Families & 7+
Friday 23 August 17:00 - 18:00
Matt Haig is an award-winning author for young people and grown-ups. Today, he introduces you to a very special little girl and a menagerie of animals with a lot to say in Evie and the Animals. Evie can understand them, but can she keep her promise to...
Age 12+
Friday 23 August 17:30 - 18:30
Join the Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators for a frank discussion about sustaining a writing career in a hugely competitive environment. David Almond is a multi award-winning children's novelist whose work has been adapted for stage and...
Published from Prison
Friday 23 August 17:30 - 18:15
Two Turkish authors who would have appeared at the Book Festival this year with new books, had they not been imprisoned, are journalist Ahmet Altan with I Will Never See the World Again and Selahattin Demirtaş, former leader of the People’s...
Age 14+
Friday 23 August 17:45 - 18:45
Founder of the Everyday Sexism Project Laura Bates and prize-winning author Patrice Lawrence navigate the maze of teenage girlhood. In Patrice's Rose, Interrupted, a girl escapes a religious sect and plunges into a new world, while Laura's The Burning...
Age 10-14
Friday 23 August 18:30 - 19:30
Following the success of her novel Welcome to Nowhere, based on her time spent in Jordanian refugee camps, Elizabeth Laird returns with a powerful story set amidst the Syrian refugee crisis. Hear her discuss the themes of family, hope and redemption...
‘Walls turned sideways are bridges’
Friday 23 August 19:00 - 20:00
Anthony Anaxagorou was part of the team behind an unforgettable Out-Spoken Press takeover in our 2018 Unbound programme. Today he launches After the Formalities, a sharp examination of class, race and masculinity. He’s joined by Nadine Aisha Jassat, a...
The Real 'People's Vote'?
Friday 23 August 19:30 - 21:00
Brexit has laid bare the flaws of representative democracy and binary referenda for complex issues. People’s sense of separation from the political process helped drive the Brexit vote. Could greater use of deliberative democracy, through Citizen...
Man vs Machine
Friday 23 August 20:30 - 21:30
Faith in technological progress has verged on religious, but recently our trust in many things – truth, leadership, the digital world – has been badly dented. Paul Mason senses catastrophe. The popular political commentator thinks we need a humanist...
End of Days
Friday 23 August 20:30 - 21:30
Last Ones Left Alive, the first novel by Tramp Press co-founder Sarah Davis-Goff, is a gripping dystopian fable about a fierce heroine, Orpen, on a terrifying journey. Joining her is author Hanna Jameson, whose page-turning murder mystery The Last...
Wonder Woman on Wheels
Friday 23 August 20:45 - 21:45
Who’s the greatest rider in British cycling history? Beryl Burton. A dynamo who dominated road racing and time-trialling for three decades, she won 7 world titles and over 90 domestic championships in her career. It’s high time she is recognised as...
Book Festival's Associate Director to Step Down 
