News
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Sarah Anderson and Martin Latham at Hatchards
Martin Latham, Waterstones’ longest serving bookseller and author of The Bookseller’s Tale, and Sarah Anderson, founder of the Travel Bookshop (now the Notting Hill Bookshop) and author of The Lost Art of Silence, discussed all matters bookselling at Hatchards Piccadilly. Their discussion ranged over, among other matters, lovely authors (Michael Palin, Dervla Murphy), complicated ones…
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The Hatchards Best First Biography Prize: the shortlist
Prize giving at Hatchards, Tuesday 4 March, 6.30pm Hatchards and the Biographers’ Club have announced the shortlist for the Best First Biography Prize 2024. Ashley John-Baptiste, Looked After: A Childhood in Care (Hodder)A story of inner resilience that enabled the author to survive and flourish after a turbulent childhood. Rebecca Achieng Ajulu-Bushell, These Heavy Black Bones (Canongate)The first…
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Lucy Hughes-Hallett receives Exceptional Contribution prize
Lucy Hughes-Hallett, author of acclaimed biographies including The Pike and the recently published The Favourite, received the Club’s Exceptional Contribution to Biography Prize at a ceremony and talk at Magg Bros, Bedford Square. Hughes-Hallett divulged secrets from her writing life in conversation with Jane Ridley, Club chairman. Photo: Lucy Hughes-Hallett (left) and Jane Ridley after…
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Hatchards Best First Biography: the shortlist
Hatchards and the Biographers’ Club have announced the shortlist for the Hatchards Best First Biography Prize 2024. Ashley John-Baptiste, Looked After: A Childhood in Care (Hodder)A story of inner resilience that enabled the author to survive and flourish after a turbulent childhood. Rebecca Achieng Ajulu-Bushell, These Heavy Black Bones (Canongate)The first Black woman ever to…
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Mark Nayler wins 2024 Elizabeth Buccleuch Prize
The Biographers’ Club is delighted to announce that the winner of the Elizabeth Buccleuch Prize 2024 is Mark Nayler for his proposal ‘The Popular Philosopher: A Life of Bryan Magee’. His victory was announced at the Biographers’ Club Christmas Party, held in Albany, Piccadilly, on 11th December. Out of a strong and varied shortlist of…
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The Biographers’ Club is delighted to announce that the biographer, historian and novelist Lucy Hughes-Hallett has been awarded The Exceptional Contribution to Biography Award 2024
Author of The Pike: Gabriele D’Annunzio (2013) which won the Samuel Johnson Prize, the Duff Cooper Prize, the Costa Biography Award and the Political Book Awards Biography of the Year. In 2020 The Sunday Times called it ‘the biography of the decade’. Previous biographical works include Cleopatra: Histories, Dreams and Distortions and Heroes: Saviours, Traitors and Supermen. Lucy’s latest book published to…
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Elizabeth Buccleuch Prize 2024 Shortlist announced
The shortlist for the 2024 Elizabeth Buccleuch Prize has been announced. The prize awards £2,000 to the best proposal for an uncommissioned first biography. The Prize, run by the Biographers’ Club, is generously sponsored by the Duke of Buccleuch in memory of his late wife Elizabeth, Duchess of Buccleuch(1954-2023). The shortlisted proposals are (in alphabetical order): Jane Anson, Lili, Countess 57628 The…
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Lesley Downer at Daunt, Marylebone
Lesley Downer launched her new book, The Shortest History of Japan (Old Street), at Daunt Books in Marylebone. The book presents 16,500 years of history in fewer than 250 pages, and is, in the words of her publisher Ben Yarde-Buller, ‘a model of clarity and expertise’. With her are old friends Robert Rigby (the Lord…
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Black Spring Press publishes TLP-shortlisted Jay Prosser
Jay Prosser was shortlisted the Tony Lothian (now Elizabeth Buccleuch) prize in 2019 for the best proposal by a first-time biographer, as well as winning the Hazel Rowley Prize in the US. Now his completed book, Loving Strangers: A Camphorwood Chest, A Legacy, A Son Returns, is published by Black Spring Press. The synopsis: ‘At…
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Summer party
We enjoyed one of the first warm evenings of the year at our summer party, held in the garden of St Mark’s Church Regent’s Park. Watch out for news next month of our programme for the autumn.