'Crime doesn't have to be second class literature': An evening with Nicola Upson

Thu 28 March

Cambridge University Library

Join Cambridge University Library for an evening with crime writer Nicola Upson. Nicola will talk to us about curating the Library’s new exhibition, Murder by the Book: A Celebration of 20th Century British Crime Fiction (opens 23rd March 2024), and the importance of crime writing as a genre. She will be in conversation with University Librarian Dr Jessica Gardner. There’ll also be wine and a book signing.

Nicola Upson was born in Suffolk and read English at Downing College, Cambridge. She has worked in theatre and as a freelance journalist, and is the author of two non-fiction works and the recipient of an Escalator Award from the Arts Council England. Her debut novel, An Expert in Murder, was the first in a series of crime novels whose main character is Josephine Tey, who – along with Agatha Christie – was one of the masters of Britain’s golden age of crime writing. Nicola was shortlisted for the CWA Historical Dagger in 2018 for Nine Lessons, and was longlisted in 2021 for The Dead of Winter. She is the Curator of Cambridge University Library’s exhibition Murder by the Book (February–August 2024).

Dr Jessica Gardner began her appointment as University Librarian for Cambridge in 2017, following previous roles as the Director of Libraries at the Universities of Bristol and Exeter. Jessica is a Fellow of Selwyn College, and a member of the Legal Deposit Libraries Committee and Director of the Agency for the Legal Deposit Libraries; a Curator of the Bodleian Libraries; and a Trustee of the Friends of the National Libraries and of the Sir Winston Churchill Archives Trust. She is also an avid reader of crime novels.

Cost: Free