Tra la, it’s May, the lusty month of May – and we, apparently, feel like singing. Is it the gorgeous weather? The lovely literary events in our diary? Our trips up and down the too-hot-to-trot Northern Line? The Pimm’s coursing through our veins? (No, surely not that.) Need to ramp up your own book lust for the week? Then have a gander at our groceries: Wednesday: Your choice of poetry events today: As part......

Saturday's sun found Londonist in a local park with a well-thumbed paperback and a bottle of Scrumpy, relishing a summer's worth of idle weekends. Sunday's inclement weather dashed those dreams, but luckily there's a wealth of literary diversions to take our mind off things. Tuesday: Joseph Kony stands as possibly the most ruthless individual in a region that is sadly no stranger to slaughter on a mass scale. The leader of the Lord's Rebel......

Is it just your imagination, or is Londonist going all literary on you for the second time today? No, it’s true: we’re just that geeky. But if the Bard’s birthday bash doesn’t have you all hot and bothered this week (speaketh it softly, or surrender thine literati creds), here are a few alternatives to keep you otherwise engaged. Tuesday: If you haven’t booked already, there are still a few seats left to hear Isabel......

A basket full of groceries tempts the book-loving Londoner this week, so let's cut to the chase: Monday: Lots going on this evening. Tickets are still available for a heavyweight foreign affairs chinwag at the Southbank Centre. Longtime Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk, award-winning reporter Christina Lamb and novelist (and occasional Martin Amis basher) Ronan Bennett discuss contemporary reportage and non-fiction at the opening event of the Centre's Writing From The Frontline series. Tickets......

Dispensing with the (attempts at) witty chitchat this week and diving right in... Monday: Still time to get tickets for the Last Tuesday Society’s Hendrick’s Cocktail Party tonight. And should you wonder what tenuous connection we’re trying to make between gin and literature (we won’t play the Snoop Dogg Gin and Juice card just yet), hang on there! It’s not so tenuous. On tap at tonight’s party, along with an abundance of Hendrick’s, is......

Cadbury creme eggs! Don’t you just love ’em? Ha ha, the book grocer sure does! Advance apologies if this week’s serving is full of even more exclamations than usual – we just might be hyped up on milk chocolatey goodness right now. Eventually we’ll crash, feel a bit ill, and begin to suspect that the beady little eyes on those choco bunnies are watching our every move. If the same happens to you (or......

We began this week with a great big gaping void: the very excellent London Word Festival has come to an end (though you can watch highlights here), and our nearly 40-day-long combination chocolate and carbon dioxide fast has left us, well, a bit snippy (we’ll certainly be biting the heads off those cloyingly cute Lindt bunnies come this weekend). In short, we didn’t have great expectations for the week. Yet, after taking a look......

There are just too many good events around town this week for us to narrow our picks for certain nights. Thus we present you with multiple options and leave that difficult choice to you. In the meantime, we’ll be brushing up on our science fiction in an effort to figure out how to move quickly from event to event. The solution? Teleporting. Clearly. Monday: writLoud returns to RADA tonight. We like this event, as......

March already? How did that happen? The perils of having our head buried in a book so much of the time, no doubt. If we must emerge this week from our cosy little book-enclosed chrysalis, it’ll likely be to head to the following events. Monday: The RSL-sponsored TS Eliot Memorial meeting brings together award-winning poets Alice Oswald and Kathleen Jamie for an evening of readings from their work. Both have been lauded for the......

Even on its quietest weeks, London is something of a happy haven for bibliophiles such as ourselves, though we may be doing nothing more than perusing one of the city’s many lovely bookshops. This week, however, we’re in a veritable book geek heaven, as the London literary scene goes all glittery, playing host to some major names and fantastic events, leaving us tongue-tied and weak at the knees. Do we gush? Very well then,......

Hang on to your TLSs. Literary London is a lioness roaring in a few weeks ahead of her regularly scheduled appearance in March. With both the London Word Festival and Jewish Book Week launching this week, we’ve got enough events in our diary to keep us busy until spring. Keep an eye on this space as we highlight our favourites from these festivals over the next couple of weeks. Monday: You want poetry? RADA’s......

The book grocer’s coffers are chockfull of goodies this week, so let’s jump right in and get shopping... Monday: Crikey. Take a look at author and critic George Steiner’s publishing credits and you have to wonder whether the man has actually slept in the past fifty years. Yet the premise of the prolific writer’s most recent work, My Unwritten Books, is that there are actually some subjects that Steiner has purposely left unexplored. Join......

Congratulations – you can read! (Presumably. Unless you just look at Londonist for the pictures.) Literacy is sexy. Hyper-literacy, even sexier. Or so we at Londonist tell ourselves as we don our Coke-bottle glasses and curl up each night with a bottle of wine and a dictionary. But enough about our steamy Valentine’s Day plans. What have you got planned? Now, you may have inferred that we’re a jaded lot over here at Londonist.......

