Hello booklovers,

Today, March the 8th, is International Women’s Day, a day to celebrate and commemorate female achievement and to raise awareness of the importance of equality. How have your perspectives of womanhood shifted over the past year?

We thought to celebrate this day FbF style it would be appropriate to highlight a fascinating event featuring two of our fabulous female guests. Read on to find out more…

Dr Emma Hepburn and Francesca Specter

We are so pleased to be welcoming Francesca Specter and Dr Emma Hepburn to our virtual stage as part of our 2021 festival.

Francesca is a journalist and author of ‘Alonement: How to be Alone and Absolutely Own It’, a book all about exploring the benefits of taking time to spend time alone and how this can help us, as individuals, thrive. Dr Hepburn (Instagram’s @thepsychologymum) is an NHS psychologist based in Aberdeen and the author of ‘A Toolkit for Modern Life: 53 Ways to Look After Your Mind’, a handbook full of practical tools and ideas about how to look after your mental and emotional wellbeing every day.

These two books are packed with insights and practical tips focussing on mental health and mental resilience. In this online session Dr. Emma Hepburn and Francesca Specter will talk about a positive interpretation of aloneness and strategies to cope with isolation should it not be our choice -a subject of particular relevance since Covid changed our lives so much.

This promises to be a thought-provoking and fascinating discussion. We look forward very much to ‘seeing’ Francesca and Dr Hepburn in June! Sending our bookish best to all of the marvellous women involved in our marvellous festival.

 

The Felixstowe Book Festival Team x

 

 

Hello booklovers,

It’s World Book Day, a day all about reading and celebrating books – so it seems like a good moment to introduce you all to some more brilliant guests for our 2021 festival, who will be chatting to us all about… you’ve guessed it, books!

Toby Faber, Faber and Faber: The Untold Story

(This event will be taking place at the Orwell Hotel)

Published to celebrate Faber’s 90^th anniversary, this intimate history of Faber & Faber weaves together the most entertaining, moving and surprising letters, diaries and materials from the archive to reveal the untold stories behind some of the greatest literature of the twentieth century.

Richard Dawkins, Books do Furnish a Life. Reading and Writing Science

(This event is part of our online programme)

Science has never had a greater impact on our lives, or on the life of the planet than now.

Books Do Furnish a Life brings together Dawkins’ forewords, afterwords and introductions to the work of some of the leading thinkers of our age with a selection of his reviews to provide an electrifying celebration of science writing, both fiction and non-fiction.

 

Christopher Tugendhat, A History of Britain Through Books: 1900-1964 

(This event is part of our online programme)

There are many ways of studying the tumultuous twentieth century – but one of the most revealing and original must be through the key books of the time.  In  A History of Britain Through Books, Christopher Tugendhat shows how literature both shaped and reflected public concerns over the decades – from Lord of the Flies to A Room of One’s Own to Heart of Darkness.  

 

We hope news of these events has left you feeling suitably bookish – they are sure to provoke some fascinating conversation perfect for booklovers. Happy World Book Day!

Bookish best,

Imogen and the festival team x

Hello booklovers,

We hope your week is going well. Today we bring more news of some excellent events that will be a part of our 2021 festival programme. We are very pleased to be welcoming Henry Hemming, Carol Drinkwater and Liz Trenow to our 2021 festival. All three authors will be offering a different perspective of the Second World War through their brilliant books. Read on to find out a bit more…

Liz Trenow, The Secrets of the Lake (This event will be held in person at the Orwell Hotel)

The Secret of the Lake deals with the legacy of war as the traumas of two world wars reverberate through a rural village.

Our heroine Molly finds herself uprooted with her father and brother, Jimmy, from London to just outside of Colchester following the death of her mother. Ambitious and bright, Molly finds her hopes for the future gradually wearing away as the majority of care for her brother falls on her shoulders. She strikes up a friendship with local lad Kit whose charm and sense of fun acts as her escape from domestic drudgery; but all is not as it seems, as Kit has a secret which he will not share. Tragedy strikes and suspicions rise; we return to Molly’s life many years later where, as an older woman, she remains haunted by the events of the past. The arrival of two police officers might just be the key to putting her mind at rest…

Henry Hemming – Our Man in New York: The British Plot to Bring America into the Second World War (This event will be live streamed)

A gripping new true history from the author of the Sunday Times bestseller M.

