A new Marion Boyars blogger:


Good evening, I am the newly arrived Kit Maude and this is what I look like when standing behind stacks of books. As I often am.

I'm now at the end of my second week at Marion Boyars and getting a little more confident about things. Well, confident enough to enter the blogosphere.
One of the first differences from the old place is that here the boss apparently takes us out at least once a week to some event or other.
Firstly it was the launch do for More Than Eyes Can See , by Rhidian Brook at the Salvation Army headquarters . As you might imagine, 'friends and family' means something rather more to the Salvation Army than to the rest of us and Rhidian's guests numbered in the hundreds. Some photos:


Rhidian performing one of the many signings that he would be asked to do that evening. I have never seen people buy books in handfuls before.

Halos were provided to some lucky guests . . .



But not, unfortunately, to Rhidian.

Next there was an event involving Elif Shafak and Maureen Freely who came to speak at the Royal Festival Hall at an event organized by Index on Censorship (Phew, all these links are tiring) . Topics ranged from geopolitical (The place of Turkey in the world today, the clash of cultures between Islam and the West) to the semantical (the many different meanings of the word 'veil') but at all times the room was fascinated and energized by the many debates touched on during the event.