What is the naughtiest word you can think of? The baddest of bad language, the monarch of F-bombs? The word you swore you’d NEVER say, but sometimes makes a sneaky reappearance after a stubbed toe or a football loss. Well for one night only you can put away the swear box, take yourself off the naughty step and join Science Oxford for an evening of purposeful profanity.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) researcher and swearing enthusiast Emma Byrne – author of Swearing Is Good For You explores how bad words might actually be good for us. At this interactive event, you’ll get the chance to see and try out some AI and swearing experiments, including playing with web robots, designing your own swearing test, and perhaps, just perhaps, taking on the ‘ice water challenge’ to experience how swearing affects your resilience in extreme conditions!

Emma Byrne is an AI researcher with an interest in the neuroscience of swearing. She likes to explore methods for conducting unusual experiments to find out the weird and wonderful stuff in our minds.

Copies of ‘Swearing is Good for You’ will be available to purchase on the night and Emma will be doing a book signing.

Suitable for ages 16+

During the global financial crisis, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd were two of the world’s most important political leaders. Together they helped establish the G20 Leaders’ Summit and through that led the global recovery effort. In their own countries, each championed ambitious and ground-breaking progressive reforms and have been tireless in their advocacy on the global stage, including to this day.

Join them a decade later as they are reunited in conversation in Oxford for the UK launch of the first volume of Kevin Rudd’s memoirs, Not for the Faint-hearted: A personal reflection on life, politics and purpose.

Copies of Kevin Rudd’s book will be available to collect on the evening for the special price of £15. All books must be purchased in advance–there will be no sales on the night.

All proceeds from ticket and book sales will be donated to the National Apology Foundation for Indigenous Australians.

Mr. Rudd will be available after the event for book signings.

***

Entry is free for members of the Oxford Union.
Non-members must purchase a ticket for £5.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/tales-from-two-prime-ministers-gordon-brown-launches-kevin-rudds-memoirs-tickets-39663795480

Have you ever wanted to perform sonic experiments with your morning coffee? Spice up your love life with inspiration from the animal kingdom? In conversation with Helen Arney and Steve Mould they discuss their rib-tickling, experiment-fuelled book The Element in the Room, a book for anyone sci-curious who wants to explore the science that is staring you right in the face.

Steve Mould and Helen Arney, aka two-thirds of the Festival of the Spoken Nerd, have a combined 35 million YouTube views, their own Radio 4 programme, Domestic Science, appeared in three consecutive slots of the latest series of QI and toured their stand-up science show to over 15,000 people in the UK.

Come along for the lunchtime talk ahead of their evening show at The Cornerstone, Didcot where they will be performing Festival of the Spoken Nerd – You Can’t Polish a Nerd.

Suitable for ages 16+

Join Oxford Chancellor Lord Patten of Barnes in conversation with former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans in a special UK launch of the Evans’s recently published political memoir Incorrigible Optimist.

Gareth Evans, Oxford PPE graduate and Honorary Fellow of Magdalen, and now Chancellor of the Australian National University, served for thirteen years as a cabinet minister in the Hawke and Keating Australian Labor governments, and then for a decade as head of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. He was the principal architect of the Cambodian peace plan and the UN-endorsed norm of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ against mass atrocity crimes, and continues to tirelessly advocate for the elimination of weapons of mass destruction.

This is a public event open beyond the Oxford Union membership. Entry is free for members of the Union. Non-members (limited capacity available) must purchase a ticket for £5 (cash only) on the door with all proceeds going to the UNHCR’s Rohingya Emergency Appeal.

A small number of copies of Gareth Evans’ book will be available on the day for the special discounted price of £20 (again cash only). The book is also available to order via Amazon.co.uk. Gareth Evans will be available after the event to sign copies of the book.

The speaker’s new book provides a comprehensive account of the mysterious story of Pakistan’s attempt to develop nuclear weapons in the face of severe odds. Hassan Abbas profiles the politicians and scientists involved, and the role of China and Saudi Arabia in supporting Pakistan’s nuclear infrastructure.

Abbas also unravels the motivations behind the Pakistani nuclear physicist Dr A. Q. Khan’s involvement in nuclear proliferation in Iran, Libya and North Korea, drawing on extensive interviews The Khan proliferation breach remains of vital importance for understanding how to stop such transfers of sensitive technology in future.Finally, the book examines the prospects for nuclear safety in Pakistan, considering both Pakistan’s nuclear control infrastructure and the threat posed by the Taliban and other extremist groups to the country’s nuclear assets.

Hassan Abbas is Professor and Chair of the Department of Regional and Analytical Studies at National Defense University, Washington, D.C. His previous books include The Taliban Revival and Pakistan’s Drift into Extremism.

This event is jointly organised by the Contemporary South Asian Studies Programme at the School of Interdisciplinary Area Studies, the Department of Politics and International Relations, and the Asian Studies Centre of St Antony’s College.

Afua Hirsch is an author and journalist and will be discussing her new book: Brit(ish) about being black and British

Book launch followed by reception and performance by Worcester College Choir – all welcome!

Book Launch with Author & Translator: Yan Ge (顏歌)’s The Chilli Bean Paste Clan, translated by Nicky Harman

https://www.facebook.com/events/605485149803274/

2018/May/07 Monday 5-7PM Ho Tim Seminar Room, China Centre, St Hugh’s College, Oxford

Open and free of charge for all

Supported by: Oxford Chinese Studies Society

To welcome everyone back to Oxford in this Trinity Term, we have invited one of the most important writers of China’s post-1980 generation, Yan Ge, to share with us her experiences as a young writer in China and abroad. She will bring her seminal work, The Chilli Bean Paste Clan (《我們家》in Chinese, published in 2013), and discuss issues of family, language, morality, capitalism and more, with the novel’s English translator Nicky Harman. The Chilli Bean Paste Clan the English translation will be published by Balestier Press and available on the market from the 1st of May, 2018, adding a fresh voice in the growing field of literature in translation.

Synopsis of The Chilli Bean Paste Clan:

Set in a fictional town in West China, this is the story of the Duan-Xue family, owners of the lucrative chilli bean paste factory, and their formidable matriarch. As Gran’s eightieth birthday approaches, her middle-aged children get together to make preparations. Family secrets are revealed and long-time sibling rivalries flare up with renewed vigour. As Shengqiang struggles unsuccessfully to juggle the demands of his mistress and his wife, the biggest surprises of all come from Gran herself……

Professor David Der-wei Wang 王德威 of Harvard University has commented on Yan Ge and her work and hinted that she might signal a generational shift in the Chinese literary scene:
“She writes about her hometown. The stories in a small Sichuanese town are greatly done. She has her own worldviews, and frankly speaking, she is of a very fortunate generation. What she may have encountered as she grew up is not as tumultuous or adventurous as the writers that came before her, and therefore the factor of imagination has gradually come to matter more than experiences in reality.
她写她的故乡，四川一个小城的故事，写得很好。她有她的世界观，但坦白地讲，他们都是有幸的一代，在她成长的过程里面，她所遭遇的不如过去那辈作家有那么多的坎坷或者冒险性，所以，想象的成分已经逐渐地凌驾了现实经验的体会。”

This event will be of interest to those of you who work on contemporary China, Chinese literature, translation studies, and publishing. The conversation between Yan Ge and Nicky Harman will last around 30 minutes and we will leave plenty of time for critical dialogues, Q & A and discussions.

Books available for purchase at a discounted rate.

Speaker biography:

Yan Ge was born in Sichuan Province, China in 1984. She is a writer as well as a Ph.D. candidate in Comparative Literature. Publishing since 1994, she is the author of eleven books in Chinese. Her works have been translated into English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, and Hungarian. She was a visiting scholar at Duke University from 2011 to 2012 and a residency writer at the Cross Border Festival in Netherlands in November 2012. Named by People’s Literature magazine as one of twenty future literature masters in China, she is now the chairperson of China Young Writers’ Association and a contract writer of Sichuan Writers’ Association. She recently started writing in English. Her English stories could be seen on Irish Times and Stand Magazine. She lives in Dublin with her husband and son.

Nicky Harman is a British translator of Chinese literature, and one of the most influential figures in the field. She is co-Chair of the Translators Association (Society of Authors) and co-founded Paper Republic 纸托邦, one of the most important online forums for Chinese literatures in translation. She taught on the MSc in Translation at Imperial College until 2011 and now translates full-time from Chinese. The authors she has translated include Jia Pingwa贾平凹，Yan Geling 严歌苓，Chan Koon-chung 陈冠中，Annibaobei 安妮宝贝，Chen Xiwo陈希我，Yan Ge颜歌，and Han Dong韩东, to name just a few. She has won several awards with her translations.

