Tales from the Southern Commons

Tuesday evening, 14 April: 7 - 8:30 pm at The Carnegie Library

South Parks is a collection of twenty short stories set in, about or around a selection of South London open spaces. Inside are talking statues, strange cults, pagan estate agents and a very wrong horse. There are foxes and a vengeful toilet goddess but also stories of love, friendship, family life and growing up.

Expect anti-golf riots and stolen geese as we celebrate places to sit in, places to play in and places to spend the day in alongside contemporary (and older) threats to the concept of free open spaces in London. There may also be references to park toilet goddesses, pagan estate agents, mermaids looking for a mate and Peckham Rye’s gay cultural renaissance alongside a celebration of south London’s open spaces. The talk will switch between the real and the magically real and is based on his book South Parks: Stories from the Southern Commons.

Chris Roberts is a London writer and tour guide who has written books on the history of nursery rhymes, London's bridges, lost words and superstition in football. He has been conducting walking tours around London for most of this century.

The Friends of Carnegie Library invite you to attend this event with Chris Parks, which is part of our monthly series of Author Events, always on the second Tuesday of the month, always at the Carnegie Library (except once during covid), always Admission Free.

The event will start at 7 pm but please come early for tea & cakes, from 6:30.

Reservations are not strictly necessary, but we do ask people to register at Eventbrite, to help with planning.

We thank the librarians at Carnegie Library for their assistance with staging this event, and indeed for all their dedication and efforts which keep the Carnegie Library running as the great and much loved community library that it is for Herne Hill and Loughborough Junction and environs.

The event was well attended by a very appreciative audience. Many thanks to Chris and to all who attended for making this a memorable occasion.

Katherine Connelly

At the library - 10 March, 7-8:30pm

We are delighted to welcome Katherine Connelly to discuss her book Sylvia Pankhurst: Suffragette, Socialist and Scourge of Empire. This is part of International Women's Day celebrations.

Katherine Connelly is a writer and historian known for her significant contributions to the field of history. In addition to this biography of Sylvia Pankhurst she has edited A Suffragette in America: Reflections on Prisoners, Pickets and Political Change.

Sylvia Pankhurst: Suffragette, Socialist and Scourge of Empire focuses on Sylvia Pankhurst's activism as a prominent suffragette and socialist leader and her role in the British anti-war movement.

As a historian of the suffragette movement Katherine Connelly has featured on Netflix in the documentary series A Tale of Two Sisters and on Channel 4 in Secrets of a Suffragette. In 2014 for BBC Radio 4 she presented a four-part mini series on women's history in East London.

Her books provide valuable insights into the struggles for social change and the importance of political activism.

Admission is free.

Organised by the Friends of Carnegie Library, in cooperation with the Lambeth Librarians.

For further information and to help with planning, please book a place on Eventbrite.

Tuesday, the 10th of February, from 7 pm to 8:30 pm

This Queer Arab Family celebrates the beauty of chosen kin and the everyday acts of care and survival that bind Queer Arabs to each other. Ten LGBTQ+ writers from across the Arab world and diaspora redefine what family looks like, from raising children with mum and mum, to becoming an OnlyFans star and building a non-binary belly dancing robot. These writers illuminate, through their own lived experiences, how queer joy and community can be found in the most unexpected places.

This Queer Arab Family honours the spirit of those who, despite challenges, build community and family on their own terms.

Elias Jahshan is a Palestinian-Lebanese journalist and writer, and editor of This Arab is Queer: An Anthology by LGBTQ+ Arab Writers (Saqi Books; 2022) - which was a finalist in the 2023 Lambda Literary Awards in the USA and shortlisted for the 2023 Bread & Roses Award in the UK.

His short memoir Coming Out Palestinian was anthologised in Arab, Australian, Other: Stories on Race and Identity (ed. Randa Abdel-Fattah & Sara Saleh; Picador, 2019), while Bittersweet Memories of a Palestinian Knight was anthologised in Ask the Night for a Dream: Palestinian Writing From the Diaspora (ed. Susan Muaddi Darraj; Palestine Writes Press, 2024). Elias is also a former editor of Star Observer, Australia’s longest-running LGBTQ+ media outlet, and has been published in The Guardian, Gay Times, The New Arab, Raseef22, Shado Mag, My Kali.

Born and raised in Sydney, he now lives in London.

Go to Eventbrite for more information and to book a place. Admission is free (and booking is optional, but helps with planning.)

Organised by the Friends in co-operation with the Lambeth Library Service.

Tuesday evening, 13 January - 7pm (6:30 for tea and biscuits)

(This talk was regretfully cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances, on short notice.)

The true story of a Jewish lawyer who returned to Germany after WWII to prosecute war crimes, only to find himself pitted against a nation determined to bury the past.

Costa Book Award winner - Jack Fairweather

The Allies were ready to overlook their pasts as the Cold War began, and the horrors of the Holocaust were in danger of being forgotten.

Fritz Bauer, a gay German Jew who survived the Nazis, made it his mission to force his countrymen to confront their complicity in the genocide. In this deeply researched book, Fairweather draws on unpublished family papers, newly declassified German records, and exclusive interviews to immerse readers in the dark, unfamiliar world of postwar West Germany where those who implemented genocide run the country, the CIA is funding Hitler’s former spy-ring in the east, and Nazi-era anti-gay laws are strictly enforced.  Once on the trail of Adolf Eichmann, Bauer won’t be intimidated and his journey takes him deep into the rotten heart of West Germany, where his fight for justice will set him against his own government and a network of former Nazis and spies determined to silence him.

In a time when the history of the Holocaust is taken for granted, The Prosecutor reveals the courtroom battles that were fought to establish its legacy and the personal cost of speaking out. The result is a searing portrait of a nation emerging from the ruins of fascism and one man’s courage in forcing his people––and the world––to face the truth.

Jack Fairweather is the bestselling author of The Volunteer, the Costa Prize winning account of a Polish underground officer who volunteered to report on Nazi crimes in Auschwitz. The book has been translated into 25 languages and forms the basis of a major exhibition in Berlin. He has served as the Daily Telegraph’s Baghdad bureau chief, and as a video journalist for the Washington Post in Afghanistan. His war coverage has won a British Press Award and an Overseas Press Club award citation. He divides his time between Wales and Vermont.

Organised by the Friends, commemorating Holocaust Memorial Day.

Go to Eventbrite for more information and to book a place. Admission is free (and booking is optional, but helps with planning.)

Please attend in person at the Carnegie Library, but if you can't do so, the event will be live-streamed from the Carnegie Library Facebook page (no registration required) and the recording will be available there for a limited time afterwards (about a month).

Never again.