Hello booklovers,

The fourth Thursday in November has arrived and it is time to wish our friends across the pond a very happy Thanksgiving!

A North American holiday, Thanksgiving has come to symbolise the importance of home and the importance of family, marked by the preparation and consumption of a rather delicious meal. Thanksgiving has always been associated with a general thanks for the fruits of the autumn harvest, and then by the arrival of the pilgrims in America in 1621. However it was only in 1863 that, thanks to the rigorous campaigning of a lady named Sarah Josepha Hale, President Lincoln decided that the date for Thanksgiving was to be the 26th of November and would mark a day of national unity. Now Thanksgiving is fixed on the fourth Thursday of November and in Canada it has been celebrated on the second Monday in October since 1957.

As my own Thanksgiving gesture, I thought I would pay tribute to a favourite American author of mine, Louisa May Alcott, and her most beloved tale of the March girls, Little Women. Following the lives of Meg, Beth, Amy and Jo, Alcott’s story has been a favourite book for many readers for many, many years.  

Little Women is often much maligned, and labelled as a tale of hopes and dreams that are never truly fulfilled. Be my guest to take this view, but if you look closer (and I beg that you do) what you will find is a tale unfolding of self discovery through all the very realistic trials and tribulations that life offers. Poverty, civil war, the death of a sibling: issues that remain pertinent in our own society and will remain so in societies of the future.

This is a story about sisterhood, humility, friendship and the forging of equal relationships. Now often criticised for writing too much in her own time, Alcott actually very much ahead of her time, particularly in her portrayal of female agency and the process of growing up. It takes much skill as a writer to create four girls who have stayed in the minds of their readers from childhood to adulthood for 150 years.

Little Women is of particular relevance to the festival of Thanksgiving with its true depiction of familial affection and a love of home. With that sentiment in mind, I wish all the Megs, Jos, Amys and Beths of this world, and every other reader of course, a very Happy Thanksgiving!

‘I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship’ 

Louisa May Alcott

Bookish best,

Imogen

Hello-ooooooo booklovers,

October the 31st has arrived. Across the nation pumpkins will be carved, bonfires lit and sweets distributed to small visiting witches and wizards and other such spooky folk.

According to folklore, Halloween is the night where the barrier between the supernatural world and the land of the living is at its thinnest – we are closer to those who have shuffled off this mortal coil than ever before. Make of that what you will… but either way it’s a nice excuse to light a fire and indulge in some Autumn themed treats (my current favourite ingredient is pumpkin, it’s so delicious). It is also a wonderful reason to share some spine-tingling stories. For centuries at this time of year people have gathered together to ward off the Autumn darkness and to tell a ghoulish story or two. Feast your eyes below for some hauntingly good recommendations…

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

What goes unexplained is the most frightening thing in this jewel of a tale. Who actually is Peter Quint and what dreadful thing has he done? Was it even him who committed such an act in the first place, or someone smaller and seemingly more innocent?

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

If you enjoy post-war tales of old families, dilapidated houses and things that go bump in the night, this is the novel for you. An unnerving story of repression, class and the repercussions of being made an outsider, The Little Stranger keeps you guessing until the very end and looking over your shoulder for a very long time after that.

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

For those who prefer a good old fashioned Gothic tale, exploring fears over scientific the scientific innovations and the decadence of the Victorian age. Lots of thick city smog, gas lamps and grotesqueness – terrific.

Enjoy dear booklovers – don’t get too spooked!

Autumnal wishes,

Imogen x

Hello booklovers!

We find ourselves in mid-October – conkers coat the ground, the evenings are noticeably drawing in and the trees are glowing. Autumn is my favourite season – it is a time to make soup, feed the birds and go for long blustery walks with the reward of a large cup of tea at the other end. It has also inspired some of our best and most beautiful poetry.

‘Fall, Leaves, Fall’ by Emily Brontë

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.
I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow;
I shall sing when night’s decay
Ushers in a drearier day.

 

Just as Keats’s ‘mellow fruitfulness’ encourages a sense of anticipation and reflection, this wry ode to Autumn encapsulates the sheer joy to be found in the everyday occurrences of the season. Emily smiles and sings at the sight of leaves falling from trees and at the prospect of the dark nights and the day that will follow, encouraging an appreciation of all that you see.

Too often people leap straight from Summer to Christmas and Autumn gets left behind. We need this season to reflect on the year that has passed so far and to contemplate how to make things better. Humanity is faced by so many problems, problems like poverty, conflict and global warming. We are more likely to be able to be able to deal with them if we take a step back to think, gather information and be inspired to help. One timeless way to do this is to READ. Literature offers us a chance to step into another world for a time and to emerge from it with a fresh perspective.

