Jeff Hill’s talk took place on 26  March in our Bishop’s Castle shop/office, having been delayed. It was renamed ‘Writing the Game: in praise of masculinity’ and took the audence on an erudite and entertaining tour of various books that have used sport as their dominant theme over the last two hundred years. It was remarkable that sport could be made more so much more interesting than is usually the case by someone who has, by his own admission, no interest in sport for its own sake.

Erotic Communities

Antony Lampert’s talk on Tuesday 20^th November was fascinating. He talked in detail about the very real threats to life and harm to vulnerable individuals, particularly children, which result when religious prejudice takes precedence over medical duty, spelling out how frequently this prejudice is to do with sex or the control of it. There was less about historic witches than we advertised but, hopefully, we were forgiven because he described more than enough of modern witchcraft and superstition to fill the gap. He ended on a humorous note by producing his ‘Award’ from the ‘Erotic Community’, shown here to replace the poor witch shown previously. Many thanks to Antony.

Tracey Emin and her bed

Philip Woolley’s talk on Tuesday  2^nd October on Tracey Emin and her bed and on conceptual art in general set off more hares than there were greyhounds to catch them: the spitting bile of traditional craft artists versus the slippery guile of the conceptualists with Philip’s informed voice to referee the discussion once the talk was over. He looked at the phenomenon of museum art and at the rise of the Young Brits, young no longer, pulling in ideas of gender and romanticism along the way. He was a cat among pigeons with silvery beards (mainly). A thoroughly enjoyable evening.

The next talk, ‘What is Lost’, broadly about the influence of religion on medical practice and how Dr Lempert arrived at his opinions through the experience of his  family during the Holocaust and through other influences, will be by Dr. Anthony Lempert, chair of the Secular Medical Forum. It should be equally challenging and interesting. Literature and debate as sublimated cage boxing – discuss. More to follow.

Shrewsbury Market

In line with our recent policy of combining literature with fruit and veg, Wednesdays from 17 September, Bob Fowke will be in attendance at the Pengwern Bookshop in Shrewsbury’s indoor market. Pengwern is an independent bookshop, Pengwern being the Brythonic name for a Romano-Caltic settlement somewhere on the site of central Shrewsbury and possibly a haunt of King Arthur. It probably meant ‘the hill of alders’. The name has nothing in particular to do with Penguin Books, although Susan Caroline, the proprietor, does sell some of them.

Do drop by, Bob will be happy to discuss your project.

Tracey and her bed

The second YouCaxton literary lecture is scheduled for 6.30 pm Tuesday 2nd October at the YouCaxton Shop in Bishop’s Castle – except it’s not quite literary. Abstract artist and art historian, Phillip Woolley, will be expounding on the subject of  ‘Tracey Emin and her bed’, Phillip will be looking at the development of conceptual art in its social and historical context using Tracey’s bed as a leitmotif. He will discuss the process by which the art of the Britpop artists developed and how their work became so lucrative for a small number of them.

Scandinavian criminals criticised

The first YouCaxton Literary Lecture took place on Tuesday 14 August in our shop on Bishop’s Castle High Street and was well attended by those with a literary turn of mind and perhaps by one or two local criminals in search of insight although we can’t be certain.

Paul Binding, an expert on matters Scandinavian, was fascinating on the background to the recent boom in Scandinavian crime fiction. He related the worlds of Wallander and others to Inspector Morse and also to social trends within the Scandinavian countries with particular reference to the assassination of Olaf Palme in 1986 and the recent horrendous tragedy at Utoeya in Norway. The discussion which followed was informed and in itself very interesting.

Scandinavia

Why have the Scandinavian countries produced, in under twenty years, crime fiction that has mesmerised the world – Mankell’s Wallander, Nesbo’s Harry Hole novels and on T.V. The Killing and Borgen, watched by millions?

Paul Binding will be giving a short talk (around thirty minutes) in the YouCaxton shop in Bishop’s Castle on:

SCANDINAVIA AND ITS CRIME FICTION

6.30 pm Tuesday 14th August on:

It’s free and all are welcome. Wine will be available – with contributions gratefully accepted – or bring your won refreshment. Hope to see you there.

Grand Opening

The opening of the new shop in Bishop’s Castle was a went very well, attended by the intellectual cream of South Shropshire (those who made it and there were enough of them to down most of the wine).  We failed on the drumroll and the portrait of Caxton went AWOL but Steve was admirably wise and knowledgeable about matters technical and Bob was oracular about developments in publishing.