Upcoming Events at David's Bookshop
Alongside our weekly Games Night and our Silent Book Club evenings, we host regular events with authors, cooks, musicians and more.
Have a browse of our current programme below.
Dave Goulson for The Bee Spotter's Guide
Dave Goulson is a British ecologist who specialises in insect ecology and conservation, with particular emphasis on bumblebees. Author of the bestselling Silent Earth, A Buzz in the Meadow and more.
About The Bee Spotter's Guide:
Bees are much-loved and hugely important creatures. But most of us know next to nothing about them. There are actually over 200 species in this country.
They live in burrows, holes in trees and even empty snail shells. They have favourite flowers. Some even sleep curled up in the blooms.
They are more fascinating, beautiful and surprising than you can imagine. Once you start to notice bees, sitting in the garden or going for a stroll will never be the same. This handy little guide is the perfect way to start the journey.
It’s beautifully illustrated and has a delightful and thoughtful text by one of Britain’s leading bee experts, Dave Goulson.Discover mason bees and mining bees, cuckoo bees and carder bees, even a couple of convincing bee impersonators. Learn to distinguish your white-tailed bumblebee from your buff-tailed bumblebee, your pantaloon bee from your hairy-footed flower bee.
Polly Barton for What Am I, A Deer?
Join us for an evening with Polly Barton. Polly is a literary translator and writer.
Polly has written two acclaimed non-fiction works, Fifty Sounds and Porn. Her translations from Japanese to English include the bestselling Butter by Asako Yuzuki, Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda, There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job by Kikuko Tsumura, and Spring Garden by Tomoka Shibasaki.
What does it mean to lose yourself – and is that something you should be aiming for? A young woman with little interest in games takes up a job in Frankfurt at a famous gaming company, naively set on reinvention. On her morning commute, in the familiar clutches of tedium and self-loathing, she encounters a nice-eyed stranger who returns her forgotten umbrella and finds herself catapulted into a dizzying, year-long whirlwind of obsession – not just with this endlessly attractive spectre, but also with the feverish karaoke trips from which she draws the ultimate solace. With astonishing existential acuity, Polly Barton’s formidable debut novel renders the paradoxes of modern life in all its complexity, in deliriously self-conscious prose that is at once propulsive, titillating and bitingly funny.
Echoing with the sounds of Whitney Houston and The Cure, reaching for the sublime in dark, sweaty boxes, What Am I, A Deer? is an exhilarating exploration of authenticity, fantasy, romance and intoxication.
Richard Negus for Words from the Hedge
Hedges are as old as civilisation and as emblematic of the British countryside as chalk streams, hay meadows and oak trees. But unlike woodland and rivers, farmland hedges remain on the periphery of the public consciousness, often going unnoticed and almost always underappreciated.
Join us for an evening of enlightening, engaging and entertaining conversation with professional hedgelayer, conservationist, writer and author, Richard Negus.
In his book WORDS FROM THE HEDGE - A Hedgelayer's View of the Countryside', Richard takes us on a journey that reveals these ribbons of thorn and barb are so much more than mere decoration or boundary markers. They are essential for much-needed wildlife recovery. Each hedge is a testament to generations of human skill and labour, requiring ongoing maintenance to survive and thrive.
Richard has been heralded as "the hedgerow's one true champion" by celebrated Countryside Writer John Lewis-Stempel, and his book praised for being "joyful and illuminating" and "an important, funny and passionate defence of the British countryside".
Richard Negus is a former soldier and professional horseman. He now lays hedges for a living and is recognised as one of the country’s leading exponents and practitioners of hedgerow management and rejuvenation. He lives in Suffolk, co-hosts a weekly podcast - Countryslide - covering British rural life and work, and writes for publications including The Daily Telegraph, The Critic and Scribehound.
Alison Weir for The Boleyn Secret
Join us for a night with Alison Weir, celebrating her captivating new novel The Boleyn Secret.
A Boleyn woman is no stranger to secrets... At twelve years old, Kate Carey attends her aunt, Queen Anne Boleyn, to the scaffold.
Horrified by what she witnesses, Kate is convinced that King Henry VIII has sent an innocent woman to a terrible death. As the Boleyns fall from favour, Kate serves her now motherless cousin, the young Lady Elizabeth. Bound by Boleyn blood, the two girls are like sisters, until Kate marries for love - and leaves a jealous Elizabeth behind.
At court, Kate cannot ignore the sly looks thrown her way, nor the whispers behind her back. Only when her mother, Mary, lies dying, does she learn the life-shattering truth that the Boleyns have been hiding for years. It is a secret that will haunt Kate throughout her life, as her family flee into exile, only returning home when Elizabeth becomes queen.
But the bond between the Boleyn cousins will never be the same again...