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Join Peter Hahn as he discusses his brilliant new book, Angels in the Cellar, about reviving a vineyard in the Loire Valley. Twenty years ago Peter Hahn had a breakdown while in the back of a London taxi. Emotionally exhausted by his corporate life, he no longer recognised himself, but knew he had to find a path out. Since then Peter has found his way to Le Clos de la Meslerie, a small ancient farm in the Loire Valley, where he grows and makes small-batch organic wines. Angels in the Cellar invites us to spend a year in Peter's company among the vines, where he reflects on the land, his life, regenerative farming and the lives of the small group of people he works with. We join Peter through each season, pruning the wines and harvesting the grapes by hand, before we follow him to the wine cellar, where the alchemy begins - and the angels take charge. An evocative, poetic account of a year spent working with nature, Angels in the Cellar is also a powerful repudiation of the global economy, its obsession with hyper-consumption and its impacts on the land and its ecosystems. BOOK TICKETS HERE Praise for Angels in the Cellar ‘He’s cordial company in the precarious cycles of agriculture, and 16 harvests are behind him and his wife Juliette now, documented with a steady, thoughtful, pragmatic eye.’ - The Irish Times ‘…this book is more than a description of wine making, it is a celebration of nature and a love of the land, the seasons and the soil, and how these things can nurture the soul. ‘ -Caught by the River ‘…the book has a slow charm that crept up on me. As Hahn is reviving the vineyard, coaxing it back to life, he is doing the same thing for himself.’ - The Spectator About Peter Hahn Peter Hahn grew up in Australia and Asia, and for two decades has been a winegrower at Le Clos de la Meslerie, a small vineyard in the Loire Valley, rarely leaving it, growing grapes and making organic wine.

Join novelist Francesca Segal as she introduces Island Calling, the latest novel set on the fictional island of Tuga d’Oro, and celebrates the launch of Welcome to Glorious Tuga into paperback. If you've not read Welcome to Glorious Tuga yet then this will be the perfect introduction to the delightful series and for those of you who are already fans, discover what's next for zoologist Charlotte in Island Calling - a funny, moving and hope-filled novel about mothers and daughters and about holding on and letting go. About the Glorious Tuga series Welcome to glorious Tuga – the world’s most remote island and Charlotte Walker’s new home. Charlotte has swapped her grey life in London for a year in this tropical paradise. Officially, she’s there for conservation but the reality is far more complicated. For somewhere on Tuga lies the answer to a truth she’s waited her whole life to learn. If she finds it, then perhaps she might finally find herself too. Enchanting, uplifting and very funny, these captivating novels are about love, belonging, and what it really means to come home. Book tickets here Praise for Welcome to Glorious Tuga ‘Joyous, a modern-day Jane Austen meets The Durrells’ - Elizabeth Day ’A much-needed escape, I warmly recommend this beauty’ - Nigella Lawson ‘Brilliantly and thoroughly imagined. I didn’t want to go home’ - Nick Hornby About Francesca Segal Francesca Segal is an award-winning writer and journalist. She is the author of three critically acclaimed novels, The Innocents (2012),The Awkward Age (2017), and Welcome to Glorious Tuga (2024) and a memoir of NICU motherhood, Mother Ship (2019). Her writing has won the 2012 Costa First Novel Award, a Betty Trask Award, and been longlisted for the Women's Prize. Book Groups: If you would like to attend this event as a group then do get in touch as we can offer a discount on purchases of 4 or more tickets.

