In The Next Fix\, award-winning author Koram travels from Scotland to Colombia\, Ghana to the United States\, to uncover the forces reshaping the global drug landscape. Moving between glossy corporate cannabis expos to grassroots activist campaigns and the question of reparations\, he traces the growing tension between movements fighting for justice after decades of prohibition and the finance-world race to profit from a newly legal frontier. Will drug reform finally undo the racial violence\, environmental destruction and public health failures of the War on Drugs? Or will it simply open a new chapter in global capitalism\, creating a smooth transition from cartel barons to Wall Street oligopolies? \n\n\n\nUrgent\, moving and deeply reported\, The Next Fix asks whether the War on Drugs is really over – or merely changing its chemical formula. \n\n\n\n‘Brilliantly arranged and rich with fresh insights‘ Akala \n\n\n\n‘A radical\, beautifully written understanding of our history‘ Owen Jones \n\n\n\nKojo Koram is a Professor of Law\, author and investigative journalist. This year he co-founded a new global research centre at Loughborough University which will examine how drug markets are changing. Born in Ghana and raised on Merseyside\, he is now based in London. In addition to his academic work\, he regularly contributes to the Guardian and Novara Media and has also written for the New Statesman and NYT. He is the author of Uncommon Wealth (2022) which won the English PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize\, was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing and the Bread and Roses Award for Radical Publishing and was a Guardian book of the year. \n\n\n\nKojo will read from the book\, followed by a discussion that should last for around 45 minutes. We will then have a q&a. The shop has limited space\, so please book ahead to avoid disappointment. \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-next-fix-by-kojo-karam/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,In Store ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/NEXT-FIX-cover.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260617T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260617T203000 DTSTAMP:20260619T110631 CREATED:20260519T162119Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260519T162120Z UID:78895-1781722800-1781728200@housmans.com SUMMARY:BOOK LAUNCH: TURNING AWAY by BENJAMIN A. SALTZMAN DESCRIPTION:A sweeping account of how we are at our most human when we turn away from the pains of the world. This is a work of breathtaking scholarship. We are delighted to welcome its author\, Benjamin A Saltzman\, to Housmans for its UK launch. He will be in conversation with Revd Dr Ayla Lepine.\n\n\n\nWhy do we look away from the suffering of others? Why do we cover our faces in shame? Why do we lower our heads in grief? Few gestures are as universal as the averted gaze. Fewer still are as ambivalent and inscrutable. In this incisive study\, Benjamin A. Saltzman reveals how the kaleidoscopic appearance of these gestures in art\, poetry\, and philosophy has turned them into an essential language for our uncomfortable engagements with the world\, challenging us to reflect on the ways we fundamentally relate to others. \n\n\n\nInto the horizon of contemporary discourse\, Turning Away sets out from five influential scenes in which figures avert their gaze: Timanthes’s Sacrifice of Iphigenia\, Plato’s Republic\, Augustine’s Confessions\, Christ’s Crucifixion\, and the Fall and Expulsion of Adam and Eve. The gestures of aversion in these scenes refract across visual media\, through philosophy and politics\, into modernity and the present day\, having been reimagined along the way by thinkers like Hannah Arendt\, artists like Marc Chagall and Salvador Dalí\, poets like Langston Hughes\, and many others. Saltzman offers a timely critique of the privilege of turning away and of the too-easy condemnation of our tendencies to do so. \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\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-turning-away-by-benjamin-a-saltzman/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/9780226847221-1.