What’s on in York: Waterstones Presents – An Evening with Sir Max Hastings

Sep _24Max

York Explore Library :

Mon 24 Sep :

6.30pm – 8.00pm :

£5

Waterstones York are delighted to present author, journalist and broadcaster, Sir Max Hastings.

Sir Max will discuss his new book, Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy 1945-1975, a masterful chronicle of one of the most devastating international conflicts of the 20th century and how its people were affected.

No past volume has blended a political and military narrative of the entire conflict with heart-stopping personal experiences, in the fashion that Max Hastings’ readers know so well. The author suggests that neither side deserved to win this struggle with so many lessons for the 21st century about the misuse of military might to confront intractable political and cultural challenges. He marshals testimony from warlords and peasants, statesmen and soldiers, to create an extraordinary record.

Tickets available from Waterstones York

To book tickets please click here.

What’s on in York: Meet Matt Haig – 2018 Big City Read author

BCR

York Explore Library :

Thu 20 Sep :

6.00pm – 7.30pm :

£5

Join us as we launch the Big City Read 2018 and hear Matt Haig discuss writing The Radleys and Reasons to Stay Alive. Matt will be in conversation with Rob O’Connor.

Matt Haig is a best-selling author who has written fiction for both children and adults and non-fiction for adults. His adult work focuses on the human condition in general and his own experience of dealing with mental health issues. Far from being bleak or depressing, his books are both witty and life-affirming and he is a strong advocate of the power of reading which makes him a perfect author for our Big City read. Matt’s most recent novel is the best-selling How to Stop Time and his new non-fiction work, Notes from a Nervous Planet, was published in July.

Matt lives in Brighton with his partner writer Andrea Semple and their children Lucas and Pearl.

YLFRob O’Connor is a board member for the York Literature Festival and was the festival director from 2016 – 2018. He also teaches literature and creative writing at York St John University and the Centre for Lifelong Learning at the University of York. His areas of research interest focuses on genre theories, science fiction and fantasy, contemporary fiction, and creative writing

To book tickets please click here.

What’s on in York: Michael Arditti – Of Men and Angels

Sep 13_Michael

York Explore Library :

Thu 13th Sep :

6.30pm – 7.45pm :

£5

God’s vengeance on the wicked city of Sodom is a perennial source of fascination and horror.  Michael Arditti’s passionate and enthralling new novel explores the enduring power of the myth in five momentous epochs.   A young Judean exile transcribes the Acts of Abraham and Lot in ancient Babylon; the Guild of Salters presents a mystery play of Lot’s Wife in medieval York;   Botticelli paints the Destruction of Sodom for a court in Renaissance Florence;  a bereaved rector searches for the Cities of the Plain in nineteenth century Palestine;  a closeted gay movie star portrays Lot in a controversial biblical epic in 1980s Hollywood.

Author’s Biography:
Michael Arditti is the prize-winning author of ten works of fiction. Easter won the Waterstones Award and was longlisted for the Costa Award. Unity was shortlisted for the Wingate Award and Pagan and her Parents was shortlisted for the Lambda Award in the US. Widows and Orphans, Arditti’s last novel, was published to great critical acclaim in 2014.

He is currently the theatre critic for the Sunday Express. He lives in North London.

This event will take place in the Marriott Room.

To book tickets please click here.

What’s on in York: York Mystery Plays

Mystery Plays

The Green – College Green :

The Fair – St. Sampson’s Square :

The Streets – St. Helen’s Square :

The Stage – King’s Manor

Sun 9 Sep : 11.00am – 5.30pm :

Wed 12 Sep : 7.00pm – 9.00pm :

Sun 16 Sep  :11.00am – 5.30pm

Ticket prices vary and included in the link below.

Originally a set of 48 plays performed by the medieval Guilds of York, the York Mystery Plays illustrate the Christian history of the world from the Creation to the Last Judgement. They contain stories of delight, humour, horror, temptation and resistance. The Plays will take to the streets of York on two consecutive Sundays and a Wednesday evening to perform this Medieval tradition, filling the streets with music, theatre and spectacle.

For more information please visit our website

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/Mysteryplaysyork/

Twitter – https://twitter.com/Yorkmysteryplay

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/yorkmysteryplays/47

To book tickets please click here.

What’s on in York: Dr Johnson as a Guide to Life

Sep _7Johnson

Fairfax House :

Fri 7 Sep :

7.00pm – 8.30pm :

£14.00 (Members: £12.00, Students: £8.00)

Samuel Johnson was a critic, an essayist, a poet and a biographer. A polymath and a great conversationalist, his intellectual and social curiosity were boundless. Yet he was a deeply melancholy man, haunted by dark thoughts, sickness and a diseased imagination.

In his own life, both public and private, he sought to choose a virtuous and prudent path, negotiating everyday hazards and temptations. His writings and aphorisms illuminate what it means to lead a life of integrity, and his experience, abundantly documented by him and by others, is a lesson in the art of regulating the mind and the body.

Henry Hitchings was born in 1974. He has written mainly about language and history, starting in 2005 with Dr Johnson’s Dictionary. The Secret Life of Words (2008) won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and a Somerset Maugham Award, as well as seeing him shortlisted for the title of Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year. 2011′s The Language Wars completed what was in effect a trilogy of books about language. He is a prolific critic and has made several programmes for radio and television, on subjects including Erasmus Darwin, the eighteenth-century English novel and the history of manners. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Twitter: @henryhitchings

Website: http://henryhitchings.com/index.html

To book tickets please click here