Here at the Felixstowe Book Festival we have on offer on a yearly basis a whole host of fascinating authors, speakers and their accompanying work for you to absorb and enjoy. So this Autumn I implore you to read a book, go for a walk, pick up conkers and twizzle sycamore leaves and enjoy this mellow and special time. Leave Christmas tucked away in the loft for now and enjoy the peace and quiet that this season has to offer.

Bookish best,

Imogen and the Festival Team

Hello booklovers!

We’re back after the summer break, refreshed and ready to get started on the preparations for our 2019 festival. What a lo-o-ong, glorious summer! Despite being a sun baby, I am whole-heartedly welcoming the sight of orange leaves appearing on the trees and the hint of a chilly breeze in the air. Keep your eyes peeled for some blog posts about autumnal literature that will be descending upon the blog over the next few weeks.

But let’s step back in time to our fantastic Felixstowe Book Festival of 2018 – a sun-soaked weekend filled with fascinating author talks and workshops for young and old and everyone in between. Every single one of our guests were wonderful and we can’t thank them enough for coming to visit the festival.

We were lucky enough to be visited by Caroline Slocock, who discussed her memoir of both personal and political proportions, People Like Us, documenting her time as private secretary to Margaret Thatcher. Journalist and broadcaster Jenni Murray also hit the stage with her new book, A History of Britain in 21 Women, providing us with a profound hour of laughter, discussion and an insight into the lives of fascinating women.

Quenching the literary needs of fans of crime novels in Felixstowe, we welcomed Humphrey Hawksley and Iain Maitland to the festival, as well as Quentin Bates and Barbara Nadel. Crime writer Mark Billingham was also a huge success with our visitors.

Heading over to our cracking programme for children and young adults, Peter Bunzl and Kev F (and his comic masterclass!) proved to be very popular with the younger members of our audience, as did Nick Arnold and his Horrible Science lab. Hayley Long and Virginia Bergin were fantastic guests, discussing the prides and pitfalls of being a young woman and how they depict this in their own work.

We were lucky enough to welcome back festival favourites, such as Liz Trenow, Louis de Bernieres and Oggy Boytchev, who brought their literary magic and wisdom back to our festival with great aplomb.

This is a mere selection of the brilliant variety of speakers and events we have had available at the 2018 Felixstowe Book festival. We are all so pleased and excited to be able to continue the fun and the fascination which is being put in place by our plans for the 2019 festival.

Hope to see you there!

Bookish best,

Imogen and the festival team

 

 

 

 

Hello booklovers,

Still feeling deflated post-festival weekend? How about a little reminder of the brilliant set of volunteers who make the whole event possible…

We pride ourselves in being a volunteer led festival. Everything – from being involved in the main committee, to taking tickets on the door or selling them to our visitors, to introducing the events and providing information for our guests, even to organising the volunteer schedules themselves – is made up almost entirely of volunteers whose help we are eternally grateful for. As with any highly successful event, the festival requires a vast amount of time and dedication (and sanity) but to extremely good effect! I hope everyone involved returned home on Sunday evening feeling thoroughly pleased with themselves and with each other for providing the solid foundation that is crucial to the success of any volunteer-led event.

In a world which is becoming increasingly individualistic, it was so heartening to spend time with a group of people working together as a community. You can’t fake the atmosphere created by a team and it certainly provided the back-bone to the wonderful festival feeling which left all who attended with an irremovable grin all over their faces.

Many congratulations to everyone involved!

“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”

Mark Twain

Bookish best,

Imogen

Hello booklovers,

So here it is, the first promised post taking you back to our wonderful festival weekend 2018. I don’t know about you, but when I wasn’t helping out at the fantastic array of children’s events at Felixstowe Library I was to be found skulking in a Golumn-like fashion around the book stall, unable to take my eyes off the gorgeous stock of books.

We were lucky enough to once again be supported by Stillwater Books this year – based in Hamilton Road, the shop provides a delightful selection of fiction, non fiction and children’s books alike and is an absolute jewel in the crown of Felixstowe High Street.

Will and the team from Stillwater Books (who earned a well deserved plug by Salley Vickers at her event, championing the cause of independent booksellers nationwide) did us an excellent service, providing a seemingly never ending supply of beautiful books, waiting to be purchased by our visitors and signed by our fab festival speakers. Without the support of our brilliant local bookshop, I don’t know where we would be! The provision of books is crucial to our festival – not only does it allow our visitors to have their precious new purchases signed by the author, but it also allows them to instantly pursue interests in the new topics and discussions they have discovered at the festival events. The image to the left illustrates but a small selection of the stash of literary delights that my family managed to gather up over the course of the weekend! Thank you very much to all at Stillwater Books for your help and support.

‘I have gone to this bookshop for years,

always finding the one book I wanted – and then three more I hadn’t known I wanted.’

Mary Ann Shaffer, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Bookish best,

Imogen and the Festival Team

 

Hello booklovers!