Join The Times political columnist Patrick Maguire and Sunday Times Whitehall editor Gabriel Pogrund, as they discuss their fascinating new book, Get In, the definitive behind-the-scenes account of Labour’s brutal reinvention and dramatic return to power. From electoral wipeout in 2019 to landslide victory in 2024 and on into Labour’s first hundred days in government, Get In is a blistering exposé of the most significant and ruthless political transformation in a generation. Book tickets here. A Dulwich Festival event in partnership with Dulwich Books

Celebrate the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth with Gill Hornby who will be discussing her wonderful new novel, The Elopement, which continues her witty, well-researched accounts of the lives and loves of Jane Austen's family and friends. Gill Hornby is the Sunday Times best-selling author of Godmersham Park and Miss Austen, which was recently adapted into a hit BBC miniseries with Keeley Hawes as Cassandra Austen. Book tickets here. A Dulwich Festival event in partnership with Dulwich Books

Join international bestseller Jessie Burton as she talks about her brilliant new children’s book, Hidden Treasure: the story of two children, Bo and Billy, whose lives collide when they find an ancient treasure on the banks of the River Thames. For fans of Katherine Rundell and Philip Pullman, Hidden Treasure is a classic in the making, with a rip-roaring plot, spine-tingling twists and an unforgettable cast of characters. Hear all about Bo and Billy's adventures, learn about the art of storytelling and the secrets of mudlarking, and there will be the chance for budding writers to ask Jessie for some creative writing tips! Perfect for families with children aged 7-11. Book tickets here. A Dulwich Festival event in partnership with Dulwich Books

Fiona Sampson, acclaimed poet and biographer of Mary Shelley, will be in conversation with Manderley Press publisher Rebeka Russell to discuss a brand-new collection of Mary Shelley’s work – all written during, and inspired by, the short yet influential time the author spent living in the historic literary city of Bath in 1816. Step into the intriguing world of Mary Shelley’s transformative time in Bath, a period that deeply influenced her literary genius. Against the backdrop of Bath’s grand architecture, bustling social scene and serene countryside, Shelley grapples with personal loss, burgeoning ideas and the societal constraints of her era. Yet during her time in the city, she finds solace and inspiration, leading to the development of her iconic novel, Frankenstein. This collection of her journals and letters – as well as the chapter of Frankenstein that Mary penned during her stay in Bath, and additional short stories inspired by her time living there – reveals to us the true nature of her closest relationships, the influence of the city’s intellectual circles on her work and the profound impact of Bath’s haunting beauty on her imagination. Mary Shelley in Bath thus explores how a place can shape a writer’s life and work, offering readers a deeper understanding of the woman behind one of literature’s most enduring masterpieces. Discover through her work the city that helped to forge a literary legend. Book tickets here

Start your Christmas celebrations slightly differently this year and join us for an evening about the darker side of the festive season as Sarah Clegg uncovers the folk tales and arcane traditions that still haunt Europe’s winter months. Sarah will take us on a journey through midwinter to explore the lesser-known Christmas traditions, from English mummers plays and Austrian Krampus runs, to modern pagan rituals at Stonehenge and the night in Finland when a young girl is crowned with candles as St Lucy - a martyred Christian girl who also appears as a witch leading a procession of the dead. Learn about wassails and hoodenings and winter gatherings, attended by ghastly, grinning horses, snatching monsters and mysterious visitors, as we discover how these traditions originated and how they changed through the centuries. Book tickets for the talk HERE

Few women had the luxury of writing down their thoughts and feelings during medieval times. But remarkably, there are at least four who did: Marie de France, a poet; Julian of Norwich, a mystic and anchoress; Christine de Pizan, a widow and court writer; and Margery Kempe, a no-good wife. Hetta Howes has spent her working life uncovering these women’s stories to give us unique historical and political insight that challenges what we hold to be common knowledge about medieval women in Europe. Her new book, Poet, Mystic, Widow, Wife, is an exquisite portrait of the world in which these women lived, told like never before. A spectacular, vivid, groundbreaking work of history, it shows women of the Middle Ages as leaders and innovators, who changed the world around them, even as they faced challenges surprisingly similar to those that women still have to navigate today. Don't miss the chance to hear Hetta speak about these remarkable women. We think this event will be the perfect accompaniment to a visit to the British Library's upcoming event, Medieval Women: In Their Own Words. Book tickets for the talk HERE

