Pavilion

With a title taken from the 1940 Batsford book, How To See Nature is nature writing for the modern reader. It is a book both for those that live in the country and those that don’t, but experience nature every day through brownfield edge lands, transport corridors, urban greenspace, industrialised agriculture and fragments of ancient countryside. Evans weaves historical, cultural and literary references into his writing, ranging from TS Eliot to Bridget Riley, from Hieronymus Bosch to Napoleon.

Join Paul Evans for a talk at Shrewsbury Literary Festival, where he will share his nature observations and talk about writing the book. Visitors will also get the opportunity to buy a signed copy of the book.

Paul Evans is a nature writer, Guardian Country Diarist, poet, broadcaster, journalist and senior lecturer in creative writing at Manchester Metropolitan University. He broadcasts regularly for Radio 4 nature programmes.

When: Saturday 24th November, 3–4.30pm
Where: Shrewsbury Central Baptist Church, Claremont Street, Shrewsbury, SY1 1QG
Price: £10 full, £6 under 21s

Come and meet renowned textile artist and author Anne Kelly at this year’s Compton Verney Textile Fair on the 17th November. Anne will be exhibiting a selection of her textile pieces and visitors can also buy a signed copy of Anne’s new book Textile Folk Art.

Now in its eight year, the Compton Verney Textile Fair  showcases an impressive range of independent textile artists, employing embroidery, felt work and printing, among other techniques.

Visitors to the fair can also enjoy a showcase of graduate and undergraduate student work from the Fashion and Textile Department at Birmingham City university.

Where: Compton Verney, Warwickshire, CV35 9HZ
When: Saturday 17th November, 10.30am–5pm
Price: Standard entry £15

More information at the Compton Verney website.

Come along to Much Ado Books on Saturday 1st December at 2pm to meet textile artist and author of Textile Folk Art, Anne Kelly. Stop in for her free demonstration of techniques for creating fabric based art, make your own mini textile-based creation, and take home a signed copy of her book.

Textile Folk Art offers a tour of textile creations from cultures around the world – and it also offers ideas and tips for making your own pieces. From the fabric cover that feels so satisfying to touch to the gorgeous colour photographs, it is filled with inspiration.

The free drop-in event offers a chance for crafters to meet the artist and author, and to make a textile-based creation in just a few minutes.

Copies of Textile Folk Art costing £22.95 will be available on the day, but you can enjoy a 20% discount (making the price £18.35) by pre-ordering your copy from Much Ado Books by Wednesday 28 November. Stop in at Much Ado to pay for your copy, or  pay with a Paypal account or a Mastercard or Visa via the Much Ado Books website.

All materials will be provided. No reservations needed – this is a free drop-in event.

When: Saturday 1st December, 2pm to 5pm
Where: The first-floor craft room at Prospero’s Project (part of the compound at Much Ado Books), 8 West St, Alfriston, Polegate BN26 5UX
Price: Free

For more information, please visit the Mucho Ado Books website.

Come along to Stanfords London to hear John Lee introduce Victorian Maps of England: The country and city maps of Thomas Moule.

Thomas Moule was one of the finest Victorian mapmakers and is regarded as the true follower of John Speed in the cartographic history of Britain. Moule’s beautifully observed county and city maps, originally published in the 1830s, present a minutely detailed record of 19th-century England.

Moule celebrated the ancientness and history of each county by including pastoral or monument views within the maps, all framed by cartouches, festoons and architectural ornament in a variety of historical styles. But underpinning this ancient vision is the hand of the British Industrial Revolution. Moule’s maps are deeply informed by the early technical work of the Ordnance Survey and record the unstoppable growth of major cities and the unrelenting spread of the railways.

The maps have remained influential and highly collectable as both originals and as reproductions. Here they are introduced by John Lee, who explains Moule’s career as a writer and antiquary and sets his celebrated maps in the context of technical cartographic revolution in which they were published.

John Lee has worked as a London publisher for some 20 years. He has commissioned and published a large number of award-winning exploration and cartographic volumes, including The Mapmakers’ World by Marjo Nurminen.

