The Literary Salon

A special Salon with the amazing and irrepressible Armistead Maupin at Brighton's Theatre Royal. Armistead treats us to excerpts from his new book 'Logical Family: A Memoir' before Damian takes the Tales of the City author on a fascinating jaunt down memory lane. Photo credit Christopher Turner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you’re a fan of 'The Killing' you’re going to love 'The Chestnut Man' - the nail-biting debut novel from Søren Sveistrup, the BAFTA and Emmy winning creator of the global TV sensation . We're thrilled to have him reading an exclusive extract from it for us here, ahead of its UK release on 10th January 2019. It's every bit as gripping, terrifying and bloody as the TV show, so be warned! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rose McGowan was born into one cult, the Children of God, and came of age in another: Hollywood. She has been a Captive. A runaway. A starlet. A celebrity. A victim. And now she is an activist, an artist and a writer. Her powerfully honest memoir-manifesto is enraging and inspiring. Just over a year ago she helped sparked #metoo which continues to change our world. But what does it really take to be Brave? In this exceptionally far-reaching and revealing interview, Damian and Rose explore her beginnings and consider what's next. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As a teenager I fantasised about becoming Dr Barr but work experience in a hospital put me off, undoubtedly saving lives, mine included. Adam Kay was born into a family of medics and felt he had no choice but to don a white coat. Nothing could prepare him for the joys and horrors of being a junior doctor. His Secret Diaries have sold to over 25 countries, held the top of the bestseller charts for six months - thus sustaining the British publishing industry - and he’s performing them on stage to record crowds and adapting them for the BBC. They are, by turns, side-splitting and heart-breaking, revealing an institution and an individual at their best and worst. Distinctly NSFW (unless you're a medic!) This Is Going To Hurt! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tracey Thorn returns to the Salon for the world premiere of her new memoir: Another Planet. Brooksmans Park is only 14 miles north of Kings Cross but might as well be Another Planet. Here people aspired to ‘a better class of bungalow’. Tracey returns to the scene of her 1970s childhood where ‘life was slow and very little happened, over and over again’ as her diary records. Turning on a beautifully wrought and unlikely axis of the elegiac and the entertaining, we meet Teenage Tracey. What was she like? Did she dream of becoming one of the world’s best-loved singer-songwriters? And will she get off with Mick from Harpenden again? Photo credit: Edward Bishop Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Flashback to earlier this month when our Salonnière hosted the Man Booker shortlist showcase at the South Bank Centre, the one and only event to feature readings from all six shortlisted authors - Anna Burns (Milkman), Esi Edugyan (Washington Black), Daisy Johnson (Everything Under), Rachel Kushner (The Mars Room), Richard Powers (The Overstory) and Robin Robertson (The Long Take. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We are delighted to share this EXCLUSIVE reading from the brilliant Rachael Brown, the creator, investigator, and host of international award-winning #1 podcast,Trace, examining the 1980 murder of Maria James. Rachael reads to us from her new book of the same name, exploring her efforts to unmask Maria’s killer, and revealing the shocking new factors she uncovered along the way... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This intimate discussion made headlines around the world as Sturgeon revealed she's writing a diary which she may publish. In an intimate conversation with Damian Barr she reveals the books that shaped her as a person and a politician, from Lewis Grassic Gibbon's 'Sunset Song' to 'The Colour Purple' by Alice Walker, and recommends some reading for President Trump. Recorded live at Wigtown Book Festival in September 2018. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

To mark the release of his latest novel 'Katerina', New York Times bestselling author James Frey reads this extract specially for Damian Barr's Literary Salon. Katerina, the explosive new novel by one of America’s most controversial writers, is a sweeping love story alternating between 1992 Paris and Los Angeles in 2018, taking in love, sex, dreams, art, drugs and the madness of youth. Please note, this brilliant reading is NSFW! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join us for the WORLD PREMIERE of Take Nothing With You, the new novel from Patrick Gale. We’re delighted he’s back to unveil his sixteenth novel at the Salon! Comedy and tragedy collide as fifty-something Eustace, a Londoner of leisure, falls hopelessly in love with a man he’s yet to meet in the flesh and discovers that he has cancer. In the same week. While receiving treatment, Eustace listens endlessly to cello music which takes him back to his eccentric 1970s boyhood when his life was transfigured, and his family shattered, by the decision to attend a recital by the glamorous cellist, Carla Gold. Photo copywright Markus Bidaux Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join us for the WORLD PREMIERE of Melmoth, the new novel from Sarah Perry. For centuries, the mysterious dark-robed figure of Melmoth the Witness has wandered the globe, seeking those whose complicity have led humanity to its darkest moments. Helen Franklin comes across this legend while working as a literary translator in present day Prague. She’s quick to dismiss it as superstition but soon begins to feel she’s being watched… Terrifying and beautiful, Sarah Perry’s hugely inventive novel forces us to think deeply about our capacity for good and evil and how they often intertwine. Melmoth is coming. What will you do? Photo credit Jamie Drew Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

To celebrate the paperback release of his brilliant debut novel 'The Last Romeo', Justin Myers reads this extract specially for Damian Barr's Literary Salon. Social media sensation and author of dating blog The Guyliner, Justin Myers now brings his razor-sharp and cringingly candid style to this account of one man's quest for The One. The story follows 34 year old James, whose six-year relationship with Adam has imploded, who hates his job making up celebrity gossip, and whose best friend Bella has just announced she's moving to Russia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

BEHOLD! The glorious Natalie Haynes, host of Radio 4's Stand Up For The Classic, PREMIERES her new novel a WHOLE YEAR ahead of publication! 'A Thousand Ships' is her retelling of well, all that Helen and her beauty and the Trojans and their horse stuff. We guarantee it will leave you shouting YOU CANNOT HAVE MY OWL! Listen and enjoy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here is Professor Mary Beard reading from her manifesto Women & Power and from the new book to accompany Civilisations. We talk about ways of seeing, the shock of the new (and the nude) and sex with statues. Yes, sex with statues. And about NOT SHUTTING UP! Not entirely safe for work this but entirely brilliant. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lulah Ellender reads exclusively from her new book 'Elisabeth's Lists', a vivid memoir and a moving study of the familial threads that bind us. Lulah never knew her grandmother Elisabeth, but after she was handed a hardback journal full of handwritten lists her curiosity grew and along with her diaries, Lulah pieced together who this woman truly was. Shopping lists, items to be packed for trips abroad, a running tally of hens eggs, were just a few of the mundane things that covered the paper, but Lulah discovered a life well lived filled with adventure and stark contrasts. It becomes clear that the lists were there to create order in a life in which Elisabeth had little control, and now Lulah looks back at these in search of meaning and solace as she sits with the knowledge that she is losing her own mother. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices