Book Slam: Emma Jane Unsworth, Ned Beauman, Elvis McGonnagall

Tonight was Book Slam night. For those of you unacquainted with the brilliance that is Book Slam, it basically involves a group of reasonably like-minded liberal book-loving intellectuals gathering for one night in the delightful and oh-so-classy Clapham Grand (on this occasion) for “London’s Best Literary Club Night”.

The evening started off well. Very well. You all know me well enough by now to know that that means there was food on offer. Flame-grilled barbecue steak or ribs, only without the flame-grill part because, you know, it was inside... so each steak was served with a portion of ‘this would normally taste better if they’d let us use our blowtorch’. Unflamed but still delicious. And what is better than food? FREE food. And what’s better than free food? Free DOUGHNUTS.

Anyway, books. Great line-up tonight and for the first time I’ve actually read one of the books. Emma Jane Unsworth read from her new novel, Animals. As kindly summed up on the front, it’s basically Withnail and I but with women. It’s an hilarious read, but also very touching and, at times, hugely frustrating. Unsworth’s protagonist is desperately trying to navigate her way through her late twenties, on the one hand trying to settle down with her very sensible and stable tee-total fiancé, while still being drawn in by the addictive madness of best friend, Tyler, who is still very much into all-night benders and one night stands. Loved. It. Will review shortly.

Generally I’m not in to poetry. Occasionally I like to romanticise about sitting down by a peaceful canal on a sunny day with a pretentiously named ale in hand and reading TS Eliot, but mostly poetry just makes me recall studying poetry at school and how rubbish I was at it. However, if you want to bring in a tartan-wearing Scot reciting his hilarious satirical verses, then I’m all ears. We got to meet Nigel Fromage and hear what the queen really wants to say in her Christmas speech. Good fun. Thanks Elvis McGonnagall.

The finale was Ned Beauman reading from his new novel, Glow. He began by explaining how he had become aware of his portrayal in the media as being very pretentious and that a journalist had recently contributed by wrongly declaring he had been wearing all black (classic sign of pretentiousness apparently) during the interview, when he hadn’t and the accompanying photo of him proved said fact. Sadly, rather than making me warm to him, it just sort of made me a little more certain that he probably is a little pretentious, judging (perhaps unfairly) by his attire and fashionable beard (which I still don’t get, by the way). I don’t mind him being pretentious, hell we’ve all paid to go listen to authors read from their literary novels while we gorge on pop-up bbq deliciousness. I’d just rather he’d embraced it all, rather than slam dunk the journo. Yeah, wasn’t keen. Sorry Ned.

All of this was brilliantly brought together in the middle by music from the brilliantly weird, Benin City. Downloading their stuff legally right now.

Thanks Bookslam. Top evening, great doughnuts.