As with all the BookJams it’s the authors who really make the night and this time we were really blown away – so a big BIG thank you to all of them.

First up was Will Wiles, who got the night off to a cracking start reading from his new novel, the way inn, which looks beneath the polished shiny surfaces of modern life. He was followed by Nomanono Isaacs, who read movingly from Escaping Apartheid, her personal story of growing up in South Africa. Next Elizabeth Aaron’s book Low Expectations. This is published by Quercus next month and we are already on the waiting list – she had the audience in audience in stiches. The award-winning food blogger Miss South then talked about what inspired her to write Recipes from Brixton Village, a cookbook that celebrates the incredible diversity on offer in the market with a vibrant collection of recipes contributed from many of the traders.

The second set began with an extract from Dominic Utton’s hilarious and charming emailing badinage, Martin Harbottle’s Appreciation of Time, which delighted everyone, and Essie Fox then inspired us all with her knowledge and infectious enthusiasm for India and the Victorian era with The Goddess and the Thief. Tom Pollock lit up the stage with a dramatic reading from The Glass Republic the second book in his hugely popular Skyscraper Throne trilogy. Next Nick Harkaway, sporting an appropriate tiger top, made us all want to be better writers, dazzling us with the skill and verbal dexterity in his new book Tigerman.

The night was wonderfully rounded off with three fantastic new writers. Irenosen Okojie, a writer and prize advocate for the 2014 SI Leeds Literary Prize, is currently working on her first novel and the best crossbow collection of short stories. Joshua Idehen, co-founder of A Poem In Between People and organiser of Poe Jazzi and Doug E. Graves, the lead singer with the Phony Kings of England, read about his experiences in London’s East End from his ebook Homerton Sweet Homerton.

Thank you all for your support and keep coming to the best free book event in South London – see you at the next one!

The BookJam team