Tuesday, 12 September 7:00 - 8:30 at the library (or online)

Author C.J. Schüler presents his book exploring the vast woods which were intensively managed for a thousand years, providing timber for construction, furniture and shipbuilding, and charcoal for London's blacksmiths, kilns and bakeries. Now they afford important green space, a vital habitat for small mammals, birds and insects.

The Great North Wood gave its name to Norwood.

Event organised by the Friends of Carnegie Library as part of the Lambeth Heritage Festival, and with the cooperation of and kind assistance from the Carnegie Library librarians

This event will be streamed live online - to view online please register with Eventbrite

Join Louise Candlish to discuss her latest crime novel - The Only Suspect

Tuesday evening, 8 August 7 to 8:30 (at the library or online)

Presented by Friends of Carnegie Libary

Wrong time. Wrong place. Wrong man. Alex lives a comfortable life with his wife Beth in the leafy suburb of Silver Vale. Fine, so he’s not the most sociable guy on the street, he prefers to keep himself to himself, but he’s a good husband and an easy-going neighbour. That’s until Beth announces the creation of a nature trail on a local site that’s been disused for decades and suddenly Alex is a changed man. Now he’s always watching. Questioning. Struggling to hide his dread . . . . As the landscapers get to work, a secret threatens to surface from years ago, back in Alex’s twenties when he got entangled with a seductive young woman called Marina, who threw both their lives into turmoil. And who sparked a police hunt for a murder suspect that was never quite what it seemed. It still isn’t. No one else could have done it. Could they?

Louise Candlish is the Sunday Times bestselling author of fourteen novels. Our House, a #1 bestseller, won the Crime & Thriller Book of the Year at the 2019 British Book Awards, was long-listed for the 2019 Theakston Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year, and was short-listed for the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award. It is soon to be a major ITV drama made by Death in Paradise producers Red Planet Pictures. Louise lives in London with her husband and daughter.

Visit her at LouiseCandlish.com or connect with her on Twitter @Louise_Candlish.

To attend online, register at Eventbrite for an invitation and link.

Tuesday evening, 11 July 19:00 - 20:30 (in the library or online)

Simon Keable-Elliott presents Utterly Immoral, the story of his grandfather and a novel that brought scandal to the writer

Simon Keable-Elliott presents Utterly Immoral: Robert Keable and his scandalous novel, about the book written by his grandfather which was condemned by critics and became an international best seller.

Utterly Immoral traces Robert Keable’s experiences from Croydon to Basutoland and on to France as a WW1 chaplain to mistreated black labourers, the novel’s success, his loss of faith, an escape to Tahiti with his secret lover, and his final relationship with an island princess.

Event organised by the Friends of Carnegie Library

Register on Eventbrite for a link to view online.

Presented by the Friends - in the library (or online)

Tuesday evening, 13 June - 7:00 to 8:30 (6:30 for refreshments)

Paul Burston is the author of six novels and four non-fiction books and editor of two short story collections. He is curator and host of award-winning LGBTQ+ literary salon Polari and founder of The Polari Prize book awards for LGBTQ+ writers.

We Can Be Heroes traces his life growing up in a working-class community in a small-town South Wales, arriving in London at the start of the Aids pandemic. He built a successful career as a journalist, TV presenter, novelist, activist and advocate. His work led him to starry encounters with Caroline Aherne, David Bowie, Debbie Harry and Gore Vidal. At the age of 38 he nearly died of a drug overdose. He became teetotal on 1st January 2021.

From almost drowning at eighteen to a near-fatal overdose at thirty-eight, this is Paul’s story of what happened in the twenty years between, and how he carved out a life that his teenage self could scarcely have imagined. Emotional but often witty, We Can Be Heroes is an illuminating memoir of the eighties, nineties and noughties from a gay man who only just survived them.

Paul came out in the mid-1980s, when ‘gay’ still felt like a dirty word, especially in the small Welsh town where he grew up. He moved to London hoping for a happier life, only to watch in horror as his new-found community was decimated by AIDS. But even in the depths of his grief, Paul vowed never to stop fighting back on behalf of his young friends whose lives were cut tragically short.

Click here to register and receive a link for the livestream from Eventbrite (free of charge)

Tuesday, 9th of May 7-8:30pm

at the Herne Hill Baptist Church, Half Moon Lane

(while the library is closed for renovations)

Christopher Bowden presents his latest novel. It’s a literary mystery about hidden lives and second chances, moving between a house in a south London square, a Brooklyn bookstore, a theatre in Marseille, and a cottage on the east coast of England. His six previous novels are The Blue Book, The Yellow Room, The Red House, The Green Door, The Purple Shadow and The Amber Maze. Christopher Bowden lives in south London.

Reserve a spot on eventbrite