For over two decades, Lara Maiklem has scoured the banks of the Thames to find objects – lost or discarded – that tell the greatest stories. Now, having propelled mudlarking into the popular consciousness with her debut book Mudlarking, Maiklem returns with A Mudlarking Year. Reflecting on a year of her life searching the foreshore, she reminds us that it’s possible to draw meaning from the most unlikely of places. Lara carefully searches the riverbank through the changing seasons of 2022 – at times aided by the illumination of the falling winter sun or hindered by overcast skies and the high tides of spring. Yet, working in harmony with the unpredictable foreshore, she finds solace in the elements and wonder in the treasures bestowed by the tide. From medieval pilgrim badges and Tudor shoes, to Georgian wig curlers and Victorian pottery, each passing day unearths the ordinary objects that tell the rich story of London’s history and its inhabitants. Guided by Maiklem’s curiosity, wisdom and obsession, A Mudlarking Year is an invitation to discover the forgotten objects in the most overlooked part of London – uncovering the stories patiently waiting to be told. Join Lara Maiklem as she discusses A Mudlarking Year, the follow-up to her bestselling book, Mudlarking: Lost and Found on the River Thames. For more info and to buy tickets, click here.

The multiple-award-winning Francis Spufford, author of Golden Hill and Light Perpetual, returns with a lovingly created, richly pleasure-giving, epically scaled tale set in the golden age of wicked entertainments. Cahokia Jazz is a thrilling tale of murder and mystery in a city where history has run a little differently. In a city that never was, in an America that never was, on a snowy night at the end of winter, two detectives find a body on the roof of a skyscraper. It’s 1922, and Americans are drinking in speakeasies, dancing to jazz, stepping quickly to the tempo of modern times. Beside the Mississippi, the ancient city of Cahokia lives on – a teeming industrial metropolis, containing every race and creed. Among them, peace holds. Just about. But that body on the roof is about to spark off a week that will spill the city’s secrets, and bring it, against a soundtrack of wailing clarinets and gunfire, either to destruction or rebirth. Don’t miss the chance to hear Francis speak about this brilliant new novel. Tickets: Admission - £10 / Admission + copy of Cahokia Jazz (RRP £20) - £25 Book Tickets HERE About Francis Spufford 'Francis Spufford has one of the most original minds in contemporary literature' - Nick Hornby Francis Spufford is the author of five highly-praised works of non-fiction, most frequently described by reviewers as either ‘bizarre’ or ‘brilliant’, and usually as both. His debut novel Golden Hill won the Costa First Novel Award, the RSL Ondaatje Prize, the Desmond Elliott Prize, and was shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, the Rathbones Folio Prize, the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award and the British Book Awards Debut Novel of the Year. His second novel, Light Perpetual, was awarded the 2022 Encore Award and longlisted for the Booker Prize. In 2007 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He teaches writing at Goldsmiths College, University of London, and lives near Cambridge.

A Bird in Winter is the electrifying new novel from Sunday Times bestselling writer Louise Doughty, author of Apple Tree Yard and Platform Seven, both adapted for major TV series. Come and hear Louise discuss this brilliant new novel and what it's like writing thrillers for page and screen. Tickets: £10 (Admission + glass of wine/soft drink) / £22 (Admission + copy of A Bird in Winter RRP £16.99 + glass of wine/soft drink) Book Tickets Here About Louise Doughty 'Doughty is a brilliant storyteller who knows how to build suspense to breaking point.' - The Times Louise Doughty's novels include Platform Seven, recently filmed for a major new ITV series; Black Water, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year; the bestseller Apple Tree Yard, which was adapted for BBC One; and Whatever You Love, nominated for the Costa Novel Award and the Women's Prize for fiction. She has been nominated for many other prizes including the Sunday Times Short Story Prize and the CWA Silver Dagger, along with creating and writing the hit BBC drama Crossfire. Her work has been translated into thirty languages. She lives in London.

