The Tower with Thea Lenarduzzi and Helen Charman | 22nd October @ 7pm

Join us to celebrate the launch of The Tower by Thea Lenarduzzi. Thea  is a writer, broadcaster and editor. Her debut, Dandelions, a family memoir and cultural history of migration between Italy and England, won the 2020 Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize and was shortlisted for the Ackerley Prize for ‘literary autobiography of outstanding merit’.

Once upon a time, there was a tower on a hill, beyond the dark trees, somewhere north. An octagonal tower on two levels: glass upstairs and stone below, beneath a steep slate roof – a folly, it was said. According to locals, a young woman named Annie who fell ill was confined to the tower by her father for three years and died there, alone.

Fascinated by Annie’s story, Thea Lenarduzzi attempts to piece the past together in a formidable act of imagination, which, tugging at the strings of the how, why and who of stories, begins to unravel the very idea of storytelling itself. Veering between fiction, memoir, fairy tale and folklore, The Tower is an extraordinary book about power, abuse and why we don’t always tell the story we set out to tell.  

Thea will be in conversation with Helen Charman, whose first book, Mother State: a political history of motherhood came out with Allen Lane in 2024. Her critical writing has been published in the Guardian, the White Review, Another Gaze, and The Stinging Fly, among others.

You can choose from a few types of event tickets

Book Voucher and Event Ticket - this ticket means you have £5 to spend on books on the night of the event if you fancy a little retail therapy. This option also helps us keep our events programme running

Event Ticket with a copy of The Tower

Event Ticket Only - A classic option, timeless even, absolutely does what it says on the tin

If you want to pick up your products in store or are purchasing an event ticket please use the regular checkout instead of Apple Pay.