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260624T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260624T203000 DTSTAMP:20260619T110631 CREATED:20260610T160151Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260610T160219Z UID:79472-1782327600-1782333000@housmans.com SUMMARY:MAGAZINE LAUNCH: WEEKEND DESCRIPTION:COME AND CELEBRATE THE LAUNCH OF A BOLD NEW POETRY MAGAZINE AT HOUSMANS. FEATURING LUKE ROBERTS\, HARRIET ROSE AND OTHERS. \n\n\n\nThis is a free event\, please book your tickets below. 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/magazine-launch-weekend/ CATEGORIES:Literary Event ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Weekend-6-1.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260626T183000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260626T210000 DTSTAMP:20260619T110631 CREATED:20260610T150512Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260610T150514Z UID:79449-1782498600-1782507600@housmans.com SUMMARY:POETRY READING: ELLEN RENTON LAUNCHES 'YOU AND YOURS' DESCRIPTION:Join us for an evening of poetry to mark the launch of Ellen Renton’s new pamphlet.\n\n\n\nYou and Yours: \n\n\n\nSwinging across timelines and from the mundane to the surreal\, You and Yours is a study in grief: how it exists beyond seismic losses in the stories we inherit\, in shifting friendships\, and in uncertain landscapes. These poems celebrate the self as a malleable entity under the influence of all the lives it encounters\, and balance the pain that characterises the loss of a profound connection with the wonder of having it in the first place. \n\n\n\nAbout Ellen Renton: \n\n\n\nEllen Renton is a writer from Edinburgh. Her work has been published in journals including Poetry London\, Gutter\, and Magma\, and she released her debut pamphlet An Eye For An Eye For An Eye with Stewed Rhubarb Press. Her work in theatre has included the one-woman show Within Sight (2020)\, Disciples (2023)\, and PALS (in development in 2026). She has released an EP and the album My Noise is Nothing with electronic musician Lord of the Isles. She holds an MA in Creative Writing: Poetry from the University of East Anglia. \n\n\n\nPlease note this is an externally organised event. Any inquires should be made to: ellenmrenton@hotmail.co.uk \n\n\n\nTICKETS: \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-ellen-renton-launches-you-and-yours/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/webp:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/image-1.webp END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260704T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260704T203000 DTSTAMP:20260619T110631 CREATED:20260604T113508Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260604T113510Z UID:79314-1783191600-1783197000@housmans.com SUMMARY:DREAMS AND GHOSTS WITH DOMINIC PETTMAN & EVERYDAY ANALYSIS DESCRIPTION:Join us for a conversation between two of the most exciting theorists of the digital realm\, Dominic Pettman and Alfie Bown \n\n\n\nWe are delighted to welcome our friends Everyday Analysis back to Housmans for what promises to be another stimulating reflection on the agonies and aporias of contemporary culture. \n\n\n\nThis time we have Dominic Pettman joining us\, to talk about some of the recurrent ideas that animate\, his recent publications\, The Forgetting of Dreams: Selected Oneiric Residues (published by Everyday Analysis) and Ghosting: On Disappearance (Polity\, 2025). \n\n\n\nDominic is emerging as one of our major theorists of the digital world. His work is especially accomplished at interrogating modes of disconnection\, loneliness and alienation that could only really exist now; in an epoch almost entirely mediated through a digital reflection of itself. \n\n\n\nblurbs: \n\n\n\nThe Forgetting of Dreams: Selected Oneiric Residues \n\n\n\nWe process our lives through riddles\, mysteries\, ciphers\, and enigmas – but we hesitate to share these with friends and family. In times gone by\, as for Freud\, dreams were considered a key to cosmic secrets. Today\, in all sorts of ways – both subtle and not – we are discouraged from sharing the content of our dreams\, unless we happen to be indulging in that most anachronistic ritual: lying prostrate on the psychoanalyst’s couch. Anywhere else\, an anecdote that begins\, “Last night I dreamed . . .” is usually met with a sigh and a defensive glazing of the eyes. In our over-burdened world\, any sharing of dreams is always already perceived as over-sharing. Contrary to this\, Pettman argues – the more we share tales of our isolated nocturnal journeys\, the better chance we have to understand the topography of our collective conundrum.  \n\n\n\nGhosting: On Disappearance \n\n\n\nAbandonment is as old as time\, but ghosting is a modern twist on this ancient experience. It translates this age-old phenomenon into our modern world of screens\, delete buttons and blocking options. Ghosting is not only an unpleasant experience\, or cowardly act\, but a symptom of our increasingly spectral – that is\, mediated and virtual – relationship to the world. The overabundance of new modes of communication has invited an almost infinite number of contacts and conversations. At the same time\, it has also offered an unprecedented opportunity for ignoring messages from others. And just as we invented the car crash when we invented automobiles\, we also encouraged ghosting when we created the internet. \n\n\n\nGhosting creates an empty space in our minds: a space faithfully tracing the silhouette of the one who ghosted us. But unlike traditional ghosts\, today’s ghosters simply disappear\, leaving behind a form of haunting that is closer to mourning: mourning for someone who is not in fact dead. In putting a kind of preemptive mourning into our everyday affairs\, ghosting tells us much about the current human relationship – or non-relationship – to a shared sense of mortality\, purpose\, and spirit.   \n\n\n\nThis book – the first sustained analysis of ghosting – traces the source of this vexed experience to\, and through\, our current media ecology\, technological networks\, political landscape\, collective psychology\, romantic mantras\, and deep sense of social neglect. \n\n\n\nDominic will be joined by the brilliant Alfie Bown\, Senior Lecturer in Digital Media Culture and Technology at King’s College London. Alfie is the author of numerous brilliant interventions into the worlds of digital studies\, Marxism and psychoanalysis. His most recent books are Alfie Bown\, Post-Comedy (Polity\, 2024) and Dream Lovers: Capitalism and the Gamification of Relationships (London: Pluto\, 2022). \n\n\n\nThis is a free event\, but you can reserve copies of the books through our ticket portal. \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/dreams-and-ghosts-with-dominic-pettman-everyday-analysis/ CATEGORIES:In Store,Literary Event ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/preeti-insta-16.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260711T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260711T203000 DTSTAMP:20260619T110631 CREATED:20260503T142854Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260601T160617Z UID:78511-1783796400-1783801800@housmans.com SUMMARY:BOOK LAUNCH: KILL BILLIONAIRE with ANDERS LUSTGARTEN DESCRIPTION:Kill Billionaire: The Riotous Revenge Caper You’ve Been Waiting for\n\n\n\nKill Billionaire is the best sort of political thriller: gripping\, revenge fueled and unapologetically radical in its politics\, discussing climate change and the elite. \n\n\n\nWhen her home is destroyed in wildfires\, fourteen-year-old Australian outback genius Kayla Connolly decides to hunt down the culprits of climate change: billionaires. She teams up with Mr P\, a giant ex-soldier from Tuvalu whose home is being flooded by rising sea levels. Together\, they find ingenious ways to kill a property developer building on protected wetlands and a mining company CEO poisoning the earth with toxic chemicals. They also find an unexpected ally in Nancy\, a wealthy elderly woman with a shocking past. \n\n\n\nThe trio’s mission soon develops a life of its own\, taking them first to California to crack billionaire tech bros and then to London for superrich oil executives\, spawning a global movement along the way. In pursuit are the FBI and Detective Sergeant Kate Anderson of Scotland Yard\, but Kate is having doubts about whether Kayla is even in the wrong. Will Kayla be able to stay ahead of the game and pull off one final\, remarkable hit? \n\n\n\nWe are delighted that Anders Lustgarten has chosen Housmans as the launch pad for this propulsive\, daringly political work of thriller fiction! \n\n\n\nHe will conversation for around 45 minutes to an hour\, followed by a q&a and signing