Blackwell’s is thrilled to announce a special event with BAFTA and MOBO- award-winning musician, poet, activist and political commentator Akala, who will be discussing his searing modern polemic ‘Natives’ at the Sheldonian Theatre in conversation with Shaista Aziz..

From the first time he was stopped and searched as a child, to the day he realised his mum was white, to his first encounters with racist teachers – race and class have shaped Akala’s life and outlook. In his unique book he takes his own experiences and widens them out to look at the social, historical and political factors that have left us where we are today.

Covering everything from the police, education and identity to politics, sexual objectification and the far right, ‘Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire’ will speak directly to British denial and squeamishness when it comes to confronting issues of race and class that are at the heart of the legacy of Britain’s racialised empire.

Akala
MOBO award-winning hip hop artist, writer, poet and educator Akala is a label owner and social entrepreneur who fuses his unique rap/rock/electro-punk sound with fierce lyrical storytelling. He is more recently known for his compelling lectures/seminars, journalism (The Guardian, Huffington Post UK, New Internationalist and The Independent), TV presenting and script-writing and has gained a reputation as one of the most dynamic and literate talents in the UK.

Akala has also featured on numerous TV programmes across Channel 4, ITV2, MTV, Sky Arts and the BBC promoting his music, poetry as well as speaking on wide ranging subjects from music, youth engagement, British / African-Caribbean culture, African History, World History and the arts as a whole.

In 2009, Akala launched the ‘The Hip-hop Shakespeare Company’, a hotly-tipped music theatre production company.

Shaista Aziz is a freelance journalist specialising on race, gender and identity and is a women’s rights and anti racism campaigner. She is the founder of the anti racism digital platform ‘The Everyday Bigotry Project’, Co-founder of the ‘Women’s Advancement Hub (WAH)Pakistan’, co-founder of the Oxford Labour Muslim Network and currently serves as Women’s Officer for Oxford and District Labour Party. She is an award-winning stand up comedian and broadcaster. Shaista contributed to the 2017 anthology, ‘The Things I would Tell You, British Muslim Women Write’.

Tickets cost £20 including a copy of ‘Natives’ and entry for one or £8 entry only. Doors for this event will open at 6:30pm. For all enquiries please email events.oxford@blackwell.co.uk.

Blackwell’s is thrilled to announce a special event with BAFTA and MOBO- award-winning musician, poet, activist and political commentator Akala, who will be discussing his searing modern polemic ‘Natives’ at the Sheldonian Theatre in conversation with Shaista Aziz.

From the first time he was stopped and searched as a child, to the day he realised his mum was white, to his first encounters with racist teachers – race and class have shaped Akala’s life and outlook. In his unique book he takes his own experiences and widens them out to look at the social, historical and political factors that have left us where we are today.

Covering everything from the police, education and identity to politics, sexual objectification and the far right, ‘Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire’ will speak directly to British denial and squeamishness when it comes to confronting issues of race and class that are at the heart of the legacy of Britain’s racialised empire.

Akala
MOBO award-winning hip hop artist, writer, poet and educator Akala is a label owner and social entrepreneur who fuses his unique rap/rock/electro-punk sound with fierce lyrical storytelling. He is more recently known for his compelling lectures/seminars, journalism (The Guardian, Huffington Post UK, New Internationalist and The Independent), TV presenting and script-writing and has gained a reputation as one of the most dynamic and literate talents in the UK.

Akala has also featured on numerous TV programmes across Channel 4, ITV2, MTV, Sky Arts and the BBC promoting his music, poetry as well as speaking on wide ranging subjects from music, youth engagement, British / African-Caribbean culture, African History, World History and the arts as a whole.

In 2009, Akala launched the ‘The Hip-hop Shakespeare Company’, a hotly-tipped music theatre production company.

Shaista Aziz is a freelance journalist specialising on race, gender and identity and is a women’s rights and anti racism campaigner. She is the founder of the anti racism digital platform ‘The Everyday Bigotry Project’, Co-founder of the ‘Women’s Advancement Hub (WAH)Pakistan’, co-founder of the Oxford Labour Muslim Network and currently serves as Women’s Officer for Oxford and District Labour Party. She is an award-winning stand up comedian and broadcaster. Shaista contributed to the 2017 anthology, ‘The Things I would Tell You, British Muslim Women Write’.

Tickets cost £20 including a copy of ‘Natives’ and entry for one or £8 entry only. For all enquiries please email events.oxford@blackwell.co.uk.

