Brian Bilston

October 11 @ 7:00 PM – 9:30 PM BST

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Brian Bilston has been described as the Banksy of poetry and Twitter’s unofficial Poet Laureate; with over 200,000 followers on social media, Brian has become truly beloved by the online community.

His first collection of poetry, You Took the Last Bus Home, was published by Unbound. Diary of a Somebody (Picador) was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award and the McKitterick Prize. Alexa, What Is There To Know About Love?, his last collection, was described by one reviewer as ‘the funniest collection of humorous verse I have seen in a long time’.

His poem ‘Refugees’ was set to music by Mark-Anthony Turnage for his 2019 song cycle of the same name, and Fifty Ways to Score a Goal, a collection of poems about football for children, was published in 2021.

Days Like These: An Alternative Guide to the Year in 366 Poems is his latest book and is out now in hardback, a brilliant collection of poems that will take the blues out of Monday, flatten the Wednesday hump and amplify that Friday feeling, from January through
to December.

£15 General Admission

The Leadmill

0114 272 7040

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The Leadmill

6 Leadmill Rd
Sheffield, S1 4SE United Kingdom + Google Map

Now Then – A Biography of Yorkshire by Rick Broadbent

October 10 @ 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM BST

£6.00 – £20.00

Rick Broadbent, an award-winning author and exiled Yorkshireman, goes in search of the soul of England’s biggest county and produces an all-encompassing portrait of a place that has been victimised and stereotyped since the days of Williams the Conqueror. Incorporating social history, memoir, reportage and author interviews, Now Then paints a picture of what it means to be from Yorkshire – both now and back then.

The evening will be a talk followed by a Q&A session and then a book signing.  

Written from the perspective of an exiled Yorkshireman this bestselling, award-winning author returns to his native county to discover and reveal its soul. We all know the tropes – Geoffrey Boycott incarnate, ferret-leggers and folk singers gambolling about Ilkley Moor without appropriate headgear – but why is Yorkshire God’s Own County? Exiled Yorkshireman Rick Broadbent sets out to find out whether Yorkshireness is something that can be summed up and whether it even matters in a shrinking world. Along the way he meets rock stars, ramblers and rhubarb growers as he searches for answers and a decent cup of tea.

Now Then is a biographical mosaic of a place that has been victimised and stereotyped since the days of William the Conqueror. Incorporating social history, memoir and author interviews, Now Then is not a hagiography. Broadbent visits the scenes of industrial neglect and forgotten tragedy, as well as examining the truth about well-known Yorkshire figures and institutions.

Featuring Kes, the Sheffield Outrages and the most controversial poem ever written, as well as a heroic dog, a lost albatross and a stuffed crocodile, Now Then is an affectionate but unsparing look at a county, its inhabitants and their flinty vowels. This is a funny, wise and searching account of a place that claims to have given the world its first football club and England its last witch-burning. It does include cobbles, trumpets and stiff-necked, wilful obstinacy, but it is also about ordinary Yorkshire and its extraordinary lives.

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The Leadmill

6 Leadmill Rd
Sheffield, S1 4SE United Kingdom + Google Map

The Dolphin by Susan Clegg

July 1 @ 6:30 PM – 8:00 PM BST

‘He knew that this was as close to the sea as he could ever get.’

Join us at La Biblioteka as we welcome local author Susan Clegg and feminist publisher Linen Press to celebrate the publication of The Dolphin.

In 1937 Larry Lambert has a vision of a magnificent pub built on frozen fields ‘like a grassy sea’. It is an echo of a single, failed, gay encounter in a fishing boat, and in its construction he invests his energy and his thwarted dreams. He calls it The Dolphin.

And so unfolds a moving exploration of the constraining expectations of society on three generations of one family. For Larry, there is the cruel impossibility of being gay in 1930s Britain and his ensuing loveless marriage with the embittered Rosemary. For his daughter, Joanie, there is the crushing weight of duty and respectability during the post-war years. Only granddaughter Lottie pulls free and finds the freedom her grandfather and mother were denied.

Larry’s decision to build The Dolphin sparks events that play out over decades, tearing one generation apart while bringing another back together.

With artfully simple prose, Susan Clegg invites you to look beyond the surface. Insightful, understated and finely observed.

See more about the book, and pre-order a signed & dedicated copy, click here:
https://labiblioteka.co/product/the-dolphin/

Free

La Biblioteka

07522010803

View Organiser Website

The Leadmill

6 Leadmill Rd
Sheffield, S1 4SE United Kingdom + Google Map

Hello, Bookstore

June 24 @ 12:00 PM – 6:00 PM BST

Join us and our bookselling colleagues from across the city – Juno Books, Rhyme & Reason, Space Centre – for a mini book fair in the Showroom Cinema Cafe, in celebration of their Special Screening of Hello, Bookstore (2022) dir. A. B. Yax, during this year’s Indie Bookshop Week.

