Saturday 16 August 13:30 - 14:30
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Ta-Nehisi Coates is an award-winning, uncompromising commentator on race relations, truth, and justice, especially in America. He’ll discuss the urgent need for the West, and particularly America, to free itself from the myths it tells itself…
Saturday 16 August 13:30 - 14:30
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Meanjin, the traditional place name of modern-day Brisbane, was briefly known as Edenglassie, a portmanteau of Edinburgh and Glasgow. Melissa Lucashenko’s novel of the same name oscillates between 1800s Edenglassie and modern-day Brisbane, examining the…
Suitable for age 6 - 9
Saturday 16 August 13:30 - 14:30
- Attend in person
- Watch online
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Ever wondered what happens behind a dishwasher door, why a duvet keeps you warm, or how x-rays take pictures of our bones? To celebrate the release of her new book, How Does It Work?, BAFTA-winning children’s TV presenter, YouTuber, and author Maddie…
Suitable for age 6 - 9
Saturday 16 August 14:15 - 15:15
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Squirrel and Duck might seem strange housemates, but they are drawn together by their secret – they are the only talking animals in the world. Get ready for a wonderfully zany event with Tom Percival as he introduces Squirrel and Duck: Mission Improbable…
Saturday 16 August 15:00 - 16:00
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Novelist Caroline O’Donoghue’s wildly popular Sentimental Garbage podcast is an emotionally-invested, quick-witted celebration of cultural and social topics which may seem frivolous, but hold huge meaning in our hearts, and live rent-free in our brains…
Saturday 16 August 15:00 - 16:00
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Take imaginative flight with two international novelists whose work takes us to truly marvellous realms…
Saturday 16 August 15:15 - 16:15
- Attend in person
- Watch online
- BSL interpreted
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In her gripping book, The Age of Diagnosis, leading neurologist Suzanne O’Sullivan explores the increasingly blurry boundaries between sickness and health…
Saturday 16 August 15:15 - 16:15
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Tony Tulathimutte’s Rejection – a National Book Award-longlisted novel-in-stories – is so gratuitously of-the-moment it hurts. Garth Greenwell has called it ‘a book of mad, madcap genius’ – it’s sex and relationships through a prism of identity, memes……
Saturday 16 August 16:00 - 17:00
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In Love in Exile, Shon Faye (author of the acclaimed bestseller The Transgender Issue) explores what happens when we break the constraints of conventionality and embrace love in all its forms…
Saturday 16 August 16:45 - 17:45
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Can we trust art history as it’s conventionally told? And who writes its story from now?…
Saturday 16 August 16:45 - 17:45
- Attend in person
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Sometimes, only poetry will do. There’s something in the concentrated way poets see the world that can open us up to new ways of seeing, thinking, and hoping too…
Saturday 16 August 17:00 - 18:00
- Attend in person
- Watch online
- BSL interpreted
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Global emissions are worse than ever. The ‘polycrisis’ we face reaches far beyond the climate. Why have we continued to fail when we have the means to succeed?…
Saturday 16 August 17:00 - 18:00
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Michelle de Kretser’s books smash through all preconceived notions about fiction, blending artful social observation with forms fizzing with brainy playfulness…
Saturday 16 August 17:45 - 18:45
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Torrey Peters’ bestselling novel Detransition, Baby burst onto shelves in 2021. Her follow-up, the vibrant and ambitious Stag Dance, waltzes across four breathtaking tales that explore the space between male and female, binary and non-binary, and delight…
Saturday 16 August 18:15 - 19:15
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What do a sleepy hometown, a student party house, and a wedding have in common? They’re all the perfect setting for twisted murder mysteries!…
Saturday 16 August 18:30 - 19:30
- Attend in person
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Some of the most gripping Book Festival conversations are those blending fiction and non-fiction. Here, we bring together two writers whose work addresses illness…
Saturday 16 August 18:45 - 19:45
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Legendary alt-rock band Radiohead are worshipped by many but truly understood by few. In his intimate photographic portrait of the band, How to Disappear – alongside a warm, reflective essay – bassist Colin Greenwood reveals the candid stories behind…
Saturday 16 August 18:45 - 19:45
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Titan of modern literary science fiction, M John Harrison has never shied away from bending genre and reimaging the form of fantasy novels…
Saturday 16 August 19:30 - 20:30
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Egyptian-Canadian novelist and journalist Omar El Akkad’s first non-fiction book, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, and Palestinian-American poet Fady Joudah’s new collection, […], both respond to the genocide in Gaza with starkness…
Saturday 16 August 20:00 - 21:00
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Two exciting writers take on faith and religion, wielding fiction and non-fiction respectively…
Full 2025 Book Festival programme is announced with key theme of Repair 
