Stories Before Bedtime
Stories Before Bedtime returns to the Criterion with an alternative Valentine’s theme on the 10th February.
Twisted Love: an anti-valentines evening of unlikely love stories will see Irish actress Niamh Cusack reading Angela Carter’s The Courtship of Mr Lyon, Tom Hiddleston, recent star of Hollywood blockbuster Thor and Steven Spielberg’s Warhorse, reading the erotic Tennessee Williams short story The Kingdom of Heaven, and star of Men Behaving Badly Caroline Quentin reading extracts from Ovid’s hilarious The Art of Love.
For more information and to book tickets click here.
Patience (After Sebald)
This January the much anticipated new feature film by Grant Gee, director of ‘JoyDivsion’, is released at selected cinemas. ‘Patience (After Sebald)’ offers a unique exploration of the work of the internationally acclaimed writer W.G. Max Sebald (1944-2001) via a walk in East Anglia tracking his most influential book, The Rings of Saturn. It marks ten years since the writer’s death and has contributions from major writers and film makers, such as Adam Philips, Robert Macfarlane, Andrew Motion, Rick Moody and Tactia Dean. Click here for more info.
The Mystery of Edwin Drood
The latest BBC adaptation of Dickens, is the stylish and intriguing adaptation of The Mystery of Edwin Drood. The second part is on this evening. Dickens last unfinished book about a missing boy and an opium addicted choir boy has notoriously puzzled readers ever since it was written. To find out more about this dark opium-soaked novel click 'view book'.
Favourite Not-New Books Chosen by Independent Minds
Searching for some classic inspiration? Read our latest blog of favourite classic books as chosen by key booksellers across the country. Discover what To Kill a Mocking Bird means to Eve Griffiths of The Bookcase, or why Nic Bottomley of Mr B’s Emporium chose The Blackbirder, and feel free to comment with your own favourite classics and what they mean to you.
The Evening Read-in
This is the latest in The Reader Organisation's online Reading Revolution features: the Evening Read-in. Thanks to the talents of our Get Into Reading project workers and social media team, we present Dickens’ A Christmas Carol as an audio download each Thursday evening at 9pm. Like a Get Into Reading group, we want people to be talking about what they’re listening to being read, so if you’re a Twitter user, sign in and get Tweeting as you listen: let’s show people how it’s done! (#eveningreadin / @thereaderorg). If you miss out on the start of it, a synopsis will be available on Thursday evenings of what's been read previously and what's going to be read that night.
So get in the festive spirit and get a cup of hot chocolate, a biscuit or two and curl up on the sofa with your laptop? And please spread the word to fellow readers who would love to listen to Dickens’ magical words being read aloud and share that experience with readers all over the world...
And Celebrating 50 years of Heller's Catch-22
Catch-22 is 50 this Autumn, we're already celebrating with this new look paperback (you may have seen it on the Underground if you're London based), watch this space in the coming months to download a reading guide, find out lots of little known facts about the novel and see a newly commissioned animated video. You can also win 50 Vintage Classics of your choice if you leave our favourite Catch-22 review on the site. Click the box on the left to enter.
Judging a book by its cover
Jacket design is integral to our Vintage Classics. For our relaunch we created an animated video which brings our Classic imagery to life.
Facinating photographs taken by the jacket designer of our Vintage Classics edition of Elizabeth Gaskell's Wives and Daughters.
Lovingly created by hand.