Northwest Book Highlights – July 2015

One of the biggest dates in this year’s literary calendar arrives this month with the publication of Harper Lee’s eagerly anticipated novel Go Set a Watchman. Fifty-five years after Lee’s only other novel To Kill a Mockingbird was published, Go Set a Watchman finally hits the shelves on 14 Jul. The novel features an adult Scout and centres on her return to the fictional Maycomb, Alabama to visit her father.

If you’d like to be one of the first to get your hands on a copy, Waterstones Deansgate and Liverpool One will be opening to sell the novel at midnight on 13 Jul, following a screening of Robert Mulligan's 1962 film adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird. But the Harper Lee love-fest doesn’t start there: a number of Waterstones stores across the Northwest will be holding book groups to discuss Lee’s classic novel on 1 Jul, with many reconvening on 29 Jul to consider its sequel.

A later literary output from the African-American civil rights era, The Last Poets, is touring the UK this summer. Widely considered one of the founding influencers of hip-hop, The Last Poets developed during the late 1960s Black Nationalist movement, combining spoken word and music in a genre-bending, ground-breaking way. They are joined by some of the UK’s best poetic talent on the Speak Up Newcomers tour, arriving in Manchester on 21 Jul.

Meanwhile, New York-based crime writer Walter Mosley comes to Liverpool for a rare UK appearance as part of Writing on the Wall’s annual festival. Having published over 40 novels, the prolific author is most famous for his historical mysteries featuring the detective Easy Rawlins, and is said to count Bill Clinton among his fans. See him on 2 Jul at Liverpool Town Hall, where he will discuss the city’s transatlantic literary heritage, including experiences of race, class and gender.

Elsewhere, American writer Judy Blume returns to adult fiction after writing for teens for over a decade. Already met with acclaim, Blume’s In the Unlikely Event is set in Elizabeth, New Jersey, where three passenger planes crashed within a period of three months in 1952. Based on real-life events, the novel explores the tragedy from the perspective of multiple characters in the city where Blume herself grew up. She will be discussing In the Unlikely Event at Oh Me Oh My in Liverpool (14 Jul) and Manchester’s Central Library (15 Jul).

Finally, one of Europe’s most significant cultural festivals returns to Manchester this July, bringing a world-leading programme of commission-led work to the city over 18 days. Literary highlights of the fifth Manchester International Festival include Interdependence, a two-day event of discussion and debate, featuring artists, performers and writers from across the globe.

Among the participants on 4 Jul is art historian, curator and writer Philippe Van Cauteren, alongside Ewen MacAskill, an award-winning journalist famous for his involvement in the reporting of the Snowden affair. On 5 Jul, British director and screenwriter Peter Strickland will be joined by interdisciplinary novelist and playwright Veronica Gonzalez Peña, who founded rockypoint Press to pioneer artist-writer collaborations in book, print and film form. Expect to be inspired by some of the most exciting, contemporary creative minds.