One of the perks I value most about having a bookshop is that our talks series, such as it is (roughly a speaker a month between September – June) enables me to meet professionals in every field (the arts, sciences, even sports) who I would otherwise never have had the opportunity to meet. Some few are well-known to the public – hey! It´s a long way up here, the fee is risible, and the Old Waiting Room wherein the talks take place only holds 50 people tops (60 if they´re skinny).

Still, some serious names (serious names with big hearts) have been willing to make the perilous journey above Watford, eg, Joanna Trollope, David Aaronovitch, Richard Ingrams, Anne Stevenson, James Fleming, Tony Harrison, and the late (loved) (missed!) Miles Kington.

But forget famous; all our speakers are well-known within their field and have given some of the most spell-binding talks of all, enough to have created their very own fan club. (Just try dropping the name ‘Richard Lomas’ around these parts ­ Dick´s the Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Durham ­ and wait for the absolutely slavering response.) Anyway, all the talks begin at 7.30 and cost £5 (and that includes a glass of plonk no less.)

FORTHCOMING TALKS ...

Barter Books

invites you to a talk by

Curt DiCamillo

on

Jewels of Scandal & Desire

British Jewellery Collections and Country Houses

Shimmering, captivating, and corrupting, great jewels have dazzled people for millennia, their beauty and value producing respect, deception, love, and betrayal. Whether an enormous diamond, a jewel-encrusted heraldic pin, or an Order of the Garter Star, the language of jewels conveys a statement of power, position, and wealth. In his illustrated talk, Curt DiCamillo will explore how the 18th and 19th century British ruling classes, modelling themselves on the ancient Roman Empire, used jewellery to reinforce their positions in society. He will also discuss the tales behind these noble families - their houses and their jewels - all weaving together to create a glittering, if often fragile, web.

Curt DiCamillo is an American architectural historian and a recognized authority on the British country house. He has written and lectured extensively in the U.S. and abroad on the subject and has taught classes on British culture and art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Curt’s long list of credentials include being a member of The Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, listing in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in the World, as well as being an Advisory Board member of Samuel T. Freeman & Co. of Philadelphia, the oldest auction house in America. Before going into private practice, Curt served for eight years (2004-12) as Executive Director of The National Trust for Scotland Foundation USA, where he was responsible for raising over $6 million for the Trust (he currently holds the position of Executive Director Emeritus). Since 1999 Curt has maintained an award-winning database on the web, The DiCamillo Companion to British & Irish Country Houses (www.DiCamilloCompanion.com) and regularly leads scholarly tours that focus on the architectural and artistic heritage of Britain and its influence around the world. Finally, Curt is the brother of the award-winning children’s book author Kate DiCamillo.

Place: Barter Books Date: Tuesday, May 28th, 2013

Time: 7.30 pm (Doors open at 7:00pm – please note that to be assured of a seat it might be advisable to come early)

Entrance: £5 to include wine & nibbles  afterwards.

Reserve your seat at the counter in the shop or by telephoning 01665 604888.

We anticipate great interest and advise you to reserve seats ASAP!

________________________________________________________________

The most recent programme is shown below. If you require further information, please contact Roger Jermy on 01665 606168.

Meetings of the society are held in the Waiting Room, Alnwick Station at 7.00 pm for 7.30pm. They are open to members, their guests and visitors for a small donation towards costs. Refreshments will be available from 7.00 pm.

INDOOR MEETINGS PROGRAMME

Thursday 20 September 2012
Andrew Everett makes a very welcome return to Alnwick with his latest presentation which is entitled: “Bishop Auckland: the rise, fall and rebirth of a station.”

Thursday 18 October 2012
“The Stainmore Railway” is the title of Mike Thompson’s talk, the second this year with a North Eastern Railway flavour! Mike, the Chairman of the Stainmore Railway, makes his first visit to talk to us at Alnwick.

Thursday 15 November 2012
“Chapel-en-le-Frith, Soham and three George Crosses” is the intriguing title of John Irving’s presentation to us. John is an excellent speaker and this will be another very entertaining evening.

Thursday 13 December 2012
This evening marks the return of our popular evening entitled “The Members Entertain” when members and their guests will entertain us with short items on a pot pourri of railway topics. As usual there will be a raffle and free pre-Christmas buffet for all.

Thursday 17 January 2013
“An Evening with Atholl Swanston”. A very special evening with a local slant when Atholl will reminisce about his work at both Alnwick and Alnmouth Stations.

Thursday 21 February 2013
Author, authority on industrial railways and AVR member, Roger Darsley makes a welcome return to Alnwick to give us a presentation on “The Wissington Railway”, a fascinating industrial railway system.

