It was a delight to see so many people gathered to celebrate the launch of Barbarians by Tim Glencross (John Murray).Tim made the celebration a family affair, choosing to hold his bash at The Sevenoaks Bookshop. Well, if you’re mum is the co-owner of a fantastic independent bookshop, you’d be silly not to take full advantage of it.

As the first of our group to see his novel published, many of us who met on the Curtis Brown Creative three month novel writing course, back in the Autumn of 2011 were there to support him and wish him all the best.

We were thrilled to see that Grazia live suggested reading Barbarians as one of the top ten things to do on the weekend of its release (22nd May). The Metro called it ‘Astute, ‘immaculately funny’, while The Sunday Times described it as ‘An impressive debut’, and stated ‘Glencross feels like a writer to watch’.  But we all knew that already.

And so we all bought the novel, of course…

Shy and retiring type that he is, after a glass or two of bubbly, Tim was persuaded to give a speech, or maybe it was the beer that loosened his tongue.

And if you’re wondering about the significance of the beer bottles, you’re going to have to buy Barbarians to find out.