session. \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-kill-billionaire-with-anders-lustgarten/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/9781784746391-jacket-large.jpeg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260718T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260718T210000 DTSTAMP:20260619T110631 CREATED:20260603T162235Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260617T150043Z UID:79301-1784401200-1784408400@housmans.com SUMMARY:HOUSING READING SERIES: HUW LEMMEY IN CONVERSATION WITH JULIET JACQUES DESCRIPTION:Aren’t you just SICK of gay fiction about nice boys just trying their best? BOREDof the sort of cosy political satire that makes Alistair Campbell chuckle? \n\n\n\nFINALLY! After years of waiting\, Huw Lemmey’s cult classics are back in print::CHUBZ: The Demonization of My Working Arse and RED TORY: My Corbyn Chemsex Hell\,two novels of terrifying predictive force and eye-watering sexual potency\, an antidoteto the grimly worthy bourgeois queer novels and tedious political fiction of our time.Lemmey’s novels depict the loopy political world of the past decade with the powerof a vicious Cassandra\, imagining a world of Brexit and Trump\, PM’s Boris and Nigel\,years before they came to pass. Set within a London gripped between authoritarianismand a genuine rupture in the healthy sexual order of things\, CHUBZ and RED TORYremain the sleeper hits of our time\, quietly seeding disquiet and insurrection into theover-stimulated lizard brain and under-stimulated rectal ampulla of the GREAT British Public. \n\n\n\nObscene? Potentially. Criminal? Maybe. Sick? Probably. But worth buying? UNDENIABLY! \n\n\n\nJoin the author LIVE and IN FULL FLESHY PERSONHOOD at Housmans\, in conversationwith the esteemed political-cultural powerhouse Juliet Jacques\, to discuss these arse-warping\,mind-bending SATIRES FOR OUR TIME. Run\, don’t walk! \n\n\n\nThis is a free event\, but if you would like to reserve a copy of the book(s)\, you can saw so through the ticket portal \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/housing-reading-series-huw-lemmey-in-conversation-with-juliet-jacques/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Poetry-Series3-1.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260721T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260721T210000 DTSTAMP:20260619T110631 CREATED:20260617T145610Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260617T150316Z UID:79607-1784660400-1784667600@housmans.com SUMMARY:HOUSMANS POETRY SERIES: JD HOWSE DESCRIPTION:It starts with the Buggery Act of 1533. Or perhaps the arrest of Eleanor Rykener. Or perhaps the execution of James Pratt and John Smith. The truism goes that queer people have always been here\, but for as long as there have been written records of us those records have dealt with our suppression\, criminalisation\, and punishment. How can we construct a sense of our own history when its wilful erasure has been violently enacted time and time again across the centuries?  \n\n\n\nComposed over a ten year period\, Noises Again is a hugely ambitious and staggeringly complex literary collage that blurs the lines between literature and visual art. Stringing together scraps of text from history books and pornographic novels\, newspaper clippings and love letters\, drunk sexts and court records\, JD Howse explores the buried\, obscure ephemera of gay history and returns with a text by turns violent\, tragic\, erotic\, and confounding. This is a truly singular book\, defying characterisation\, description\, and logic.  \n\n\n\nOUR POETS\n\n\n\nJD Howse is a writer who works across poetry\, prose\, and collage. His debut collection Just Meat Not God was published in 2022 and he has published a number of pamphlets and artist’s books. He has a BA in English and an MA in Creative Writing from Royal Holloway\, University of London\, and is the curator of Permeable Barrier.  \n\n\n\nAzad Ashim Sharma is the director of the87press and Editor at Philosophy and Global Affairs\, the CLR James Journal\, and The Hythe Review. He is a PhD Candidate in English and Humanities at Birkbeck College\, University of London. He is the author of three poetry collections\, most recently\, Boiled Owls (Nightboat Books / Out-Spoken Press\, 2024) which was shortlisted for the Jhalak Poetry Prize. His second collection Ergastulum: Vignettes of Lost Time (Broken Sleep Books\, 2022) was the recipient of the Caribbean Philosophical Association’s Guillén Award. In July 2025\, Azad was inaugurated as the Poet Laureate of the Caribbean Philosophical Association. He lives in South London. \n\n\n\nCalliope Michail is a poet and translator\, currently undertaking a PhD at King’s College\, London. She is the Poetry Editor of Stillpoint Journal\, and her work has appeared in various publications. \n\n\n\nVJ René is the author of two pamphlets of poetry\, Scavengers (Salo Press\, 2021) and HYDRA (Marble Poetry\, 2020). Recent critical and creative works appear in Victorian Popular Fictions Journal\, Forum Journal and the Australasian Journal of Victorian Studies.​ \n\n\n\nOliver Zarandi is a writer and filmmaker. His debut\, Soft Fruit In The Sun (Hexus Press)\, was described as being like ‘getting a hug from David Cronenberg.’ His follow-up\, Body Horror\, was shortlisted for the Prototype Prize in 2024. He is currently in development on his first film\, Skinny Boy. \n\n\n\nThis is a free event but please RSVP below. \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-jd-howse/ CATEGORIES:Literary Event ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Poetry-Series6.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260722T184500 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260722T210000 DTSTAMP:20260619T110631 CREATED:20260604T143226Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260604T143228Z UID:79333-1784745900-1784754000@housmans.com SUMMARY:BOOK LAUNCH: FLOYDS GONE by Jacob A. Smith DESCRIPTION:Come celebrate the launch of a brilliant and daring new short story collection published by eidolon ink \n\n\n\nJacob A. Smith is launching his debut story collection\, Floyds Gone\, at Housmans Bookshop! Please join us on July 22nd to celebrate the release of his book. All author and publisher profits from the evening go to Medical Aid for Palestinians and Lifeshare. Free entry + doors open at 6:45pm \n\n\n\n“When you have them pixelated\, magic occurs. You become the imagination of the technology. Like you’re watching the technology dream.” \n\n\n\n‘A man plans to disappear after his partner becomes pregnant. Films play on loop in a countryside home filled with waste. A violent video appears on an online server where people plot and rate hoaxes. An employee stalks his boss to protect her from a threatening man. Pictures of a burning building are nominated for a major prize. An empty boat returns to shore and the photographer on board has disappeared. \n\n\n\nThese are some of the unsettling\, vivid images that accumulate throughout Floyds Gone\, Jacob A. Smith’s debut story collection. Inhabiting the uncertain space between images\, dreams and reality\, Smith’s stories probe the strange data of our mediated lives. Built around moments of arrival\, departure\, and change\, and a recurring name that may refer to more than one man\, the stories of Floyds Gone are all powerful screenshots of life lived in a world of multiplying images and vanishing selfhood.’ \n\n\n\nPlease note this is an externally organised event. Any inquiries should be made to ‘hello@eidolon.ink’ \n\n\n\nBook a free ticket below\, or reserve a copy of the book. \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\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-floyds-gone-by-jacob-a-smith/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Untitled-9.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260723T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260723T210000 DTSTAMP:20260619T110631 CREATED:20260612T161522Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260617T150254Z UID:79502-1784833200-1784840400@housmans.com SUMMARY:HOUSMANS POETRY SERIES: JAMES BYRNE DESCRIPTION:Join us for another evening of cutting edge poetry. \n\n\n\nFor this instalment\, we are delighted to welcome the legendary James Byrne to the shop to launch his latest collection The Banality of Power (Broken Sleep Books\, 2026) Joining him we have the incredible Ziba Karbassi and are delight to welcome back long time friend of Housmans Stephen Watts. \n\n\n\nOur Poets: \n\n\n\nZiba Karbassi—born in Tabriz\, northwestern Iran in 1969—began writing poems from an early age. Her first book in Persian was published in her twenties and\, since then\, she has published regularly\, with more than