When: Wednesday 21st November, 6.30pm to 7.45pm
Where: Stanfords, 12-14 Long Acre, Covent Garden, London WC2E 9LP
Price:  £4 (redeemable against the cost of the book)

For more information and to book tickets, please visit the Stanfords website.

Join Matt Brown at Stanfords on Tuesday 13th November at 6.30pm to hear him discuss his myth-busting compendium, Everything You Know About Planet Earth is wrong.  Packed with facts about our countries, cities, mountains, oceans, forests and the nations that populate the globe, he’ll answer essential questions such as ‘what is the Isle of Man’s flag all about?’

Everything You Know About Planet Earth is a myth-busting and humorous read packed with facts about the world we live in. From the lost rainforest discovered via Google Maps to the island that belongs to France for only six months of the year, this light-hearted guide to planet Earth is essential reading for anyone who has ever wondered what puts the middle in the Middle East.

Matt Brown is a former scientific editor and journalist and has contributed to several popular science books. He is the author of the Everything You Know … is Wrong series.

When: Tuesday 13th November, 6.30pm to 7.45pm
Where: Stanfords, 12-14 Long Acre, Covent Garden, London WC2E 9LP
Price: £4/ Redeemable against the cost of the book/ Includes a glass of wine or soft drink 

For more information please visit the Stanfords website.

Marking the 50th anniversary of the first residents of the Barbican Estate author, designer and former Barbican resident Stefi Orazi celebrates this unique complex in her new book The Barbican Estate looking at the design of the individual flats as well as its status as a world class piece of brutalist architecture.

Drawing on interviews with residents past and present The Barbican Estate documents how life on the estate has changed over the decades while interior and exterior photographs by Christoffer Rudquist, along with floor plans invite us to take a closer look.

In a time when housing in the capital is more critical than ever, what we can learn from this landmark estate when it comes to designing urban mass housing for communities? In this discussion Stefi sets out to answer this question together with architect Charles Holland and publisher Polly Powell, daughter of Geoffry Powell of Chamberlin, Powell and Bon. The event will be chaired by architecture writer Douglas Murphy and followed by a book signing session.

When: Monday 29th October, 7pm to 8pm
Where: Foyles, 107 Charing Cross Rd, Soho, London WC2H 0DT
Price: £8 standard / £5 Student or Foyalty member

For more information and to book tickets please visit the Foyles website.

Come and meet How to Love Brutalism author John Grindrod at The Printworks, Hastings on Monday 5th November at 6pm.

John will be giving a talk about brutalism, lost new towns and the secret modernism of Ladybird Books.

How To Love Brutalism explains what it is about brutalist buildings that elicits such strong feelings of love or hate. You will understand the true power of concrete and of mammoth-sized buildings, but also some of the more subtle aspects of brutalist buildings that you may not have known or considered. Illustrated with striking drawings by The Brutal Artist, the book is divided up into a series of mini essays that explains the brutalist world from a human aspect, as well as an architectural, historical and even pop cultural angle.

John Grindrod has written for the Guardian, Financial Times, the Twentieth Century Society Magazine and The Modernist, has co-written and edited a book about TV, Shouting at the Telly, and contributed to a book on music, Hang the DJ. He runs the popular website dirtymodernscoundrel.com.

When: Monday 5th November, 6pm
Where: The Printworks, 14 Claremont, Hastings TN34 1HA
Price: Free

For more information please visit the Printworks website.

Leading art book publisher Batsford presents The Batsford Prize 2019. The award is open for undergraduate and postgraduate students, with £7,000 worth of prizes to be won.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

THE BATSFORD PRIZE: UK

There are five categories to enter for students studying in the UK:

• Applied Art
• Fine Art
• Fashion
• Illustration
• Children’s Illustration (presented by Pavilion Children’s Books)  ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

THE BATSFORD PRIZE: INTERNATIONAL

A second illustration category open for students at non-UK institutions

• Illustration (international)

THE THEME

The theme for the Batsford Prize 2019 is ‘Being Human’. We are looking for entries that show innovative and well-crafted interpretations of the theme, in terms of subject or materials used, or a combination of the two. There is no restriction on the medium used, and we accept both entries that have been made as a part of coursework as well as personal work.

THE PRIZES

There are over £7,000 worth of prizes to be won.

