Saturday, 24 June 2.15 to 4.15pm
Come along to enjoy the Library Garden and the company of fellow library lovers.
Children welcome, young and old!
Midsummer Garden Party!
Ruskin Park Summer Fete
Saturday 17 June | 12pm to 6pm
We Can Be Heroes with Paul Burston – Tuesday, 13 June
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)
Authors in the library
Every Second Tuesday the Friends host a local author to give a reading, discuss their work and meet readers. Please come along. 7-8:30 pm at the library (and come early for tea and coffee from 6:30).
Here are some of the upcoming events: June to September:
Paul Burston comes on 13 June with We Can Be Heroes, an autobiographical work which is to be published in June.
On 11 July Simon Keable-Elliott presents Utterly Immoral: Robert Keable and his scandalous novel, about the book written by his grandfather which was condemned by critics but became an international best seller.
For 8 August, Louise Candlish will talk about her latest novel, The Only Suspect.
Christopher J Schuler - 12 September, with The Wood That Built London: A Human History of the Great North Wood (in conjunction with the Lambeth Heritage Festival).
The events are livestreamed, so you can attend without leaving your home, if you prefer. Details of links for viewing online are always posted on this site and on the Lambeth Library Events site, nearer the time.
Past events are available to view from the Carnegie Library facebook page.
The doors are open!
Renovations done - and you can still smell the fresh paint...
Why not drop in today (Saturday) for tea & cakes, from 2:30 to 4:30.
Or take a bench in the garden, for a read or a natter...
Christopher Bowden – Mr Magenta
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.
