80s pop legend turned author to visit Aldeburgh Bookshop

Cult musician, creative artist and Steampunk genius, Thomas Dolby is launching his first novel, Prevailing Wind, in the UK at the Aldeburgh store on Saturday, August 10.

Thomas lives on the Suffolk coast when he is not teaching music in film at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Shop owner Mary James said: "When we last did an event with Thomas at the Aldeburgh Cinema, word got out among his fans and they came from miles and miles around."

Thomas' book is set in 1913 at the wealthy New York Yacht Club as two penniless brothers from a lobster fishing community in Maine try out for the sailing crew of a millionaire’s luxury racing yacht.  Honour, betrayal and an egomaniacal skipper put the brothers to the test as they set out to expose a dark secret the club has covered up for years. 

Thomas has had a Suffolk home for years (Image: Newsquest)

Thomas Morgan Robertson, known by the stage name Thomas Dolby, came to prominence in the 1980s, releasing hit singles including ‘She Blinded Me with Science’. 

Thomas Dolby is a talented musician and film maker and now author (Image: Arthur-Mouratidis)He has also worked as a producer and as a session musician, notably with David Bowie, with whom he flew into the Live Aid Stadium in a helicopter.

He told us his connection to Aldeburgh goes back a very long way indeed. 

He said: "My great-great grandfather was Newson Garrett, mayor of Aldeburgh and developer of the Snape Maltings. My great-aunts Millicent Fawcett and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson have their own stamps!

"My granny lived on Park Crescent and she and my mum helped Britten and Pears set up the first Aldeburgh Festival in the Jubilee Hall.

"I learned to sail on the Alde as a kid - I still sail and race there and once won the Aldeburgh Regatta in my Loch Long.

"I currently live in the USA but have kept a house on the Suffolk coast since the late 80s, and spend most summers there.

"In 2014 I toured with my self-directed film and live concert The Invisible Lighthouse, about the fate of the Orford Lighthouse."

The Thomas Dolby event is free and more details are available on the shop's website, www.aldeburghbookshop.co.uk/events

Also at the bookshop this summer, on Thursday June 27, there will be a Walk-with-a-Talk with walking writer and anthologist Duncan Minshull. 

Duncan Minshull (Image: Duncan Minshull)

Duncan has written several best selling anthologies about writers walking.

His  most recent is Globetrotting about writers from all over the world and their travels on foot.  

The walk will set off from the bookshop at 2pm up to Thorpeness and back round to Aldeburgh for approximately two hours.

There will be stops at intervals for Duncan to talk about and read from his book.  

Duncan stays in Suffolk often and is planning to move to Woodbridge soon.

Tickets for this event are on sale at www.aldeburghbookshop.co.uk/shop/ticket-with-book-walk-with-a-talk-by-duncan-minshull-globetrotting