Hello booklovers, This week we’ve decided to highlight festival writers who put women and the collective experience of womanhood, at the forefront of their work.  On the 8th of March, we celebrated International Women’s Day. In the same week, women across Britain mourned the murder of Sarah Everard, which triggered an outpouring of personal experiences […]

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 […]

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: […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]