The screening will be accompanied by a special Q&A with the star of the film Matthew Tannenbaum and director, A.B. Zax.

Please note the book fair is open to the public and free to attend, but you must purchase tickets to the screening directly from the Showroom Box Office. Please call or tap the button below.

Free

Showroom Cinema

View Organiser Website

The Leadmill

6 Leadmill Rd
Sheffield, S1 4SE United Kingdom + Google Map
Book Film Tickets

Discovering Machine Knitting by Kandy Diamond

June 3 @ 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM BST

Join us as we welcome Kandy Diamond and her knitting machine for a live demo and hands-on mini-workshop to launch her new book Discovering Machine Knitting (The Crowood Press Ltd).

Come and try out machine knitting for yourself, and make yourself a knitted bookmark to take home!

This is the ultimate guide to machine knitting. This book has been designed to help you demystify machine knitting. Perfect for beginners, it starts with how the machine works and how stitches are formed, all the way through to shaping garment panels to your desired size and fit.

Each chapter focuses on different skills that build throughout the book, with lots of projects so you can put the skills into practice and make some knits for yourself. Designer Profiles at the end of each chapter showcase the work of professional machine knitters to provide context, inspiration and celebrate the huge potential for creativity in machine knitting. From troubleshooting and looking after the machine to using more advanced techniques such as intarsia and shaping, this book will help you fall in love with your knitting machine.

If you work through the step-by-step instructions and projects in this book, by the end of it you will be designing and knitting your own garments!

Free

The Leadmill

6 Leadmill Rd
Sheffield, S1 4SE United Kingdom + Google Map

Readings of Protest. Charged – How the Police Try to Suppress Protest.

18 October 2022 @ 8:00 PM – 10:00 PM BST

Come and hear protesters from across four decades give readings of what they fought for and how their protests were policed.

The UK government’s efforts to suppress dissent in the pursuit of power have given a green light to police to apply more aggressive tactics in managing crowds and protests. The results have provoked violence and even led to officers breaking the law.

The authors of Charged, Matt Foot and Morag Livingstone reveal that in 1983 a Tory home secretary secretly sanctioned police paramilitary powers, leading 40 years later to a Police Act which seeks to extinguish any effective protest.

Join activists and organisers from Sheffield and beyond who come together to share their experiences fighting for their jobs, the environment, education and against racism. Giving us insight into their experiences the activists will connect their own struggle to the policing of protest.

Including activists from:

Warrington Printers dispute 1983
The Great Miners’ strike 1984/5 – Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign (OTJC) / Women against Pit Closures
The Rotherham 12 who defended their community against racist thugs
Environmental and global justice activist
Student activist / Disabled People Against Cuts.
Chaired by local activist, Chris Peace.

Charged How the Police Try to Suppress Protest by Matt Foot and Morag Livingstone (Verso 2022)

“Brilliantly readable, it carries you with it every step of the way. One forgets how frightening authority is and the detail on police behaviour is dreadfully shocking and distressing. It never assumes what you might believe or what you might already know and at the end leaves the reader in no doubt as to what has happened in this country.”
– Emma Thompson, actor and activist

“Meticulously details violent state suppression in the protection of capital; backed by a propaganda machine. Exposed is the unofficial but permanent government with sharp attention to every detail. This is a story of how justice has been repeatedly stolen in this ruthless war against the right to protest. Read every word because you are holding history in your hands. Our history.”
– Lowkey, rapper and activist

“When you read Charged, you will see ours is one of many struggles, past and present.”
– Chris Peace, Tribune

Books will be available on the night

£5 Suggested Donation

Sheffield Transformed

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The Leadmill

6 Leadmill Rd
Sheffield, S1 4SE United Kingdom + Google Map
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Wild Child & Book of Birds with Dara McAnulty

17 September 2022 @ 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM BST

Free but RSVP required

On Saturday 17 th September at 2pm – Dara will be in conversation with Liz Ballard, Sheffield & Rotherham Wildlife Trust, and afterwards signing copies of his books.

Dara and Liz will be talking about his new book A Wild Child’s Book of Birds, which is illustrated by Barry Falls, and is a gorgeous guide to birds in the UK which takes the reader through the year.
🐦 advice he’d give to children who want to get involved in conservation but don’t know
where to start
🐦 top tips on encouraging nature to thrive in your garden / window box
🐦 which birds to look out for in and around Sheffield in the autumn  
🐦 the cross generational appeal of his books – and why bird and nature watching are
perfect activities to share with children and grandchildren
🐦 Why Dara is passionate about nature and why he wants to encourage families to
take notice of the environment and world around them – be it trees, flora, fauna or
birds.

