Monthly Newsletter; a new feature of the blog: September 2016

In future, I shall include on the blog a monthly newsletter-style post, with announcements about recent and forthcoming meetings, and other topical matters. I'll aim to post each month's issue in the last week of the previous month, so this is the September 2016 inaugural issue.

Contributions are welcome, for example news of forthcoming events or broadcasts. Next month it would be good to have some reviews of literary events at the Rye Arts Festival. Any volunteers?

 Thanks to Hilary Roome for the following announcement:

" Please can you post under events the forthcoming Lit Soc outing to the Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury?  This is to see the National Theatre production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time on Thursday 9 March at 2.30pm.  I have block reserved 28 tickets and friends and family are welcome too.

People should let me know if they want a ticket. Cost £26.77, but this will rise a little if fewer people come. At present we are assuming people will make their own way, but a coach could be hired if that is the consensus. Tickets must be paid for by Christmas."

"The Good Terrorist"  On Saturday, 27 August, Channel 4 broadcast a documentary  about John Harris, the subject of Jonty Driver's book "The Man with the Suitcase" reviewed here on the blog last November.

"Murder on the Strike of Five": Recently published, in good time for the centenary of the Russian Revolution next year, this book is by two Winchelsea residents, writing under the pseudonym M P Peacock. Modesty forbids my revealing their true identities, but the book is available from Amazon for £7.99 (paperback) or £2.99 (e-book for Kindle) It is a murder mystery set mostly on a train on the Trans-Siberian Railway, against the background of the political and social upheaval going on in Russia in 1917.

"Some Schools"  Jonty Driver's new book about his experiences as a schoolteacher and headmaster is due out on 1 September, and can be preordered from Amazon. Here is a review by Sir Anthony Seldon, one of Jonty's successors as Master of Wellington College.:

"I followed Jonty's career closely over subsequent years, years he describes with such poignancy in the pages of this book. He writes beautifully about schools, a subject that fascinates all of us, but which is rarely written about well. His range of experience is mind-boggling. After working at Sevenoaks, an independent school, he went to what was then South Humberside to be head of sixth form at a pioneering state school. He subsequently became head of three very different schools: the Island School in Hong Kong, serving predominantly ex-pats, then back to the UK to become Head of Graham Greene's old school, Berkhamsted, and finally, Master of Wellington College. Jonty has written an important book which should be read by all who care about schools. No one else has had such a combined impact on politics, schools and literature. It is a remarkable story."

For further details, click HERE