Pages Of Hackney

"Laing’s prose shimmers and is selfish then, suddenly, full of love. It’s a high-wire act. This is the novel as a love letter to Acker. She gives her a happier ending than the one she had. She asks us what a novel can do when unreality rules. She asks what it is like to be alive when the old order is dying."
Join us on May 28th at Sutton House when we'll be marking the publication of Olivia Laing's phenomenal debut novel, Crudo, in paperback. In one of only two events for this new edition, Olivia will be speaking with Octavia Bright of Hackney's very own Literary Friction. We can't wait!
Info/tickets: Crudo: Olivia Laing in conversation with Octavia Bright

We're very excited to welcome Susie Thomas, Nadia Valman, and Ken Worpole to discuss SO WE LIVE, a new collection of essays exploring the work of Hackney novelist Alexander Baron.
The novelist Alexander Baron (1917-1999) was born into a working class Jewish home in Hackney, joined the Communist Party as a young man, saw the thick of battle in Sicily and Normandy, and became one of the most admired writers of post-war Britain. His first novel, FROM THE CITY, FROM THE PLOUGH (1...948), was acclaimed as the definitive novel of the Second World War, the first of a trilogy including THERE'S NO HOME (1950) and THE HUMAN KIND (1953). This was followed by a string of novels about working class life in post-war London, including THE LOWLIFE (1963) a cult novel for many other writers ever since. In recent years his reputation has flourished with many of his fifteen novels back in print. This is the first detailed study of the man and his work.
Dr Susie Thomas has taught Baron’s London novels on her literature courses to American undergraduates in London for many years. The students always say the same thing: “The Lowlife is awesome. Why isn’t Baron better known?” It is difficult to know how to answer. She has published articles on British Literature from Aphra Behn to Martin Amis. She edited HANIF KUREISHI: A READER'S GUIDE TO ESSENTIAL CRITICISM and she is the Reviews Editor for the The Literary London Journal.
Dr Nadia Valman is Reader in English Literature at Queen Mary, University of London. She has published widely on British Jewish literature, including a survey of the postwar British Jewish novel in the Oxford History of the Novel in English, editing British Jewish Women Writers and co-editing the Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Jewish Cultures. She is the creator of Zangwill’s Spitalfields, a walking tour app using Israel Zangwill’s classic novel of Jewish immigration, Children of the Ghetto (1892) as a guide to Spitalfields, east London, where the novel is set. She is currently researching the literature of east London.
Ken Worpole is a writer on architecture, landscape and public policy, and was Emeritus Professor at the Cities Institute, London Metropolitan University. He has a particular interest in the literature of east London and Hackney, where he and his wife, the photographer, Larraine Worpole, have lived and worked since 1969. Ken’s 1983 interview with Alexander Baron formed the basis of his pioneering re-appraisal of Baron’s fiction in his first book, DOCKERS & DETECTIVES, a study of post-war British working class fiction, published in 1983 and re-issued in an updated edition by Five Leaves in 2008.
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Only a week to go until Jeffrey Boakye joins us to discuss his highly-anticipated new book, Black, Listed, with JJ Bola. If you're quick you could snap up one of the last remaining tickets. Don't snooze!

