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Conversations on Love – Natasha Lunn

£9.99

On Wednesday 22nd of June Natasha Lunn will be talking in conversation with Julia Samuel at St Mary’s, Primrose Hill – see here for details on how to buy tickets.

After years of feeling that love was always out of reach, journalist Natasha Lunn set out to understand how relationships work and evolve over a lifetime. She turned to authors and experts to learn about their experiences, as well as drawing on her own, asking: How do we find love? How do we sustain it? And how do we survive when we lose it? In Conversations on Love she began to find the answers: Philippa Perry on falling in love slowly, Dolly Alderton on vulnerability, Stephen Grosz on accepting change, Candice Carty-Williams on friendship, Lisa Taddeo on the loneliness of loss, Diana Evans on parenthood, Emily Nagoski on the science of sex, Alain de Botton on the psychology of being alone, Esther Perel on unrealistic expectations, Roxane Gay on redefining romance, and many more…

Edith and Kim – Charlotte Philby

£14.99

Journalist and novelist Charlotte Philby has worked for the Independent, Guardian and Sunday Times, and presented documentaries for the BBC World Service. She is the granddaughter of Kim Philby, Britain’s most infamous communist double-agent and member of the notorious Cambridge spy ring.

In her latest novel, Edith and Kim, she draws on secret intelligence files and Philby’s private archive letters to explore the often-overlooked role of female spies. In a tense and beautifully evocative narrative she tells the story of Edith Tudor-Hart, a Bauhaus trained photographer and communist spy, who introduced the young Kim Philby to his future Soviet handler, the German spy Arnold Deutsch, in June 1934 — on a bench in London’s Regents Park.

Every Family Has A Story – Julia Samuel

£14.99

On Wednesday 22nd of June Julia Samuel will be talking in conversation with Natasha Lunn at St Mary’s, Primrose Hill – see here for details on how to buy tickets.

 

Why do some families thrive in adversity while others fragment? How can families weather difficult transitions together? Why do our families drive us mad? And how can even small changes greatly improve our relationships?In Every Family Has a Story, bestselling psychotherapist Julia Samuel turns from her acclaimed work with individuals to draw on her sessions with a wide variety of families, across multiple generations. Through eight beautifully told and insightful case studies, she analyses a range of common issues, from loss to leaving home, and from separation to step-relationships, and shows how much is, in fact, inherited — and how much can be healed when it is faced together. Exploring the relationships that both touch us most and hurt us most, including the often under-appreciated impact of grandparents and siblings, and incorporating the latest academic research, she offers wisdom that is applicable to us all.

Her twelve touchstones for family well-being — from fighting productively to making time for rituals — provide us with the tools to improve our relationships, and to create the families we wish for. This is a moving and reassuring meditation that, amid trauma and hardship, tells unforgettable stories of forgiveness, hope and love.

The BBC: A People’s History – David Hendy

£25.00

On Wednesday 29th June, David Hendy will be in conversation with Simon Shaps at St Mary’s, Primrose Hill, discussing the past, present, and future of the BBC – see here for details and to buy tickets.

David Hendy is a writer, broadcaster and Emeritus professor of Media and Cultural History at the University of Sussex.

In his latest work The BBC: A People’s History, published to mark its centenary, he tells the dramatic story of the people who built and developed the BBC, and traces the evolution of a global broadcasting company against the background of the enormous transformation of British society over the past century.

The result is a fascinating account of its maverick beginnings, the wartime years, the creation of television, changing public taste, austerity and the huge challenges posed by competing television channels, the internet and streaming services. Above all, it is a lively popular history of a much loved and admired institution, full of characters, stories and incident.

White Debt: The Demerara Uprising and Britain’s Legacy of Slavery – Thomas Harding

£20.00

On Wednesday 15th June, Thomas Harding will be talking about his new book White Debt: The Demerara Uprising and Britain’s Legacy of Slavery at St Mary’s Primrose Hill – see here for more information and to buy tickets.

 

When Thomas Harding discovered that his mother’s family had made money from plantations worked by enslaved people, what began as an interrogation into the choices of his ancestors soon became a quest to learn more about Britain’s role in slavery. It was a history that he knew surprisingly little about – the myth that we are often taught in schools is that Britain’s role in slavery was as the abolisher, but the reality is much more sinister. In WHITE DEBT, Harding vividly brings to life the story of the uprising by enslaved people that took place in the British colony of Demerara (now Guyana) in the Caribbean in 1823.

It started on a small sugar plantation called ‘Success’ and grew to become a key trigger in the abolition of slavery across the empire. We see the uprising through the eyes of four people: the enslaved man Jack Gladstone, the missionary John Smith, the colonist John Cheveley, and the politician and slaveholder John Gladstone, father of a future prime minister. Charting the lead-up to the uprising right through to the courtroom drama that came about as a consequence, through this one event we see the true impact of years of unimaginable cruelty and incredible courage writ large.

Captivating, moving and meditative, WHITE DEBT combines a searing personal quest with a deep investigation of a shared history that is little discussed amongst White people. It offers a powerful rebuttal of the national amnesia that masks the role of the British in this devastating period, and asks vital questions about the legacy we have been left with – cultural, political and moral – and whether future generations of those who benefited from slavery need to acknowledge and take responsibility for the White Debt.