Listen to professional actors perform short stories written by Chris Powers and Alex Reeves. Afterwards, Short Stories Aloud founder and host Sarah Franklin will be interviewing Chris and Alex about their new publications, ‘Mothers’ and ‘The House on Half Moon Street’, alongside taking questions from the audience.

Chris Power’s debut short stories collection ‘Mothers’ was published by Faber & Faber in February 2018. In ‘Mothers’ Chris Power’s stories are peopled by men and women who find themselves at crossroads or dead ends – characters who search without knowing what they seek. A woman uses her mother’s old travel guide to navigate nowhere; a stand-up comic with writer’s block performs a fateful gig at a cocaine-fulled bachelor party; on holiday in Greece, a father must confront the limits to which he can keep his daughters safe.

From remote and wild Exmoor to ancient Swedish burial sites and hedonistic Mexican weddings, these stories lay bare the emotional and psychic damage of life, love and abandonment.

Alex Reeve’s debut novel ‘The House on Half Moon Street’ is the first in a series of books featuring Leo Stanhope, a Victorian transgender coroner’s assistant who must uncover a killer without risking his own future

Leo Stanhope. Avid chess player; assistant to a London coroner; in love with Maria; and hiding a very big secret.

For Leo was born Charlotte, the daughter of a respectable reverend. But knowing he was meant to be a man – despite the evidence of his body – and unable to cope with living a lie any longer, he fled his family home at just fifteen and has been living as Leo: his secret known to only a few trusted people. But then Maria is found dead and Leo is accused of her murder. Desperate to find her killer and under suspicion from all those around him, he stands to lose not just the woman he loves, but his freedom and, ultimately, his life.

Tickets for this event cost £5. Please note doors for this event open at 6.45pm, where there will be a bar offering range of alcoholic and soft drinks that can be purchased before the event. For all enquiries please contact events.oxford@blackwell.co.uk or call 01865 333623

Blackwell’s is delighted to announce an event with Laura Bates, where she will be in discussion on her latest book ‘Misogynation’ in the Sheldonian Theatre.

In this collection of essays, originally published in the Guardian, Laura Bates uncovers the sexism that exists in our relationships, our workplaces, our media, in our homes and on our streets, but which is also firmly rooted in our lifelong assumptions and in the actions and attitudes we explain away, defend and accept. Often dismissed as one-offs, veiled as ‘banter’ or described as ‘isolated incidents’, ‘Misogynation’ joins the dots to reveal the true scale of discrimination and prejudice women face.

A bold, witty and incisive analysis of current events, Misogynation makes a passionate argument for stepping back, opening our eyes and allowing ourselves to see the bigger picture.

Laura Bates is a pioneering feminist, activist and the bestselling author of ‘Everyday Sexism’ and ‘Girl Up’. Laura has given voice to hundreds of thousands of women through her international Everyday Sexism Project. She has written for the Guardian, the Independent, the New Statesman, Red Magazine and Grazia among others. Laura is also contributor at Women Under Siege, a New-York based organisation working to combat the use of sexual violence as a tool of war in conflict zones worldwide. In 2015, Laura was awarded a British Empire Medal (BEM) in the Birthday Honours for services to gender equality.

Tickets for this event cost £8. Seating is allocated on a first come first seated basis. Doors will open at 6:30pm. For all enquiries please email events.oxford@blackwell.co.uk.

Solar energy, once a niche application for a limited market, has become the cheapest and fastest-growing power source on earth. What’s more, its potential is nearly limitless – every hour the sun beams down more energy than the world uses in a year. But Varun Sivaram, Fellow for science and technology at the Council on Foreign Relations, former Oxford researcher, and author of a new book, Taming the Sun, warns that the world is not yet equipped to harness erratic sunshine to meet most of its energy needs. And if solar’s current surge peters out, prospects for replacing fossil fuels and averting catastrophic climate change will dim.

Innovation can brighten those prospects, Sivaram will argue. Financial innovation is already enticing deep-pocketed investors to fund solar projects around the world, from the sunniest deserts to the poorest villages. Technological innovation could replace today’s solar panels with coatings as cheap as paint and employ artificial photosynthesis to store intermittent sunshine as convenient fuels. And systemic innovation could add flexibility to the world’s power grids and other energy systems so they can dependably channel the sun’s unreliable energy. Unleashing all this innovation will require visionary public policy: funding researchers developing next-generation solar technologies, refashioning energy systems and economic markets, and putting together a diverse clean energy portfolio.

This talk will be followed by a drinks reception and book signing, all welcome.

