There are 184 sessions and many evening events and music concerts. To balance my enjoyment with my love of sharing I will cherry pick some of my favourites, the quotes, the titles and books and the authors and personalities.
Ben Okri the author of "The Famished Road" on writing fiction "Authors need to have a wildness to write so as not to diminish the source from where writing comes from". His foundational context is the way his mother told stories, elliptical, never having a point, trying to calm him down as he was an unruly child. He then spent years trying to make sense of them.
Sven Beckert author of "The Empire of Cotton" looking at the global history of cotton and how it was crucial to the development of capitalism. Most countries depended on it in the first industrial revolution and 350 million people are still engaged in its production and manufacture in the world.
Andrea de Robilant "Autumn in Venice, Ernest Hemingway and his last muse" the story of Ernest Hemingway and Adriana, an 18 year old Italian girl who Ernest Hemingway met when he was 49 and who became his muse when he was in Venice. His writing took off once more and soon after he wrote "The Old Man and the Sea" for which he won the Pulitzer and Nobel Prize.
Zachary Leanard on "The life of Saul Bellow"- several volumes of a very full life.
Jenny Uglow on Mr Lear. A life of Art and Nonsense" She loves choosing strange individuals as her subject matter and Lear certainly fits that bill.He loved nonsense and made up a lot of it that we are all so familiar with like the Owl and the Pussy Cat and was prone to using words like splendidophoropherostiphongious to describe his mood.
No Book - But a panel on Brexit with Nikesh Shah, Sir Roy Strong, Rachel Johnson moderated by James Crabtree. Rachel, Sister of Boris saying"Try spending Xmas in my house where one brother is ardent Leave and the other Remain". Nikesh, "I like the EU, I like immigrants". Crabtree urging us to read the Chumocracy by Pankaj Mishra in the NYT- A possible outcome to the whole debacle - indefinite leave to remain!
Simon Sebag Montefiore on the incredible lives and times of the Romanovs. Blood and Gore, Killing and betrayals and some sexy liaisons thrown in for good measure. A very lively look at Russian History.
Yann Martel Life after Pi- how he created his story, one believable and one unbelievable and how he married the two together reminding us that the wealth of the earth belongs to us all.
Anuradha Roy - Her new book "All the lives we never lived" is a wonderful blending of real people with fiction- so Tagore and Walter Spiez are protagonists in her new novel written with her usual attention to detail and the senses. Liberating her female protagonist who leaves behind a son and husband to pursue a completely different life. I loved her session.
The indefatigable Mary Beard on SPQR- her book about the senate and people of Rome. Its importance on the world stage and uncovering how people lived and died.
A panel with Germaine Greer, Mary Beard, Reni Eddo Lodge and Bee Rowlatt. Germaine told us why women fake orgasm among other interesting snippets.
Learning all about the Kumb Mela - what it means, why people go and the amazing work of some young girls who took photographic records poems and oral histories of the last three. Why you would want to join 110 million others on the way ... to bathe in the Ganges. Photo from todays BBC edition and the article about how people are lost and found at the mela.
Ben Okri the author of "The Famished Road" on writing fiction "Authors need to have a wildness to write so as not to diminish the source from where writing comes from". His foundational context is the way his mother told stories, elliptical, never having a point, trying to calm him down as he was an unruly child. He then spent years trying to make sense of them.
Sven Beckert author of "The Empire of Cotton" looking at the global history of cotton and how it was crucial to the development of capitalism. Most countries depended on it in the first industrial revolution and 350 million people are still engaged in its production and manufacture in the world.
Andrea de Robilant "Autumn in Venice, Ernest Hemingway and his last muse" the story of Ernest Hemingway and Adriana, an 18 year old Italian girl who Ernest Hemingway met when he was 49 and who became his muse when he was in Venice. His writing took off once more and soon after he wrote "The Old Man and the Sea" for which he won the Pulitzer and Nobel Prize.
Zachary Leanard on "The life of Saul Bellow"- several volumes of a very full life.
Jenny Uglow on Mr Lear. A life of Art and Nonsense" She loves choosing strange individuals as her subject matter and Lear certainly fits that bill.He loved nonsense and made up a lot of it that we are all so familiar with like the Owl and the Pussy Cat and was prone to using words like splendidophoropherostiphongious to describe his mood.
No Book - But a panel on Brexit with Nikesh Shah, Sir Roy Strong, Rachel Johnson moderated by James Crabtree. Rachel, Sister of Boris saying"Try spending Xmas in my house where one brother is ardent Leave and the other Remain". Nikesh, "I like the EU, I like immigrants". Crabtree urging us to read the Chumocracy by Pankaj Mishra in the NYT- A possible outcome to the whole debacle - indefinite leave to remain!
Simon Sebag Montefiore on the incredible lives and times of the Romanovs. Blood and Gore, Killing and betrayals and some sexy liaisons thrown in for good measure. A very lively look at Russian History.
Yann Martel Life after Pi- how he created his story, one believable and one unbelievable and how he married the two together reminding us that the wealth of the earth belongs to us all.
Anuradha Roy - Her new book "All the lives we never lived" is a wonderful blending of real people with fiction- so Tagore and Walter Spiez are protagonists in her new novel written with her usual attention to detail and the senses. Liberating her female protagonist who leaves behind a son and husband to pursue a completely different life. I loved her session.
The indefatigable Mary Beard on SPQR- her book about the senate and people of Rome. Its importance on the world stage and uncovering how people lived and died.
A panel with Germaine Greer, Mary Beard, Reni Eddo Lodge and Bee Rowlatt. Germaine told us why women fake orgasm among other interesting snippets.
Learning all about the Kumb Mela - what it means, why people go and the amazing work of some young girls who took photographic records poems and oral histories of the last three. Why you would want to join 110 million others on the way ... to bathe in the Ganges. Photo from todays BBC edition and the article about how people are lost and found at the mela.
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