Oooooh 2016 was awful wasn’t it? With you know, that thing, and you know, that other thing. However, if you pop on some reality blinkers and think purely in terms of our events programme, then it was in fact a thoroughly delightful and beautiful time, a Golden Age of literary conversation covering all of the major food groups.
We hosted a range of important political discussions with the likes of Dawn Foster, Jeremy Harding, Seymour Hersh and Patrick Cockburn (NB the latter’s livestream, I believe, smashed all bookshop Facebook Live records).
Poetry was well represented by Simon Armitage, Sarah Howe, Helen Mort, Ben Lerner and our very own John Clegg, whose first collection Holy Toledo! was launched here with huge fanfare.
The LRB Screen evenings have been a raging success, unsurprisingly, when you hear what’s gone on: Jacqueline Rose introducing Niagara, Lisa Appignianesi on The Company of Wolves and Ali Smith on Aliki Vougiouklaki to name only three.
Music-wise we covered everything from Bowie to Beethoven (well, actually just those two but they were both note-perfect).
And, of course, we are proud to have to have helped launch some of the year’s hottest titles including The Argonauts; The Lonely City; Hot Milk; Keeping On Keeping On; Against Everything; and Swing Time.
We record our events whenever possible too and add them to our archive, so it’s no wonder we were selected as one of The Guardian's top ten books podcasts.
Oh and in the extreme likelihood of 2017 being EVEN WORSE (I’ve put money on it) we have a great programme lined up including Eileen Myles with Olivia Laing; Paul Auster on 4 3 2 1; Alice Oswald on Ted Hughes; Gwendoline Riley and Katherine Angel; all here to stimulate and distract you from the Impending Doom©. Come and join us anytime.