twelve books now available\, both in her mother tongue and internationally. Forced to leave Iran in the early 1980s with her mother and younger sisters\, she has since lived most of her life in London. She is widely regarded as one of the leading poets currently writing in Persian and\, to date\, her work has been translated into more than fifteen languages. Karbassi’s densely revolutionary lyrical writing achieves an intensity of space that is almost unique in contemporary poetry\, melting the valencies of breath into the depths of meaning. She has performed her work widely across Europe and America. She was Chairperson of the Association of Iranian Writers in Exile\, 2002 to 2004 and in 2009 she was awarded the Golden Apple Poetry Prize (Azerbaijan) and served as chair of Exiled Writers Ink from 2012 to 2014 and\, in 2012\, was chosen by the Contemporary Poetics Research Centre (CPRC\, Birkbeck\, University of London) as one of fifteen revolutionary poets in a worldwide survey of published writings from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. From 2019 to 2021\, Karbassi was a director of the Iranian PEN Centre in Exile\, and she continues to work as a committee member and editor with Exiled Writers Ink in London\, always passionately and actively committing her life and work for poetry. \n\n\n\nStephen Watts was born in 1952. His father came from Stoke-on-Trent and his mother’s family from villages high in the Italian and Swiss Alps. He spent very vital time—in place of university—in northern Scotland\, especially the island of North Uist but\, since 1977\, has lived mainly in the richly multilingual communities of Whitechapel in East London. Geographies and location (as also their negative theologies) are urgent to his life and work. Recent books include Ancient Sunlight (Enitharmon\, 2014; reprinted 2020) and Republic of Dogs / Republic of Birds (Test Centre\, 2016; Prototype\, 2020). A 16mm\, 70-minute experimental film—The Republics—was made from the latter by Huw Wahl\, 2019. A collected Journeys Across Breath: Poems 1975-2005 was published by Prototype Publishing in 2022 (reprinted 2025) and A Book of Drawn Poems came out with Joe Hales’s Sylvia imprint in 2025. Watts is also a translator\, working closely with exiled poets and—inter alia—has co-translated Pages from the Biography of an Exile by the Iraqi poet Adnan al-Sayegh (Arc Publications\, 2014)\, Syrian poet Golan Haji’s A Tree Whose Name I Don’t Know (A Midsummer Night’s Press\, 2017) and Reza Baraheni’s Lilith (Tenement Press\, 2023).  His translation research has been the subject of two exhibitions: Swirl Of Words / Swirl Of Worlds\, PEER Gallery (Hoxton\, London)\, and for which he edited a book of that title\, and Explosion Of Words with the Swiss artist Hannes Schüpbach\, which celebrated his 2000 page Bibliography of Modern Poetry in English Translation\, at the Straühof Gallery (Zurich) and Nunnery Gallery (Bow\, London)\, in 2021 and 2022 respectively. \n\n\n\nPoet\, editor and translator\, James Byrne was born near London in 1977. His most recent poetry collection is The Banality of Power\, which received a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.  Other recent books include Nightsongs for Gaia: New and Selected Poems Arc Publications\, 2025) and The Overmind (Broken Sleep Books\, 2024). He has co-translated and co-edited Bones Will Crow\, the first anthology of contemporary Burmese poetry to be published in English (Arc\, 2012) and I am a Rohingya\, the first book of Rohingya refugee poems in English (Arc 2019) after spending some time at Cox’s Bazar refugee camp. His publications in translation include working with Libyan poet Ashur Etwebi (Five Scenes from a Failed Revolution\, 2022)\, and Rohingya poet Ro Mehrooz (Poems Written Through Barbed-Wire Fences\, 2024). Forrest Gander writes that his poetry is ‘like gulping fire-water shots of the world’. The Banality of Power\, launched at this event\, speaks back to aggressors\, corporate power\, beginning with Nazi Adolf Einchmann on trial in a glass cage\, asking: who are the Eichmanns now and how we find a way to move forward in a fractured society and form community.    \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-james-byrne/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/BOOK-TALK-The-Journal-of-a-Kurdish-Political-Prisoner4.