Thursday 21 March 2013
Tom Thorburn crosses the border to give us a PowerPoint presentation: “RAGES: its inception and achievements over the past 14 years.” RAGES? The Rail Action Group for the East of Scotland!

Thursday 18 April 2013
Photographer Dave Collier makes a very welcome return to Alnwick (this time without the assistance of his son, Ben!) to make a presentation of both video and stills photography entitled ‘Recent Main Line Steam – UK and overseas.’ A visual treat is promised!

The Barter Books Book Group meets once a month, 7-9, at the bookshop, and has actually grown into two groups, the Monday and Tuesday night groups, both of which read the same material.

Its year is divided into two sessions, the Autumn session (September to December) and the Spring session (January to the end of May), with the reading for both sessions ranging over a wide range of choices, both classic and modern, fiction and nonfiction. The specific books to be read within that range are chosen by the leader (with an ear to suggestions from the group) according to a theme.

The Book Club is led by Rosemary Hartill, a former BBC correspondent, who has reported from some thirty countries (including BBC World Service broadcasts). Among the radio series Rosemary has presented for the BBC are: Meridian Books (World Service books programme), Writers Revealed (fourteen interviews on Radio 4 with authors ranging from Iris Murdoch to Anthony Burgess), and Immortal Diamonds (a Radio 4 series about poets). The recipient of two honorary doctorates in literature, Rosemary has also written for the Guardian and the Times Educational Supplement and is the author of several books.

Two separate groups meet once a month in Barter Books, 7-9 pm – one group meets on a Tuesday, another on a Monday.

Cost: £25 autumn term (4 books); £30 spring term (5 books).

For more information about joining the Book Group, please contact: John Walsh

Current paperbacks being read and discussed, January  – June 2013:

THEME: Independence: Who We Are… and What We Can Be?

January: Scotland: A revised history by Fitzroy Maclean (with Magnus Linklater) (Thames and Hudson 2012, 260pp)

With the coming referendum on Scottish independence, we rediscover how we got to where we are. The new revised (2012) edition of Maclean’s classic work with a new chapter by Magnus Linklater, brings the story of Scotland right up to date. Excellent pix too.

March: Watching the English - the Hidden Rules of English Behaviour by Kate Fox (Hodder, 424pp 2005)

‘The rules of weather-speak. The ironic-gnome rule. The reflex apology rule. The paranoid-pantomime rule. Class indicators and class anxiety tests. The money-talk taboo and many more . . . Anthropologist Kate Fox takes a revealing look at our quirks, habits and foibles and reveals a strange and fascinating culture, governed by complex sets of unspoken rules and byzantine codes of behaviour.’

April :Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (Penguin 209pp, 1958)

‘Listed by the Guardian as one of the world’s 100 best novels, this classic of African literature portrays Nigerian tribal life before and after the coming of colonialism. First published in 1958, just two years before Nigeriadeclared independence from Great Britain, the book eschews the obvious temptation of depicting pre-colonial life as a kind of Eden. Deceptively simple in its prose, Things Fall Apart packs a powerful punch as Achebe holds up the ruin of one proud man to stand for the destruction of an entire culture.

May: The book on the taboo against knowing who you are by Alan Watts (Souvenir, 2009, 175 pp) (Currently not available, but should be by April)

Explores the unrecognised but mighty taboo: our tacit conspiracy to ignore who, or what, we really are. Just chosen on the radio by John Lloyd as his DesertIsland book.

June: Digging to America by Anne Tyler (Vintage, 336 pp, 2006)

‘The story of two Korean orphans adopted by very different American families, Anne Tyler's 17th novel at first seems to be quintessential Tyler fare, embodying as it does her favourite themes of home and homesickness, belonging and individual freedom. But the arrival of two foreign babies brings new, perhaps more timely, considerations: cultural differences, tolerance and assimilation, and, above all, the idea of what it means to be an American.’ Guardian

Book Group Archive ... here

Barter Book Group – books read

We began Sept 03.

