The Literary Salon

Listen in for the world premiere of Broken Greek from the brilliant journalist and broadcaster Pete Paphides (recorded at our very first online Salon, relocated from the Savoy). When Pete’s parents moved from Cyprus to Birmingham in the 1960s in the hope of a better life, they had no money and only a little English. Everything changed. The Paphides family opened a fish-and-chip shop in Acocks Gree...

In celebration of its paperback release, Damian Barr gives an exclusive new reading for Salonistas from his debut novel, You Will Be Safe Here. The book is a powerful and urgent novel of two connected South African stories, exploring how the past influences the present and what choices we have - or not - in influencing our destiny. Listen in for news about the paperback - released in the UK April...

Damian Barr reads his piece from this brand new collection edited by Val McDermid and Jo Sharp. Imagine A Country: Ideas for a Better Future offers visions of a new future from an astonishing array of Scottish voices, from comedians to economists, writers to musicians. Featuring Ali Smith, Alan Cumming, Kerry Hudson, Jackie Kay, Louise Welsh and many more. Royalties will be split among five Scotti...

We’re so excited about the much anticipated first adult fantasy novel from Eoin Colfer, the New York Times bestselling author of Artemis Fowl, and we're thrilled to feature him as a Salon Exclusive! Enjoy as Eoin treats us to an exclusive early sneak peek as he reads from Highfire, a joyous genre-bending story that’s part thriller, part action movie and very very funny. In it we meet a vodka-drink...

Listen in for this exclusive interview and readings from the brilliant Maggie O’Farrell, who returned to the Salon to give us yet another world premiere with Hamnet, the novel she’s wanted to write for over thirty years. Maggie's first foray into historical fiction takes us back to a summer day in 1596. A young girl in Stratford-upon-Avon takes to bed with a fever. Her twin brother, Hamnet, is dis...

Welcome to the first instalment of Salon News! We've had so much excitement recently and so many people wanting to hear what we’ve got coming up, so we've answered your call. Listen in for all the goss on our TV series, how to get Salon tickets before anyone else in 2020, what we’ve been reading and a touch of naughtiness concerning Fanny Cradock’s doughnuts... Salon News - so much better than the...

Listen to Anthony Anaxagorou performing his beautiful poem ‘Things Already Lost’ especially for the Salon at the recent Cheltenham Literature Festival. Anthony is a British-born Cypriot poet, fiction writer, essayist, publisher and poetry educator. His poetry has been published in POETRY, The Poetry Review, Poetry London, Granta, and more, and has appeared on BBC Newsnight, BBC Radio 4, ITV, Vice...

Kerry Hudson attended nine primary schools and five secondaries living in B&B's and council flats as she and her mum were forced to move again and again by poverty. Now Kerry is a rightly acclaimed novelist, activist and columnist and her life is unrecognisable. But how did she get from there to here and is her journey complete? What of the places she left? Listen to her incredible conversation wi...

Here at Salon we’re *so* excited about the debut novel from Okechukwu Nzelu and we're thrilled to feature him as a Salon Exclusive! Here he reads to us from 'The Private Joys of Nnenna Maloney' - a very funny and bighearted story. In it we see Nnenna approaching womanhood, full of questions about how to ‘be’ when there’s so much she doesn’t know of her cultural and familial history, and we meet he...

Jojo Moyes - Literary Salon - July 2019 by Damian Barr's Literary Salon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dustin Lance Black – who wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay for Milk and helped overturn California’s anti-gay marriage Proposition 8 – talks with Damian Barr at special Outsider Memoirs Salon at the Theatre Royal in Brighton. Dustin grew up in a conservative Mormon household in Texas. Here he reads t us from his inspiring memoir Mama's Boy, and discusses his childhood, his plucky mother, and much...

To read a memoir is to become part of somebody else’s story, to see yourself reflected in their pages. In a special Outsider Memoirs Salon at Brighton's Theatre Royal, Tracey Thorn joined us to share her latest memoir 'Another Planet'. We were taken to the scene of her 1970s childhood where ‘life was slow and very little happened, over and over again’ as her diary records. How did she get from the...

