Events at BookBar
BookBar is far more than a bookshop. Our events are at the heart of what we do, bringing people together through books.
We've recently hosted live events with Hanya Yanagihara, Caleb Azumah Nelson, Monica Heisey, Dolly Alderton, Nikki May, Emma Gannon, Shon Faye, Monica Ali, Julia Armfield, Laura Bates, Emily Ratajkowski, Natasha Lunn and Gabrielle Zevin amongst others.
Watch this space for our regular and special events, and sign up to our mailing list to keep up to date with all the latest news.
Upcoming In-Person Events
BookBar Presents...
Naoise Dolan in conversation with Megan Nolan
Thursday 25th May 2023, 7pm
The Church at the Crypt on the Green / via Live Stream
Join Naoise Dolan, author of Exciting Times, in conversation with journalist and author Megan Nolan for an exclusive publication day event celebrating Naoise's latest novel, The Happy Couple.
Meet the happy couple. Luke and Celine, are in mutual unrequited love with each other, set to marry in a year's time. The best man, Archie, is meant to want to move up the corporate ladder and on from his love for Luke; yet he stands where he is, admiring the view.
The bridesmaid, Phoebe, Celine's sister, has no long-term aspirations beyond smoking her millionth cigarette and getting to the bottom of Luke's frequent unexplained disappearances. Then there's the guest, Vivian, who with the benefit of some emotional distance, methodically observes her friends like ants. As the wedding approaches and these five lives intersect, each character will find themselves looking for a path to their happily ever after - but does it lie at the end of an aisle?
Naoise Dolan makes the Marriage Plot entirely her own in a sparkling ensemble novel that is both ferociously clever and supremely enjoyable.
Join us on 25th May at the Church at Crypt on the Green at 7pm.
Naoise Dolan is an Irish writer born in Dublin. She studied at Trinity College, followed by a master’s in Victorian literature at Oxford. She writes fiction, essays, criticism and features for publications including The London Review of Books, The Guardian and Vogue. Naoise’s debut novel EXCITING TIMES was published by W&N in the UK and by Ecco in the US in 2020, and became a Sunday Times bestseller, widely translated and optioned for TV. She has been shortlisted and longlisted for several prizes, including The Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Dylan Thomas Prize and The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award.
Megan Nolan was born in 1990 in Waterford, Ireland and is currently based in London. Her writing includes essays, fiction and reviews which have been published widely including in The New York Times,The White Review, The Sunday Times, The Village Voice, The Guardian and in the literary anthology, Winter Papers. Regular columns of her cultural commentary appear in i newspaper, Huck Magazine and the New Statesman. Readings and performances commissioned across the U.K. and Ireland have included the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Goldsmiths Lit Live, Kunstraum Gallery, Cubitt Gallery, Wysing Arts Centre and the South London Gallery. Internationally, her work has also appeared at Hyper Local Festival in Buenos Aires and the Sandberg Institute’s “Wandering School” in Milan. Her debut novel Acts of Desperation was published by Jonathan Cape and Little, Brown US in 2021.
Please note that books will available for collection at the event only or posted out after publication on 25th May.
The event will start promptly at 7pm, finishing by 8:15pm, followed by a book signing.
We are not able to accept refunds or exchanges on tickets for this event.
The Church at the Crypt on the Green has steps up to its entrance.
BookBar Presents...
Emma Cline in conversation with Julia Armfield
Monday 5th June 2023, 7pm
The Chapel at House of St Barnabas
Join Emma Cline, bestselling author of The Girls, in conversation with author Julia Armfield for an exclusive London event to celebrate Emma's next, brilliant novel The Guest.
Summer is coming to a close on Long Island, and Alex is no longer welcome... One misstep at a dinner party and the older man she's been staying with dismisses her with a ride to the train station and a ticket back to the city. With few resources, but a gift for navigating the desires of others, Alex stays on the island.
She drifts like a ghost through the gated driveways and sun-blasted dunes of a rarefied world, trailing destruction in her wake. Taut, sensual and impossible to look away from, The Guest captures the latent heat and potential danger of a summer that could go either way for a young woman teetering on the edge.
Emma Cline is the author of The Girls, the story collection Daddy, and The Guest. The Girls was an international bestseller and was a finalist for a National Book Critic's Circle Award, the First Novel Prize, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and was the winner of the Shirley Jackson Award. The winner of the Plimpton Prize, Cline was also named one of Granta's Best Young American Novelists. In 2021, she won an O. Henry Prize for 'White Noise'. Her stories and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The New York Times, Granta and The Best American Short Stories.
Julia Armfield is a fiction writer, living in London with her girlfriend who is fine and their cat who is garbage. Her work has been published in Granta, The White Review, Best British Short Stories 2019 and 2021, Lighthouse and various other publications. She was longlisted for the Deborah Rogers Prize 2018 and was the winner of The White Review Short Story Prize 2018. In 2019, she was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year award. Her debut collection, salt slow, was longlisted for the Polari Prize 2020 and the Edge Hill Prize 2020 and was shortlisted for the London Magazine Prize for Debut Fiction 2020. Our Wives Under The Sea was shortlisted for the Foyles Fiction Book of the Year Award 2022. Her story ‘Longshore Drift’ won a Pushcart Prize in 2020.
Join us on Monday 5th June at the Chapel at the House of St Barnabas, 1 Greek Street, London at 7pm.
Your ticket includes a copy of The Guest by Emma Cline (RRP: £16.99). Other books by Emma and Julia will be available to purchase on the night. The event will be followed by a signing.
If you are a member of House of St Barnbas, you can head to their website to purchase your ticket for a special price.
Books will be available for collection from BookBar on Blackstock Road from 18th May or can be collected at the event on 5th June. You can opt to have your copy posted once the book is published on 18th May.
The event will start promptly at 7pm, finishing by 8:15pm, followed by a book signing.
We are not able to accept refunds or exchanges on tickets for this event.
The BookBar BookClub
BookBar is all about bringing people together through books. We know that half the fun of reading the book is discussing it with fellow readers afterwards, preferably with a glass of wine or cup of coffee.
BookBar's book club is created especially for that purpose. Our virtual book club promises all the fun of the in-person thing, and some additional surprises.
How does it work?
Sign up, receive your book in advance of the book club with plenty of time to read it, send in the questions and discussion points you'd like us to talk about, and come along to a virtual interview with the author, in which we'll discuss the book. You'll receive a link to the online event a few days before.
Your ticket price includes a copy of the book, as well as attendance at the virtual event. Buy a ticket to a single event for £18 or subscribe to the book club for £15 a month.
As we pick the freshest paperbacks, the books get sent out at the same time each month to all subscribers, regardless of when the ticket was purchased, so the 3-5 day shipping window does not apply for BookClub purchases as in most cases the books have not yet been published when the programme is launched.
***NB: If you have previously subscribed to the BookClub and are still making monthly payments, you do not need to sign up again as your subscription is still active***