In this book colloquium, a panel will discuss the concluding volume of economist and historian Deirdre McCloskey’s trilogy celebrating the oft-derided virtues of the bourgeoisie — Bourgeois Equality: How Ideas, Not Capital or Institutions, Enriched the World.

There’s little doubt that most humans today are better off than their forebears. The poorest of humanity, McCloskey shows, will soon be joining the comparative riches of Japan and Sweden and Botswana.

Why? Most economists — from Adam Smith and Karl Marx to Thomas Piketty — say the Great Enrichment since 1800 came from accumulated capital. McCloskey disagrees, fiercely. “Our riches,” she argues, “were made not by piling brick on brick, bank balance on bank balance, but by piling idea on idea.” Capital was necessary, but it was ideas, not matter, that drove “trade-tested betterment.” Nor were institutions the drivers. The World Bank orthodoxy of “add institutions and stir” doesn’t work, and didn’t.

McCloskey builds a powerful case for the initiating role of ideas — ideas for electric motors and free elections, of course, but more deeply the bizarre and liberal ideas of equal liberty and dignity for ordinary folk. Liberalism arose from theological and political revolutions in northwest Europe, yielding a unique respect for betterment and its practitioners, and upending ancient hierarchies. Commoners were encouraged to have a go, and the bourgeoisie took up the Bourgeois Deal, and we were all enriched.

Few economists or historians write like McCloskey — her ability to invest the facts of economic history with the urgency of a novel, or of a leading case at law, is unmatched. She summarizes modern economics and modern economic history with verve and lucidity, yet sees through to the really big scientific conclusion. Not matter, but ideas.

Participants include:
Denis Galligan, Emeritus Professor of Socio-Legal Studies and Director of Programmes, Foundation for Law, Justice and Society, Oxford

Dr Christopher Decker, Economist and Research Fellow, Faculty of Law, Oxford

Praise for Bourgeois Equality
Bourgeois Equality is richly detailed and erudite, and it will join its companion volumes as essential reading
— Diane Coyle, The Financial Times

A sparkling book. . . . McCloskey makes a convincing case
— Martin Wolf, The Financial Times, Best Books of Early 2016

With authors Professor Allen Buchanan and Dr Russell Powell.
Commentators TBC.

All are welcome to attend the book launch for Allen Buchanan and Russell Powell’s book ‘The Evolution of Moral Progress: A Biocultural Theory’ due to be published by Oxford University Press later this year. To be followed by a drinks reception.

[This talk has been cancelled]

Blackwell’s is pleased to welcome the Oxford historian Marc Mulholland to give a talk on his new book The Murderer of Warren Street: The True Story of a Nineteenth-Century Revolutionary to our bookshop at Westgate on Thursday 21st June at 7pm.

For Westgate’s Dystopian Summer, we are delighted to announce The Future Body: Dystopian Visions with Rachel Heng and Sophie Mackintosh, chaired by Daisy Buchanan on Monday 9th July, 7pm.

Both have written dystopias which explore, in their own ways, who controls people’s – especially women’s – bodies.

Join us as we celebrate the publication of ‘Emily’s Voices’ by Emily Knoll. Roz Austin, who is writing as Emily Knoll, will be reading passages from the book alongside a talk by Dr Jonathan Gadsby (Research Fellow, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Birmingham City University) on the subject ‘Emily’s Voices: Conversations’. Writer Dennis Hamley will be introducing the event.

Emily’s Voices

Emily’s Voices tells Emily’s story of her struggle with hearing voices and her journey through the mental health system. Emily’s voices are distressing, but her therapist and close friends help her to challenge the voices, and to confront some of the self-stigma which she feels about being a voice-hearer. Emily must find a way of accepting that she hears voices, or she can’t be in the world – but it’s a confrontation that takes all of her newfound strength and resolve. Emily has to learn to create boundaries with the voices.

This event is free to attend and everyone in welcome. There will be an opportunity to mingle with guests at the end of the talk with refreshments. Please register in advance to confirm your attendance. For all enquiries please email events.oxford@blackwell.co.uk or call our Customer Service Department on 01865 333623.

Professor Julian Savulescu, Professor Dominic Wilkinson

What should happen when doctors and parents disagree about what would be best for a child? When should courts become involved? Should life support be stopped against parents’ wishes? The case of Charlie Gard reached global attention in 2017. It led to widespread debate about the ethics of disagreements between doctors and parents, about the place of the law in such disputes, and about the variation in approach between different parts of the world.