We're thrilled to welcome Mick Herron to Dulwich for his gripping new thriller, The Secret Hours. Mick is the author of the fantastic Slough House series, much-loved by many Dulwich Books customers, and he has been described by fellow crime writer, Val McDermid, as 'the John le Carré of our generation'. The Secret Hours is a dazzling spy thriller that is at once unnerving, poignant, and laugh-out-loud funny. With a riveting reveal about a disastrous MI5 mission in Cold War Berlin, it is an absolute must-read for Slough House fans. Don't miss the chance to hear Mick talk about this brilliant novel and get your early copy of The Secret Hours (published 14th September). Tickets: £25 (Admission for one + copy of The Secret Hours RRP £22) / £30 (Admission for two + copy of The Secret Hours RRP £22) Book Tickets Here About Mick Herron ‘Herron is at the summit of a new golden age of spy fiction.’ - Sunday Times Mick Herron is the #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of the Slough House thrillers, which have won the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year award, two CWA Daggers, been published in 20 languages, and are the basis of a major TV series starring Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb. He is also the author of the Zoë Boehm series, and the standalone novels Reconstruction and This is What Happened. Mick was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, and now lives in Oxford. About James O'Brien James O'Brien is an award-winning writer and broadcaster whose journalism has appeared everywhere from the TLS to the Daily Mirror. His daily current affairs programme is the most popular show on LBC with over 1.3 million weekly listeners and his first book, How To Be Right, was a Sunday Times bestseller, which won the Parliamentary Book Award for Best Political Book by a non-politician.

In The Year of the Cat, Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett explores the enduring relationship between women writers, artists and their cats as winter turns to spring over the course of a locked-down year. Navigating trauma and mental illness, what it means to care and artistic freedom, this tender memoir charts the way a kitten called Mackerel walked into Rhiannon's home and heart and taught her to face down her fears and appreciate quite how much love she had to offer. Why Women Grow is a much-needed exploration of why women turn to the earth, as gardeners, growers and custodians. Alice Vincent fosters connections with gardeners that unfurl into a tender exploration of women’s lives, their gardens and what the ground has offered them, with conversations spanning creation and loss, celebration and grief, power, protest, identity and renaissance. Join Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett and Alice Vincent for a fascinating discussion about their brilliant books, gardens, motherhood, art, creativity and cats! Speaker Bios Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett writes columns and reviews fiction for the Guardian, and has also written for the Observer Magazine, I Paper, Vogue, Stylist, Elle, and many more. Her first novel, The Tyranny of Lost Things, was published in 2018. She also co-wrote The Vagenda (based on the successful feminist satire website) with Holly Baxter. Born and raised in Wales, she now lives in north London with her husband and cat. Alice Vincent is a journalist and the author of three books, including Rootbound: Rewilding a Life, which was longlisted for the Wainwright Prize and named as one of the books of 2020 by the Financial Times and the Independent. A self-taught gardener, Alice is a columnist for Gardens Illustrated and writes for titles including Vogue and the New Statesman. She has been documenting her gardening online since 2015 and has since launched a newsletter and podcast. She lives in South London.

Join bestselling espionage historian Ben Macintyre for a talk about the Second World War's most notorious prison, the subject of his latest book Colditz. The inside story of Colditz is a tale of the indomitable human spirit, but also one of snobbery, class conflict, homosexuality, bullying, espionage, boredom, insanity and farce. Macintyre reveals a remarkable cast of characters of multiple nationalities, with captors and prisoners living for years cheek-by-jowl in a thrilling game of cat and mouse. 'Like watching a black-and-white photograph being colourised . . . Macintyre has thrown fresh light on Colditz and aligned the scratches left on its walls into another compelling narrative' - Spectator Tickets available here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/colditz-the-prisoners-of-the-castle-by-ben-macintyre-tickets-582368348407 This event is part of the Dulwich Festival.

Join Clare Paterson, as she talks about her wonderful book, Mr Horniman’s Walrus, which explores the rise and fall of the remarkable and dysfunctional Horniman family, including Frederick, who created the Horniman Museum, and Annie, a theatrical impresario responsible for founding Ireland's national theatre, the Abbey. Drawing on her years of research and unfettered access to the family archive, Mr Horniman's Walrus unpicks the lives of this fascinating family, including their slips from grace as well as their astounding achievements. Buy tickets here. This event is part of the Dulwich Festival.