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Events
Our events provide an opportunity to listen to some great authors. During these relaxed evenings you will have the chance to pose questions to the guest, purchase signed first editions at reduced price, and enjoy a complimentary welcome drink on arrival or at the interval.
Forthcoming events include a talk from Robert Winston, John Simpson and Peter James. Tickets are available from City Books. All readings are held at The Old Market.
Robert Winston
As part of the Brighton Science Festival, Robert Winston will be discussing his new book, Bad Ideas?: An Arresting History of Our Inventions.
Professor Winston argues that it is a basic human need to create and invent – a consequence of standing on two legs and seeing our environment as something separate from ourselves. But the more we invent, the more we intervene in the world around us, especially as mankind has many instincts besides the creative one: the urge to destroy, control, create disharmony and to use its powers to excess. For that reason, contained within every one of our finest inventions is the potential for great harm. This does not only apply to obvious menaces like gunpowder and oil, but to the most seemingly benign advances such as writing, farming, medicine.
In this unique and timely book, Professor Winston takes a fresh look at man's greatest discoveries and innovations and asks whether our dependence on science and technology has led us into a precarious situation which is doomed to become worse before it gets better? As well as tracing the history and fall-out of our very worst ideas, this book also advocates the merits of scientific progress. For our drive to invent and improve the world around us is what, after all, makes us human.
Robert Winston is one of Britain's best-known scientists. As Emeritus Professor of Fertility Studies at Imperial College, London, and an active researcher in reproductive physiology, he has made advances in fertility medicine and is a leading voice in the debate on embryo research and genetic engineering. His television series include Your Life in Their Hands, Making Babies, The Human Body, Child of Our Time, Human Instinct, The Story of God and A Child Against All Odds and have made him a household name.
6.30pm Monday 22 February £8.00
John Simpson
One of the greatest reporters of his day writes a brilliant and typically opinionated account of how the British press has reported key moments in our history.
Through many decades of groundbreaking journalism, John Simpson has become not only one of the most recognisable and trusted British personalities, but has transferred his skill to books with multiple bestselling success. With his new book he turns his eye to how Great Britain has been transformed by its free press down the years. He shows how, while the press likes to pretend it's independent, they have enjoyed the power they have over the events they report and have at times exercised it irresponsibly. He examines how it changed the world and changed itself over the course of the last hundred years, from the creation of the Daily Mail and the first stokings of anti-German sentiment in the years leading up to the First World War, to the Sun's propping up of the Thatcher government, and beyond. In this self-analysis from one of the pillars of modern journalism some searching questions are asked, including whether the press can ever be truly free and whether we would desire it to be so.
Always incisive, brilliantly readable and never shy of controversy, Unreliable Sources sees John Simpson at the height of his game as one of Britain's foremost commentators.
6.30pm Wednesday 24 March £6.00
Peter James
James has written over 20 books, the most recent of which feature Brighton-based Detective Superintendent Roy Grace. This series has quickly become a hugely popular, due to the combination of well thought-out plots and the interaction between recurring characters - such as the continuing attempts to update and stylise Roy Grace by his more streetwise and fashionable partner, Glen Branson.
James has written supernatural thrillers, spy fiction, and a children's novel, as well as the introductions for Graham Masterton's collection Manitou Man and Joe Rattigan's collection Ghosts Far From Subtle.
He also wrote, as 'a labour of love' the childrens' novelisation for the 1986 movie Biggles, which he also produced. James is a lifelong fan of the Biggles franchise, at one time owning the rights to the books, and having translated some foreign editions.
His interests include criminology, science and the paranormal. He also enjoys motoring, having owned many cars over the years, most notably Jaguars and Aston Martins. Once a year he races, holding a racing driver's licence.
Peter will be talking about his new book: Dead Like You.
6.30pm Tuesday 8 June £6.00