Sophie Mackintosh and Polly Barton in conversation with Lara Williams at Blackwell’s

Sarah-Clare Conlon, Literature Editor
Author Sophie Mackintosh
Author Sophie Mackintosh.

Sophie Mackintosh and Polly Barton in conversation with Lara Williams at Blackwell’s Manchester, Manchester 29 March 2023 Tickets from £3.00 — Book now

Head to Blackwell’s bookshop to hear Sophie Mackintosh and Polly Barton discuss their latest books with Lara Williams of Manchester Metropolitan University, and author of The Odyssey and Supper Club.

Both Sophie Mackintosh’s Cursed Bread (Penguin/Hamish Hamilton) and Polly Barton’s Porn: An Oral History (Fitzcarraldo Editions) explore sex, repression and the taboo. The two books will be available to purchase at the event and the authors will be signing copies after the talk.

Sophie Mackintosh is the author of three novels: Cursed Bread, Blue Ticket and The Water Cure, which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2018 and won a Betty Trask Award in 2019. She has been published in journals including Granta, The White Review and TANK magazine, among others.

Cursed Bread is described as ‘audacious and mesmerising […] a fevered confession, an entry into memory’s hall of mirrors, a fable of obsession and transformation. Sophie Mackintosh spins a darkly gleaming tale of a town gripped by hysteria, envy like poison in the blood, and desire that burns and consumes.’ A recommended read for 2023 in The Times, Guardian, Irish Times, Scotsman, iD, Good Housekeeping, Big Issue and Our Culture, The Guardian calls Cursed Bread: ‘Gauzy [and] gripping, a quietly rich maturation of Mackintosh’s skill.

Here’s the blurb to Sophie Mackintosh’s Cursed Bread: Elodie is the baker’s wife. A plain, unremarkable woman, ignored by her husband and underestimated by her neighbours, she burns with the secret desire to be extraordinary. One day a charismatic new couple appear in town – the ambassador and his sharp-toothed wife, Violet – and Elodie quickly falls under their spell. All summer long she stalks them through the shining streets: inviting herself into their home, eavesdropping on their coded conversations, longing to be part of their world. Meanwhile, beneath the tranquil surface of daily life, strange things are happening. Six horses are found dead in a sun-drenched field, laid out neatly on the ground like an offering. Widows see their lost husbands walking up the moonlit river, coming back to claim them. A teenage boy throws himself into the bonfire at the midsummer feast. A dark intoxication is spreading through the town, and when Elodie finally understands her role in it, it will be too late to stop.

A recommended read for 2023 in The Times, Guardian, Irish Times, Scotsman, iD, Good Housekeeping, Big Issue and Our Culture, The Guardian calls Cursed Bread: ‘Gauzy [and] gripping, a quietly rich maturation of Mackintosh’s skill.

Bristol-based Polly Barton won the 2019 Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize for Fifty Sounds, and Porn: An Oral History is her second book, also published with Fitzcarraldo. She is a Japanese literary translator, with translations including Where The Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda, There’s No Such Thing As An Easy Job by Kikuko Tsumura and Spring Garden by Tomoka Shibasaki.

Here’s the publisher’s write-up for Polly Barton’s Porn: An Oral History: How do we talk about porn? Why it is that when we do talk about porn, we tend to retreat into the abstract? How do we have meaningful conversations about it with those closest to us? In Porn: An Oral History, Polly Barton interrogates the absence of discussion around a topic that is ubiquitous and influences our daily lives. In her search for understanding, she spent a year initiating intimate conversations with nineteen acquaintances of a range of ages, genders and sexualities about everything and anything related to porn: watching habits, emotions and feelings of guilt, embarrassment, disgust and shame, fantasy and desire. Soon, unfolding before her, was exactly the book that she had been longing to encounter – not a traditional history, but the raw, honest truth about what we aren’t saying. A landmark work of oral history written in the spirit of Nell Dunn, Porn is a thrilling, thought-provoking, revelatory, revealing, joyfully informative and informal exploration of a subject that has always retained an element of the taboo.

Cursed Bread by Sophie Mackintosh
Cursed Bread by Sophie Mackintosh

Sophie Mackintosh and Polly Barton in conversation with Lara Williams at Blackwell’s Manchester, Manchester 29 March 2023 Tickets from £3.00 Book now

Where to go near Sophie Mackintosh and Polly Barton in conversation with Lara Williams at Blackwell’s

The Manchester Museum on Oxford Road Manchester
Manchester
Gallery
The Study
at Manchester Museum

Manchester Museum opened The Study on 11 September 2015. A reworking of the entire top floor of its historic Grade II*-listed building, The Study has been reimagined as a space designed to spark wonder, curiosity and a passion for research in all of its visitors.

Manchester Museum Tours at Manchester Museum
Manchester
Museum
Manchester Museum

The Manchester Museum isn’t one of the UK’s leading university museums for nothing – it has six million objects in its stores, including a full size T-Rex skeleton, and that’s just for starters.

Manchester
Restaurant
The Astronomer

The Astronomer is an exclusive dining space on the 35th floor of Vita Living North on the new Circle Square Development.

Utility Gift Shop
Manchester
Shop
Utility Gift Shop

Utility Gift Shop on Oxford Road is all about products that are new, unique, quirky and cool. High street shopping at its best.

Manchester
Restaurant
San Carlo Fumo

San Carlo Fumo may be part of a chain, but it doesn’t feel like it. Right at the top of Oxford Road, it’s lavishly decorated and specialises in cicchetti, or Italian small plates.

Manchester
Bar or Pub
Kro Bar

Kro Bar, Manchester is an independent pub and music venue housed (somewhat ironically) in the former Temperance Society building.

Universally Manchester Festival 6-9 June 2024
Manchester
The University of Manchester

Celebrating its 200th year in 2024, The University of Manchester is the largest single-site university in the UK, and boasts come incredible cultural institutions, found on campus, across Manchester and…

Manchester
Shop
Want Not Waste

Want Not Waste is a student-run, not-for-profit zero waste shop operating out of Academy 1 at the University of Manchester Students’ Union.

What's on: Literature

Yellow poster with Weird as Folk written on it
Until
LiteratureManchester
Weird As Folk exhibition at The Portico

The Portico Library’s latest exhibition, Weird As Folk, runs through to November and invites you to explore and reimagine folklore via texts selected from the collection, which includes 100 books of English folklore.

free entry
Two men stand at railings with blue sky behind. Both are wearing sunglasses and one is leaning forward with his head under the top railing and laughing.
LiteratureLancashire
Morecambe Poetry Festival 2024 at various venues

Our Tourist Telescope is set on the coast – more specifically, Morecambe Poetry Festival, back for a third year with an impressive line-up now spread over two venues: the wonderful Winter Gardens and upstairs at The King’s Arms.

from £65.00

Culture Guides

Rebecca Watson author photo
Literature Events in Manchester and the North

In between working out, then working through, your holiday reading pile this summer, find inspiration for your next bookish acquisitions from our selection of live events and exhibitions.