Books Are Us: Life Writing, Life Reading

Books can both record a life while also shaping that existence. Blake Morrison has thought hard for decades about the possibilities and implications of autobiography. On Memoir is a gloriously freewheeling exploration of narrative non-fiction, its challenges, ethics and charms, and its power to move and change us. Like Morrison, books have also been at the centre of Ian Patterson's life, as a poet, teacher, translator, bookseller and collector. As he constructs the last of many libraries, his wise, irreverent and exhilaratingly wide-ranging Books: A Manifesto makes an impassioned case for the radical importance of reading in our lives. They will be in hugely informed conversation.