Word Christchurch Autumn Season Update

TICKET UPDATE   Tickets for David Walliams sold out in a record 24 hours! If you know people who missed out, encourage them to sign up for our newsletter on our website. Our subscribers got a head start on tickets when we announced the Autumn Season line-up the evening before The Press ran a story on Walliam’s visit. By the end of that day they were gone. There are still plenty of tickets to other sessions, but some are selling fast, so book early to avoid disappointment, and consider buying a Season Pass.   SPOTLIGHT ON:   DAVID MITCHELL                     DAVID MITCHELL: UBER-NOVELIST Sunday 17 May, 6pm Court Theatre  Book here David Mitchell is one of the most exciting British novelists to emerge in the last 20 years. He was named as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists in 2003, alongside Zadie Smith, Hari Kunzru and Sarah Waters, among others. He is the author of six novels: Ghostwritten, number9dream, Cloud Atlas (shortlisted for the Booker prize in 2004), Black Swan Green, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, and The Bone Clocks, all three of which were longlisted for the Man Booker. He also co-translated the book The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism from Japanese. He lives in Ireland with his wife and two children. Some interesting facts: •    David Mitchell recently collaborated with Kate Bush on her live show ‘Before the Dawn’ writing a scene of dialogue to accompany her performance of the 1985 song Watching Me, Watching You. Mitchell however remains very tight-lipped about the conversations he had with Bush, preferring to protect her privacy. •    Parts of Cloud Atlas are set in the 19th century on the Chatham Islands, where Mitchell travelled before writing the book. In the book’s acknowledgements, he notes A Land Apart, a collaboration between New Zealand historian Michael King and photographer Robin Morrison, as a useful research source; and again in The Bone Clocks, which features a fictional descendant of one of the Cloud Atlas characters. •    Cloud Atlas was made into an unusual film by the Wachowskis, who also made the Matrix films and the recent Jupiter Ascending. The Canary Islands, with its white sand, clear waters and hot sun, were a slightly puzzling stand-in for the rather more cold and blustery Chatham Islands.

READ: an interview with David Mitchell in the Guardian LISTEN: to a Guardian books podcast interview with David Mitchell WATCH: David Mitchell reading from The Bone Clocks                     ****************************************************************************************** HAVE A HAPPY READING EASTER!