Events

How can we build - or rebuild - a collective culture that is able to both respect difference and draw us together to work for the common good? In association with Merchant Taylors' School, we welcome Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks to discuss the release of his new book: "Morality, why we need it and how to find it" Released on 5th March 2020, Lord Sacks talks to key modern influencers and thinkers - including Jordan Peterson, Melinda Gates and David…

PLEASE NOTE VENUE CHANGE to the Reach Free school due to popular demand. 'If change is the natural order of things, why do so many people struggle with the milestones of life - from first jobs and first loves to children leaving home and retirement?’ Join us for an evening of reflection on the theme of change with acclaimed psychotherapist Julia Samuel and her new book, "This Too Shall Pass". Based on hours of conversations with her patients showing how…

Come and hear Tim Bouverie, historian and journalist, talk about his book and Sunday Times Bestseller, Appeasing Hitler: Chamberlain, Churchill and the Road to War, the first significant narrative history of appeasement and a compelling reappraisal of one of the most controversial episodes in history. On a wet afternoon in September 1938, Neville Chamberlain stepped off an aeroplane and announced that his visit to Hitler had averted the greatest crisis in recent memory. It was, he later assured the crowd…

Every now and then a book comes along which absolutely blows our minds from the start.  My Dark Vanessa by American, Kate Elizabeth Russell, (out 31/03/20) is one of these. My Dark Vanessa is a beautifully crafted telling of an unsettling subject matter done with compassion and dignity.  It’s important we point out that the subject matter of the book deals with teacher/student underage relationships and the abuse of power which comes with that.  In the book, Vanessa Wye is…

We're delighted to welcome back Hugo Vickers after his expert interview with Lady Anne Glenconner in December to talk about his authorised autobiography of Cecil Beaton, one of Britain's greatest cultural icons.  The paperback re-release is in conjunction with a major exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery this year titled Bright Young Things. Beaton was known, not just as a photographer capturing some of the most celebrated portraits of the 20th century, but also as a designer of the iconic sets…

Gripping, even gruesome, yet deeply moving, Crucible of Hell sweeps us masterfully from a coral charnel house in the Pacific to the mushroom cloud over Hiroshima. David Reynolds Too often missing from Western-centric narratives of the Second World War, this 82-day blood-soaked clash in the Pacific had profound consequences not only for the war but for the modern world, ultimately leading to President Truman’s decision to deploy the atomic bomb. For the ferocity of the fighting and the loss of life on both…

It is 1997, and someone is slaughtering young black women in Burdon County, Arkansas. But no one wants to admit it, not in the Dirty South. In an Arkansas jail cell sits a former NYPD detective, stricken by grief. He is mourning the death of his wife and child and searching in vain for their killer. He cares only for his own lost family. But that is about to change . . . We welcome John Connolly, author of the…

After a chance meeting in the pub, Roger Morgan-Grenville and his friend Duncan decide to take up beekeeping. Their enthusiasm matched only by their ignorance, they are pitched into an arcane world of unexpected challenges. Coping with many setbacks along the way, they manage to create a colony of beehives, finishing two years later with more honey than anyone knows what to do with. By standing back from their normal lives and working with the cycle of the seasons, they…