News
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This Book Is The Business
Congratulations to innovative academic Tim Minshall who has been long listed for the Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year award. His book Your Life is Manufactured, subtitled How We Make Things, Why It Matters and How We Can Do It Better, is in the category Growth. Minshall takes an eye-opening journey through…
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From night owls to nightshifts
Nightmares, nightshifts and night owls all get a mention in Dan Richards‘ fascinating book Overnight in which he travels, goes on bat hunts, and has conversations with ferrymen, street sleepers and the Dusty Knuckle bakers. For Dan there is something special about the night. It’s the time when things go bump, owls take wing and…
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Regency romp revisited
Comedian Rachel Parris, best known for her TV appearances on The Mash Report and Late Night Mash, brings some racy romance to the Festival with a witty sequel to Jane Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice. Her new book Introducing Mrs Collins takes up the story of Charlotte Lucas who married pompous clergyman Mr Collins, upsetting…
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Pick of popular scientists
Science writers Masud Husain and Tim Minshall, both speakers at this year’s Festival, have been picked for the shortlist of a prestigious award for popular science writing. They are among just six writers selected from 254 entries in the Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize for 2025. The shortlisted titles represent the judges’ pick of…
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Football season kicks off
As the football season kicks off this month, the Festival is delighted to host two of the sports greatest fans. Author Simon Kuper, who has attended every World Cup since 1990, will be discussing the biggest sporting competition on earth with well-known BBC Radio Somerset sports presenter Charlie Taylor. Kuper’s new book World Cup Fever is…
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Royal Revelations
Searing revelations about Prince Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson have stirred up a storm of interest in biographer Andrew Lownie’s latest book Entitled. Royal watchers are snapping up tickets to hear the inside story from the author himself when he appears at the Festival on 23 October. Lownie spent four years interviewing hundreds of…
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A strange journey into history
Sophy Roberts, a speaker at this year’s Festival, is on the shortlist of the 2025 Wainwright prize for conservation writing for her latest book A Training School for Elephants. Following in the footsteps of four elephants shipped from India to the East African coast in 1879, she explores colonial greed and human-animal relationships through both…
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Festival supports Wells Ecoweek
Health, climate change and conservation are all hot topics, and not only is the Festival hosting three speakers on relevant subjects this year, but it is pleased to support Wells Ecoweek. This is an event organised by the Wells Environment Network to raise awareness in the city of the need to protect and conserve our…
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Congratulations to Booker Prize nominee
Award-winning novelist Andrew Miller’s latest book The Land in Winter has been longlisted for the Booker Prize 2025 and has also won the 2025 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. The Somerset-based author, who is an Associate of Wells Festival of Literature, appeared at the 2022 Festival where he spoke of his then new novel…
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Friends Event Success!
Remnants of woolly rhinos, hyenas, bears, wolves, aurochs and other species long extinct in the UK are among the fossilised remains found in a small cave high up on Ebbor Gorge, near Wells. Professor Danielle Schreve, a leading palaeontologist at the University of Bristol, revealed the extent of the finds at a fascinating talk for…
