Simon Schama: Wordy

Simon Schama is a British broadcaster and scholar who is famous for his limitless energy and grand-scale intellectual undertakings.

He’s a familiar figure on the BBC as well as a professor at Columbia University, and he’s produced multi-volume histories of Britain, documentaries with momentous names like The American Future and a TV series called Simon Schama’s Power of Art. He’s a heavyweight scholar, best known for in-depth works on French history, Jewish history, art history and Dutch history. But he’s also a writer of great versatility who has concerned himself – through his columns for the New Yorker and the Financial Times – with a dizzying array of topics, from poetry and baseball to Tom Waits and ice-cream.

His latest book, Wordy, is the product of a life-long love affair – with language. It’s a collection of Schama’s greatest essays, spanning four decades of work, a testament to the flexibility of Schama’s own voice and the broad range of his interests. It’s also a loving tribute to Schama’s writing heroes.

Meet the peerless and eloquent Schama, in conversation with Ramona Koval at the Athenaeum Theatre in May.

Neighbourhood Books will be our bookseller at this event.