York launches their Big City Read of 2012, Mystery in the Minster by Susanna Gregory

Posted by Madeleine Feeny in Book News, Event news

The whole of York will be reading one book this summer, Mystery in the Minster by Susanna Gregory, which has been chosen as the Big City Read for 2012. And with a diverse calendar of events scheduled to take place across the city over the next few months, it looks set to be a grand celebration both of York’s medieval history and of Gregory’s much-loved Matthew Bartholomew series set in medieval England.

Launching with an event at York City Library yesterday evening at 7pm, Susanna Gregory was interviewed onstage about her books and in particular Mystery in the Minster, in which her characters are uprooted from the fledgling Cambridge college of Michaelhouse and travel to the rapidly expanding Northern city of York, a hub of trade and wealth. Today, Thursday 26^th July she rang the bells at York Minster, before hosting a literary luncheon event.

Copies of 'Mystery in the Minster' will be available from all York libraries from Thursday 26^th July, and York residents should look out for copies when out and about in the city. Other events in the Big City Read include talks on every aspect of medieval life from medicine to knights and the Minster’s stained glass windows. There will be events with other historical fiction writers who write in the period, including fellow Sphere author Elizabeth Chadwick, and an interactive family calligraphy workshop.

The Big City Read will conclude with Michael Jecks, Ian Morson and Susanna Gregory in conversation at a finale event on Thursday 20^th September 2012. For more information about the events programme, please visit the Big City Read website.

Susanna Gregory will be writing a guest post on her visit to York upon her return, so watch this space. Big City Reads in the past have included Joanne Harris’s Chocolat and C. J. Sansom’s Sovereign.