Go to Waterstones Covent Garden on Thursday
Author appearances, poetry and spoken word events in London this week
The week’s festivals
The Richmond Literature Festival is on all week, with authors including Edward Hollis, Sandra Hempel and Tom Cheshire. Tickets £6-£15
The Last Word at the Roundhouse in Camden is also on all week. Have a look at our preview and catch work by Kate Tempest, Huw Stephens, Paul Cree and others. Tickets £5-£15
Dan Snow, Marc Morris, Antonia Fraser and Saul David appear at the London History Festival in Kensington. Tickets £5 / £3
The Brook Green Festival of Books finishes on 21 November with Deborah Moggach talking about her life, work and novel Heartbreak Hotel. Tickets £10
The Second Light Autumn Festival at the Art Workers Guild is all about Sylvia Plath, 21-23 November, with poets including Moniza Alvi, Katherine Gallagher, Gillian Allutt and Esther Morgan. Tickets £20-£70, Saturday main reading £7 / £5
All the authors are comedians at the Chortle Comedy Book Festival at venues in Ealing, starting 22 November. Take a look at our picks of the fest. Tickets £6-£16
The Peckham Literary Festival starts 25 November. Catch Roger Clarke, Martin Bannister and a night of spoken word with Kid I Wrote Back’s Chimene Suleyman at Review. Tickets £3
Thursday 21 November
Jane O’Grady, Angus Kennedy and Edward Skidelsky discuss the great minds of today at Foyles. Free, 6pm
Adelle Waldman talks to Alain de Botton about her novel The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P at the London Jewish Cultural Centre. £10 / £12, 8pm
Margaret MacMillan gives an account of the events leading up to the Versailles Treaty, at Daunt Books Marylebone. £8, 7pm
Raba’i al-Madhoun, translator Elliott Colla and Rosie Goldsmith read from and talk about The Lady From Tel Aviv at the Mosaic Rooms. Free, 7pm
13 Pages holds the first of fortnightly workshops at the Poetry Library. Free, prebook, 7pm
John Rogers brings This Other London to Stories at Invisible Dot, along with Will Adamsdale and conceptual poet Matthew Lee Knowles. £8, 7.45pm
Come meet The Gentle Author at Waterstones Covent Garden. 6pm
Ross Sutherland and Morris Folk Choir are the guests at Bang Said the Gun in SE1. £7 / £5, 8pm
Stephanie Seegmuller and Adam Freudenhem, the people behind Pushkin and Peirene Presses, wonder just how dead the book actually is, at Woolfson & Tay. Free, 7pm
Susan Ee talks about her latest dystopian fantasy thriller World After at the Post Apocalyptic Book Club at Waterstones Piccadilly. £5 / £3, 6.30pm
Witold Szabłowski launches his debut book The Assassin from Apricot City, at the Free Word Centre. Free, 6.30pm
Henry Marsh reads at the Wapping Project. £6, 7pm
Friday 22 November
Wood Green’s Big Green Bookshop hosts an evening of winter poetry and open mic, plus mince pies and mulled wine. £3, 7pm
Pimlico Library hosts a writers’ panel with Gabrielle Kimm, Linda Stratmann and Hallie Rubenhold focusing on sex and scandal in Georgian / Victorian England. Free, prebook, 6pm
Hylda Sims hosts Fourth Friday at the Poetry Cafe with Maurice Riordan and Kathryn Maris. £7 / £5, 8pm
Michael Connolly is signing copies of The Gods of Guilt at Waterstones Leadenhall Market from 12.30pm
Saturday 23 November
Annexe Magazine runs day-long festival Interrobang at the Betsey Trotwood with workshops, performances, poetry and prose from writers including Amber Massie-Blomfield, Dorothy Lehane, Jacob Sam-La Rose, Inua Ellams and Talia Randall. £7 / £15 with We Make Books workshops, 12-11pm
Anandi Ramamurthy looks at the British Asian youth movements of the 70s and 80s, at Housmans. Free, 6.30pm
Theatre Renegade launches a new anthology, Courting Drama, at Bush Theatre before performances of new writing. Launch 3.30pm, performances £13.50, 5pm / 7.30pm
Amnesty’s legendary book sale is back on in Blackheath, 10am-4pm
There’s a flash fiction slam with Farrago Poetry at the Poetry Cafe. £6 / £5, 6.30pm
Sunday 24 November
Barbara Cumbers, Nigel Lawrence, Jo Pestel and Ruth Higgins are the guests at Torriano Poets. £5 / £3, 7.30pm
Wintry poems by Blake, Frost (ha) and Keats are read and sung at Keats House. Free, 2pm
Monday 25 November
Jackie Kay, Ali Smith, Diana Evans, Eleanor Bron and Melissa Benn raise money for Islington’s Maya Centre, at the Free Word Centre. £35 (plus donation if you want), 6.30pm
Ian McEwen (note spelling) launches his collection Intermittent Beings at the Poetry Cafe. Free, 7.30pm
Tuesday 26 November
Jo Brandon, Kelley Swain, Jon Stone and Rachel Piercey read at a Valley Press / Emma Press event at The Horseshoe in Clerkenwell. £4, 7pm
Kamila Shamsie and John Freeman talk about what makes a great novel, at Daunt Books Marylebone. £8, 7pm
The true story of Hanns Alexander, who pursued Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss, is told by Thomas Harding at Keats House. £5, 7pm
Giles Milton, Catherine Merridale and Vladimir Alexandrov explore personal stories of the Russian Revolution at Waterstones Piccadilly. £5 / £3, 6.30pm
Daniel Hahn hosts Ollie Brock and Rosalind Harvey in a translation slam at the Free Word Centre. £5 / £3, 6.30pm
Niall O’Sullivan hosts the Poetry Cafe‘s open mic night, Poetry Unplugged. £5 / £4, 7.30pm
Get a three course dinner and three true stories from Justin Rollins, Jo Galloway and Russell Hall with Storythyme at Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club. £30, 6.30pm
Wednesday 27 November
Amy Tan reads from her new novel The Valley of Amazement at Foyles. £5, 6.30pm
The final Homework of the season has the gang (Ross Sutherland, Joe Dunthorne, Luke Wright, John Osborne, Tim Clare) host their own chat show at Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club. £5, 7.30pm
Lisa Appignanesi talks to Adam Phillips about his essays and psychoanalysis at Lutyens & Rubinstein. £8, 7pm
Sabrina Chap talks about creativity and self destruction, the topic of Live Through This collection of essays, at Woolfson & Tay. £3, 7pm
Kat Francois hosts Jawdance at Rich Mix, with AJ Mckenna and open mic. Free, 7.30pm
Deborah Tyler-Bennett, poet-in-residence at Keats House in 2010, reads poems from Kinda Keats. Free, 7pm
Poets Anonymous gather at the Poetry Cafe. 7.30pm
Follow @LondonistLit for our pick of that day’s literary events.