Thursday, December 1, 2022 at 5:00pm Eastern

Join Professor Adam Tooze as he shares his insights on the state of the world in these unprecedented times.

Thursday, November 17, 2022 at 5:00pm Eastern

Laurie Lee is a byword in English writing, though perhaps less known outside the UK, particularly so for his biographical novels about his early life in, and eventual escape from, his home village of Slad in the Stroud Valley. The book that made him famous is ‘Cider With Rosie’, published in 1959 and the first in what became a trilogy. This is the book that we will focus on for its lyrical descriptions of the English countryside pre-motor car, lack of sentiment about grinding rural poverty and for laugh-out-loud portrayals of the characters and eccentricities to be found in a small, interwar English village.

Barbara Hooper, the mother of our very own Julian Brown, was a neighbor to Laurie Lee. She interviewed him and wrote a book called Cider with Laurie. In this Virtual Soirée, Sophie will be discussing the works and world of Laurie Lee with great insight brought by Julian.

You can find Cider with Rosie available for purchase in most bookstores (including our C&S Bookshop) if you want to read a copy before our lecture.

Thursday, November 10, 2022 at 5:00pm Eastern

Mention the Cotswolds and what usually springs to mind is English perfection: gorgeous houses of glowing stone, tiny cottage gardens, churches with towering spires and steep high streets – the sort of thing you see on a calendar – beautifully maintained by largely wealthy ‘incomers’. In fact, the Cotswold Hills are quite a harsh environment; a mighty escarpment of Jurassic rock, part of a much larger geological shelf stretching from Bath in the south west to Yorkshire in the north east, and stuffed with fossils. This is the background knowledge that will underpin next year’s trip, for those of you lucky enough to be going, with history, music, literature, folklore, rivers and rural roads a-plenty.

Thursday, November 3, 2022 at 5:00pm Eastern

Join Professor Adam Tooze as he shares his insights on the state of the world in these unprecedented times.

Thursday, October 27, 2022 at 5:00pm Eastern

For many centuries a water-logged area outside the city walls, by the late Middle Ages the Marais was home to royal palaces and religious institutions, which by the 17th and 18th centuries attracted the aristocracy who filled the area with magnificent mansion houses. Abandoned to industry and the working classes after the Revolution, the neighbourhood escaped Haussmann’s whole-scale redevelopment of central Paris in the mid 19th-century.

This talk will trace the history of this unique historic quarter through the stories of colourful and talented women who have left their mark on it over the centuries.

Thursday, October 20th, 2022 at 5:00pm Eastern

The 17th August 1661 was a swelteringly hot day. At 6pm Nicolas Fouquet, Louis XIV’s Superintendent of Finance stood on the steps of his barely completed château and was King of France in all but name. By two in the morning he was nobody, but didn’t yet know it.

Join us in an exploration of the fascinating history of Vaux-le-Vicomte, one of France’s most extraordinary châteaux, the legacy of Fouquet’s dazzling success.