The Londonist Literary List appears every Tuesday. If you’d like to bring an event to our attention, please email [email protected].
To start us off, 3AM Magazine has an interview with Tom McCarthy whose debut novel, Remainder, has just been published by Alma Books, and whose critical essay, Tintin and the Secret Literature, is reviewed in the Guardian.
And sticking with comics, Free New Books provides an eclectic library of downloadable reads, of most interest to us the Graphic Novels section, especially Warren Ellis’ Storm Watch, with Jenny Sparks (pictured), the chain smoking, London-born spirit of the 20th century (yes really).
Tonight
Which is the most important book ever written? Journalist Francis Wheen, philosopher Simon Blackburn and academic Janet Browne discuss the “Books that Shook the World” including Marx's Das Capital, Plato's Republic and Darwin's Origin of the Species. 6.30pm, The Gallery at Foyles, email [email protected] for free tickets.
Xinran’s weekly Guardian pieces What the Chinese Don’t Eat are in a new compilation “covering a vast range of topics, from food to sex education and British adoption of Chinese babies” and tonight is your chance to meet her at 7pm, £5, Daunt Books, 83 Marylebone High Street, London W1U 4QW (020) 7224 2295.
If you’re a Bob Dylan fan, you won’t want to miss Michael Gray’s “one man show with sound” based on his new compilation The Bob Dylan Encyclopaedia. 7pm, £6, London Review Bookshop, 14 Bury Place, London WC1A 2JL. 020 7269 9030.
Thursday
Over at the Hackney Empire, Michael Smith reads from The Giro Playboy, with music by Flora, while Will Ashon gives a reading from his Clear Water; both performances are part of the Spice Festival, 8pm, free, see their website for more.
As part of the Irish Writers in London Summer School 2006, Fergal Keane, the award-winning foreign correspondent for the BBC will be reading and discussing his recent bestselling memoir All of These People - 6pm, £7 (£5 concs) Room TM237, Tower Building, London Metropolitan University, Holloway Rd, London N7 8DB. To reserve a seat, contact: Kathy O’Regan on 0207 133 2913 or [email protected]
Monday
Finally this week, playwright, novelist and translator Michael Frayn’s discusses his new novel Towards the End of Morning about Fleet Street. 6.30pm, £6/£4, British Library Conference Centre, St Pancras, 96 Euston Road, London NW1. Tickets (020) 7412 7332.
