Nathan Waddell - A Bright Cold Day

We are delighted to announce that we have Nathan Waddell joining us here at The Heath Bookshop to discuss his book, 'A Bright Cold Day', a pioneering biography of George Orwell told through moments of everyday life.

Nathan will be in conversation for around an hour. There will then be a book signing afterwards. 

Nathan Waddell is a Professor of English Literature at the University of Birmingham. He is currently working on several projects relating to his literary hero – these include The Oxford Handbook of George Orwell and George Orwell in Context, for Cambridge University Press. A Bright Cold Day is his first trade book.

A Bright Cold Day:

When we think about Orwell, we imagine an angular, moustachioed sceptic crouched over a typewriter, who – between puffs on his cigarette – composes effortless streams of prose, unadorned but explosive. We see a man with ‘Important Things to Say’ about: the slow creep of authoritarianism; the consequences of all-seeing tech; the fragility of truth.

Much less often do we see him as a person caught up in the business of everyday life. And yet Orwell’s work thrums with the quotidian: the smell of boiled cabbage, the chill of an unheated flat in early spring, the rumbling of old pipes.

A Bright Cold Day reveals how the principles that govern us begin in the mundane. From waking and showering to breakfast, work, lunch, the pub, sleep and dreaming, Orwell was never dulled to the routines of living. And in the details of the day, we can understand how power, money, freedom and choice play out, not just for Orwell’s literary characters, but for us all.

We now have a hearing loop at the bookshop. Please get in touch if you would like to use it and have front seats reserved.

See you there,

Catherine & Claire