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An evening with Kate Williams

From Cleopatra to Grace Kelly, an epic new history of royal women that shatters the myths we have built around them In this enthralling historical journey, celebrated historian Kate Williams leads us into the world of queens, empresses, princesses, mistresses and ladies-in-waiting. Stories about royal women form some of our most foundational myths about femininity, and yet their legacies have been almost entirely constructed by the words and images of men. From the ancient civilisations of Egypt and Mesopotamia to the opulent courts of the pre-medieval world, REGINA delves deep into the lives of these remarkable women, uncovering both their trials and triumphs as they navigate political intrigue, family rivalries and personal sacrifices. From Hatshepsut and C leopatra, through to Tudor queens Catherine of Aragon and Lady Jane Grey, via Queen Victoria’s contemporaries Yaa Asentewaa of Ghana and Queen Lili’oukulani of Hawaii, and right up to Princess Diana, this is an unmissable history that unlocks why we think about women, politics and power in the ways that we do.

Tue 16 Jun20:00Costa Coffee

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Community

An evening with M.J. Arlidge & Tim Weaver

Get ready for a thrilling evening, with a double dose of cracking crime fiction! Out of the Ashes – M.J. Arlidge As her best friend fights for her life, DI Helen Grace hunts her attacker in unfamiliar territory. Under pressure as never before, Helen knows that this time everything is on the line. Her boss has told her that failure is not an option, whilst the Dutch underworld will stop at nothing to protect one of their own. But for Helen this mission is personal. Which is why she has vowed to catch the desperate fugitive or die trying… The Lost Women – Tim Weaver Before he was a missing persons investigator, David Raker was a journalist – and there’s one story that still haunts him. The Lost Women. Eighteen years ago, on the Cornish coast, three women were filming a documentary about a missing student…until they vanished too. With no bodies and no leads, the disappearances remain unsolved. Today, Raker is hired to crack an impossible mystery. Following a car accident, Preston Stewart has surgery on his face. The operation is a success. But when the dressings are removed, Preston’s wife realises something is very wrong. The man under the bandages is not her husband. Raker and his ally, former detective Colm Healy, begin digging into Preston’s disappearance – and discover a horrifying connection to the lost women. But there’s something even worse. The men only have 48 hours to solve both cases – or everything that matters to them and everyone they love is in danger…

Mon 22 Jun20:00Costa Coffee

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Community

An evening with Paul De Zulueta

An intimate, revelatory family biography of the iconic writer Daphne du Maurier and her famous ancestors, by her eldest grandson Born into a famous artistic dynasty, Daphne grew up in an atmosphere of carefree privilege. At a time when girls of her class were not expected to have a career, she defied convention and moved to Cornwall to pursue her ambition to become a writer. There, over six decades, she dreamt up the stories that have sold tens of millions of copies worldwide and still haunt our cultural imagination, including Rebecca, Jamaica Inn and ‘The Birds’. Last Night I Dreamt explores how the turbulence and contradictions of Daphne’s own life – spanning war, affairs, a marriage to a renowned but damaged general, and unrequited love – inspired her writing. It also uncovers the powerful influence of her notable forebears, in particular her domineering father Gerald, the most famous actor-manager of his generation; her grandfather George, a renowned Victorian novelist and cartoonist; and the mistress to the Duke of York, Mary Anne Clarke, another woman who refused to obey the rules. Paul de Zulueta, Daphne’s grandson, has drawn on private family archives, new interviews and his own memories of his grandmother, a woman who was central to his early life.

Tue 1 Sept20:00Costa Coffee

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Community

An evening with Adele Parks

Be afraid. Someone’s watching. At fifteen, Amy witnessed her father brutally murder his secret lover. Her testimony sealed her father’s fate. With him in prison, Amy and her mother must rebuild their lives in the shadow of a notorious crime. Years later, Oliver Harrington walks into the restaurant where Amy works. Just like Amy, Oliver has a past he’d rather forget. Amy is drawn to him at a profound level; they feel a connection, an understanding… This seems a lot like love, but does it hide something darker – an obsession that could lead Amy into a web of deception and violence she thought she’d escaped? As the truth looms ever closer, Amy must confront a harsh reality: where there is love, there is often betrayal.

Thu 10 Sept20:00Costa Coffee

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Community

An evening with John Sweeney

Join award-winning journalist John Sweeney, as he lays bare the real Nigel Farage. Nigel Farage is arguably the most consequential British politician of our age, and on current polling he is set to become the UK prime minister after the next general election. But aspects of his life story remain shrouded in mystery. Who is the real Nigel Farage, and does he possess the qualities to lead the country at a time of domestic turmoil and international peril? Based on interviews and reporting in the UK and across Europe by the fearless John Sweeney, The Real Nigel Farage will be published just ahead of the 2026 autumn party conference season as battlelines are drawn for the next election and the contest to lead the Right intensifies.

Tue 15 Sept20:00Costa Coffee

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Community

An evening with Jamie Bartlett

From the Sunday Times bestselling author of The People Vs Tech and the smash hit BBC podcast The Missing Crypto Queen comes the definitive guide to communicating with AI, and what happens if we get it wrong. Knowing how to speak to AI – and how not to – is a skill that everyone now needs. Hundreds of millions of people now talk to AI, such as ChatGPT, every day. They organise their finances and holidays, ask advice, seek therapy and find love – via machines. Almost overnight, chatbots are transforming society, politics and business. This is one of the biggest and fastest technological changes in history. However, most people still don’t really understand how AI works, how to make the most of it – or what the dangers are. As some people use it to turbo-charge their productivity at work, others are falling into dangerous conspiracies, delusions and psychosis. In How to Talk to AI, award-winning technology writer Jamie Bartlett takes you inside the machine: showing how we can stay in control of our powerful new companions, even as they are changing the way we live, feel, and think.

Thu 17 Sept20:00Costa Coffee

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Community

An afternoon with Elly Griffiths

A festive murder mystery novella featuring Ali Dawson No-one is more surprised than time-travelling detective Ali Dawson when Charles Dickens suddenly turns up on her doorstep a few days before Christmas. The Great Writer is as baffled as she is as to how he got there. Ali takes him in, despite being preoccupied with a new cold case around the murdered artist Sylvester Strong. Dickens is a rather demanding house guest. However, as a detective, he shows distinct promise and together they embark on finding the truth behind the appearance of new paintings by the deceased artist. On top of that Nell, the daughter of Ali’s best friend Meg, has vanished without a trace. As the whole of London is in full festive swing and preparing for the most special day of the year, Ali and Dickens are exploring the town, desperate to solve not just one but two crime cases. Will they succeed before Christmas Day arrives and more importantly, will Charles find a way back home?

Tue 6 Oct15:00Costa Coffee

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Community

An evening with John Boyne

Can one rash decision prove the difference between a life well lived and a life destroyed? When the Marquis of Queensbury left his calling card at the Albemarle Club in February 1895, it bore only his name and five words: ‘For Oscar Wilde, posing Somdomite’. The most feted playwright of his day famously sued for libel, which led to his arrest, criminal prosecution and ultimately prison. From then on, his gilded existence spiralled into public disgrace, humiliation and an early death. But what if he had simply ignored the insult? What direction might his life have taken? This is the premise of John Boyne’s extraordinary new novel, The Weight of Angels. Rather than dying in penury in Paris at the age of forty-six, what if he had lived to bear witness to the momentous events and cataclysmic changes of the first part of the twentieth century, and even influence some of them? What if the second half of his life were as celebrated, dramatic, tumultuous and exhilarating as the first? In imagining the life that Oscar Wilde never had, John Boyne has written one of the great what-if stories of modern literature, giving the great Anglo-Irish poet and playwright a fresh new voice and the opportunity to take an entirely different path.

Thu 15 Oct20:00Costa Coffee

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