The Given World with Melissa Harrison
Wed 13 May 2026
7:00pm at Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights, 14-15 John St, Bath, BA1 2JL
All tickets include 15% off any books purchased on the night, a glass of wine or soft drink, author talk, Q&A and signing.
Other ways to book:
Email books@mrbsemporium.com, call 01225 331155 or pop into the shop at 14-15 John Street, Bath. BA1 2JL.
We are delighted to welcome acclaimed novelist and nature writer, Melissa Harrison, for her stunning new novel, The Given World.
Melissa’s previous novels, All Among the Barley and At Hawthorn Time are among our team’s favourite books, so we couldn’t be more thrilled to welcome Melissa to the shop for the very first time to celebrate this beautiful new novel of connection, belonging and loss.
Can’t make it to the event? Order a signed copy with a free beautiful art print here.
About the book:
April brings spring surging with it, giving rise, among many in the village, to a comforting illusion that all is somehow still right with the world, and that nothing will ever change.
In the ancient Welm Valley, something is shifting: the river is behaving oddly, while the arrival of spring, with its familiar rhythms, is shadowed by an undercurrent of unease.
A woman falls while out walking and hopes to be found before nightfall; a doctor realises, too late, that he has long underestimated his wife; across the village, people are plagued by the same vast and unsettling dream. And alone in a converted priory, overlooking watermeadows unchanged for centuries, Clare Grey receives news which will force her to reconsider her family’s past and the fresh weight of her solitary existence.
‘Wonderful … an Under Milk Wood for the twenty-first century’ AMY LIPTROT
‘Reminds us with every luminous sentence about the fragile grace of ordinary lives’ EVIE WYLD
‘Extraordinary …The best serious fiction I’ve read this year’ FRANCIS SPUFFORD
‘Attuned, loving and thoughtful … I loved its warmth and intricacy’ SARAH MOSS
‘Nobody does nature better than Melissa Harrison’ TRISTAN GOOLEY
About the author:
Melissa Harrison is a novelist, nature writer, podcaster and children’s author. Her 2018 novel All Among the Barley was the UK winner of the European Prize for Literature. Her work has been shortlisted for the Costa Book Award and the Wainwright Prize and longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Her non-fiction includes The Stubborn Light of Things and Homecoming. She lives in Suffolk.