Profs Dominic Wilkinson and Julian Savulescu will present the key themes of their new book which critically examines the core ethical questions at the heart of disputes about medical treatment for children. They will review prominent cases of disagreement from the UK and internationally and analyse some of the distinctive and challenging features around treatment disputes in the 21st century, and outline a radical new framework for future cases of disagreement around the care of gravely ill people.

There will be an opportunity for group discussion of the general themes.

‘The Origins of Dislike’ is a fascinating and thought-provoking selection of essays from the award-winning novelist, poet, literary critic, and musician, Amit Chaudhuri.

The collection explores critical ‘dislike’ as a form of intense engagement, featuring unpublished lectures delivered at some of the world’s major universities. With chapters on Western art, Asian cinema, Indian regional writing, Asian poetry, the Bhagavad Gita, Rabindranath Tagore, and Rudyard Kipling, ‘The Origins of Dislike’ reveals how re-thinking modernity can help us understand both creative practice and literary history, and questions the dividing line between creativity and thought.

“These essays testify to a formidable intelligence at work. Chaudhuri’s engaging yet exacting reflections range widely across literature and the arts. Puncturing intellectual pieties and lazy thinking, they challenge us to rethink how art and the world connect.” – Rita Felski, William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of English, University of Virginia

Amit Chaudhuri is the author of seven novels, the latest of which is ‘Friend of My Youth’. He is also a critic and a musician and composer. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Awards for his fiction include the Commonwealth Writers Prize, the Betty Trask Prize, the Encore Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction, and the Indian government’s Sahitya Akademi Award. In 2013, he was awarded the first Infosys Prize in the Humanities for outstanding contribution to literary studies. He is Professor of Contemporary Literature at the University of East Anglia.

Tickets cost £5. Doors will open at 6:45pm, where there will be a bar selling a range of drinks until 7pm. For all enquiries please email events.oxford@blackwell.co.uk or call our Customer Service Department on 01865 333623.

As part of our Every Woman series, Blackwell’s presents a free lunchtime talk with Lyndall Gordon, who will be exploring her book ‘Outsiders’, an exciting and provocative look at the women who wrote the novels that changed the literary world.

‘Outsiders’ tells the stories of five novelists – Mary Shelley, Emily Brontë, George Eliot, Olive Schreiner, Virginia Woolf – and their famous novels. We have long known their individual greatness but in linking their creativity to their lives as outsiders, this group biography throws new light on the genius they share. ‘Outsider’, ‘outlaw’, ‘outcast’: a woman’s reputation was her security and each of these five lost it. As writers, they made these identities their own, taking advantage of their separation from the dominant order to write their novels.

Lyndall Gordon is the prize-winning author of seven biographies, including ‘The Imperfect Life of T. S. Eliot’; ‘Virginia Woolf: A Writer’s Life’; ‘Vindication: A Life of Mary Wollstonecraft’; and ‘Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family’s Feuds’ and her memoir ‘Divided Lives: Dreams of a Mother and Daughter’. She is a Fellow of St Hilda’s College, Oxford and the Royal Society of Literature.

The Blackwell’s Every Woman Series

From February 2018, Blackwell’s Broad Street will launch a year-long series of events in conjunction with the Centenary of Women’s Suffrage in the UK. The 1918 Representation of the People Act gave women of property over the age of 30 the right to vote – not all women, therefore, could vote. It was a step, but it was not the whole journey. And many would argue that we are still a long way from stepping the journey’s full distance towards gender equality in this country and worldwide.

Blackwell’s Centenary events programme will focus around the following questions:

1) How much does the vote mean today?

2) How far are we still from achieving gender equality?

3) How can we recognise intersectional privilege and oppression, and platform those demographics of people who weren’t acknowledged by this achievement 100 years ago, and are still under-represented and undervalued today?

For all enquiries please email events.oxford@blackwell.co.uk or contact our Customer Service Department on 01865 333623.

Blackwell’s is delighted to welcome the much-admired and million copy-selling journalist John Simpson, who will be discussing his thriller debut novel ‘Moscow, Midnight’.

Moscow, Midnight

Government minister Patrick Macready has been found dead in his flat. The coroner rules it an accident, a sex game gone wrong.

Jon Swift is from the old stock of journos – cynical, cantankerous and overweight – and something about his friend’s death doesn’t seem right. Then days after Macready’s flat is apparently burgled, Swift discovers that his friend had been researching a string of Russian government figures who had met similarly ‘accidental’ fates.

