On Thursday May 12th at 4pm there will be a screening of the very interesting hour-long documentary by Adrian Munsey about EM Forster, who some, ourselves included, would call the greatest twentieth-century English novelist. Tea and homemade scones will be served at 4pm, the documentary will be screened at 4.30pm, afterwards there will be a glass of madeira. It is hoped that Adrian Munsey will be able to attend and to discuss his work with us.

On Wednesday May 18th at 6pm, as part of the Bath Festival, Francesca Beauman will talk about her latest book, The Literary Almanac: a year of seasonal reading. Hear her suggestions about what, and what not, to read during the month of May and beyond, and then contribute your own. Because 'to everything there is a season' and novels are no exception. Book at https://bathfestivals.org.uk/the-bath-festival/.

To coincide with the reprinting of They Knew Mr Knight by Dorothy Whipple, on Wednesday May 25th there will be a showing of the 1946 film. There will be tea and homemade scones at 4pm and then after the film a glass of madeira. 

On Thursday June 9th at 4pm there will be an illustrated talk about the Bath Suffragettes by the Bristol-based writer and historian Lucienne Boyce; homemade scones and tea will be served.

A century since James Joyce’s Ulysses was published, on the day the novel is set in 1904, Thursday June 16th, we shall celebrate what has come to be known as Bloomsday: John Mitchinson of the Backlisted podcast will be in conversation with Nicola Beauman about the literary canon and why some books such as Ulysses become classics and others are ignored. Banbury cakes, which feature in the novel, will be served with a cup of tea at 4pm. Irish beer will be served afterwards.

On Wednesday June 22nd at 12.30pm there will be a Persephone Lunch, as in the old days in Lamb’s Conduit Street, with assorted salads, a glass of wine and a pudding on the menu. The novelist Harriet Evans will be in conversation about her writing life and in particular about her most recent novel,The Beloved Girls, newly in paperback.

On Tuesday June 28th the biographer Anne Sebba will give an illustrated talk about Ethel Rosenberg: A Cold War Tragedy, the subject of her latest book, published in paperback in June. Tea with homemade scones will be served at 4pm. The ticket price will include a signed copy of the book.

On Tuesday July 5th at 6pm there will be a screening of the 2009 film of Eugenia Ginzburg’s book Into the Whirlwind, which stars Emily Watson.This is a very rare film, set in a Siberian gulag, upsetting but extraordinary. Wine and cheese straws will be served.

On Wednesday September 21st at 6pm there will be a screening of the film of Ethel and Ernest by Raymond Briggs (we sell the book in the shop among ‘the fifty books we wish we had published’). Wine and cheese straws will be served.

On Thursday October 20th at 12.30pm, 150 years to the day since Flora Mayor’s birth, her great-niece Victoria Gray will talk at a Lunch about PB no. 140 The Rector’s Daughter. We shall also be able to listen to an extract from her late husband Simon Gray's BBC dramatisation of the novel.

On Wednesday October 26th at 4pm there will be a Tea to celebrate our publication of PB no. 144 Dorothy Whipple’s The Other Day. There will be a short talk; tea and homemade scones will be served.

On Thursday November 10th, the day John Moore was born in 1907, there will be a Lunch at 12.30pm to celebrate the publication of his novel, PB no.145 The Waters Under the Earth. Coronation Chicken (and a vegetarian dish) will be served (the book focuses on the 1950s and especially the year of the coronation). 

Events cost £10, apart from the lunches and the Ethel Rosenberg tea which cost £20. Please telephone Persephone Books on 01225 425 050 to book your place.