Literary May

Independent bookshop Pages of Hackney

Two events to look forward to at Pages of Hackney bookshop this May. The first is another offering from independent publisher and celebrator of excellent debut work, Cinnamon Press. The other comes from local man, Travis Elborough, for the paperback launch of the hugely successful Wish You Were Here.

Cinnamon Press will launch two books at Pages (Thursday 12 May at 7pm, £3). The first is Special Needs, the first novel from prize-winning poet, Susan Vickerman. It’s something that every teacher (and ex-teacher!) should read.

In a multi-cultural community somewhere in the North of England, teaching is not the only thing that occupies the minds of this vibrant cast of teachers and dreamers, adults every bit as in need of self-discovery as their teenage charges and offspring. All about family, race, sexual identity, lesbianism and life at the chalk-face, Special Needs is an intelligent, hilarious and humane debut.

The second launch is Fragmented, a debut collection from Hackney journalist, Jeremy Worman, which charts an innovative perspective on London from 70s squatter and hippy to establishment figure. Many sketches are set in Hackney or Hornsey Rise – at one time the largest squat in Europe. Fragmented brings to life characters and places, examining the underside of London epitomised by outsiders, drugs, racial tension and crime. Jeremy Worman has reviewed for The Observer, The Sunday Telegraph, The Spectator, the New Statesman, the TLS.

Then on 18 May (also at 7pm, tickets £3), Pages hosts Travis Elborough to talk about Wish You Were Here. In many ways, our national character has been defined by our relationship with the seaside – and in tracing its development, we can see how our ideas about health, wealth and happiness evolved. Our aspirations and snobbery, our attitudes to sex, our keen sense of fair play, our chequered relationship with national pride and our ability to laugh at ourselves have all been played out against a backdrop of stormy skies, pebbly beaches and sticks of rock. The seaside is the place we go to get better, to let our hair down, to downsize, to retire, to take drugs and to hide.

Ranging from Agatha Christie to the Prince Regent via Billy Butlin and Brighton Rock, Travis Elborough explores how a coastline peppered with quasi-Oriental piers makes us quintessentially English. Erudite, charming and surprising, Wish You Were Here is a gloriously unorthodox social history of a nation of islanders.

Travis is a local author and has published two other books, The Bus We Loved about the history of the Routemaster bus, and The Long-Player Goodbye.