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260729T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260729T203000 DTSTAMP:20260619T110631 CREATED:20260603T143903Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260603T155503Z UID:79289-1785351600-1785357000@housmans.com SUMMARY:BOOK LAUNCH: INTERNATIONAL FREAK ROBIN FARQUHARSON AND THE DREAM OF PSYCHEDELIC REVOLT DESCRIPTION:M. SYD ROSEN AND OWEN HATHERLEY DISCUSS THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF COUNTERCULTURAL ICON ROBIN FARQUHARSON \n\n\n\n‘Rosen is an intergenerational talent. That is\, he seems to move effortlessly across decades\, from dark matter to illumination; gleaning\, recovering\, challenging\, making new.’ \n\n\n\n Iain Sinclair \n\n\n\nBorn in 1930 into a privileged South African family\, Robin Farquharson was part of a new wave of intellectuals tasked with reimagining society in the wake of World War II—until a phone call from God brought everything crashing down. \n\n\n\nUnder the gaze of the secret police and his own mounting paranoia\, Farquharson fled to Swinging London and tried to reinvent himself as a countercultural guru. Along the way\, he helped to have South Africa banned from the Olympic Games\, authored an unclassifiable memoir of queer street life\, and climbed to the top of the mysterious White Panther Party. Then\, just days after founding the pioneering Mental Patients Union\, flames ripped through his home and Farquharson was gone. \n\n\n\nDrawing on meticulous archival research and extensive new interviews\, International Freak marshals an extraordinary cast of characters in order to tell Farquharson’s story for the first time. Equal parts experimental biography\, social history\, and psychedelic true crime\, this is a portrait of a singular man and the world he sought desperately to transform. \n\n\n\nWe are delighted to welcome M. Syd Rosen (author of this utterly compelling biography) and Owen Hatherley to Housmans to discuss the life of this truly remarkable hero of counter cultural Britain. \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-international-freak-robin-farquharson-and-the-dream-of-psychedelic-revolt/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/International-Freak-23.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260818T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260818T203000 DTSTAMP:20260619T110631 CREATED:20260503T145005Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260604T170122Z UID:78529-1787079600-1787085000@housmans.com SUMMARY:'FLAMBOYANCE' WITH JACK PARLETT IN CONVERSATION WITH PETER SCALPELLO DESCRIPTION:JACK PARLETT AND CELEBRATED POET PETER SCALPELLO DISCUSS ‘FLAMBOYANCE’ AND HOW IT IGNITES EVERY ASPECT OF OUR LIVES\, FROM ART AND ENTERTAINMENT TO RITUAL AND PROTEST. \n\n\n\nFlamboyance is Jack Parlett’s follow up to his acclaimed Fire Island (A Housmans bestseller of 2022). This new book has all the qualities one has come to expect of Jack’s work; big hearted and erudite in equal measure. \n\n\n\nFlamboyance ignites every aspect of our lives\, from art and entertainment to ritual and protest. The word conjures exuberance and unashamed passion; in thought\, expression and dress. Yet historically the term ‘flamboyant’ has been reserved for the over-the-top and the outré\, invoked at times as a pejorative innuendo or worse. \n\n\n\nIn his fascinating new book\, Jack Parlett argues for its value as an empowering and creative force\, illuminating the ways in which flamboyance is a fundamental aspect of human conduct that both marks and transcends difference. \n\n\n\nTaking in an eclectic array of examples\, from Gothic architecture to the orange flowers of Dungeness\, and populated by figures such as Oscar Wilde\, James Baldwin\, Elton John\, Amy Winehouse\, Lil Nas X and Chappell Roan\, this is a book about flamboyant art and the art of flamboyance. And having both aspired to it and rejected it\, Jack recounts his personal relationship to flamboyance while also finding new meanings of the word\, exploring its surprises and contradictions\, and reconnecting with its radical power. \n\n\n\nOUR SPEAKERS: \n\n\n\nJack Parlett is the author of three books: The Poetics of Cruising: Queer Visual Culture from Whitman to Grindr (a monograph with University of Minnesota Press)\, Same Blue\, Different You (a poetry pamphlet with Broken Sleep Books)\, and Fire Island: A Queer History (Granta)\, which was named one of the Best Books of 2022 by the New Yorker and shortlisted for the Polari Book Prize 2023. His writing has appeared in the New Yorker\, Document Journal\, BBC Culture\, Boston Review\, Literary Hub and Poetry London. \n\n\n\nPeter Scalpello is a writer and psychotherapist from Glasgow\, based in London. Their second book\, Mirrorstage\, was published this year with Cipher Press. \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-flamboyance-with-jack-parlett/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/91i4Plth9zL._SL1500_.