More about A Wild Child’s Book of Birds:

Join brilliant young naturalist Dara McAnulty – author of Wild Child – on a journey through a year in the life of birds. Illustrated in full colour by award-winning artist Barry Falls.

This beautiful, informative book takes you through a year in the life of the birds you will find in Britain and Ireland and is divided into four sensational seasonal sections.
Find out what birds do in each season, learn about birdsong, beaks, nests and eggs, the science of flight, migration, what to grow to attract different birds to your garden and what foods to put out on your bird table.

Discover different ways of recording what you see and about birds in literature. There are sections on birds of prey and corvids too.

The Leadmill

6 Leadmill Rd
Sheffield, S1 4SE United Kingdom + Google Map

The Summer Book – Celebrate 50 years with Sophia Jansson

1 September 2022 @ 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM BST

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Summer Book by Tove Jansson, we are delighted to present a live virtual event with Sophia Jansson, Tove’s niece, in conversation with Fleur Sinclair, owner of Sevenoaks Bookshop on 1 September 2022 at 7 PM. Digital access is included when you buy any of Tove Jansson’s adult works through Bookshop.org or our shop or website.

We hope you can join us!

Questions? Contact [email protected]

Free with purchase of a book from Tove Jansson's adult titles

La Biblioteka

07522010803

View Organiser Website

The Leadmill

6 Leadmill Rd
Sheffield, S1 4SE United Kingdom + Google Map
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India Uniform Nine by Mark Perlstrom

1 September 2022 @ 7:30 PM – 9:00 PM BST

Join us and Icon Books as we welcome Mark Perlstrom & Douglas Wight to the bookshop to launch this eye-opening account from inside an ultra-secret Customs unit.

Mark Perlstrom is no stranger to money laundering, drug smuggling and crooked firms. In the late 1980s he started working for HM Customs and was quickly thrown in the deep end, joining Operation C-Chase, an undercover investigation that penetrated Pablo Escobar’s mighty Medellin cartel, brought down the corrupt BCCI bank and stopped London’s gangs from moving their ill-gotten gains around the capital. As part of the Uniforms – the new, secret, anti-money-laundering squad – high-speed car chases, bugging homes and spying on targets was day-to-day business.

Told by a true insider and revealing never-before-told-secrets of the industry, India Uniform Nine lays bare the intense rivalry between crime-fighting organisations and how that leads to corruption, chaos and some scarcely believable antics in the covert world. And how Mark’s own operation was nearly scuppered by a US Customs bungle.

See more about the book, and pick up a copy, in the shop or here:
https://labiblioteka.co/product/india-uniform-nine/

Free

La Biblioteka

07522010803

View Organiser Website

The Leadmill

6 Leadmill Rd
Sheffield, S1 4SE United Kingdom + Google Map

Consumed – Q&A with Aja Barber

23 June 2022 @ 7:00 PM – 7:30 PM BST

As part of our Independent Bookshop Week celebrations, La Biblioteka is delighted to be hosting an online sit-down between Hannah Wilson of My Indie Wardrobe and Aja Barber, discussing her book Consumed: The need for Collective Change; Colonialism, Climate Change & Consumerism. 

From the embedded injustice at the heart of the things we buy, and how and why we passively accept them, to how we can become an active agent of change through our purchasing power and self-awareness, Aja’s book positively enforces compassionate individual agency as the root of global systemic change.

If you’d like to ask Aja a question, get in touch via Instagram before or during the live event.

About Consumed:

Aja Barber wants change.
In the ‘learning’ first half of the book, she will expose you to the endemic injustices in our consumer industries and the uncomfortable history of the textile industry; one which brokered slavery, racism and today’s wealth inequality.

And how these oppressive systems have bled into the fashion industry and its lack of diversity and equality. She will also reveal how we spend our money and whose pockets it goes into and whose it doesn’t (clue: the people who do the actual work) and will tell her story of how she came to learn the truth.

In the second ‘unlearning’ half of the book, she will help you to understand the uncomfortable truth behind why you consume the way you do.

She asks you to confront the sense of lack you have, the feeling that you are never quite enough and the reasons why you fill the aching void with consumption rather than compassion. And she makes you challenge this power disparity, and take back ownership of it. The less you buy into the consumer culture the more power you have.

Consumed will teach you how to be a citizen, not a consumer.

This event will be recorded and shared across our social platforms after the event, as far as rights allow.

Free – £163

La Biblioteka

07522010803

View Organiser Website

The Leadmill

6 Leadmill Rd
Sheffield, S1 4SE United Kingdom + Google Map
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