19 July 2011 – Bookshop Barnies at Foyles

Foyles Bookshop, the legendary old bookshop on the Charing Cross Road run a series of events called Bookshop Barnies – a slight variation on the traditional boom event:

Bookshop Barnies are nothing less than a reinvention of the book launch format. These salon type discussions challenge the author to justify their work in front of an invited audience of specialists and critics. Unlike most book launches where the most challenging task for the author is to sign so many autographs, Bookshop Barnies force them to take a stand for their ideas.

And so on the 19th it’s the turn of the first book in the series I’m editing for Zed Book – Asian Arguments.

So if you’re in London it might well be worth popping along

Kerry Brown on “Ballot Box China: Grassroots Democracy in the Final Major One Party State”

Since 1988, China has undergone one of the largest, but least understood experiments in grassroots democracy. Across 650,000 villages in China, with over one million elections, 300,000 officials have been elected. The Chinese government believes that this is a step towards ‘Democracy with Chinese characteristics’.

So is this the same thing as ‘democracy’? Is it the best form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried? Come and have your say.

Venue: The Gallery, Foyles Bookshop, Charing Cross Road, London
Time: 19 July, 6:30 for drinks and a 6:45 pm start
Close: 8:15pm
FREE

http://www.futurecities.org.uk/barnies.html#futurebarnies