This Book Event has already taken place

An Evening with Rebecca Solnit

At: Assembly Rooms

On:24th June 2022, 7:30pm - 8:30pm

An Evening with Rebecca Solnit at Assembly Rooms

We are absolutely delighted that Rebecca Solnit will be coming to Edinburgh for a special evening event at the Assembly Rooms. Solnit's writing is loved all over the world and we're so lucky that she'll be visiting us this June to discuss her two most recent books, Orwell's Roses and Recollections of My Non-Existence, two of our top non-fiction titles at the bookshop since we opened. She will be in conversation with award-winning journalist and author Chitra Ramaswamy.

Ticket holders will receive a unique discount code via email to purchase any of Solnit's books available via our website with 10% discount. You can browse a selection of Rebecca Solnit's books available via our website here.

This event will take place at the Assembly Rooms on George Street with an in-person audience.

Please note that there will not be a book signing following the conversation, but signed copies of Orwell's Roses and Recollections of My Non-Existence will be available to purchase with a 10% discount on the night.

Venue Address: Assembly Rooms, 54 George St, Edinburgh, EH2 2LR.

Accessibility information for the venue is available here.

Tickets are non-refundable and this event will not be livestreamed.

 

About Orwell's Roses:

Inspired by her encounter with the surviving roses that Orwell is said to have planted in his cottage in Hertfordshire, Rebecca Solnit explores how his involvement with plants, particularly flowers, illuminates his other commitments as a writer and antifascist, and the intertwined politics of nature and power. Following his journey from the coal mines of England to taking up arms in the Spanish Civil War; from his prescient critique of Stalin to his analysis of the relationship between lies and authoritarianism, Solnit finds a more hopeful Orwell, whose love of nature pulses through his work and actions.

A fresh reading of a towering figure of the 20th century which finds solace and solutions for the political and environmental challenges we face today, Orwell’s Roses is a remarkable reflection on pleasure, beauty, and joy as acts of resistance.

About Recollections of My Non-Existence:

In 1981, Rebecca Solnit rented a studio apartment in San Francisco that would be her home for the next twenty-five years. There, she began to come to terms with the epidemic of violence against women around her, the street harassment that unsettled her, and the authority figures that routinely disbelieved her. That violence weighed on her as she faced the task of having a voice in a society that preferred women to shut up or go away.

Set in the era of punk, of growing gay pride, of counter culture and West Coast activism, during the latter years of second wave feminism, Recollections of My Non-Existence is the foundational story of an emerging artist struggling against patriarchal violence and scorn. Recalling the experience of living with fear, which Solnit contends is the normal state of women, she considers how oppression impacts on creativity and recounts the struggle to find a voice and have it be heard.

Rebecca Solnit is the author of, among other books, Call Them By Their True Names, The Mother of All Questions, Men Explain Things to Me, Wanderlust, A Field Guide to Getting Lost, the NBCC award-winning River of Shadows and A Paradise Built in Hell. A contributing editor to Harper’s, she writes regularly for the London Review of Books and the Los Angeles Times. She lives in San Francisco.

Chitra Ramaswamy is an award-winning journalist and author. Her first book, Expecting: The Inner Life of Pregnancy, won the Saltire First Book of the Year Award and was shortlisted for the Polari Prize. She has contributed essays to Antlers of Water, Nasty WomenThe Freedom PapersThe Bi-ble and Message from the Skies. She is a TV critic for the Guardian, the restaurant critic for The Times Scotland, a columnist for the National Trust for Scotland and broadcasts regularly for BBC Radio Scotland. She lives in Edinburgh with her partner, two young children and rescue dog.

Please note: Tickets for our events are non-refundable. Professional photography and videography may take place during this event. Thank you for your understanding.

The venue

Assembly Rooms

54 George Street
Edinburgh
EH2 2LR

Telephone: 0131 220 4348

Website: www.assemblyroomsedinburgh.co.uk


Accessibility information: https://www.assemblyroomsedinburgh.co.uk/accessibility