The extraordinary story of a propaganda campaign like no other: the covert British operation to manipulate American public opinion and bring America into the Second World War. In this fascinating book Henry reminds us that fake news, and governments meddling in other countries’ political processes, are nothing new.

Carol Drinkwater, An Act of Love (This event will be live-streamed)

An Act of Love  is Carol’s latest novel. Set in France in 1943, we follow Sara and her family as they escape Poland for a beautiful but neglected house in the French Alps which at first seems like the perfect place to hide from the war. Sadly it’s not long until fear and danger strike again as the Nazis loom large over their once secret and safe place; escaping this time Sara has even more to lose; does she risk her family’s safety or must she cut short her blossoming relationship with Alain, a local villager?

Liz, Henry and Carol offer us a brilliant opportunity to examine the human, societal and political aspects of such a significant period in our recent history. We hope you are looking forward to these events as much as we are!

Bookish best,

Imogen and the Festival Team x

 

 

Hello booklovers,

The optimism of recent announcements is certainly brightening the festival mood. A few weeks ago we announced news of our 2021 programme which will be a mix of socially distanced events at the Orwell Hotel Felixstowe and live-streamed events from authors living rooms to yours! This gives us a very exciting international element to our festival and, with that in mind, we are delighted to be welcoming debut novelists Dawnie Walton and Robert Jones Jr. to our virtual stage, as part of our online live-streamed programme, from across the pond. Read on to find out a bit more about these brilliant novelists…

Final Revival of Opal and Nev by Dawnie Walton

One of 2021’s mostly hotly anticipated novels, Dawnie Walton writes the fictional history of black rock and roll musician Opal Jewel.

Addressing a lack of representation in the music she loves, Dawnie writes a compelling, warm and thought provoking novel imagining the meeting of Opal and real life British musician Neville Charles as they come together to make rock music. The heady atmosphere of a 1970s New York gives Opal just the platform she needs; concerts and gigs abound as finally she can express her true self through her music. But alongside great triumph comes dark and difficult days and it isn’t long before events spiral out of control.

The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr.

In this outstanding novel Robert Jones Jr addresses the lack of black voices and of black queer voices in literature, specifically in historical literature.

The Prophets is the story of two enslaved young men falling in love on a Mississippi plantation. Inspired by the likes of Toni Morrison and James Baldwin, the lyricism of this thoughtful yet unflinching novel deals personal relationships as well as offering an examination of history, dealing with ideas of love, race and the voices and perspectives who rarely reach our pages.

We can’t wait to bring Dawnie and Robert to our virtual stage for what is bound to be a fascinating and thought provoking online event. We hope to have provided you with some bookish inspiration to see in the new month. Maybe now it’s time to get your hands on a copy of these excellent new novels…

Bookish best,

Imogen and the Festival Team x

 

 

 

 

Hello booklovers,

I’m not really sure what defines a love poem. Typically, I suppose we think of Shakespeare sonnets, or Keats or Byron or Shelley. Red roses and Summer days. Hearts torn out or hearts given. Contemporary poets seek to subvert the romantics. Carol Ann Duffy gives ‘an onion’ as a representation of her love, in her ballad Valentine, whilst John Cooper Clark wants to be his lovers vacuum cleaner ‘breathing in your dust’, in I Wanna Be Yours (beloved of the Arctic Monkeys).

But in all these metaphors, I struggle to find a depiction of love which is suitably relatable. Maybe it’s because I don’t want something similar, or something ‘like’ love. I want an image of the real thing. In all its everyday guises. And for that, I find myself turning to the poetry of Frank O’Hara.

There is something spontaneous and natural about O’Hara’s poems, perhaps because many of them were composed on his lunchbreaks. O’Hara was a pioneering member of the New York School of Poets, and much of their inspiration came from the abstract expressionist art movement. He worked as a curator at the Museum of Modern Art. I like to imagine him sneaking out of the gallery and wandering the streets of New York, a portable typewriter in tow. Taking in the rush of the city, at a pace completely his own.

O’Hara’s poem Having a Coke with You was first published in small magazine Love, and it was subsequently included in his collection Lunch Poems in 1965. At this point in his life, O’Hara was enjoying a love affair with ballet dancer Vincent Warren. O’Hara wrote this poem after returning from a research trip to Spain, in April 1960.

