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Hundreds of events for adults, teenagers and children feature authors, illustrators, musicians, poets, policians, thinkers, prize-winners and rising stars every August.
When Simon Woolley created Operation Black Vote in 1996, he inspired hundreds of thousands of people to participate in the democratic process. Raised on an impoverished estate in Leicester, he has become a political force to be reckoned with, the first...
Combining a fertile imagination with a powerful sense of social justice, Jenni Fagan has a talent for writing great fiction. Her latest novella Hex underlines that, retelling the true story of Geillis Duncan – one of the first women accused in the...
Two men arrive on an island, one to paint it, the other to record its speech. Amid their rivalry, the islanders discover their own relationship with the place they call home. Audrey Magee’s second novel, The Colony, tackles questions of identity, art...
It’s 30-odd years since Real Gone Kid became Deacon Blue’s first irresistibly catchy pop hit, and lead singer Ricky Ross has been in the thick of a music career ever since. Today he discusses his rollercoaster journey including behind-the-scenes...
Does the ghost of Anita Brookner haunt the pages of Julian Barnes’s new novel Elizabeth Finch? Or is it Muriel Spark? Either way, his book is a loving tribute to a singular imaginary woman who teaches Culture and Civilization and who ‘radically...
How much can really go wrong at a hen party? Bride-to-be Jen is about to find out. A private island provides a getaway for the celebrations, but it quickly becomes the backdrop to chaos, a disappearance and an anonymous blackmailer demanding that one of...
From the post-industrial paradise of Sheffield to the literature-steeped lanes of Paris, the path of Jarvis Cocker’s life has been beautifully meandering – and he’s picked up a lot of ephemera along the way. Good Pop, Bad Pop takes us on a tour of...
Something wicked this way comes in two historical page-turners infused with witchcraft. The Leviathan, by Rosie Andrews, is set in Norfolk, 1643. A level-headed soldier investigates accusations of dark magic and finds more than he can reason with. In...
Thomas Mann argued there’s nothing ‘actual’ about time: humans don’t possess an organ that can sense it. Award-winning Bulgarian novelist Georgi Gospodinov plays with this idea in Time Shelter, beautifully translated into English by Angela...
When reading a novel, who can we trust to tell us the truth? Graeme Macrae Burnet’s new novel Case Study, set in mid-60s London, plays with ideas about truth and reality through the story of an enfant terrible of the ‘anti-psychiatry’ movement. If...
Announcing our Communities Programme and Citizen events this August 
