Tuesday 26^th April 2016 – Café 19 at 7pm

Tickets £30 for 2 courses, coffee & Jem’s brilliant debut hardback, Shtum.

We are delighted to welcome Jem Lester to Frinton to talk about his debut novel, Shtum.  Jem was a journalist for nine years and saw the Berlin Wall fall in 1989 – and though there, he denies personal responsibility. He was also the last journalist to interview the legendary Fred Zinnemann, before the director died. He denies responsibility for that too. He taught English and Media studies at secondary schools for nine years. Jem has two children, one of whom is profoundly autistic, and for them he accepts total responsibility. He lives in London with his partner and her two children.  On his inspiration for the book he says: “I think, initially, the idea for Shtum came from the realisation that my own non-verbal, autistic son was more forthright in expressing his wants and needs than I was. Of course, I wanted to dismantle the stereotype of the ‘gifted’ autistic child but at the same time I thought it imperative that the joy and humour of these wonderful, innocent children was recognised and celebrated.”

For more information about Shtum, please go to our Events page.

Thursday 10^th March 2016

Café 19 at 7pm

Tickets £28 for 2 courses, coffee & Sarah’s latest book,

A Year of Marvellous Ways

We are delighted to announce that Sarah Winman, author of the international bestseller When God Was a Rabbit will be joining us at Café 19 to talk about her latest book A Year of Marvellous Ways.  

Café 19′s delicious menu is now available on our Events Page.  There are a few places left, so please pop in and grab a ticket for what will be a super evening.

Thursday 10^th March 2016

Café 19 at 7pm

Tickets £28 for 2 courses, coffee & Sarah’s latest book, A Year of Marvellous Ways

We are delighted to announce that Sarah Winman, author of the international bestseller When God Was a Rabbit will be joining us at Café 19 to talk about her latest book A Year of Marvellous Ways.

Marvellous Ways is eighty-nine years old and has lived alone in a remote Cornish creek for nearly all her life. Lately she’s taken to spending her days sitting on a mooring stone by the river with a telescope.  She’s waiting for something – she’s not sure what, but she’ll know it when she sees it.  A Year of Marvellous Ways is a glorious, life-affirming story about the magic in everyday life and the pull of the sea, the healing powers of storytelling and sloe gin, love and death and how we carry on when grief comes snapping at our heels.

Join us to welcome debut author Clár Ní Chonghaile 

to Frinton

on Thursday 11th February 2016

at Café 19 at 7pm

Clár has worked as a journalist for over 20 years and has lived in Madrid, Paris, the Ivory Coast, Senegal and Kenya. Whilst in
Nairobi, she freelanced for the Guardian and travelled to Somalia to cover the African Union’s battle against al Shabaab and the plight of
thousands of displaced people.

Her debut thriller Fractured is a very topical novel that will appeal to fans of Homeland and those interested in political thrillers.  The novel covers issues including Islamic fundamentalists, questions the motivations of extremists and deals with the theme of captivity, which unfortunately resonates all too clearly because of the increasingly frequent use of hostages for political purposes.  The novel takes place in Somalia, a country that has found itself pushed onto front pages for all the wrong reasons.

For a synopsis of the novel, please go to our Events Page, where you will also find Café 19’s delicious menu!

We’d like to wish you all a very happy and healthy 2016.

Here’s our latest news in brief:

• we have just finalised the next 3 films for Cinema-on-Sea which you can see on our Cinema page
• we will be starting the revamp of the Children’s Corner very soon – hopefully to unveil during the week of World Book Day
• we are currently working on our 2016 Events programme so please watch this space.

And at a time when many of you may be thinking about a body make-over, we felt that this quotation was rather apt!

Happy Reading!

It’s Christmas Eve and we’ll be closing very soon to join our families for the Festive Frolic.  We very much hope you enjoy your Christmas wherever you are and look forward to seeing you after a short break.

We will be open again on Tuesday 29th December until New Year’s Eve and then back to normal on Saturday 2^nd January.

Have a truly lovely Christmas time.

With best wishes from both of us.

With only 20 days to go until Christmas Day, we thought you would like to know that we will now be open on Sundays from 11am to 4pm to help ease the pressure of Christmas shopping.  Don’t forget that we also offer free gift-wrapping and free delivery within the local area.  So, if you would like a book that we don’t currently have in stock, we will happily order it, wrap it and deliver it to you before Christmas!

This is our lovely Christmas window featuring the perfect Christmas gift for children - A Boy Called Christmas by Matt Haig and one for adults – A Snow Garden and Other Stories by Rachel Joyce.  See our Children’s page and Book Club pages for more information.

Say NO to Black Pandemonium and YES to Orange Civilisation!!

Join us this Saturday – 28th November

for a glass of Buck’s Fizz

and

20% Discount on ALL book purchases ALL day.

We look forward to seeing you!

Crime & Dine at Café 19 with Sharon Bolton & Tammy Cohen

Thursday 26^th November 2015  – 6.30 for 7pm

Tickets £25 for 2 courses, coffee & your choice of either Sharon’s or Tammy’s latest book. 

Join us for another thrilling evening with two brilliant and well established crime writers.  Café 19′s delicious menu can be found on our Events page.

Sharon Bolton (previously known as S. J. Bolton) is the critically acclaimed author of some of the most bone-chilling crime books ever written. She has been shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger for Crime Novel of the Year, the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year and the CWA Dagger in the Library.  Sharon lives near Oxford with her husband and young son.

Tammy Cohen (who also writes as Tamar Cohen) is a freelance journalist writing for national magazines and newspapers. After a late start, she has now written six novels – The Mistress’s Revenge, The War of the Wives, Someone Else’s Wedding, The Broken and Dying For Christmas, together with her latest First One Missing.  She is a Writer in Residence at Kingston University and lives in North London with her partner and three (nearly) grown children, plus one very badly behaved dog.

We had a fantastic time last Friday at Hamford Primary Academy celebrating the opening of their amazing new library.  We took two awesome authors – Christopher William Hill and Billy Coughlan – who between them entertained the whole school with their interactive stories and insights into the art of story writing.

Christopher was talking about his Tales from Schwartzgarten series of 4 books:  Osbert the Avenger, The Woebegone Twins, The Lily-livered Prince and the most recent book Marius and the Band of Blood which was published just last week.  According to The Times, ‘fans of Roald Dahl, Chris Priestly and Lemony Snicket will savour every gruesome drop of this stylish, grisly and original comedy.’

Meanwhile, Billy was talking about her very first picture book – Not without my Whale – which was published in September.  This is a wonderful story about a little boy who is anxious about going to school until a lovely friend helps him overcome his fears, with a lot of fun along the way!

Christopher and Billy were then delighted to be invited to cut the ribbon for the opening ceremony of the fabulous new Library.

A huge big thank you to both of them from us and all the staff and students at Hamford Primary Academy for making their day super special!