Just in from Repeater Books is a title we’ve been looking forward to seeing hit the shelves for some time! In Justify My Love, Ryann Donnelly combines an in-depth cultural history of sex and gender in music video with an intimate personal account of what it means to be a performer.
Through the subversive thrusts of early-MTV superstars like Madonna and George Michael to the radical post-Black Lives Matter formations of Beyoncé, via the alien writhings of Arca and Lady Gaga, a...nd the boundaries pushed by contemporary queer performers like Le1f, Mykki Blanco, Perfume Genius, Brooke Candy, and Frank Ocean, Justify My Love argues that music video—perhaps more than any other medium—has been responsible for repeatedly transforming mainstream notions of identity.
Donnelly also reckons with her own career as an artist and performer, examining the energies that flow between performer and audience and the powers such relationships create. The power of looking, the power of becoming, the power of having a body and using it to speak.
In stock now, and available to buy on our site for collection or delivery!
https://pagesofhackney.co.uk/product/just ify-my-love/
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Join us for the first public reading of ‘Look at Us’, a play collaboration by the writers and poets JJ Bola and Daniel Kramb.
In a dingy Dalston flatshare a young couple are sitting it out. Unable to deal with what’s happening out there, and what isn’t for them, they are spending their nights and days in bed, in thrall of social media, utterly powerless. Will you dare to look at them?
Featuring original music and poetry, ’Look at Us’ is a timely short play that takes on the p...olitical situation, gender roles, class, sexuality, and the influence of social media.
We welcome the authors and the director, Liisa Smith, as two actors read the script for this first opportunity to hear the work, leave your feedback, and perhaps even get involved.
JJ Bola is a writer and poet of three collections; ‘Elevate’ (2012), ‘Daughter of the Sun’ (2014), and ‘WORD’ (2015). His debut novel, ‘No Place to Call Home’, was first published in the UK in 2017.
Daniel Kramb is the author of three novels; ‘Central’ (2015), ‘From Here’ (2012), and ‘Dark Times’ (2010); and a collection of poetry; ‘Timid Takes’ (2013). Originally from Germany, he has lived and worked in London since 2003.
Originally from Estonia, Liisa Smith graduated from King’s College London / RADA with a postgraduate degree in theatre directing. Previous London credits include The Highway Crossing at the Blue Elephant Theatre and The Arcola (Time Out Critic’s Choice), On Raftery’s Hill at The Rosemary Branch (Time Out 4***), The Bird Sanctuary at The Rosemary Branch (Time Out Critic’s Choice), Happy Everyday! at The Lion and Unicorn, An Experiment with an Air Pump at the Lion and Unicorn (co-produced with The Giant Olive Theatre Company), and Belfy at The Space. Estonian credits include Poor Beast in the Rain (Vanemuine Repertory Theatre), Purge (Vanemuine Repertory Theatre: extended for three seasons, completed a national tour, and performed by invitation at the Finnish National Theatre), and chamber opera The Last Monogamist (Kamber). St Albans productions include The Beauty Queen of Leenane at the Abbey Theatre; and God of Carnage, Under the Blue Sky, and Betrayal at the Maltings Arts Theatre.
Photo: Jean Casey
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Join us for the London launch of Jet McDonald's MIND IS THE RIDE, a two-wheeled tour of philosophical thought that uses bike components and the ride to understand our relationship with the world. Jet will read from the book before being joined for a discussion by cycle tourer and Pages of Hackney's manager, Jo Heygate.
When Jet McDonald cycled four thousand miles to India and back, he didn’t want to write a straightforward travel book. He wanted to go on an imaginative journe...y.
Mind is the Ride takes the reader on a physical and intellectual adventure from West to East using the components of a bike as a metaphor for philosophy, which is woven into the cyclist's experience. Each chapter is based around a single component, and as Jet travels he adds new parts and new philosophies until the bike is ‘built’; the ride to India is completed; and the relationship between mind, body and bicycle made apparent.
The age of the travelogue is over: today we need to travel inwardly to see the world with fresh eyes. Mind is the Ride is that journey, a pedal-powered antidote to the petrol-driven philosophies of the past.
Jet McDonald is a writer, musician, and psychiatrist. He is the author of many articles for Boneshaker Magazine and has written for the Idler. He is a member of the Philosophy Special Interest Group of Royal College of Psychiatrists.
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To mark the publication of the new paperback edition of her novel, CRUDO, we're incredibly excited to welcome Olivia Laing for a discussion with Octavia Bright.
Kathy is a writer. Kathy is getting married. It’s the summer of 2017 and the whole world is falling apart.
From a Tuscan hotel for the super-rich to a Brexit-paralysed UK, Kathy spends the first summer of her 40s trying to adjust to making a lifelong commitment just as Trump is tweeting the world into nuclear war. But... it’s not only Kathy who’s changing. Political, social and natural landscapes are all in peril. Fascism is on the rise, truth is dead, the planet is hotting up. Is it really worth learning to love when the end of the world is nigh? And how do you make art, let alone a life, when one rogue tweet could end it all.
Olivia Laing radically rewires the novel in a brilliant, funny and emphatically raw account of love in the apocalypse. A Goodbye to Berlin for the 21st century, CRUDO charts in real time what it was like to live and love in the horrifying summer of 2017, from the perspective of a commitment-phobic peripatetic artist who may or may not be Kathy Acker...
Olivia Laing is a widely acclaimed writer and critic. She's the author of TO THE RIVER (Canongate, 2011), THE TRIP TO ECHO SPRING (Canongate, 2013), and THE LONELY CITY (Canongate, 2016), which has been translated into 15 languages. She writes for many publications, including the Guardian and New Statesman, and is a columnist for Frieze. In 2018 she was awarded the Windham Campbell Prize for non-fiction. Her latest book, CRUDO (Picador, 2018), was a Sunday Times top ten bestseller, a New York Times notable book of 2018, and was shortlisted for both the Goldsmiths Prize and the Gordon Burn Prize.
Dr Octavia Bright is a writer and academic. She has written criticism, fiction, and poetry for a variety of publications. She co-hosts Literary Friction, a monthly literary talk show and podcast about books and ideas, with Carrie Plitt.
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Join us as we celebrate the launch of Livia Franchini's new poetry collection, OUR AVAILABLE MAGIC (Makina Books, 2019) with readings from Livia as well as Alanna McArdle, Eloise Hendy, and Serena Braida.
“In August the dust was deafening, all things dry. Small anxieties of high summer. Drops of water from your plastic bottle cutting circles like coins on the pavement. Eating a tomato from the hand in an empty apartment. Stand in the corridor, think of all the other flats sta...cked below you, the ones above you, all empty. When you hear her car pull in, cross the street running.” – from Estate
Our Available Magic is the first poetry pamphlet by the writer and translator Livia Franchini. Within it poems and short poetic prose fold across 42 carefully observed pages that are insightful, fresh and craftily bold.
Livia Franchini is a writer and translator from Tuscany, Italy. She has translated Natalia Ginzburg, James Tiptree Jr. and Michael Donaghy among others. Her poetry has appeared in 3 a.m. magazine, Funhouse, LESTE, SPELLS: 21ST-CENTURY OCCULT POETRY (Lingua Ignota, 2018), WRETCHED STRANGERS (Boiler House Press, 2018) among others. Her debut novel SHELF LIFE will be published in English by Doubleday in August 2019 and in Italian by Libri Mondadori in Spring 2020.

