Maggie O'Farrell will launch her new novel Land at Wasing on Tuesday, with the event beginning as she sits down with Hannah MacInnes to talk about the book. Hungerford Bookshop is hosting the evening, which will also include a reading, a Q&A, music, food and drink.
The launch is being billed as a chance to hear O'Farrell discuss a novel inspired by the wild landscape of Ireland and built around love, resilience, family and place. For readers who have followed her through nine Sunday Times bestselling novels and the memoir I Am, I Am, I Am, it is also a first look at the next chapter in a career that already includes Hamnet, After You'd Gone and The Hand That First Held Mine.
That earlier novel won the 2010 Costa Novel Award, one of the prizes that helped cement her reputation long before Land was announced. The new book will also carry a stamped author signature exclusive to the Land tour, a detail that gives ticket-holders something they cannot get from a standard signed copy.
Wasing itself is being presented as more than a backdrop. The venue is described as shaped by its history, land and community, and the launch will take place in a woodland glade overlooking the lake. That setting fits the book’s own preoccupations, but it also raises the obvious question of access: Tuesday’s event is the moment for readers to hear how O'Farrell talks about a novel rooted in place while standing in one of the most carefully chosen places she has appeared in for this tour.
For anyone heading to Hungerford Bookshop’s event, the appeal is straightforward. The evening is not just a book launch but a full appearance, with conversation, performance and questions all packed into one night. Land now moves from announcement to first public presentation, and Tuesday at Wasing will set the tone for how O'Farrell wants the novel read.
