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.

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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

Tuesday evening, 11 April - 7 to 8:30, at the Library (or online)

Local author Adam Mars-Jones has an international reputation - his works include novels (The Waters of Thirst, Pilcrow and its sequel Cedilla) short story collections (Lantern Lecture and Monopolies of Loss) the novella Batlava Lake, a book of essays (Blind Bitter Happiness) and Noriko Smiling (a book about Ozu's film Late Spring) and numerous perceptive book reviews (appearing frequently in London Review of Books). He will join us on Tuesday evening (11 April) to talk about about his funny and touching family memoir Kid Gloves: A Voyage Round My Father.

When his widowed father - once a high court judge and always a formidable figure - drifted into vagueness if not dementia, Adam took responsibility for his care.

In the aftermath, he has written a book studded with particular emotions and events. Highly entertaining about (among other things) families, the legal profession, and the vexed question of Welsh identity. It is also a book about himself - including that implausible, long-delayed moment, some years before, when he told his father about his sexual orientation. The supporting cast includes Ian Fleming, the Moors Murderers, Jacqueline Bisset and Gilbert O'Sullivan.

Organised by the Friends of Carnegie Library

Please register with eventbrite for a link to the online livestream.

Essays on 18th and 19th Century Women - at the library (or online)

Tuesday evening 14 March, 7-8:30

Meet Eliza Fenning, a servant whose ability to read proved fatal; teenager Maria Glenn, dragged through the courts by a vengeful would-be suitor; Margaret Larney, pregnant and condemned to death; Mary Ashford, whose woeful end was staged on the opening night of a famous theatre; and French anarchist Louise Michel, welcomed, to the consternation of the great and the good, on a fact-finding visit to a London workhouse.

Join historian Naomi Clifford to discuss her new book, Out of the Shadows, a collection of essays which explores the lives of women whose stories we have forgotten or never known. The 19th-century societies for the aid of discharged prisoners. Above all, the extraordinary work of Susanna Meredith with women in Vauxhall.

Organised by the Friends of Carnegie Library

Register to attend online via Eventbrite

At the library, Tuesday 14 February - 7pm to 8:30pm (or online, livestream)

Presented by Friends of Carnegie Library

When Emily meets the enigmatic and dazzling actress Tamsin, her life changes.

Tamsin is the friend Emily has always longed for: beautiful, fun, intelligent, mysterious - and soon Emily is neglecting her previous life to bask in her glow. But Tamsin has been hiding a secret about her past, something that threatens to unravel everything . . .

Young Women is a razor-sharp novel that slices to the heart of our most important relationships and asks how complicit we all are in this world built for men.

Jessica Moor studied English at Cambridge before completing a Creative Writing MA at Manchester University. Her debut novel Keeper was published in 2020 to rave reviews and critical acclaim. Jessica Moor was selected as one of the Observer's debut novelists of 2020, and her debut, Keeper was chosen by the Sunday Times, Independent and Cosmopolitan as one of their top debuts of the year. Keeper was nominated for the Desmond Elliott Prize and an Edgar Award.

Young Women is her second novel.

Follow Jessica on Twitter @jessicammoor

To attend online, via livestream, please register at Eventbrite