Book Grocer: 2-8 November

Rachel Holdsworth
By Rachel Holdsworth Last edited 148 months ago
Book Grocer: 2-8 November

Book, poetry and spoken word events in London this week

Wednesday: If you want to meet Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss at Waterstone's Piccadilly, and get them to sign copies of the newly Sherlock-branded Conan Doyle books A Study in Scarlet and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, you should probably get up from your desk and start queueing now. It's first come first served, basically. They start signing at 5.30pm.

Literary Death Match comes to the opening night of the first direct Dialogue Festival at Under the Westway (9.30pm, £5, price includes entry to previous event starting at 8pm). Combatants are John Osborne, Jacques Strauss, Ella Hickson and Olumide Popoola, judges are Ekow Eshun, Laura Dockrill and Neil Denny.

Peter Clark talks about the anthology Emerging Arab Voices, at the Leighton House Museum (7pm, free but book ahead).

Steve Stack talks about things long gone, like cassette tapes, half day closing and milk bottles, at Wood Green's Big Green Bookshop (7pm, free).

Poet Paul Muldoon is at the London Review Bookshop to chat about his latest collection, Maggot (7pm, £7).

Veer Books launch three of their publications at Birkbeck: sable smoke by Gilbert Adair, Black, Grey and White - a book of visual sonnets by David Miller and My Camp by Tom White (7.30pm, free).

Thursday: Poet Molly Naylor's performing her 7/7 show, Whenever I Get Blown Up I Think of You, at the Albany in Deptford (7.30pm, £8 / £6).

Aisle 16 chaps Joe Dunthorne, Ross Sutherland and Tim Clare riff on the theme of videogames at the first direct Dialogue Festival (8pm, £5, ticket also includes Josie Long's show afterwards).

Jem Rolls joins the Bang Said the Gun regular crew at the Roebuck for some stand up poetry (8pm, £5).

Kat Francois hosts Intimates, a night of SLAM poetry, at the Poetry Cafe (8pm, £5 / £3).

Maya Jaggi hosts a Southbank Centre event with Mourid Barghouti, reading from his latest memoirs reflecting on life in Palestine (7.45pm, £15 / £12).

Richard Purnell introduces new spoken word and music night The Bus Driver's Prayer at the Hackney Attic (7.30pm, £3).

Poets from UCL take on poets from the University of Birmingham in a SLAM in Mully's Basement Bar (7.30pm, free).

Friday: There's a ton of lit stuff at the first direct Dialogue Festival tonight: John Cooper Clarke introduces at all three venues and performs at St Peter's at 10pm (£10) - the ticket also includes Tim Key and Hip Hop Shakespeare earlier in the evening. Sabrina Mahfouz is at Under the Westway (9.05pm, but you might as well get there early and catch comedian Phil Nichol) and Kat Francois performs at the Earl of Portobello (8.30pm, free).

Jeffrey Eugenides is at Waterstone's Piccadilly, talking with Claire Armistead about his new novel The Marriage Plot (7pm, £5 / £3).

Denis Dillon and Brian Fanning launch their Lessons for the Big Society book at Wood Green's Big Green Bookshop, with MP David Lammy (7pm, free).

Caroline Squire, Patrick Coldstream, Gillian Henchley and Christopher Morgan perform their work at the Camden Poetry Series (7pm, £5 / £4).

Saturday: Take the kids to Notting Hill to mess about with poetry and see John Hegley perform at the first direct Dialogue Festival (from 12.45pm, free).

Rosie Harris brings her children's puppet show A Roo in my Suitcase to the Half Moon Theatre (11am / 2pm, £6).

Get some metaphorical fireworks with the Farrago SLAM at the Poetry Cafe - poets include Hamza Beg, Nia Barge, Peter Hayhoe, Kemi Taiwo, Kathy Tytler, Jake Wild-Hall with John Paul O'Neill hosting (7.30pm, £6 / £5).

Sunday: Three of the authors shortlisted for this year's Wellcome Trust Book Prize - Alice LaPlante, Sarah Manguso and Louisa Young - are talking about their work at the Wellcome Trust on Euston Road (3pm, free).

Monday: Ali Smith and Margaret Jull Costa celebrate the life and work of Jose Scarmago, at the Royal Society of Literature (7pm, £8 / £5. There will be a limited number of tickets on the door for non-RSL members).

Carol Ann Duffy reads from her new collection, The Bees, at the Southbank Centre (7.30pm, £15 / £12).

Spark London are telling stories about transition, at the Canal Cafe Theatre (7.30pm, £8).

Go to Woolfson & Tay to see Jude Cowan talking to Jon Snow about her poems and visual art responses to the raw, unedited news footage she sees in her day job at Reuters (8pm, £5).

Exiled Writers Ink celebrate women poets and writers at the Poetry Cafe, with Mediah Ahmed, Irene Fick, Alia' Afif Sifri Kawalit, Amina Lachowska, Esther Lipton, Lara Popovic, Dr Shadab Vajdi and Jorge Salgado Rocha (7.30pm, £4 / £2).

Mervyn Peake's sons remember their father, in a celebration of his life and work at Kings Place (7pm, £9.50).

Also at Kings Place are two former US Poet Laureates, Robert Hass and Kay Ryan (7pm, £9.50).

Celebrate More Poetry's sixth birthday in the company of Andrew Cuthbert, Bob Goody and the Bloomsbury Bards (7.15pm, £1).

Tuesday: Liar's League are back at the Phoenix, with actors reading new work on the theme of Might and Right (7.30pm, £5).

Niall O'Sullivan hosts the Poetry Cafe's open mic night Poetry Unplugged (7.30pm, £4 / £3).

Algerian Soleïman Adel Guémar, Albanian Luljeta Lleshanaku and Jordanian Amjad Nasser perform their poetry at the Southbank Centre (7.45pm, £8).

Follow @LondonistLit for our pick of that day’s literary events

Last Updated 02 November 2011