Last Thursday we staged our first ever corporate entertainment Peirene Salon.
Back in the autumn I was approached by a company director. He came to a Peirene Salon, took a shine to it and asked us to organise a special Salon for his work colleagues as a Christmas treat.
He warned us: his junior colleagues – most in their mid- to late twenties – wouldn’t be thrilled. In fact many of them would prefer a meal at a restaurant followed by a night club.
We were unperturbed by his worries.
We flew in our youngest and trendiest author, Dutch Jan van Mersbergen. We booked a pianist. We provided Peirene home-made potato salad and the Salon’s famous 3.5kg Camembert. We ordered Champagne and festive red and white from The Wine Society and got the Whisky ready for after the meal.
Jan entertained for half an hour. He talked about how to write and read extracts from Tomorrow Pamplona. The food was accompanied by background piano music and at the end of the evening each guest was presented with a beautifully wrapped copy of Peirene No 5.
The feedback was wonderful. People were delighted and surprised. None of them had ever talked to an author, most of them had never attended a literary reading – and yet all of them enjoyed themselves.
I gave Peirene a huge hug at the end of the evening.
“Well done, my Nymph. Without your spark I couldn’t have done this evening.”
She flinched at my wet kiss on her cheek and freed herself from my embrace.
“You don’t have to get all emotional.” She said, embarrassed about my affection. “After all, to spread the value of good literature is the responsibility of a publisher.”
I again threw my arms around her before she had time to escape.
“Yes. But in our own small way we do it rather well. We persuade people to engage with literature who otherwise would not have done so. I am so proud of you.” I squeezed her tight.
“Ah, I can’t breeze. Let me go.” Peirene exclaimed. “Anyway, I don’t think many will read the book.”
“I am not so sure.” I replied with a smile. “I’ve told them that Tomorrow Pamplona contains three fab sex scenes and their eyes lit up.”
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Merry Chritsmas and a Happy New Year. I’ll be back here with the next episode of Peirene “Pain and Passion” in the third week of January 2012.
especially flattered. We didn’t know most of the audience. They had read the Peirene books, signed up on our mailing list and then booked a ticket for the Salon. And many came from far away. There was the lovely couple from Ealing who had picked up Beside the Sea and then Stone in Landslide in a bookshop. Then there was the lady from Oxford who has already bought 15 or 16 Peirene books. Then one of our twitter followers, a self-confessed reader of 19th Century novels. And another young lady, who has now been to two salons each time with four (different) friends in tow. And finally an American writer who said that for three years she’d been looking for a salon like this and now she had finally found it. 
cheese, a few kilos of grapes, 10 baguettes, two and a half cakes consumed. 39 books sold. What’s more, at midnight was my birthday. 15 guests sang me a birthday song. One gave me a beautiful bunch of flowers, another Nemesis by Philip Roth. Even my 16-year-old daughter this morning confirmed that there had been a fantastic buzz around during the entire evening.
performed beautifully and guests enjoyed themselves. No drama, no story to tell. End of this blog entry. Were it not for the beauty competition. We introduced this new aspect of the literary Salon quite subtly, not everyone might have noticed.
case you missed it! However, being called a “class act” carries risk. A single indiscretion or unprofessional pronouncement and the reputation comes tumbling down.
be hard work. But my weekends? Pure pleasure – first spreadsheet delight, now salon galore! I’m not joking. It was really nice. And it’s only now, four days after the event, that I really can grasp what a success it was. It was the first ever totally sold out salon. I managed to fit 40 people into my study/office where we hold the reading. Truth to be told it wasn’t an exercise in physical comfort. 40 adults in a front room sat on little primary school chairs. I don’t think people minded too much – or at least no one has sued me yet for bodily harm. Instead the audience felt intellectually, creatively and emotionally uplifted by the three stars at the front, 
debacle.