Batsford awards a £500 cash prize to the winner of each of the UK categories and $500 for the international illustration category.

Art supplier Cass Art is supporting the award and will award a further £500 for the overall winner across the five UK categories.

Winners will also receive £50 worth of Batsford books for themselves and £500 worth of books for their college. Two runners up in each category will also receive £50 worth of books.

More information on how to enter here.

Come along to Croydon Literary Festival on Saturday 27th October at 3pm to hear John Grindrod discuss his new book How To Love Brutalism. The talk will be followed by a book signing.

How To Love Brutalism explains what it is about brutalist buildings that elicits such strong feelings of love or hate. You will understand the true power of concrete and of mammoth-sized buildings, but also some of the more subtle aspects of brutalist buildings that you may not have known or considered. Illustrated with striking drawings by The Brutal Artist, the book is divided up into a series of mini essays that explains the brutalist world from a human aspect, as well as an architectural, historical and even pop cultural angle.

Croydon Literary Festival is a literary festival entirely run by volunteers, now in its second year. Taking place on Saturday 27th October, events will be hosted across three venues.

When: Saturday 27th October, 3pm to 3.50pm
Where: Croydon Clocktower, Braithwaite Hall, Croydon CR0 1QD
Price: £8

For more information and to book tickets please visit the Croydon Literary Festival website.

To celebrate the publication of Maps of London & Beyond, Rich Mix will be hosting an exhibition of Adam Dant’s intricate, intimate and immensely original drawings between Friday 5th October and Friday 21st December. The exhibition is free and is wheelchair accessible.

From his Club Row studio in London’s East End artist and cartographer Adam Dant creates maps of the city in an imaginative fashion far removed from the familiar A to Z and ubiquitous Google street views.

Dant’s deftly rendered maps transform Shoreditch into Manhattan, depict the neighbourhood according to the dreams of its inhabitants, and elsewhere re-creates the place as a self-contained medieval globe. Further afield the back alleys, pubs, coffee houses and forgotten London characters of old are reborn and collide with the concerns of the present such as in ‘London Enraged’, where 2000 years of the capital’s riots, from Boudicca’s revolt to ‘The Cereal Killer Cafe clashes’ explode, volcano-like from Westminster. ‘Where to dig’ helpfully describes the pre-industrial grand mansions of Old Hackney for the benefit of shovel wielding hunters of buried treasure and A Journey to The Heart of East London seeks out the opinions of visitors and locals alike as to the location of this mythic site (in fact a bin in Westfield, Stratford).

When: Friday 5th October to Friday 21st December
Where: Rich Mix, 5-47 Bethnal Green Rd, London E1 6LA
Price: Free

For more information please visit the Rich Mix website.

For one night only, legendary quizmaster and Editor-at-Large of Londonist.com Matt Brown will present London’s nerdiest quiz to celebrate the release of his new book, The Astounding Science Puzzle Book.

From fractals to Faraday, bosons to boron, every area of your scientific knowledge will be probed.

£2 per person entry.

Max teams of six people.

No booking necessary.

Matt will be signing copies of The Astounding Science Puzzle Book on the night. The book features 100 brain-boggling quizzes and incredible science trivia providing hours of fun.

Illustration by Studio Muti.

One of the most outstanding watercolour artists of the late 20th century, John Blockley’s artwork continue to fascinate to this day. G. John Blockley: A Retrospective Exhibition is a showcase of John Blockley’s work, organised by his daughter Ann Blockley.

The family are hosting an informal sale of John Blockley’s acrylic and watercolour paintings, pastels, prints and drawings in Ann’s Cotswold studio. Some recently discovered original lithographs (the only ones ever made by John) will also be for sale as well as the new book John Blockley: A Retrospective.

When: September 8–15 2018  (closed Monday 10), 11am–4pm
Where: Church View Studio, Todenham, Near Moreton in Marsh, Gloucestershire, GL56 9PF
Price: Free
Contact: Ann Blockley at ann@annblockley.com

Parking is available in both the village hall and Farriers Arms car parks both of which are about 100 metres away from the studio, which is opposite the church.

Pictured: Cotswolds Farm, acrylic painting by John Blockley.