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260904T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260904T203000 DTSTAMP:20260619T110631 CREATED:20260413T154853Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260506T115422Z UID:77658-1788548400-1788553800@housmans.com SUMMARY:Book Launch: Liquid Reflections with Liliane Lijn DESCRIPTION:We are profoundly honored to be hosting the paperback launch for a memoir by one the world’s greatest living artists\, the sculptor Liliane Lijn\, who will be joined in conversation by leading art writer Jennifer Higgie.\n\n\n\nLiliane Lijn is an artist who needs little introduction. Her stirring\, often ostentatious and always poetic works are dotted throughout the British urban landscape\, and overseas. Regular visitors to Housmans will have no doubt seen her recent piece Temenos just up the road from us\, near Granary Square. \n\n\n\nWe will host Liliane May 2nd to launch the paperback edition of her brilliant bildungsroman Liquid Reflections. The book begins in 1958 with the talented and fearless Liliane Lijn leaving her family home and moving to Paris alone to become an artist. Once there\, she found an art world filled with the wild energy of creative revolution – peopled and controlled almost entirely by men. In the years that followed\, Lijn built a life for herself in the city. She embraced the hectic bohemian spirit of the Left Bank. She befriended artists\, painters\, poets\, gallerists and revolutionaries\, as the late Surrealists gave way to a burgeoning Pop Art movement. She had disastrous love affairs with difficult men. She experimented boldly\, creating ground-breaking sculptures with light\, text and movement. And as her profile steadily grew\, she was told again and again that there are no great women artists: ‘There never have been.’ \n\n\n\nLiquid Reflections is her memoir of these years of experiment and adventure – years when Lijn was constantly in motion\, from Paris to New York to Venice to Athens\, from paper and canvas to wax and Perspex to oil and water. In love\, she became pregnant but rebelled against the idea that a woman could not be both a great artist and a mother. And she sought – and found – radical pleasure in the act of creative expression and in the living\, sensuous world around her. \n\n\n\nBased on personal diaries from the time\, this is a riveting and revelatory account of a singular coming of age: a glittering portrait of the artist as a young woman. \n\n\n\n‘I wrote LIQUID REFLECTIONS because I wanted to take my readers on the journey I made to become an artist. It’s the story of an idealistic\, inspired young woman who refuses to accept the prejudices of her time. Becoming an artist was also a search for my own identity…’ — Liliane Lijn \n\n\n\nLiliane will be conversation with the art writer Jennifer Higgie\, author of numerous books\, her most recent being The Other Side: A Journey into Women\, Art and the Spirit World\, the first major work of art history to focus on women artists and their engagement with the spirit world. \n\n\n\nThis is going to be an extremely special event and we are delighted to be hosting it. Please do book a ticket in advance to avoid disappointment on the night. \n\n\n\nLiliane and Jennifer will talk for around 45 minutes to an hour\, followed by an 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\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-liquid-reflections-with-liliane-lijn/ CATEGORIES:Book Launch,Book Talk,In Store ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/webp:https://housmans.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/9781405967471-jacket-large.webp END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR