Hello book lovers,

Wishing you all a happy new year! I hope that 2022 has got off to a good start. If you’re in need of a little lift, we have good news. In February we will be re-launching our book festival book club – we’re looking forward to hosting it (in person, hurrah!) at the wonderful Cuppa Cafe.

Our first meeting will take place on Wednesday 23rd February. Come along to Cuppa Cafe from 7pm for a 7.30 start. Our first read of 2022 is Late in the Day by Tessa Hadley. This intelligent and tightly written novel centres on the lives of two couples who are lifelong friends navigating the trials and tribulations of late middle age. Vividly drawn characters, relatable events and astute observations of human behaviour make for an absorbing read.

You can get hold of a copy through the Suffolk Libraries catalogue or head to our brilliant local bookshops, Treasure Chest Books and Stillwater Books, if you wish to purchase a copy.

Please note that we have limited places to attend so to book your spot please email fbfbookclub@gmail.com.

We do hope you can join us!
Bookish best,

The Felixstowe Book Festival Team

 

Hello booklovers,

Here we have our final chapter of our Christmas Crackers blog series, giving you some sneak peaks into our 2022 festival. We hope you have enjoyed them and that they’ve given you plenty of bookish food for thought for the coming months. Read on to find out who else will be joining us next year…

We are so pleased to welcoming Nicci French, aka Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, back to our festival. They will be stopping by our seaside festival to discuss their latest novel, The Unheard. 

In this exciting thriller we meet Tess, a single mother whose young daughter Poppy is the centre of her world. However when Tess discovers some disturbing images in Poppy’s drawings she starts to fear that her daughter has witnessed a terrifying and disturbing event…

Sounds fantastic – we can’t wait to see Nicci and Sean again for what promises to be a fascinating discussion.

And that’s a wrap (for those who have yet to clad any prezzies please do pardon the pun…) Wishing you all a very merry and peaceful Christmas and we will look forward to seeing you in 2022.

Yuletide wishes,

The Felixstowe Book Festival Team x

 

Hello booklovers,

It’s time for our next Christmas Cracker, revealing another wonderful guest who will be joining us at our 2022 festival. Read on to find out more…

Brian Butterworth – Can Fish Count?

Every pet owner thinks their own dog, cat, fish or hamster is a genius. What makes Can Fish Count? so exciting is the way it unveils just how widespread intelligence is in nature.

We can’t wait to meet cognitive psychologist Brian Butterworth as he discusses the intelligence of our animals. In this fascinating book he explores how seemingly ‘simple’ creatures – like bees who can count fence posts and trees – use numbers to make their way in the world. A paw-fect event for any pet-lovers out there…

Festive wishes,

The Felixstowe Book Festival Team x

 

Hello booklovers,

Suddenly it’s December and our 2021 festival feels like a lifetime ago. We hope you are enjoying the start of the festive period. Here at FbF we’d like to spread some cheer and give you all some early Christmas presents… in the form of announcing a few of our guests for our 2022 programme!

We’ll start with…

Justin Webb and The Gift of Radio: My Childhood and Other Trainwrecks

Justin Webb will be a familiar name to fans of Radio 4 – he is the longest serving member of the Today Programme team and has had a career in broadcasting for round about four decades. Through his extensive career he has undertaken roles as war correspondent and Europe correspondent. Amongst his many accolades has been awarded Political Journalist of the Year for his coverage of the Obama presidential campaign.

Justin will be chatting to us about his new book The Gift of Radio: My Childhood and Other Trainwrecks. In this thoughtful yet darkly comic memoir Justin explores his childhood and youth with candour, sensitivity and deep reflection. From life as a child of the ’70s with blackouts and terrorist threats around the corner, to family relationships, music and a cold Quaker boarding school, Justin puts the difficult elements of his early life under the magnifying glass and examines issues surrounding parenting, mental health and societal struggle. However the gift of a radio proved to be that spark needed to bring some joy into a young life surrounded by a fair few struggles.

We look forward to welcoming Justin to our 2022 festival for what looks to be a fascinating event.

Keep your eyes peeled for our next Christmas Cracker in a few days time…

Yuletide wishes,

from the Felixstowe Book Festival Team x

 

 

Hello booklovers,

Crime fiction has always been an immensely popular and dominant genre, from the post war golden age crime novels of the 1920s, 30s and 40s to the wide ranging crime novels that adorn our shelves today. This is largely thanks to riveting plots, eye popping crimes and terrifying twists that send the imagination running wild.

 

If you too enjoy some cracking crime fiction, we have the event just for you. Join three astonishing crime writers for a session examining the significance of the ‘twist in the tale’ so significant to good crime fiction. We will be welcoming to the panel Louise Millar, Harriet Tyce and Kate Rhodes for what promises to be a riveting discussion all about the art of crime writing.

We are delighted to be hosting this event live and in person at the Orwell Hotel Felixstowe.

Just a quick note for anyone who wants to join in on our April book club meeting: we will be reading Harriet Tyce’s The Lies You Told, very good bookish ‘revision’ for this very event in June. You can find more information on our book club page here.

Bookish best,

Imogen and the Festival Team x

 

Hello booklovers,

One of the many beauties of books is that they allow you to enter different worlds which as readers we may well have never discovered before. Some of our brilliant 2021 guests, Edoardo Albert, Paul Gething and Esther Rutter examine periods of our history in completely different, and completely riveting, ways.

In Warrior: A Life of War in Anglo Saxon Britain, Edoardo Albert and Paul Gething take a long, hard look at a brutal, bloody part of British history. Their book sheds light on the life of the man whose bones are discovered in an Anglo Saxon graveyard, to the back drop of a society in political, religious and physical flux, and the significance of this period on the history of our nation.

Esther Rutter takes a different tack looking at British history in her fascinating non-fiction work, This Golden Fleece: A Journey Through Britain’s Knitted History. Having grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk learning to spin, weave and knit during her childhood, Esther’s absorbing book reflects on the history of knitting – she takes her reader on a journey examining the hefty influence of wool on our communities, our landscape and our culture. An inspiring read for anyone with an interest in social history.

Please note, both these events will be live streamed online.

We are so looking forward to welcoming such fascinating guests to our 2021 festival.

Bookish best,

Imogen and the Festival Team x

Hello booklovers,

Today on Mothering Sunday, I give you some thoughts on a poem by Sylvia Plath, an exciting new anthology of poems from author Ana Sampson (who will be featuring as a guest at Fbf’s 2021 online festival) and some musings on a feathered friend…

Whilst out on my daily stroll a few days ago I spotted one of my favourite sights to see at this time of year. A duck, plodding along, followed by an entourage of baby ducklings. She looked exhausted, frazzled, like part of her just wanted to take off and leave the chaos of her squabbling brood behind and nestle down for some alone time. She didn’t though, as they continued on their way. Rather, she quacked firmly at some onlookers who were getting a little too close for her liking, and led her reluctant followers brimming with the energy of new life, towards safety. On witnessing a moment like this, I am reminded of the sheer strength it takes to be a mother. Not that I know exactly what it is or where it can be found. But as a daughter I have bared witness to it all my life and continue to do so.

In her new collection Night Feeds and Morning Songs, anthologist Ana Sampson brings together poems old and new which capture both the beautiful and the brutal aspects of motherhood. Featuring poems by Carol Ann Duffy, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Jackie Kay and Sylvia Plath, Sampson also features the bold voices of new poets Kate Baer, Liz Berry, Nikita Gill and Imogen Russell Williams. These poems are intimate observations, honest and raw, offering us individual accounts of what it is and means to be a mother. We are thrilled to be welcoming Ana Sampson to this year’s online festival. Ana will be discussing her new anthology Night Feeds and Morning Songs with writer Polly Clark, in a live streamed event on the 26th of June at 12pm. For more information about the event, please see the programme of events taking place as part of the 2021 festival on our website.

Sylvia Plath’s poem Morning Song was written in February 1961, after the birth of her daughter Frieda. Plath confronts the feelings that come with the first few hours of motherhood, the adjustment to a role which although completely natural feels strange and isolating. Perhaps it is too often assumed that a woman will instinctively know how and what to feel after giving birth to a baby they have been carrying inside them. It is expected that maternal love will outweigh any other emotion. And although this is of course mostly the case, the difficulty of adjusting to the responsibility of caring for a child, is an immensely overwhelming one, which Plath captures through a series of beautiful metaphors.

Morning Song

Love set you going like a fat gold watch.

The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry

Took its place among the elements.

Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue.

In a drafty museum, your nakedness

Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.

 

I’m no more your mother

Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow

Effacement at the wind’s hand.

All night your moth-breath

Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:

A far sea moves in my ear.

One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral

In my Victorian nightgown.

Your mouth opens clean as a cat’s. The window square

Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try

Your handful of notes;

The clear vowels rise like balloons.

 

Of course, Mothering Sunday is a day to celebrate motherhood in all its varied and important forms. A ‘mother’ is someone who provides guidance, love, kindness, fun, wisdom, a shoulder to cry on, adoration, honesty. It might be that we weren’t lucky enough to get to know them at all. It might be that they’re no longer with us. Or that they’re not necessarily the person who birthed us. But their importance and significance in our lives remains the same nonetheless. I am not sure whether ducks remain emotionally attached to their mothers once they have left the nest. That is where humans differ I suppose. Relationships are inevitably complicated, hugely dependent on circumstance, and flecked with years and years of damages and repairs. But the connection between mother and child is a bond unlike many others. And it should not just be acknowledged on one day a year. But seeing as there is a date set aside for it in the calendar, a bunch of flowers probably won’t go a miss. I’m not sure ducks view it that sentimentally though?

Bookish best,

Elizabeth x

 

 

Morning Song

Love set you going like a fat gold watch.

The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry

Took its place among the elements.

 

Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue.

In a drafty museum, your nakedness

Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.

 

I’m no more your mother

Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow

Effacement at the wind’s hand.

 

All night your moth-breath

Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:

A far sea moves in my ear.

 

One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral

In my Victorian nightgown.

Your mouth opens clean as a cat’s. The window square

 

Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try

Your handful of notes;

The clear vowels rise like balloons.

 

Of course, Mothering Sunday is a day to celebrate motherhood in all its varied and important forms. A ‘mother’ is someone who provides guidance, love, kindness, fun, wisdom, a shoulder to cry on, adoration, honesty. It might be that we weren’t lucky enough to get to know them at all. It might be that they’re no longer with us. Or that they’re not necessarily the person who birthed us. But their importance and significance in our lives remains the same nonetheless. I am not sure whether ducks remain emotionally attached to their mothers once they have left the nest. That is where humans differ I suppose. Relationships are inevitably complicated, hugely dependent on circumstance, and flecked with years and years of damages and repairs. But the connection between mother and child is a bond unlike many others. And it should not just be acknowledged on one day a year. But seeing as there is a date set aside for it in the calendar, a bunch of flowers probably won’t go a miss. I’m not sure ducks view it that sentimentally though

Hello booklovers,

I have finished the thrilling The Dead of Winter by Nicola Upson right in the nick of time for our first book club meeting and it’s safe to say I loved being embroiled in the wonderful world of Josephine Tey that Nicola has created!

We would be delighted for you all to join our meeting on Monday the 15th of March, starting at 7.30pm for an hour or so of bookish chat – don’t forget to prepare the snacks and beverages essential for such a meeting.

Please see the Zoom link below – to join, simply click the link and Imogen, your host for the evening, will be there to greet you. Feel free to get involved in the discussion or simply sit back and listen, whatever suits you.

 

Topic: FbF Book Club Meeting – The Dead of Winter
Time: Mar 15, 2021 07:30 PM London

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7191984096?pwd=S25Ca1hKSVJlYTZlS3VMcGJrbUdOUT09

Meeting ID: 719 198 4096
Passcode: 924972

Bookish best,

Imogen