---

Having a Coke with You

is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary
it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles

and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them

I look

at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it’s in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn’t pick the rider as carefully

as the horse

it seems they were all cheated of some marvellous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I am telling you about it

---

Having a Coke with You captures the momentary. It is an unselfconscious celebration of the joys of shared experience. When sharing a moment with someone you love, however ordinary, is more sacred than anything else materially beautiful or adventurous.

The commercialisation of Valentine’s Day, and the pressure I associate with it, has sucked all the real romance out of it for me. Although maybe I’m kidding myself that I didn’t secretly enjoy the heart shaped chocolate

lollipop (probably from good old M&S) that I received from an anonymous admirer when I was 8.

Romantic antics will be at a minimum on the 14^th of Feb this year. No fancy restaurants or boutique hotels. No cinema dates or cosy pub trips, tipsily walking home after glasses of rosy red wine, all in the name of St. Valentine. Of course, these are lovely things to do. And I certainly miss doing them. In our pre-virus lives, when our schedules were jam-packed and working days were fast-paced and relentless, having a scheduled date in the diary dedicated purely to ‘love’, maybe was quite helpful. If not a little sad and contrived.

Perhaps what I love then about O’Hara’s poem, is that it is about the shape his love takes on an ordinary day. After returning from what was probably an exciting but exhausting road-trip around Spain, he writes this to his lover. An appreciation of the ordinary and the relief of returning to it. It is heartfelt and natural, with little need for structure or form. He does not succumb to the lure of cliched metaphors. O’Hara talks endlessly about art and artists and portraits and visiting galleries.  , they are his primary interests. But what he seems to be getting at is that these experiences would be vastly improved by the company of someone he is in love with. The poem is about the energy that exists between two people as they ‘drift back and forth between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles’. There is no need for red roses (although I acknowledge there is an abundance of ‘fluorescent orange tulips’ …), or Summer days. He doesn’t need to compare his love to those things, because it exists without them. It is there as they drink coca cola on their lunch breaks. It is there in the secrecy of their smiles. And it will be there when they visit the Frick for the first time together.

You might not consider O’Hara’s poem to be about love. Which is fine. But it is undeniably about the fun of sharing and delighting in company. Whether that is with a lover, or friend, or family member, a neighbour, or a stranger. Unfortunately for now that company might have to be enjoyed via a phone call, or video call, a chilly walk or a door-step chat. But re-reading Having a coke with you, has made me long for the days where we can stroll together through an art gallery. When we can bask in the glory of the sun with a friend under a tree. And there is no Valentine’s gift that can beat that. So, I think I will listen to Frank O’Hara reading this poem to while away these difficult days, until we are there again …

‘I look

at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world …’

Happy Valentine’s Day,

Elizabeth x

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDLwivcpFe8 ‘Frank O’Hara reads Having a Coke with You …’

Hello booklovers,

We are delighted to bring you some more exciting news for the new year – in March we will be launching our brand new book club. Last year we said a fond farewell to Ruth and Liz who did a brilliant job of hosting our first foray into the world of virtual meetings. Now we are bringing the book club back with a brand new list of books for you all to enjoy, featuring just some of the wonderful authors we welcome to our 2021 festival programme.

The FbF Book Club will run in the same format – whilst we can’t meet in person we will have monthly meetings hosted on Zoom. The invite will be advertised on our festival blog and through our social media pages.

Our first meeting will be on the 15th of March and for our first book club read we have selected The Dead of Winter by Nicola Upson.

Our schedule for the months leading up to the festival are as follows…

April – The Lies You Told by Harriet Tyce

May –  Night Feeds and Morning Songs by Ana Sampson

June – An Act of Love by Carol Drinkwater

We’ll look forward to seeing you at our first FbF book club meeting – happy reading!

Bookish best,

The FbF team x

Hello booklovers,

We are thrilled to announce that our 2021 festival, celebrating books by the sea, will be going ahead over the weekend of the 25-27th of June. This year’s festival will be a mix of socially distanced author events to be held at the Orwell Hotel and a separate online programme of live streamed events where authors will be chatting with us from the comfort of their own homes.

Felixstowe Book Festival Patrons Esther Freud and Terry Waite will be joining us in person over the festival weekend. Other speakers already booked to appear at the Orwell Hotel include JoJo Moyes, Liz Trenow, Elly Griffiths and Iain Dale, amongst many other brilliant guests.

As part of our live-streamed online programme we are delighted to be speaking to authors Robert Jones Junior and Dawnie Walton live from their homes in New York. We are so looking forward to hearing from Helen McCarthy about her book Double Lives, The History of Working Motherhood, Christopher Tugendhat about his work A History of Britain in Books and Carol Drinkwater will be talking about her latest novel An Act of Love.

Our programme is packed out with plenty of other exciting guests who will be bringing their talent to our stage and screens over the June festival weekend – keep your eye on our website for further details and updates over the coming weeks and months.

Bookish best,

The Felixstowe Book Festival Team x

Today we take you back to the Felixstowe Book Festival of 2017, with a wonderful mix of fiction and non-fiction. Enjoy…

Chains of Sand by Jemma Wayne

Jemma Wayne’s ground breaking second novel Chains of Sand is set between London and Israel amidst the turmoil of war. The novel is driven by the powerful love stories of young Israeli Jews, Arabs, and Brits alike, each battling to forge their own identities against the hopes, fears and prejudices of their families, and the societies they find themselves trapped within.

Built on Bones by Brenna Hasset

The city has killed most of your ancestors, and it’s probably killing you, too – this book tells you why… Built on Bones offers an accessible insight into a critical but relatively unheralded aspect of the human story: our recent evolution. It tells the story of shifts in human longevity, growth and health that have occurred as we transitioned from a mobile to a largely settled species.

For the Love of Shakespeare by Beth Miller

Beth Miller has managed to cover all aspects of William Shakespeare’s life and career with great prowess in her book For the Love of Shakespeare, a collection of fascinating facts and miscellany. In this light-hearted talk, she will discuss the man and his work, and address one of the key controversies surrounding this most precious of cultural icons.

Stronger Than Skin by Stephen May

A psychological thriller that is also the story of a toxic love, with a setting that moves easily between present day London and 1990s Cambridge – plus a climactic detour to Felixstowe! Stronger Than Skin is compulsively readable, combining a gripping narrative with a keen eye for the absurdities of the way we live now.

The Great Acceleration: How the World is Getting Faster, Faster by Robert Colvile

From the devices we carry to the lives we lead, everything is getting faster. But where did this great acceleration come from? And where will it lead? In his vitally important new book, The Great Acceleration: How the World is Getting Faster, Faster Robert Colvile explains how the cult of disruption in Silicon Valley, the ceaseless advance of technology and our own fundamental appetite for novelty and convenience have combined to speed up every aspect of daily life.

The Knives by Richard T Kelly

The Knives explores the secrets and complexities of modern government, and the struggles that those in the
highest ranks of Parliament face. Having spent much time in Westminster, Richard has gained a unique insight into the political Establishment, which he brings to life in thrilling fashion.

Breaking Cover by Stella Rimington

With increased aggression towards the West, MI5 Agent Liz is on the hunt for a Russian spy who threatens to plunge Britain back into the fraught days of the Cold War. This is a gripping, topical and utterly contemprary espionage thriller…

For younger readers…

There May be a Castle by Piers Torday

In an extraordinary turn of events, a young lad named Mouse finds himself in another world and on a quest with a new gang of fantasy friends to find a castle and a life filled with minstrels, magic and mystery. A story about love, loss and the power of imagination by Guardian Children’s Book Award winning author.

Julius Zebra: Rumble with the Romans by Gary Northfield

Madagascar meets Gladiator in this action-packed and hysterically funny story involving a rather adventurous Zebra named Julius. Julius and some of his rather smelly friends are kidnapped and taken to Rome to become gladiators. In order to escape they must win the love of the Roman people –  but will they manage it?!

 

Hope enjoyed our trip back in time to 2017 – maybe it has reminded you of some books that you meant to try way back then? Well books aren’t going anywhere, so why not give them a go now?

 

Next stop in our From the Archives blog tour, we head back to the 2016 Felixstowe Book Festival, a feast of interesting and unusual works which might spark your appetite today.

Hollie McNish – Cherry Pie

This 2015 collection by McNeish includes her poem ‘Mathematics’ which became a viral hit on YouTube, receiving 1.9 million views. But really it is her honest and unapologetic accounts of womanhood which have given McNish much of her acclaim; her first collection Nobody Told Me is an account of becoming a mum for the first time. Cherry Pie is inspired by advice that her Grandparent’s gave her on newspapers, war, sex and tinned cherries. The poems are accompanied by brilliant illustrations by McNish’s favourite artists.

Megan Bradbury – Everyone is Watching

Bradbury’s debut novel is a love letter to New York and the generation that have defined it. Through the perspectives of four famous New Yorkers, photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, writers Walt Whitman and Edmund White, and city planner Robert Moses, Bradbury captures the rich artistic history of an ever-evolving city. Told through short vignettes, Bradbury’s writing is formally unusual and evocative, much like her subjects. We may not be able to jet set off for an artistically fulfilling city break in New York at the moment, but Bradbury’s novel is sure to transport you there and inspire your inner artist.

Martin Edwards – Gallows Court

Winner of the Diamond Dagger 2020, Edwards brings us an atmospheric Golden Age murder mystery, packed with twists and turns. On the gloomy, smog-filled streets of 1930’s London, heroine Rachel Savernake is on the trail of yet another killer. If you are hungry to be gripped by a page-turning plotline and to be immersed in a period setting, Gallows Court seems like a good place to begin.

Rebecca Elliott – Pretty Funny

With no school and hours to fill the days, this laugh-out-loud Young Adult novel may be just the thing to brighten up this bleak period. Haylah Swinton dreams of becoming a stand-up comedian – but are girls like her allowed to be funny? Full of relatability, Elliott confronts the trials and tribulations of being a teenage girl with wit and much hilarity.

Mary Powles – The Accidental Stalker

A darkly comedic family drama with a familiar setting, The Accidental Stalker is the first novel of home-grown, Suffolk born writer Mary Powles. Set between Felixstowe and South Wales, the story follows the life of Jack, grieving for the loss of his first love, Lucy. At the funeral, he is struck by the similarity of Lucy and her daughter, Grace. Jack begins to take an interest in Grace and her family and becomes the accidental stalker.

You can take a look back at all our 2016 events here: Felixstowe Book Festival 2016.

We hope to have provided a bit more bookish inspiration for grim January. Next up we’ll be heading back in time to our 2017 festival – see you there!

 

We’re spending the next few weeks looking back to previous festivals (with more than a hint of nostalgia for normal life!) in order to celebrate the wonderful guests who have graced our stage in the past and their brilliant works.

This week we have compiled the works of some of our guests from our 2015. Enjoy…

Simpson & I by Oggy Boytchev

Oggy Boytchev is a journalist and author. In 2015 he came to our festival to talk about his book ‘Simpson & I’ which documents Oggy’s turbulent, yet highly successful, working relationship with the BBC’s World Affairs Editor, John Simpson, and lifts the lid on the untold stories behind some of the most memorable reports ever to appear on BBC News.

Mr Mac and Me by Esther Freud

Esther Freud is an author and one of our festival patrons. She visited us in 2015 to talk about ‘Mr Mac and Me’, a luminous novel set in wartime all about the unlikely friendship between a young lad and the artist Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

Solvitur Ambulando by Jim Nind

Jim Nind is a Felixstowe-based artist, writer, and academic. His work draws upon the experience of being out there, under the light of the sky, wandering the coastal margins and responding to the pull of the sea. Jim’s book, Solvitur Ambulando, combines his fine art photographs with a related prose-poem sequence, based upon the walk from Felixstowe to the fishing and boating hamlet known as Felixstowe Ferry.

A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gale

One of this country’s best-loved novelists, Patrick’s novel Notes From An Exhibition, which sold over 300,000 copies in the UK alone.A bold departure from his previous works, ‘A Place Called Winter’ is a searching, personal historical novel based on a true story in Patrick’s own family history.

Everyman’s Castle: the story of our cottages, country houses, terraces, flats, semis and bungalows by Philippa Lewis

Philippa Lewis has worked as a picture editor, photographer and writer. She founded and, until its recent transfer to English Heritage, ran the Edifice Architectural Photo Library, which compounded her enthusiasm for British Domestic architecture, from the grandest to the scruffiest.  Everyman’s Castle combines social and architectural history making for a fascinating read.

Little Egpyt by Lesley Glaister

Lesley Glaister is the prize-winning author of thirteen novels, including Little Egypt, which won a Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize in 2014. A gripping, eery and darkly humourous novel about two sisters and their life in their decaying family home.

2015 was another excellent and varied year – alongside the guests mentioned above we were visited by many other fascinating writers and speakers. You can peruse the entire 2015 for further ideas for things to read here.

Take care everyone and keep on reading!