Past Events
For May, our Book of the Month is The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, by Rachel Joyce. The book was released a decade ago, when it garnered huge success, being nominated for the Man Booker Prize and winning a National Book Award. We’re reading it on Goldster this month to coincide with the release of a new film version of the novel, starring Penelope Wilton and Jim Broadbent.
When Harold Fry leaves home one morning to post a letter, with his wife hoovering upstairs, he has no idea that he is about to walk from one end of the country to the other. He has no hiking boots or map, let alone a compass, waterproof or mobile phone. All he knows is that he must keep walking. To save someone else’s life. Harold Fry is the most ordinary of men, yet he just might be a hero for us all.
Our Book of the Month events are not recorded and members are able to have a chat with each other the presenter, to help everyone get to know each other better. Join Lucinda Hawksley on Friday 26 May, to chat about the book and about all things Goldster in our monthly community Book Club event.
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We have an unexpected Inside Story this Friday, after our planned author had to cancel their interview. Instead, to coincide with the new Tate Britain exhibition on ‘The Rossettis’, Goldster presenter Lucinda Hawksley will be talking about her very first biography, the story of the original supermodel, Lizzie Siddal.
Lizzie was not only a muse to male artists, she was also an artist (and an accomplished poet) in her own right. For 150 years, she was continually looked at purely through the gaze of those who painted her, in particular the work of her husband, Dante Rossetti, but Lucinda’s biography, placed her firmly in the spotlight as a fascinating, talented and independent Victorian woman.
Join Lucinda for this exclusive Inside Story Special at 12pm on Friday 19 May.
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It’s 1990. The Happy Mondays are in the charts, a fifteen-year-old called Kate Moss is on the cover of The Face magazine, and Julia Roberts wears thigh-boots for the poster of a new movie called Pretty Woman. February Kingdom is nineteen years old when she is knocked sideways by family tragedy. Then one evening in May, she finds an escaped canary in her kitchen and it sparks a glimmer of hope in her. With the help of the bird called Yellow, Feb starts to feel her way out of her own private darkness, just as her aunt embarks on a passionate and all-consuming affair with a married American drama teacher. From the author of the modern classic. Eva Rice’s new book, This Could be Everything is a coming-of-age story with its roots under the pavements of a pre-Richard-Curtis-era Notting Hill that has all but vanished.
Eva Rice has written 5 novels and is the author of the Sunday Times bestseller The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets – a post-war coming-of-age story that was runner-up in the 2006 Richard and Judy Book of the Year. It is currently being developed by Fudge Park (creators of The Inbetweeners) and Moonage Pictures (Pursuit of Love) as a major new TV series. Eva has also toured with bands since her early twenties and has written the music and lyrics for Harriet a musical based on an early Jilly Cooper novel due to open in 2023. She has a geek-like fascination with pop music, and her party trick is recalling chart positions.
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Barbara Black’s new book, Hotel London: How Victorian Commercial Hospitality Shaped a Nation and Its Stories looks at Victorian London’s grand hotels as both an institution and a culture intimately connected to the urban landscape. London’s grand hotels provided an essential space for socializing, fashioned by concerns relating to class, gender, and nationality. Hotel London explores how the emergence of the grand hotel as a physical and metaphorical space helped to construct a consumer economy that underscored London’s internationalism and, by extension, England’s global status.
Researching the book led Barbara, a university professor in America, to look at the works of Oscar Wilde, Henry James, Wilkie Collins, Arnold Bennett, Florence Marryat, and Marie Belloc Lowndes, as well as contemporary depictions of the hotels in the media, such as Mad Men, American Horror Story, and The Grand Budapest Hotel. Hotel London gives a unique perspective on Victorian London that could only come from the stories of a hotel. Barbara will be joining Lucinda Hawksley for the Inside Story on 5 May.
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A welcome return to Goldster for Lisa Edwards to talk about her latest memoir. After swapping a high-flying job in London for freelance life in India, Lisa struggled to control the tide of emotions that hit her as the dark horses of menopause descended. She began to question whether her new life – living the dream in a seaside village with a younger man – was all she hoped it would be.
When the pandemic hit, Lisa decided that the universe had made the decision for her and, back in England, she fell for the charms of a man her own age. However, she discovered he as not who he appeared to be and was forced to confront her dark horses alone when her health and hormones threatened to derail the new life she had built for herself.
