Literary Events - Upstairs @ 49

The best in Sydney literary events

Updated weekly for one month ahead - book early to avoid the crowd.

Join leading Australian and international authors, thinkers and speakers in an engaging discussion of their work. For notice of events, subscribe to our gleemail newsletter.

Conditions

Changes

This listing is subject to change without notice. Customers with existing bookings will be notified by email of any changes that affect them.

Cost

Book launches are free and open to the public. Special Literary Events are $10/$7 conc. inc. GST unless otherwise marked.

Bookings

Bookings are essential, phone 02 9660 2333 or use the booking links on these pages. Gleeclub members have unlimited entry to events (one entry per paid event) but do let us know you are coming and RSVP. Thank you.

Venue

All launches and events are held Upstairs @ 49 Glebe Point Road, Glebe Sydney NSW, unless otherwise stated.

June - July 2013

Launch - Tuesday 18 June, 6.30 pm for 7.00 pm*

KIRSTEN KRAUTH

Just a Girl

*Note special time

Venue: gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe

Cost: Free event

Bookings: RSVP gleebooks - 9660 2333 or email: events@gleebooks.com.au

Layla is only 14. As she sits in bed with a laptop, her mother Margot sleeps in the next room. But what separates them is more than just a wall. It's every mother's nightmare. Layla cruises online. She catches trains to meet strangers. And Margot never suspects. Meanwhile, downtown, a man opens a suitcase and tenderly places his young lover inside... A Puberty Blues for the digital age, a Lolita with a webcam, it's can happen when young girls are forced to grow up too fast. Or never get the chance to grow up at all...

Special Event - Wednesday 19 June, 6.00 for 6.30pm

BOB ELLIS

The Year It All Fell Down

Venue: gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe

Cost: $10/$7/gleeclub free.

Bookings: RSVP gleebooks - 9660 2333 or email: events@gleebooks.com.au

Some events require many years before their impact is ap Some arrive as instant history. One of our most incisive and eloquent observers, Bob Ellis, has reviewed the occurrences of 2011 and found it to be a year that may come to define the age.

Launch - Saturday 22 June, 3.30pm for 4.00pm

LEE ANDERSON

Unsung Heroes

Venue: gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe

Cost: Free event

Bookings: RSVP gleebooks - 9660 2333 or email: events@gleebooks.com.au

Unsung Heroes, a not for profit book, is a collection of short stories on NGOs in Cambodia and the people working with them. This is a remarkable book of photos, inspiring grass roots stories, volunteering and child safe information, traveller’s tips and more reveals insights into Cambodia most visitors would not be aware of. A must for anyone planning a trip to Cambodia.

Launch - Friday 28 June, 6.00pm for 6.30pm

CLAIRE SCOBIE

The Pagoda Tree

Venue: gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe

Cost: Free event

Bookings: RSVP gleebooks - 9660 2333 or email: events@gleebooks.com.au

Tanjore, 1765. Like her mother before her, Maya is destined to become a devadasi, a dancer for the temple. She is instructed in dance, the mystical arts and lovemaking. It is expected she will be chosen as a courtesan for the prince himself. Thomas Pearce, an ambitious young Englishman is entranced from the moment he first sees her. Weaving together the uneasy meeting of two cultures, The Pagoda Tree is a captivating story of forbidden love, loss and fate.

Launch - Sunday 30 June, 3.30pm for 4.00 pm.

JOHN NEWTON

A Savage History

In conversation with Bob Brown

Venue: gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe

Cost: Free event

Bookings: RSVP gleebooks - 9660 2333 or email: events@gleebooks.com.au

A Savage History tells the rich history of whales and whaling. We learn about these highly intelligent and magnificent creatures, and follow the stories of whalers from the eighteenth century who hunted their prey along the coasts of Australia and New Zealand, across the Pacific and into the Southern Ocean. The result is a powerful account of a complex and bloody relationship. Although the modern era has seen the end of industrial whaling, as John Newton shows, the work of those who want to protect whales is far from over.

Special Event - Monday 1st July, 6.00 for 6.30pm

HUGH MACKAY

The Good Life

Venue: gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe

Cost: $10/$7/gleeclub free.

Bookings: RSVP gleebooks - 9660 2333 or email: events@gleebooks.com.au

"No one can promise you that a life lived for others will bring you a deep sense of satisfaction, but it's certain that nothing else will." Hugh Mackay has spent his entire working life asking Australians about their values, motivations, ambitions, hopes and fears. Now, in The Good Life, he addresses the ultimate question: What makes a life worth living?

Panel - Wednesday 3rd July, 6.00 for 6.30pm

FOR GOD'S SAKE:

An Atheist, a Christian, a Muslim and a Jew Debate Religion

Antony Loewenstein, Jane Caro and Simon Smart. Moderated by Peter Fitzsimons

Venue: gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe

Cost: $10/$7/gleeclub free.

Bookings: RSVP gleebooks - 9660 2333 or email: events@gleebooks.com.au

Four of Australia's most interesting religious - and anti-religious - thinkers come together to ask and answer the big questions, such as: What is the nature of the universe? What is a good life? How do we account for evil? Provocative, informative and passionately argued, For God's Sake encourages us to accept religious differences but to also challenge more vigorously the beliefs that create discord.

Panel - Thursday 4th July, 6.00 for 6.30pm

COLLEEN RYAN

Fairfax: The Rise and Fall

In conversation with David Marr

Venue: gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe

Cost: $10/$7/gleeclub free.

Bookings: RSVP gleebooks - 9660 2333 or email: events@gleebooks.com.au

Fairfax, once a great Australian media company, faces annihilation. Newspapers worldwide are faltering in the face of competition from the internet, but the fate of Fairfax stands out as being particularly cruel. Ryan examines the greed of media moguls, the anger and ambition of politicians, the zealotry of journalists, the muddling of management, and the rise of digital media.

Launch - Saturday 6th July, 3pm for 3.30pm

GREG BARRON

Savage Tide

Venue: gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe

Cost: Free event

Bookings: RSVP gleebooks - 9660 2333 or email: events@gleebooks.com.au

A new thriller from the author of Rotten Gods, in the tradition of le Carre, Ludlum and Clancy. Savage Tide is a race-against-time manhunt from the refugee camps of East Africa to the azure waters off the Iranian coast, the marshes of Iraq to Syria's parched eastern desert.

Panel - Wednesday 10th July, 6 for 6.30pm

RUSS RADCLIFFE

Dirt Files: A Decade of Best Australian Political Cartoons

Panel featuring Russ Radcliffe, Bill Leak, Alan Moir and Cathy Wilcox

Venue: gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe

Cost: $10/$7/gleeclub free.

Bookings: RSVP gleebooks - 9660 2333 or email: events@gleebooks.com.au

Thematically reviewing the politics of Australia's 'Longest Decade', Dirt Files is an interpretation of the key political moments and longer-term themes that have played out in foreign policy, war, the economy, social policy, refugees, industrial relations, the media and party politics.