Books
The Lido, Libby Page, book review: perfect poolside prose
Two women with a sixty-year age gap bond together to save their local lido, in this feel-good dip into ‘unexpected pockets of genuine community amidst the urban sprawl’
Read MoreThe World was an Avocado: Hoxton children produce audio story anthology with Penguin and Ministry of Stories
The 35-strong team of youngsters each penned a tale, all available on a CD released this week – listen to the first 10 now
Read MoreThe Chameleon, Sam Fisher, book review: pacy time-traveller shows off bookshop founder’s genre knowledge
Fittingly for the co-founder of Burley Fisher Books in Haggerston, his début novel is actually narrated by a book – albeit an 800-year-old one called John…
Read More‘Quiet integrity’: folk icon Shirley Collins to break silence and discuss new memoir for Pages of Hackney
Sussex singer – who lost her voice for decades – will spend an evening at Homerton’s Sutton House reading extracts from All in the Downs and chatting about her experiences of a folk revival career spanning over 60 years
Read MoreFloat on: ‘swim-lit’ authors to unite at Pages of Hackney and discuss mental health benefits of a chilly dip
Joe Minihane and Jessica J. Lee have both written about the anti-anxiety effects they felt when exploring the world of outdoor, wild swimming, and will chat about it at an event at the Clapton bookshop on 12 April
Read MoreRepublic of Consciousness Prize and £5k cash Influx awarded to Stoke Newington independent publisher
Influx Press’ release of Eley Williams’ Attrib. and Other Stories has seen them honoured with this award for small presses
Read MorePenguin Random House marks World Book Day by volunteering in Hackney’s most ‘literacy-vulnerable’ area
As new data reveals Hackney South and Shoreditch’s serious literacy issues, staff at the country’s leading publisher are lending their time to several of the borough’s schools
Read MoreTakeaway, Tommy Hazard, book review: funny and disturbing semi-fiction from Hackney’s NHS frontline
This hard-hitting yet pocket-sized volume, set all around Hackney, finds humour and brutality in the work of a relatably flawed ambulance driver
Read MoreWonky books: Hoxton Mini Press turn printing error into free giveaway for ‘most depressing day of the year’
1,500 copies of their photobook ‘I’ve Lived in East London for 86 ½ Years’ turned up with marks on the back, so the East London publisher is bringing joy to ‘Blue Monday’ by distributing them in the capital for free
Read MoreThe Lower Clapton Tales, Carolyn Clark, book review: plus ça change…
Think you know ‘Clop Ton’? We wager you’ll glean something new from this “charming book of memories, photographs and historical artefacts”
Read MoreHackney: portrait of a community 1967 – 2017, book review: Pillar of Society
The Hackney Society is celebrating 50 eventful years with a new book full of fascinating essays, from a broad church of Hackney citizens
Read MoreEast End Vernacular, book review: ‘striking vistas, rather than despair’
Harvested from the 1930s to the present day, Spitalfields Life’s gorgeous collection of East End paintings is more knees-up than misery-fest
Read MoreTurn up for the books: we look forward to an eventful October for Hackney’s independent bookshops
The borough’s bookshops are increasingly staging events to get readers off Amazon, out of their houses and through their doors. We preview a few such bashes in this look at the lay of the literary land
Read MoreA Hoxton Childhood and The Years After by A.S. Jasper, book review: it’s a hard Hox life
A.S. Jasper was better known as Stan in early twentieth-century Hoxton, where he struggled through a hungry upbringing. Our review looks at his two volumes of “first-person insight into a time when the welfare state was but a twinkle in the labour movement’s eye…”
Read MorePages of Hackney lines up Charles Saumarez Smith and talks on climate change and Brexit in July events programme
The cultural historian and museum director pitches up at the Lower Clapton Road bookshop on 17 July, following talks earlier in the month featuring Client Earth and political journalist Ian Dunt
Read MoreMinistry of Stories volunteers bring schoolchildren’s visions to life in 17 new Penguin picture books
The Hoxton non-profit gave children full creative control over the stories, which feature the likes of job-seeking toucans and magical football boots
Read MoreThe Lime Green Mystery, Rosa Schling, book review: Dalston die-hards
The team at On The Record brought us history-walk app a hackney autobiography. Sister book The Lime-Green Mystery delves even deeper into radical HQ Centerprise’s colourful history
Read MoreClient Earth, James Thornton and Martin Goodman, book review – ‘a fight to protect our natural habitat’
The London Fields-based environmental law firm ClientEarth scored another victory last month in their battle for clean air. A new book outlines their philosophies
Read MoreDalston in the 80s by Andrew Holligan, book review: “bursting with culture and steeped in challenge”
This collection of black and white photography nonetheless depicts “life in its many colours” with a personal, diary-like feel
Read MoreThe Last Tenant, Sarah Kisielowski, book review: ‘an elegiac look at post-war Berlin’
Dalston-based first time author Kisielowski explores the recent history of Berlin through the lens of a family coming to terms with its own past
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