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"This latest tome from the author of Hold Tight: Black Masculinity, Millennials and the Meaning of Grime, Jeffrey Boakye returns to the black British experience with an examination of the over-60 labels used to describe black men and women in recent decades. From loaded terms, historical descriptions and internal insults, Boakye explores how 21st-century black identity has been represented, celebrated and othered. Black, Listed is urgent, timely reading."
Jeffrey Boakye's Black, Listed comes top of AnOther's list of 2019's must-read books by PoC authors. You can catch Jeffrey at the shop on April 17th!
Info/tickets: Black, Listed with Jeffrey Boakye

“Explores what makes us silent, from the aftermath of natural disaster to the taboo of coming out. A heady mix of memoir, history, literary criticism and journalism” — The Sunday Post
Join us on April 2nd when we welcome award-winning journalist and film-maker Harriet Shawcross to read from her remarkable new memoir, Unspeakable: The Things We Cannot Say. Tickets available now!

"The book reveals works in progress, identities in transition, shapeshifting sensibilities, a delicious mash-up of expectations."
Margaret Busby profiles her new anthology, New Daughters of Africa, ahead of our event on the 28th when she'll be chairing a discussion between writer and chef Zoe Adjonyoh, award-winning author Patrice Lawrence, writer and activist Zita Holbourne, and poet and storyteller Jane Grell. Join us!
Info/tickets: New Daughters of Africa

"A major theme throughout the anthology is restoring a history of African feminist lineage. “When someone says that feminism isn’t African, we are reminded that we do not have the historical proof to show how continuous our presence is on the continent,” writes Finnish-Nigerian journalist Minna Salami. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, another Nigerian and the celebrated author of Half of a Yellow Sun and Americanah, passionately describes her great-grandmother, who she is sure was a feminist, whether or not she used that word for it."
Check out Sally Hayden's thoughtful and in-depth review of New Daughters of Africa for The Irish Times ahead of our event with editor Margaret Busby and several contributors on the 28th!
Info/tickets: New Daughters of Africa

Catch writer and publisher Margaret Busby on BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour ahead of our New Daughters of Africa event on March 28th.
Margaret is the editor a major new anthology of writing from over 200 women of African descent, and we're excited to be welcoming several of the anthology's contributors for a discussion on the night. Joining Margaret will be chef and writer Zoe Adjonyoh, award-winning author Patrice Lawrence, writer and activist Zita Holbourne, and poet and storyteller Jane Grell.
Info/tickets: New Daughters of Africa

