Libreria Bookstore London

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Join Jan Carson and Lucy Caldwell as they discuss Quickly, While They Still Have Horses – sixteen stories of youth and innocence, age and experience – and all the spaces in between.

Jan Carson introduces us to worlds and characters that feel real enough to touch. All of life is here: the thrill of growing up, the grief when youth is over; first love, mature love, parenthood and loss – all shot through with profound compassion, warm wit, and boundless imagination.

In ‘A Certain Degree of Ownership’, a distracted couple on a beach fail to notice their baby crawling perilously towards the sea. In ‘Troubling the Water’, a rumour spreads at a public swimming pool and chaos ensues. In ‘Fair Play’ a dishevelled father loses his two sons in an adventure park.

Every so often, an irresistible suggestion of the other world will surprise and delight, reaffirming Carson as a thrillingly original and audacious talent, and making Quickly, While They Still Have Horses the perfect introduction for readers new to her work.

About our guests:

Jan Carson FRSL is a writer from Northern Ireland. Her books include Malcolm Orange Disappears, Children’s Children, Postcard Stories, The Fire Starters – which won the EU Prize for Literature in 2019 – and The Raptures, which was shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards Novel of the Year 2022 and the Kerry Group Novel of the Year. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2023.