When the police refuse to investigate further, Swift gets in touch with his contacts in Moscow, determined to find out if his hunch is correct. Following the lead, he is soon drawn into a violent underworld, where whispers of conspiracies, assassinations and double-agents start blurring the line between friend and foe.

But the truth will come at a price, and it may cost him everything.

John Simpson has been the BBC’s World Affairs Editor for more than half his fifty-two year career. In his time with the BBC, he has reported on major events all over the world, and was made a CBE in the Gulf War honours list in 1991. He has twice been the Royal Television Society’s Journalist of the Year, and has won three BAFTAs, a News and Current Affairs award and an Emmy

Tickets cost £8. For all enquiries please email events.oxford@blackwell.co.uk or call our Customer Service Department on 01865 333623.

Blackwell’s are honoured to be joined by Heather Morris to discuss her international best-seller ‘The Tattooist of Auschwitz’.

For readers of Schindler’s List, The Man Who Broke into Auschwitz and The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas comes a heart-breaking story of the very best of humanity in the very worst of circumstances. In 1942, Lale Sokolov arrived in Auschwitz-Birkenau. He was given the job of tattooing the prisoners marked for survival – scratching numbers into his fellow victims’ arms in indelible ink to create what would become one of the most potent symbols of the Holocaust. Waiting in line to be tattooed, terrified and shaking, was a young girl. For Lale – a dandy, a jack-the-lad, a bit of a chancer – it was love at first sight. And he was determined not only to survive himself, but to ensure this woman, Gita, did, too. So begins one of the most life-affirming, courageous, unforgettable and human stories of the Holocaust: the love story of the tattooist of Auschwitz.

Heather Morris is a writer and social work administrator. For several years, while working in a large public hospital in Melbourne, she studied and wrote screenplays, one of which was optioned by an Academy Award-winning screenwriter in the US.

In 2003, Heather was introduced to an elderly man who ‘might just have a story worth telling’. The day she met Lale Sokolov changed both their lives, as their friendship grew and he embarked on a journey on self-scrutiny, entrusting the innermost details of his life during the Holocaust to her. Heather originally wrote Lale’s story as a screenplay – which ranked high in international competitions – before reshaping it into her debut novel, The Tattooist of Auschwitz.

Blackwell’s is delighted to welcome to Oxford Craig Revel Horwood, who will be discussing his third instalment in his frank and funny autobiography, ‘In Strictest Confidence’ at the Sheldonian Theatre.

‘In Strictest Confidence’ takes the reader through the highs and lows of the Strictly Come Dancing star’s ‘fab-u-lous’ life. The aussie-born judge shares his famously forthright views on the changes in Strictly Come Dancing’s line up – from Bruce Forsyth and Len Goodman’s departures to the arrival of Claudia Winkleman and Shirley Ballas – as well as the dancers and the stars.

Away from Strictly, Craig reveals fresh heartache over failed romances, his pain at losing his Dad and how his work kept him from flying to Australia for the funeral. He marks the milestones in his life, including turning fifty and moving to London to live in a ‘gorgeous’ country pile, as well as going under the knife for a second hip operation plus a few nips and tucks.

The multi-talented dancer, director and choreographer also discusses his award-winning shows, including Sister Act and Son of a Preacher Man, and spending a year in drag as Miss Hannigan in Annie. Plus, he reveals all about his foray into movies, choreographing Hugh Grant for Paddington 2 and making his big screen debut in Nativity Rocks.

Tickets to join us for this unmissable event cost £25 for a book and ticket option or £8 entry only. For all enquiries, please email events.oxford@blackwell.co.uk or call our Customer Service Department on 01865 333623.

Blackwell’s Broad Street Oxford is delighted to welcome to the bookshop Melissa Benn who will be discussing her new book ‘Life Lessons’, a bold proposal for new thinking on education: the formation of a National Education Service.

Melissa Benn is one of the most clear sighted and vocal campaigners for improving our schools. ‘Life Lessons’ sets out a radical agenda for how we make education for all, and make it relevant to the demands of 21st century. This requires a deep-rooted, long-term vision of the role of learning in our society, one that is ready to take on the challenges of a new century and be part of a wider shift towards greater equality.

Selina Todd, Professor of Modern History, University of Oxford and author of ‘The People: The Rise and Fall of the Working Class’, will be interviewing Melissa on the subject of her fascinating publication.