Jo recommends The Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch . Unapologetic, raw yet graceful, Lidia Yuknavitch's memoir weaves in breathless prose a powerful story of self-expression, charting early abuse, addiction, homelessness, self-sabotage and desire, while coming of age as a writer. All this is underpinned by two constants, the exhilaration/solace of being in water and rage/resilience it takes to be a woman. An extraordinary book 🖤 . .... . . . . . #lidiayuknavitch #thechronologyofwater #canongatebooks #memoir #lifewriting #booksellerrecommends #narrativenonfiction #misfits #bookstagram #igreads #shoplocal
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"I only gave voice to my sexuality when I was in my 30s. And even then I could barely say the words: “lesbian”, “dyke” and “bisexuality” sounded like a medical condition, so I simply muttered “I like women” to anyone who would listen. I think I hoped that if I said it enough times I could banish the shame and doubt that made it impossible to articulate."
We can't wait to welcome award-winning journalist and film-maker Harriet Shawcross to the shop on April 2nd to read from and discuss her extraordinary new book, Unspeakable: The Things We Cannot Say. Join us!
Info/tickets: Unspeakable with Harriet Shawcross

Join us for a discussion of contemporary feminisms and intersectionality featuring Eishar Kaur and Wei Ming Kam, contributors to CAN WE ALL BE FEMINISTS? (Little Brown, 2018). Chairing the discussion will be Virago's Sarah Savitt.
Part of Feminist Book Fortnight.
Why is it difficult for so many women to fully identify with the word "feminist"? How do our personal histories and identities affect our relationship to feminism? Why is intersectionality so important? Can a feminis...t movement that doesn't take other identities like race, religion, or socioeconomic class into account even be considered feminism? How can we make feminism more inclusive?
In CAN WE ALL BE FEMINISTS?, seventeen established and emerging writers from diverse backgrounds wrestle with these questions, exploring what feminism means to them in the context of their other identities-from a hijab-wearing Muslim to a disability rights activist to a body-positive performance artist to a transgender journalist. Edited by the brilliant, galvanizing, and dazzlingly precocious nineteen-year-old feminist activist and writer June Eric-Udorie, this impassioned, thought-provoking collection showcases the marginalized women whose voices are so often drowned out and offers a vision for a new, comprehensive feminism that is truly for all.
Eishar Kaur is a twenty-five-year-old Londoner working in children’s publishing by day, and writing by night.
Wei Ming Kam has written for the bestselling essay collection THE GOOD IMMIGRANT (Unbound, 2016), the graphic novel anthology WE SHALL FIGHT UNTIL WE WIN (BHP Comics, 2018), Media Diversified and gal-dem. She works in publishing and is the co-founder of BAME In Publishing, a network for people of colour who work in publishing in the UK, and Pride in Publishing, a network for queer people who work in publishing in the UK.
Sarah Savitt is Deputy Publisher at Virago and previously worked at Headline, Faber and David Godwin Associates. Authors she has published include Kate Hamer, Louise Doughty, Sara Pascoe, Karen Rose, and Hanif Kureishi.
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Join us as we welcome Jeffrey Boakye to read from BLACK, LISTED, his new book celebrating the words and phrases that by choice or by circumstance define the Black British experience. Following the reading, Jeffrey will be joined for a discussion by writer and poet JJ Bola.
Who is a roadman really? What's wrong with calling someone a 'lighty'? Why do people think black guys are cool?
These are just some of the questions being wrestled with in BLACK, LISTED, an exploration of ...21st-century black identity told through a list of insults, insights, and everything in-between.
Taking a panoramic look at global black history, interrogating both contemporary and historical culture, BLACK, LISTED investigates the ways in which black communities (and individuals) have been represented, oppressed, mimicked, celebrated, and othered. Part historical study, part autobiographical musing, part pop culture vivisection, it's a comprehensive attempt to make sense of blackness from the vantage point of the hilarious and insightful psyche of Jeffrey Boakye. Along the way, it explores a far-reaching range of social and cultural contexts, including but not limited to, sport, art, entertainment, politics, literature, history, music, theatre, cinema, education, and criminal justice, sometimes at the same time.
Jeffrey Boakye is a writer, teacher, and music enthusiast originally from Brixton, now living and working in East London with his wife and two sons. He is the author of HOLD TIGHT: BLACK MASCULINITY, MILLENIALS AND THE MEANING OF GRIME (Influx Press, 2018).
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Latest top ten! Thank you for choosing to shop with us ❤️📖 . . . .... . . . . . . #toptenbooks #indiebookshop #pagesofhackney #booksellerrecommends #shoplocal #bookstagram #igreads
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The shortlist for this year's Republic of Consciousness Prize features titles from some really outstanding small presses including Istros Books, Galley Beggar Press, and CB editions. What a lineup!

Lovely wee place! I could happily spend time browsing here

Lovely bookshop in Hackney. We're so lucky to have it!