Events

Look out for our upcoming events! Social book club, fantasy book club, walk & talk book club, writing courses and clubs, and quiet reading nights as well as loads of opportunities to hear writers talk about their work, buy signed copies, and meet fellow readers. Scroll to the bottom of the page to find details of ticketed events we have coming up!

 

BOOK CLUB - monthly; get in touch to sign up and get the book!

Each month we run a book club, bringing authors, writers, and translators along to join the discussion. To secure a place at an upcoming book club, and to get copies of the books to read ahead, please pop into the shop, message on Instagram, or email us at hello@collectedbooks.co.uk. Details for May, June, and July events are below!


JUNE BOOK CLUB - Uprising with author Tahmima Anam
Monday 22 June, 7.30pm
FREE! - but get in touch to sign up and grab a copy of the book to read ahead...

Described by Elif Shafak as "captivating" and by Kamila Shamsie as "powerful and uncompromising" Uprising by Tahmima Anam is a fierce and magical story of defiance that we cannot wait for you to read and for us all to discuss with its fantastic author.

Any moment now, we would grow up, and we would become them, waking late and hungry and with a job that had no name...

On a desolate, sinking island, a group of children witness their mothers living lives of cruelty and servitude. Bought and sold by Amma, the sadistic madam who was once herself sold into slavery, the women have learned to accept their fate.

Yet their children weave fantastic tales of escape, imagining that someday they will leave the island and enjoy a life of freedom. When Kusum Khan, a young, educated woman from the city, is forcibly brought to the island, she too is subjected to Amma's violent induction. Yet Kusum refuses to yield, and soon the collective complacency of her fellow prisoners turns into ferocity and defiance. Together, they begin a rebellion that will upend their island, their world and the very order of things.

An earth-shattering drama of resistance and female power, Uprising gives voice to the silenced through the story of a revolution no one saw coming.

Tahmima Anam is the author of the Bengal Trilogy and a recipient of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book and the O. Henry Award. Her short story Garments was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award. She is a Granta Best Young British Novelist and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

JULY: Life Cycle of a Moth with author Rowe Irvin
Wednesday 15 July, 7.30pm
FREE! - but get in touch to sign up and grab a copy of the book to read ahead...

Join us and author Rowe Irvin to discuss this folky fable of neglect, violence, and the land that explores both the tenderness and ferocity of maternal love, asking what we might find ourselves capable of - and willing to sacrifice - in order to shelter those we hold dear.
Maya and Daughter live in complete isolation in a secluded woodland, their days aligned with the light and changing seasons, a complex pattern of routine and ritual. Daughter has never questioned the life her mother has chosen for them; the life that has meant she's never met another soul, or known anywhere except their forest home. But one day, when Daughter is almost sixteen, a red-haired stranger steps into the confines of their territory. Where there was always two, suddenly there are three - and the carefully constructed world that Maya has built to keep her daughter safe may not survive it.
Rowe Irvin is a writer and artist. In 2025 she was named one of The Observer’s Best New Novelists. Her work has appeared in Prototype, Southword, Unquiet Slumbers (Nepenthé Press) and The Stinging Fly. She was awarded second prize in the 2024 Seán Ó Faoláin International Short Story Competition, and has been shortlisted for the Bridport Poetry Prize and the Bath Short Story Award. She has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Manchester.