LITBITS
Here are small bits of literary news...
1. The Guardian Live Events
Tuesday 17 May 2022, 8pm–9pm Paris time
Margaret Atwood: Burning Questions
£7 plus £0.92 booking fee
Margaret Atwood will join the Guardian Live for a special livestreamed event to introduce her new essay collection, Burning Questions.
How can we live on our dying planet? How much of yourself can you give away without evaporating? Why do people from all cultures tell stories? And just what do zombies have to do with authoritarianism?
Friday 27 May 2022, 9pm–10pm Paris time
Voices of Ukraine: authors read from the literature of Ukraine
£7 plus £1.74 booking fee
Karl Ove Knausgaard, Ian McEwan, neurosurgeon Henry Marsh and poet Alice Oswald are among the writers who will read the work of their Ukrainian peers in solidarity with the people of Ukraine. Further speakers will be announced soon.
All profits will be donated to the DEC Ukraine humanitarian appeal.
Monday 23 May 2022, 9pm-10pm Paris time
Uncommon Wealth: Can we change colonial legacy?
£7 plus £0.92 booking fee
When the Empire supposedly 'ended' with the transfer of Hong Kong to China in 1997, Britain didn't just put its former colonies back the way they were found. Instead, an interconnected group of wealthy politicians, lawyers and accountants offshored their capital, seizing assets and transferring debt to former 'dependencies' - thus deepening already horrific inequality across the globe. This is one of the many scandals that Koram uncovers in his blistering new book, Uncommon Wealth.
Monday 30 May 2022, 9pm-10pm Paris time
George Monbiot: Regenesis
£7 plus £1.74 booking fee
In Regenesis, Monbiot seeks out the people who are unlocking revolutionary methods to shift our relationship to the living world. He draws on a trove of research to set out a plan for a new system that would restore large areas of our land to the wild, draw down carbon, and give everyone access to healthy and affordable food.
2. The American Library in Paris' "Evening With an Author". Calendar of Events.
May 3 @ 19 h 30 min - 20 h 30 min
(Hybrid) Last Best Hope with George Packer & Thomas Chatterton Williams
If there is one thing many Americans can agree on, it is that something is wrong in present-day America. The premise of journalist George Packer's new book, Last Best Hope, is that democracy, the "art of self-government," which struck Alexis de Tocqueville nearly two hundred years ago when he visited the U.S., is in trouble.
Observing the series of events which struck America in 2020 (the pandemic and its mismanagement, the racial reckoning, the election and its aftermath), Packer seeks to propose a diagnosis.
May 4 @ 19 h 30 min - 20 h 30 min
(Online) The War in Ukraine, Analyzed
The Russian invasion of Ukraine rocked the globe. As emergency councils convene and as an increasing list of sanctions is considered, the future of international diplomacy seems to hang in the balance. What will be the global consequences of this war? What will it mean for NATO, and for Europe? How might this crisis end?
May 10 @ 19 h 30 min - 20 h 30 min
(Hybrid) Why Read Shakespeare with Robert McCrum
Describing his turn to Shakespeare while recovering from a life-altering stroke, author and editor Robert McCrum writes in his new book, Shakespearean: On Life and Language in Times of Disruption, that "during convalescence, the Complete Works became my book of life." Written in the contemporary age of chaos and crisis, McCrum's demonstrates the relevance of the Shakespearean corpus to a convalescent world.
3. La Maison de la poésie : Scène littéraire