Melissa Benn is a journalist, novelist and campaigner. She has written for the Guardian, the New Statesman, Public Finance, Cosmopolitan and the London Review of Books, among many others. Her writing on education includes ‘Education and Democracy’, co-edited with Clyde Chitty, ‘A Comprehensive Future: Quality and Equality for All Our Children’, written with Fiona Millar, ‘School Wars:The Battle for Britain’s Education’ and ‘The Truth About Our Schools: Exploding the Myths, Exploring the Evidence’. A regular broadcaster and speaker, she is a founder member of the Local Schools Network, set up to support local schools and to counter media misinformation about their achievements and the challenges they face. As an active campaigner for comprehensive education, Melissa is a Vice President of the Socialist Education Association and is current chair of Comprehensive Future, an all-party group committed to the phasing out of selection at 11 and the implementation of fair school admissions. She is also on the board of Forum, the academic journal promoting 3-19 comprehensive education. In 2012, she won the Fred and Anne Jarvis award for her tireless work in support of non-selective schooling.

Tickets cost £5. Doors will open at 6:45pm, where there will be a bar selling a range of drinks until 7pm. For all enquiries please email events.oxford@blackwell.co.uk or call our Customer Service Department on 01865 333623.

The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism is pleased to invite you to join us for a panel discussion to mark the launch of a new UN-published handbook designed to tackle the global “disinformation war” – a “war” in which journalists and journalism have become prime targets.

Featuring guest speakers:
Alan Rusbridger, Principal of Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford, and former Editor in Chief of the Guardian
Inga Thordar, Executive Editor (Digital) CNN International
Julie Posetti, Co-author Journalism, ‘Fake News’ & Disinformation (UNESCO 2018), Senior Research Fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford
Professor Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, Director of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford
Thomas Hughes, Executive Director, Article 19

In a global-first act of collaborative research and knowledge sharing involving leading international experts, the UN has published a new handbook that aims to help equip journalism to tackle the scourge of ‘information disorder’. The book, Journalism, ‘Fake News’ & Disinformation, was edited by Julie Posetti, Senior Research Fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, and Cherilyn Ireton, Executive Director of the World Editors Forum.

The handbook was commissioned by the UN’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), in the context of growing international concern about a “disinformation war” — a “war” in which news reporters are now targets. This targeting — by “strongman” politicians and deceptive corporate actors, from Trump to Duterte, Cambridge Analytica to Bell Pottinger — makes fighting back against weaponized information mission critical for journalism.

The book is free to download here.
You can read about the book at Nieman Lab.

Timings:
17:30 – 19:00 Panel Discussion
19:00 -19:30 Drinks Reception

Blackwell’s are delighted to be hosting Roger Riddell for the launch of his latest book and debut novel Tapestries of Difference.

Tapestries of Difference is a gripping love story starting and ending in contemporary London but which journeys to Africa, where it captures the alluring beauty and harshness of today’s Zimbabwe and uncovers deceptions about the past which in all other circumstances ought to be forgotten. It is also a tale of both personal identity and what it means to be British today as the country confronts issues of faith and religion, race and ethnicity as it strives to weave a tapestry of core values to bind people together.

Roger Riddell lived in Zimbabwe for many years, chairing the first Presidential Economic Commission after Independence in 1980. After returning to England, Roger worked at the Overseas Development Institute before becoming a Director of Oxford Policy Management to which he is still affiliated. From 1999 to 2003 he was the International Director of Christian Aid. He has published widely on Zimbabwean and wider development issues. His most recent academic book, Does Foreign Aid Really Work? (Oxford University Press, 2008), has sold in excess of 15,000 copies.

All attendees are entitled to a complimentary glass of wine after which there will be a bar available to purchase drinks.

This event is free to attend, but spaces are limited, so please do register your interest. Doors will open at 6.45pm. For all enquiries please email events.oxford@blackwell.co.uk or call our Customer Service Department on 01865 333623.

An interview with John Lennox, Professor of Mathematics (emeritus) at Oxford University, by Rob Gifford, Senior Editor for The Economist.

In today’s world, isn’t it science, rather than Christianity, that holds the key to answering life’s deepest questions? Haven’t new discoveries rendered religious ideas obsolete? In a pluralistic and interconnected age, what should we put our trust in and is there any hope for humanity?

Join us as John and Rob explore these and many other questions relating to God, science and the meaning of life. This interactive event includes opportunities to submit questions, as well as a book signing for Prof. Lennox’s latest work, Can Science Explain Everything?