Longlisted for the Booker Prize and Winner of the Nero Book Award for Fiction 2025, Benjamin Wood's Seascraper is a beautiful and lyrical portrait of a young man with secret dreams of becoming a musician who is trapped by his class and the ghosts of his family's past. Benjamin will be in conversation with bookshop owner Kelly and the talk will be followed by an audience Q&A and book signing.

Tickets are just £5.00 (or £9.99 including a copy of the book.) 

Doors: 6.00pm, starts: 6.30pm

About the book:

Thomas lives a slow, deliberate life with his mother in Longferry, working his grandpa's trade as a shanker. He rises early to take his horse and cart to the grey, gloomy beach to scrape for shrimp; spending the rest of the day selling his wares, trying to wash away the salt and scum, pining for Joan Wyeth down the street and rehearsing songs on his guitar. At heart, he is a folk musician, but it remains a private dream.

When a striking visitor turns up, bringing the promise of Hollywood glamour, Thomas is shaken from the drudgery of his days and begins to see a different future. But how much of what the American claims is true, and how far can his inspiration carry Thomas?

Haunting and timeless, this is the story of a young man hemmed in by his circumstances, striving to achieve fulfilment far beyond the world he knows.

'A magnificent writer' - Douglas Stuart

'A book about dreams, an exploration of class and family, a celebration of the power and the glory of music, a challenge to the limits of realism, and - stunningly - a love story' - Booker Prize 2025 Judges

About the author:

Benjamin Wood was born in 1981 and grew up in Merseyside. Seascraper is his fifth novel. His previous works have been shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, the Commonwealth Book Prize, the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, the RSL Encore Award, the CWA Gold Dagger Award and the European Union Prize for Literature. In 2014, he won France's Prix du Roman Fnac. He is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at King's College, London, and lives in Surrey with his wife and sons.