Skip to main page content

2021 Festival

All photos by Jo Shepherd

2021 Speakers

EventSpeaker/sSubject
TalkJohn SimpsonOur Friends in Beijing
DiscussionJames Naughtie
In conversation with Jamie Coomarasamy
On the road: American Adventures from Nixon to Trump
TalkAmbra EdwardsThe Plant Hunter’s Atlas: A World
Tour of Botanical Adventures, Chance
Discoveries and Strange Specimens
TalkEmily MayhewThe Four Horsemen and
the Hope of a New Age
TalkColin ThubronThe Amur River
Between Russia and China
TalkPeter OborneThe Assault on the Truth: Boris Johnson,
Donald Trump and the Emergence of a
New Moral Barbarism
DiscussionNatalie HaynesPandora’s Jar: Women in
the Greek Myths
Book Club EventLucy AtkinsMagpie Lane
TalkPeter Stanford If These Stones Could Talk:
The History of Christianity in Britain and
Ireland through Twenty-One Buildings
Walk and TalkDuncan Minshull Sauntering:
Writers Walk Europe
TalkOwen SheersTo Provide All People
TalkVince CableThe Chinese Conundrum:
Engagement or Economic War
DiscussionLucy Jago
In conversation with Andrew Miller
A Net for Small Fishes
TalkJonathan BateBright Star, Green Light: The Beautiful
Works and Damned Lives of John Keats
and F. Scott Fitzgerald
TalkJohn Mullan The Artful Dickens:
Tricks and Ploys of the
Great Novelist
TalkMichael BondWayfinding: The Art and Science of How We Find and Lose Our Way
DiscussionJohn Sutherland
In conversation with Sarah LeFanu
Monica Jones, Philip Larkin and Me
TalkEmily KenwayThe Truth About Modern Slavery
TalkMary Ann SieghartThe Authority Gap
DiscussionJohn Preston
In conversation with David Lister
Fall: The Mystery of Robert Maxwell
TalkDr Lucy PollockThe Book About Getting Older
(for people who don’t want to
talk about it)
DiscussionAndrew Gailey
In conversation with William Waldegrave
Portrait of a Muse: Frances Graham, Edward
Burne-Jones and the Pre-Raphaelite Dream
DiscussionSathnam Sanghera
In conversation with David Lister
Empireland: How Imperialism
has Shaped Modern Britain
TalkAnil Seth Being You: A New Science
of Consciousness
DiscussionRukmini Iyer
In conversation with Caroline Waldegrave
The Sweet Roasting Tin and
The Green Barbecue
DiscussionJonathan Dimbleby
In conversation with William Waldegrave
Barbarossa: How Hitler Lost the War
TalkJemma WadhamIce Rivers
TalkPhilippe Sands The Ratline:
Love, Lies and Justice on the
Trail of a Nazi Fugitive
DiscussionVeronica O’Keane
In conversation with Julia Samuel
The Rag and Bone Shop:
How We Make Memories and
Memories Make Us
TalkGyles BrandrethOdd Boy Out