Maria Semple GO GENTLE with Viv Groskop

Schedule

Tue May 26 2026 at 05:30 pm to 06:30 pm

UTC+01:00

Location

Blackwell's Bookshop | Oxford, EN

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Bestselling Author Maria Semple joins us to discuss her latest novel with Comedian, Broadcaster and Author Viv Groskop
About this Event

Go Gentle

Adora Hazzard has it all figured out.
A Stoic philosopher and contented divorcée, she relishes her teenage daughter, her job as a moral tutor for an old-money family, and the bliss of finally being solo.
She's also quietly assembling a 'coven' of like-minded single women on the sixth floor of the legendary Ansonia building on New York's Upper West Side. Together, they share groceries, dog walkers - and one dirty little secret: despite their age, they're only just getting started.
Adora's life philosophy is simple: want only what you already have. It's her secret to happiness until a chance encounter with a charming stranger stirs long-buried passions.
Soon, her carefully curated life unravels: black-market art, secret rendezvous, international intrigue and a past she's worked hard to forget crash into her present. Suddenly, Adora finds herself wanting more and she's willing to risk everything to get it.
Go Gentle is a thrilling story of one woman's mid-life transformation, a romance with wit, a page-turner of ideas, a globe-trotting mother-daughter story, all wrapped in a mystery with a socko twist.

Maria Semple

Maria Semple is the bestselling author of Today Will Be Different (2016), Where’d You Go, Bernadette (2012) and This One is Mine (2008). Her novels have been translated into over thirty languages. Before writing fiction, Maria wrote for the TV shows Arrested Development, Mad About You, Ellen, 90210 and others. She lives in New York.

Viv Groskop

Viv Groskop is a British award-winning writer, comedian, broadcaster and performance coach. She is the author of the best-selling How to Own the Room: Women and the Art of Brilliant Speaking (Penguin) and Lift As You Climb: Women and the Art of Ambition (Penguin). Her award-nominated podcast How to Own the Room is the biggest public speaking podcast in the world — with over a million downloads — and features interviews with Hillary Clinton, Margaret Atwood, Professor Mary Beard, Julie Andrews, Google CEO Matt Brittin, Succession’s Brian Cox and dozens more talking about public speaking, confidence and managing high-pressure situations.

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Where is it happening?

Blackwell's Bookshop, 48-51 Broad Street, Oxford, United Kingdom

Event Location & Nearby Stays:

Tickets

GBP 6.00 to GBP 20.00

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