This is a story of midlife reinvention, of friendships, relationships and a working life all put to the test by the seismic effects of menopause. But it is also a story of love and homecoming. It is about the healing power of walking in nature, the therapeutic process of writing, and one woman’s determination to redefine what success and happiness look like. Join Lisa and Lucinda on 4 May for the Inside Story.
Alexis Keir works for the NHS and lives in London. His new book, Windward Family: An Atlas of Love, Loss and Belonging, explores the lives of people who have travelled over several generations from the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent to England. It was published by Thread Books in February 2023. Alexis’s parents came from Saint Vincent to the UK in the 1960s and raised their family in Luton, although Alexis, his sister and his brother also lived in Saint Vincent for a period as children.
Alexis began writing Windward Family when he was chosen as one of the 2019 cohort for the Spread The Word London Writers’ Awards. Subsequently he was selected to join the London Libraries Emerging Writers programme. His writing has also been published by The Caribbean Writer and The Selkie and he is a member of the Writers for Saint Vincent group, who raised funds for the island following the 2021 eruptions of the La Soufriere volcano.
On 14 April, Alexis will be talking to Lucinda Hawksley about his writing career – and what it was like trying to finish a book whilst working for the NHS. Join them on the Inside Story at 12pm.
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In 1985, 24 young people from around the world had their RSVP pen pal requests (and their full postal addresses!) published in the bestselling music magazine of the day, Smash Hits. 35 years later, a couple from South London decided to reply – to all of them.
Paul Chronnell and Sarah-Louise Young then wrote a unique, funny and touching book (think Danny Wallace & Dave Gorman meet Nora Ephron and Richard Curtis) about their quest to first find, and then reunite 24 pen pal seekers with their teenage selves. The result was The RSVPeople. Paul is a feature-film screenwriter, playwright, author. He has written TV comedy and humorous articles for magazines. Sarah is an award-winning actor, singer, writer and cabaret performer, currently touring the country with her one woman show An Evening Without Kate Bush.
Join Lucinda Hawksley for the Goldster Inside Story on 7 April, as she chats to Paul and Sarah about their quest. It wasn’t easy – who still lives at their childhood address? (In this case: no one.) But armed with nothing more than the obsessive attention to detail of Hercule Poirot, the powers of the Internet and more coffee than is strictly good for a middle aged couple, they followed the clues and contacted strangers, in a self-deprecating bid to answer those 1980’s cries for connection. It’s a story of fun, of surprise, of tenacity, but also one of love – a heart-warming tale about people and the power of actually reaching out and saying hello.
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Judith Grohmann was born in Vienna and grew up speaking three different languages. An alumni of the Lycée Français de Vienne, she graduated from the University of Vienna with a Master’s degree in Political Science, Journalism and Japanese. She started to work as a journalist at the age of 18 and became an author in 2005. Her previous books include Fighting the War on Terror and an official biography of the Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz.
In her brand new book, The Real Mozart, she takes us behind the curtain to reveal the real personality of a composer, whose influence on the world of music remains profound today. A child prodigy, Mozart created his own style by blending the traditional with the contemporary. He was much loved – and much hyped – but was also a multi-layered and controversial personality: on one side a provocative influencer, but on the other side, a man who was drawn to the Masonic mindset of brotherhood, freedom, tolerance and humanity.
In his short life, Mozart anticipated almost everything that makes a celebrity today: international tours, hysterical fans, success, big hits, sex and addiction. Mozart’s oeuvre contains around 1,060 titles. Today he might have been showered with Grammys and platinum discs in recognition of his status as the original King of Pop.
Veronica McCreedy lives in a mansion by the sea. She loves a nice cup of Darjeeling tea whilst watching a good wildlife documentary – and she’s never seen without her ruby-red lipstick. Although these days Veronica is rarely seen by anyone because, at 85, her days are spent mostly at home, alone. What she does have, however, is a newly discovered adult grandson, with whom she is less than impressed, and a new-found love of penguins. This latter provokes a fervent desire to travel to the ends of the earth to see them.
Veronica sets off – with luggage packed with Darjeeling and her favourite handbags, and with a bloody-minded determination to have the adventure of a lifetime, no matter what her doctor might think, let alone the scientists who live amongst and study the penguins.
Spend a leisurely month reading this joyous and life-affirming novel and then come along at 12pm on Friday 31 March to chat about it with Lucinda Hawksley and the Goldster community.