I think it is safe to say that the Felixstowe Book Festival 2018 was a barn-storming success! Our multiple stages have been graced with fascinating members of the literary community and we are hugely grateful to them all. We are also so very lucky with our wonderful guests – a huge thank you to all who attended our many, many events, contributing so much to the fabulous festival atmosphere. We couldn’t have done it without you. Getting post-festival blues? Fear not, for over the next few days I will be providing you with little snippets and snapshots of our sensational sunny weekend, as a reminder of what fun we had and what fun we will continue to have over the coming year.

Keep your eyes peeled!

“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! — When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.”

Jane Austen

All the very bookish best,

Imogen and the festival team

Hello booklovers,

Only one sleep left until the Felixstowe Book Festival weekend 2018! After months of preparations, it is almost here – I hope you are all ready for a weekend packed out with literary delights.

It has been a pleasure over the past week being reunited with returning festival guests, including Mandy Morton, Liz Trenow, Oggy Boytchev and Imagine That publishing. We are also thrilled to welcome Damian le Bas back into the folds of our festival.

Damian first visited us in 2015, where his beautiful poetry proved to be very popular with our festival visitors. From a long line of Gypsy Travellers, Damian grew up listening to stories told to him by his great-grandmother in the language of Romany. A strong affection for his family history provides the foundation for his work, much of which underpins his debut book The Stopping Places. Damian joins us this year to chat about his latest creation, which depicts his year-long trip around the UK searching for Britain’s remaining ancient Gypsy sites.

A reflective and fascinating piece of prose detailing an often forgotten but crucial part of our heritage. For more information, click on the link below:

https://felixstowebookfestival.co.uk/events/17-2

If you fancy treating yourself to a little preview of Damian’s work, The Stopping Places has been serialised as part of Radio 4’s Book of the Week. Go on, give yourself an audible treat and have a listen via this link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b4ztdd

Enjoy!

Bookish best,

Imogen and the festival team

 

Hello booklovers!

Would I be terribly British in saying that I am just a little bit too hot and am praying for some rain soon? Probably, but with good reason! As glorious as the weather has been recently, it is not so fun when you are crammed into the office and stuck in traffic all the way home…

Anyway, onto brighter things and jollier climes – the festival has kicked off to a smashing start thanks to our opening events and not long ’til we return to the fun on Friday evening.

At this year’s festival we are seeing plenty of returning faces of our wonderful guests from previous festival weekends, including the likes of the lovely Liz Trenow. Author of a fabulous list of novels, including The Last Telegram and The Poppy Factory, Liz has been a very popular speaker at several of our festivals in the past few years and we are very glad that she has decided to visit us again. In an interview with our festival team a few years ago, Liz said she had a particular soft spot for Felixstowe, having visited Felixstowe Ferry many times as a child. Her family are also inextricably linked to our sleepy home county of Suffolk – Liz’s family-tree details a family of silk-weavers dating back almost 300 years!

This year Liz will be chatting to us about her latest creation, In Love and War. Marking 100 years since the end of the First World War, the novel follows the lives of three women as they travel to the battlefields of The Somme and Flanders, seeking both reconciliation of the events that had befallen them and any news of their loved ones involved in the conflict. A timely and emotional story, not to be missed. If you would like to attend Liz’s event (and I strongly advise that you do!!) then have a look at the link below for ticketing information:  https://felixstowebookfestival.co.uk/events/30-2

Be quick as nearly all the tickets have sold out. See you tomorrow for more news of festival favourites!

All the very bookish best,

Imogen

 

Hello booklovers,

Tuesday is almost behind us, we’re almost half way through the week. Only one more sleep until our first festival event – how the time has flown!

As part of our Returning guests and festival favourites series, I am delighted to be featuring guests who are returning to the Felixstowe Book Festival in the days building up to the festival weekend. This merry band of festival-returners includes the fabulous Imagine That publishing company and their friend Arty Mouse. We are sending many congratulations their way, as Imagine That have recently been selected as finalists for the Suffolk Business Awards as part of the large business category. Well done, everyone here at the Felixstowe Book Festival are over the moon for you! For those of you who would like to know more, read all about it here: http://www.imaginethat.com/imagine-announced-finalist-suffolk-business-awards-2018/

Arty Mouse has proved very popular with young (and old!!) local residents in the past and we simply cannot wait to welcome our furry friend back to Felixstowe Library. Head along on June the 30th at 10am for this lovely free drop in event for plenty of Arty Mouse themed craft activities for your little ones. If you would like to know more, follow the link below for extra information:

https://felixstowebookfestival.co.uk/events/52-2

We hope to see lots of little crafty folk enjoying themselves over the weekend, thanks to plenty of wonderful activities provided by Imagine That publishing. We can’t wait to welcome everyone back!

Until tomorrow, all the very bookish best!

Imogen and the Festival Team