Book readings tend to be rather earnest affairs. Authors are not necessarily the most outgoing of people and, whatever the quality of their work, it can often be stilted and basically less fun than sitting at home and reading their work on your own. This was made particularly clear to us a few years ago when we saw the wonderful Jonathan Coe stammer and struggle as he attempted to read from his excellent novel The Closed Circle.So as a night out concept, the book reading isn't necessarily all that much fun. But for some time Book Slam has challenged the idea that these things have to be so bloody serious. We've been attending Book Slam for several years now and have never once failed to have a great time.
The format is simple: A bar in West London. Good DJs. Three or four acts. This will usually consist of perhaps one author, a performance poet and a musical act of some kind. And they often get big names. Zadie Smith, Irvine Welsh and Nick Hornby have all done readings there in the past. However, much of the fun comes from seeing authors you don't know read from works you've never heard of. We were turned on to the brilliant Luke Sutherland (see above) when we saw him read from his novel Venus as a Boy with such ferocity that you couldn't help but be impressed. It encouraged us to buy the novel and it remains a favourite. That's the whole point of events like this: Get a round of drinks in, chat to your mates, watch something interesting for ten minutes, go back to your chatting, repeat etc. A very fine night out. It always takes place on the last Thursday of the month and entry is a fiver. The next one will be held at Neighbourhood on November 29th. It will feature Luke Wright and Joel Stickley who will be reading from their new book Who Writes This Crap and the New York poet Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai will also be performing. Music comes from rather odd electro choir The Heard.
Oh yeah, we forgot to say: The musical acts are always, without exception, awful.
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