The Firestation

GA £5

A literary event with a difference.

Novelist Marie Phillips, author of Gods Behaving Badly and publisher Scott Pack host an evening of conversation and banter with a cracking line-up of guest writers.

Don't expect the polite, reserved atmosphere you would normally find at a literary gathering – The Book Swap is irreverent, entertaining and slightly chaotic. You won’t hear boring speeches, the same old questions or authors reading from their latest book - but you could witness almost anything else.

Audience members are required to bring an unwanted book along with them which they will have an opportunity to swap for a different on one on the night. No one leaves empty handed.

Joining Marie and Scott this month will be historian Kate Williams and novelist Charlie Williams. Kate's biographies of the young Queen Victoria and Emma Hamilton were both critically acclaimed and her first novel is published next year. Charlie writes hardboiled crime novels with a wry sense of humour, hailed as 'fantastic' by Mark Billingham.

"Certainly a literary event with a difference... I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Book Swap evening doesn't become the popular way to mix books, writers and the reading public." - Robert McCrum, Guardian

"this is exactly the kind of blog-linked, local event that publishers should be really encouraging, a sort of odd cross between a public reading and a book group." - Emma Townshend, Independent

Don’t forget to bring a book!

Approximate show times 2 x 45 mins with interval.