Nick Harkaway at Mr B's

I have blogged before about Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights, one of Bath's 2 lovely independent bookshops. They have lovely events, with writers and conversation and food, and on Wednesday, the writer in question was Nick Harkaway, author of 'The Gone-Away World', 'Angelmaker' and, now 'Tigerman'.

The evening didn't start too well for me, as I had forgotten that They were closing the road in Dunkerton, so I had to go the long way round, and then I got held up because there had been an accident (not, I think, too serious - the police were there, and a 1st response car, but all the people seemed to be standing around and talking to each other).  

All of which meant that I got to Bath late, and had to scratch plaintively at the door of the shop like a delayed cat, to be let in. And then try to sneak in to a gathering where the only available seat was in the 2nd row which you absolutely can't do without people looking at you.

Anyway, once the embarrassment factor of causing a disturbance had settled I was able to start listening to Nick, who was reading an extract (about the English, and T.S.Eliot, among other things) from 'Tigerman'.  Which was very, very funny. 

And then there was conversation. The evening was nominally themed around Father's Day, but as often happens at Mr B's, due to the conversational nature of the evening,discussions around the theme were only a minor part of the evening!

Nick talked about various things which led into the book, including his own experience of a close encounter with the Esso tiger, and of learning to shoot while in Thailand.

There was also some discussion about his experience of fatherhood, and in particular the protectiveness which comes with that, and about other notable fathers in literature.

As always with a Mr Bs event, there was a break in the proceedings for food and mingling - on this occasion, the food part of that included a lemon drizzle cake with blueberries in, which was such stuff as gastronomic dreams are made on...

And there were some interesting (mostly travel related) conversations over food, too.

Finally, Nick signed copies of his books for us. It was a thoroughly enjoyable night, and I am looking forward to reading Tigerman, now I have my very own shiny copy!