Damien Mosley: ‘When I was on the tube just two days ago, I just noticed the amount of people holding physical books again’

AN alternative book fair is coming to Islington this month, to coincide with the London Book Fair 2024.

The free inaugural Alternative Bookfair will run from March 13-16 at Islington Central Library in Fieldway Crescent, off Holloway Road, and aims to make writing, publishing and reading more accessible.

Damien Mosley, a publisher with Indie Novella who lives in Crouch Hill, has organised the event alongside Islington and its library service. He said: “Islington Iibraries and my publisher Indie Novella have been working together for the last year trying to put on events that would essentially bring writing techniques and workshops to more people, and what we wanted to do was something bigger and more inclusive.

“It will happen at the same time as London Book Fair, so we could utilise the fact that there will be all these publishers and authors in London at the same time, and hold essentially a series of events kind of marking that.”

Award-winning crime writer Ajay Chowdhury will be talking about his latest book, The Spy, while Guardian journalist Peter Carty will be talking about his debut novel Art (see review on page 13). A panel featuring authors Rose Diell, Kate Maxwell and Chloë Ashby will explore motherhood and womanhood, among many other events.

There will also be a debut authors panel alongside a special talk by publisher Andrew Hayward, who has worked in the publishing industry for some 40 years.

But do books still have a place in a world seemingly dominated by streaming sites?

“When I was on the tube two days ago, I just noticed the amount of people holding physical books again,” he said, describing how symbiotic books and Netflix have become.

He believes the streaming service “has actually unleashed so much great storytelling because it’s found a way to actually do books justice, if that makes sense”.

“So, the kind of the 10-parter series. I recently watched Daisy Jones and the Six and then you can see Taylor Jenkins Reid (the author) is just front and centre on the bookshelves in Daunt’s.”

Details at www.alternativebookfairlondon.co.uk/