September – December 2003: Colliding Cultures:
Graham Greene, The Quiet American; Doris Lessing, The Grass is Singing; Hanif Kureishi, The Buddha of Suburbia; Orhan Pamuk, My Name is Red

January-May 2004: War
Evelyn Waugh, Officers and Gentlemen; Ivo Andric, The Bridge over the Drina; Jaroslav Hasek, The Good Soldier Svejk; Homer, The Iliad; Michael Ondaatje, Anil’s Ghost>

Sept-December 2004 Theme - light and dark.
Nick Hornby: How to Be Good; Tolstoy: Resurrection; Philip Pulman: His Dark Materials; Gawain and the Green Knight

Jan – May 2005 Theme – five women’s books linked to experiences of childhood or adolescence
The Taxi-Driver’s daughter, Julia Darling; Margaret Atwood, Cat’s Eye; My Place – Sally Morgan; To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf; Purple Hibiscus - Chimamanda Ngoze Adichie

Sept – December 2005 – travel books
Travels through Bible Lands, H.V. Morton; The Great Railway Bazaar, Paul Theroux; Imperium, Ryszard Kapuscinski; Odyssey, Homer

Jan-May 06 - American literature
‘Huckleberry Finn’, Mark Twain; 'The Red Badge of Courage', Stephen Crane; ‘Sister Carrie’, Theodore Dreiser; Henry James: 'Selected short stories'; Chaim Potok, 'My Name is Asher Lev'

Sept-December 06 - The Arab World
Occupational Hazard – My Time governing in Iraq Rory Stewart; the Crusades through Arab Eyes, Amin Ma’alouf; 1001 Nights; A short history of Islam – Karen Armstrong.

Jan- May 07 Lucky Dip
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon; Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll; The Great World, David Malouf; The Leopard, Giuseppe di Lampedusa; Khalid Hosseini The Kite Runner

Sept-December 07 - Diaries/ memoirs
Simon Garfield 'Our Hidden Lives'; Boswell's life of Johnson; Isabella Bird: A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains; The Sunflower, Simon Wiesenthal

January – May 08 French literature
Marguerite Duras – the Lover; Proust Swann's Way (vol 1 of 'In Search of Lost Time'); St Exupery Le Vol de Nuit (Night Flight)  and Southern Mail;  Albert Camus The Stranger; Suite Francaise (French Suite) Irene Nemirovksy.

Sept-December 08 Contemporary world writing
Death and the Penguin,  Andrey Kurkov;    Say You're One of Them,   Uwem Akpan;
A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, Yiyun Li; Two  Caravans,  Marina Lewycka 

Party Jan 09 - Barter Books – trains (at Barter Books)
Eating for England: The Delights and Eccentricities of the British at Table, Nigel Slater; My Life in France, Julia Child; Heat, Bill Buford; My Debt to Pleasure, John Lanchester; Bad Food Britain, Joanna Blythman

September-December 09 Mystery, or Deception
The Invisible Woman, Claire Tomalin; The Secret Agent, Conrad; John Banville, The Untouchables; Ian Rankin, The Naming of the Dead

January – May 10 Theme: The Italians
Tim Parks:  An Italian Education (1996, Guardian Books  2001); March 1, 2: Dante: The Divine Comedy: Hell; Carlo Levi: Christ did not stop at Eboli; Luigi Pirandello:  Six Characters in Search of an author;  Italo Calvino:  Invisible Cities  (1972)

September – December 10 Theme: Journeys of Discovery
Barack Obama: Dreams from my Father: a Story of Race and Inheritance; Salley Vickers: The Other Side of You;   R.K Narayan:   The English Teacher;   Sara Maitland:   A Book of Silence;

Jan – May 2011 Life and Work
Hard Times, Dickens; ‘Whoops!:Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay’,John Lanchester; ‘Major Barbara’: Bernard Shaw; ‘Hard Work’ Polly Toynbee; The Gospel according to St Matthew.

Sept – December 2011 Ways of Seeing
Travels with a Tangerine: A Journey in the Footnotes of Ibn Battutah,Tim Mackintosh-Smith; Voyage of the Beagle, Darwin; Ways of Seeing, John Berger; A short history of nearly everything, Bill Bryson  

Jan-May 2012 COMING-OF-AGE (Bildungsroman) novels
Frankenstein: Or the Modern Prometheus, Mary Shelley; Ice-Candy Man, Bapsie Sidhwa; North and South, Elizabeth Gaskell; The Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys; The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, Selma Lagerlof

Sept-December 2012 REVOLUTIONS
Middlemarch, George Eliot; The White Guard, Mikhail Bulgakov; Shah of Shahs, Ryszard Kapuściński; Wild Thorns, Sahar Khalifeh

January-May 2013 INDEPENDENCE: Who We Are … and What We Can Be?
Fitzroy Maclean (with Magnus Linklater), Scotland: a revised history; Kate Fox, Watching the English - the Hidden Rules of English Behaviour; Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart; Alan Watts, The book on the taboo against knowing who you are; Anne Tyler, Digging to America