The Author's Table
Forty seats, one book, and the argument taken apart by people who are allowed to disagree with it in public.
A signed copy and the parts of the argument the author is least sure about.
Press seats are held and never charged. Announced per launch. As at 26 August 2026.
Book-launch dinner · 40 seats
A launch dinner built around a disagreement rather than a reading. Forty seats: press, clients, and alumni of the programmes.
The format inverts the usual one. Rather than the author presenting the argument, three readers who have had the manuscript for a month present the weakest parts of it, and the author answers at the table. The corrections that come out of these evenings go straight into the Evidence Log.
Published in advance.
You should be able to decide whether a day is worth your time from the agenda rather than from the promise.
The argument, in ten minutes
The shortest honest version.
Three readers, three objections
Prepared in advance. Not softened.
The table
Open floor, on the record unless a speaker says otherwise.
What goes into the corrections log
Agreed at the table, published within a week.
A signed copy and the parts of the argument the author is least sure about.
Every event page on this site carries the same five things: a date, a city, a price, a seat count, and this line. If any of them is missing, the event is not ready to be sold.
Questions about The Author's Table
Answered plainly, with the real figures. If something here is wrong, tell us and it goes in the log.
By invitation. Forty seats go to press, clients and alumni of the programmes. Press seats are held and never charged. Requests can be sent through the page and are read, and answered either way. There is no ticket price, and the venue is announced per launch.
Not yet scheduled. The next one is held on publication of The Constitution Engine, in Chennai. All forty seats are shown as open because no date has been set. The date is published here once the publication date is fixed, as with every event on this site.
The format inverts the usual launch. Rather than the author reading from the book, three readers who have had the manuscript for a month present its weakest parts, prepared in advance and not softened, and the author answers at the table. The open floor is on the record unless a speaker says otherwise.
A signed copy and the parts of the argument the author is least sure about. The corrections agreed at the table go into the public Evidence Log and are published within a week, which is the same standard applied to every figure on this site: a grade and a date.