EXCLUSIVE - feast your ears on a never-heard-before podcast special from the Salon archives! Pour yourself a glass of wine and join us at Cheltenham Literature Festival 2017 with the brilliant Rachel Joyce. In this Book and A Bottle Salon, we enjoyed a joyously delicious hour of reading, wine-tasting and talking with the best-selling author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. Rachel read fro...

Damian Barr gives an exclusive reading for Salonistas from his debut novel, You Will Be Safe Here. The book is a powerful and urgent novel of two connected South African stories, exploring how the past influences the present and what choices we have - or not - in influencing our destiny. This reading is the final of three released across March. The book is available to preorder now at smarturl.it/...

Damian Barr gives an exclusive reading for Salonistas from his debut novel, You Will Be Safe Here. The book is a powerful and urgent novel of two connected South African stories, exploring how the past influences the present and what choices we have - or not - in influencing our destiny. This reading is the second of three being released across March. The book is available to preorder now at smart...

Here at Salon we’ve long loved the risk-taking journalism of Saskia Vogel. So we’re delighted to feature her as a Salon Exclusive! Here she reads to us from her debut novel ‘Permission’ - a raw, fresh and very honest love story about dreams, expectations, and the erotic. And grief, yes grief too. When Echo’s father gets swept away by a freak current off the Los Angeles coast, she finds herself sin...

Damian Barr gives an exclusive reading for Salonistas from his debut novel, You Will Be Safe Here. The book is a powerful and urgent novel of two connected South African stories, exploring how the past influences the present and what choices we have - or not - in influencing our destiny. This reading is the first of three which will be released over the next few weeks. The book is available to pre...

A special Oceania themed Literary Salon hosted by Damian Barr in the penthouse of New Zealand House to coincide with the major exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts. Joining Damian for this special Salon are five leading voices from the Pacific...Māori writers Witi Ihimaera, Tina Makereti and Paula Morris and Pasifika poets David Egglegon and Karlo Mila, all of whom tell stunning Oceanic stories...

Damian in conversation with Maggie O'Farrell at the Edinburgh Book Festival. She reads from her astonishing memoir I am I am I am. It details her many and various brushes with death and her astonishing will to survive. A warning: someone fainted at the first reading. it's not gory but it is very intense. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So, here it is: the first ever reading from my first ever novel! Where else would I read it for the first time?! It's such a privilege to have all you Salonistas along with me on this journey. I am interviewed by Kirsty Wark - lucky me! The novel has already been previewed in the Guardian, Observer & Financial Times. Here is what the Big Issue had to say in their look ahead to 2019: 'Maggie and Me...

Kirsty Wark has anchored Newsnight since 1993. She famously clashed with Margaret Thatcher and has interviewed every Prime Minister since - and probably also whoever it is that will be Prime Minister next month. She premiered her first novel, The Legacy of Elizabeth Pringle, at the Salon almost exactly five years ago. Tonight, she returns to take us all to The House By The Loch –don’t let your Ame...

World premiere of Sweet Sorrow, David's new novel, at the Savoy on Feb 11, 2019. Back in 2009, when we were at Shoreditch House, David Nicholls took to the stage – okay we didn’t have a stage, we had a stool - and made us all fall in love with Dexter and Emma. One Day went on to do quite well. Five years after that he took us all round Europe and to the breaking heart of a couple falling out of lo...

A special Salon with the amazing and irrepressible Armistead Maupin at Brighton's Theatre Royal. Armistead treats us to excerpts from his new book 'Logical Family: A Memoir' before Damian takes the Tales of the City author on a fascinating jaunt down memory lane. Photo credit Christopher Turner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you’re a fan of 'The Killing' you’re going to love 'The Chestnut Man' - the nail-biting debut novel from Søren Sveistrup, the BAFTA and Emmy winning creator of the global TV sensation . We're thrilled to have him reading an exclusive extract from it for us here, ahead of its UK release on 10th January 2019. It's every bit as gripping, terrifying and bloody as the TV show, so be warned! Learn mo...

Rose McGowan was born into one cult, the Children of God, and came of age in another: Hollywood. She has been a Captive. A runaway. A starlet. A celebrity. A victim. And now she is an activist, an artist and a writer. Her powerfully honest memoir-manifesto is enraging and inspiring. Just over a year ago she helped sparked #metoo which continues to change our world. But what does it really take to...