Happy February, FOBGs. Another healthy serving of book groceries awaits you this week. Stick to a well-rounded book diet, and you’re sure to stave off a winter cold. We have no actual data to support this contention – we’re book geeks, not science nerds – but it certainly sounds promising. So eat your greens, drink your grains, and check back later this week for a bonus edition of the Book Grocer especially dedicated to......

A conspiracy is afoot. Literary London is listless and lethargic these next few days – after back-to-back Burns Night and Australia Day outings this weekend, we can relate – yet there’s an explosion of midweek activity, leaving us paranoid that the powers-that-be are plotting to drive us crazy, leave us whimpering and indecisive, cursing our inability to be in two places at once. Yes, between this and the stock market madness, we’re a short......

Perhaps your New Year’s resolutions have all made their way to the rubbish bin by now. You’re sneaking ciggies again, you’re spending more nights at the pub than not, and you’ve worked out exactly two times, despite the shiny new gym membership. Don’t worry, you’re in good company. The history of literature is filled with stories of writers and their vices. It may just be a sign of genius. Still, you can up your......

Greetings, FOBGs (that’s Friends of the Book Grocer to the uninitiated), and a belated happy new year to you all! After an extended holiday slumber (bad, lazy Book Grocer), we return to bring you our weekly picks for the best of London’s literary(ish) events. And so, without further ado, let’s jump right in, shall we? Today: One too many spoonfuls of sugar this holiday season? Counteract it with a Spoonful of Poisoning at Rhythm......

2007 is quickly slipping away, and with it the few remaining book events for the year. As most of us are busy buying books for the bibliophiles on our shopping lists rather than reading or going to signings this week, we thought we’d present you with an alternative Book Grocer today. For those of you already finished with your shopping (you overachievers you), the traditional listings follow. If, like Londonist, you go for the......

This week’s events are top-heavy with poetry readings. Have our novelist friends squirreled themselves away to write tomes in their Christmas cards, we wonder? Monday: Head to the RADA Foyer Bar for a reading from the Poetry School’s third anthology, I am twenty people! All inferences to the contrary, there will actually be six, not twenty, new poets reading from their work. Free, 7.00pm. Tuesday: We were reminded last week that poetry isn’t just......

Ahoy hoy, book grocery shoppers! The metaphorical book grocer aisles are stocked high with choice meats and sweet confections this December, so whatever your tastes, fill up your shopping cart and gorge yourself on this week’s selection of literary events – they’ll give you much less of a stomach-ache than mince pies. Monday: Revisit Sylvia Plath by attending the aptly named Sylvia Plath Revisited, at the ICA (7pm in the Nash Room £10 nonmembers/£9......

After a 2-month hiatus spent reading Finnegans Wake (alright, would you believe rubbish romance novels?), The Book Grocer returns, with a continually evolving format and its diary stuffed full with book-ish events. Here are our picks for the week: Tuesday: Anne Sebba, author of Jennie Churchill, Winston’s American Mother, in conversation with Hugh Whitemore, playwright and writer of the Emmy-award winning Winston Churchill drama The Gathering Storm, at Waterstone’s Notting Hill Gate store, 7pm,......

Just out the Van: Autumn is definitely upon us - time to start wrapping up at home with a good book. Or you could throw caution to the (nippy) wind and head to Book Slam next Thursday to bask in the warm glow of literati (gliterati?) including Sarfraz Manzoor (reading from his memoir "Greetings from Bury Park"), Zimbabwean singer-songwriter Netsayi, and poet Polar Bear... Next Thursday at Neighbourhood, £5/£6, 12 Acklam Road, W10 5QZ,......

Fresh this Week: If news of the impending Doctor Who hiatus is giving you palpitations, fear not – the Book Grocer brings you not one but three new books based on the popular series: Paul Magrs – Sick Building The Doctor and Martha travel to Tiermann’s World, a planet where sabre-toothed tigers still roam. They arrive to warn everyone that an extremely hungry alien creature is on its way and if they don’t take action......

Fresh this Week: Amr Gharbeia and Hari Kunzru consider the internet as a space for free expression and censorship at this event tonight. Amr Gharbeia is a leading Egyptian blogger, currently facing a legal campaign to block his website along with other blogs and human rights sites in Egypt. Hari Kunzru's novels and non-fiction engage with the theme of new technology and his recent writing highlights the complexities of internet censorship as a source......

Just out the Van: Lights, Music, Words, Action - It’s Book Slam time again with Guatam Malkani, author of the Londonstani, Salena Godden, writer, singer, and raconteur, and Iman, winner of the National Music Award. This Thursday at Neighbourhood, 6.30pm till late, 12 Aclam Road, W10 5QZ, £5 in advance or £6 on the door. Fresh Next Week: Michael Palin leads a reading from Another Sky, a new collection of work by writers whose lives......