Hello booklovers,

Once upon a time, we lived through lockdown. Bleak news filled our lives globally and personally; shops and establishments closed their doors and plans were cancelled; we were denied seeing our family and our friends. In the face of blank calendars and scribbled-out diaries, there was very little to look forward to… until a variety of innovative people decided to take matters into their own hands.

Up and down the UK, museums, galleries and festivals moved their work online for all to view, including our very own Felixstowe Book Festival.

As our festival director Meg worked hard to figure out this brave new world of cultural events, many questions filled our heads…

“Would it work?”

“Will anyone watch?”

“Would it still be interesting?”

“Will people still enjoy it?”

The answer to all of our ponderings seems to be… a resounding yes! This weekend we held virtual host to a wonderful line up of authors and speakers.

We went live through entertaining interviews with Paul French, Liz Trenow, Nick Cottam, Carol Drinkwater, George Alagiah and Harriet Tyce. A fascinating evening was spent with Brontë expert Nick Holland on Friday evening and we heard Martin Bell’s musings on his life and career on Saturday evening. The weekend was peppered with video insights into the days in the lockdown lives of some of our favourite authors. Our younger festival fans enjoyed story readings and drawalongs to keep them busy. All in all, our packed programme provided some much needed literary sustenance to you all during one of the strangest and most stressful years of our lives.

We are delighted with the supportive response we have received from you all, dear festival fans, and are quite overwhelmed to see that we have managed to raise over £1000 thanks to your kind donations, which you can check out through our fundraising page. We thank you from the bottom of our bookish hearts – we couldn’t do this without you.

So, that is it for 2020! We did not start the new decade expecting our festival weekend to turn out quite as it did, but we are so glad you enjoyed it in its virtual form. As a final cherry on the cake, all our festival videos are still available to watch on our website and on our Facebook page.

Without further ado, here’s to 2021!

Take care everyone.

Bookish best,

The Felixstowe Book Festival Team x

 

Hello booklovers,

Today’s the day! Our festival is finally here and we are all very excited here at the virtual festival HQ. We hope you are too.

As you know, our festival this year is entirely online.

We have a whole host of Live Interviews, pre-recorded author Q&As, plus video insights into the day in the life of an author in lockdown. What more could you wish for? And for our younger festival fans we have drawalongs and a story reading, such fun!

Don’t forget to take a look at our guide to viewing our Live events here: https://felixstowebookfestival.co.uk/how-to-view-our-fbf-live-stream-videos. 

For anyone not using Facebook, head to the Online section of our website over the weekend where you will be able to view the festival. You can find this here: https://felixstowebookfestival.co.uk/online

If you feel like having a good read, have you had a look at our latest blog series, the Castaway Library?

Imagine if you were stranded on a desert island, with nothing but three books to keep you entertained. Which books would you pick?

We posed this very question to several authors who would have, under normal circumstances, been guests at our original 2020 festival, and recieved some totally fascinating responses. Look out for the castaway libraries of Edward Parnell, Kit Yates and Louise Millar.

You can find them here:

We are so grateful to all the support we have been receiving from both our supporters and our sponsors. This week we took to our blog to thank Kingsfleet Wealth, David Button Independent Funeral Directors, Coes Felixstowe, Jackamans Solicitors and Poor Richards Books for their support and sponsorship of our Live interview events this year. You can find out more information about each sponsor through our other blog posts.

Everything kicks off tonight with our book club meeting hosted on Zoom by Liz Rastrick and Ruth Dugdall – we hope to see you there! You can find all information about this wonderful celebration here:  https://felixstowebookfestival.co.uk/events/felixstowe-book-festival-book-group-happy-birthday-anne-bronte

Here is a reminder of our full programme!

Thank you for all your support over the past few weeks, we do hope you enjoy our online festival!

Bookish best,

The Felixstowe Book Festival Team x

Hello booklovers,

Our festival is extremely lucky to recieve a great deal of support from local businesses and we are so grateful for their sponsorship. Today we are saying a big thank you to David Button Independent Funeral Directors.

David Button Independent Funeral Directors is a small, family run business with a friendly, relaxed and calming atmosphere. David Button’s premises is conveniently located in Walton on the outskirts of Felixstowe, on a main bus route and with free on street parking. You can get in touch via phone (Tel: 01394 200793) or through their website Www.davidbuttonfuneraldirectors.co.uk.

David Button is very kindly sponsoring our live stream interview with Paul French.

A great big bookish thank you,

The Felixstowe Book Festival Team

Hello booklovers,

We would like to round off our celebration of our sponsors by saying a huge thank you to yet another independent local business showing us their support: Poor Richard’s Books.

Poor Richard’s Books is an independent book shop located in Felixstowe town centre specialising in second-hand and antiquarian books. 70,000 books on two floors include local interest titles on Felixstowe and East Anglia plus children’s illustrated, crafts and pastimes, transport and paperback fiction. You can get in touch on the phone (Tel: 01394 283138) or via the Poor Richard’s Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Bookstore/Poor-Richards-Books-248406908840401/.

Poor Richard’s Books is kindly sponsoring our live-stream interview with Liz Trenow.

A great big bookish thank you,

The Felixstowe Book Festival Team

Hello booklovers,

Over the past few days a collection of authors have taken isolation to the next level and imagined themselves alone on a desert island with only three books for company. Together they assembled a magnificent castaway library.

Here are the books to be found on our literary desert island (author surname first, in true library style…)

The selfish gene by Richard Dawkins

Dark Pines by Will Dean

Catch 22 by Joseph Heller

Oceanic Birds of the World: A Photo Guide by Steve Howell and Kirk Zufelt

Curious Warnings: The Great Ghost Stories of M. R. James

The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy

Atonement by Ian McEwan

Motherwell by Deborah Orr

Galápagos by Kurt Vonnegut

Certainly a selection enough to keep one stimulated and well read when stuck alone on a desert island! With grateful thanks to our contributors, Edward Parnell, Kit Yates and Louise Millar.

The next question is… which three books would you class as essential reading for life alone on a desert island? We would love to know!

Bookish best,

The Felixstowe Book Festival Team x

You can find our full castaway library interviews here:

Hello booklovers,

We are extremely lucky to have some wonderful local businesses supporting our festival. One such business is Coes Felixstowe.

Coes Felixstowe is a well established independent family run business offering a range of contemporary and classic menswear, footwear and womenswear.  Quality service, advice and expertise guarantee an enjoyable shopping experience. You can get in touch with the Felixstowe story via phone (Tel: 01394 282414) or email felixstowe@coes.co.uk, or head over to the Coes website here: https://www.coes.co.uk/.

Coes Felixstowe are kindly sponsoring our live stream interview with Carol Drinkwater.

A great big bookish thank you,

The Felixstowe Book Festival Team

Hello booklovers,

With so many of us enduring lockdown isolation, literary folk have turned to books and reading as a source of comfort and company.

We thought we would extend the isolation reading theme further. Here at FbF we have teamed up with several authors, who would have joined us for our original 2020 festival, with a mission to compile a ‘castaway library’. We asked them which books they would take with them if they were abandoned alone on a desert island. You will be intrigued to find out their responses…

Last but not least, we hear from author Louise Millar.

It feels as if we’ve all been stuck on a desert island for a while, doesn’t it? What a joy to hear how books sales have increased as so many of us have found more time to read in lockdown, especially to find new authors and return to old favourites.

It should, therefore, be easy to choose three books to take to a desert island, but I’m afraid, in my case, it’s a little complicated – I only ‘read’ audiobooks. Is this even allowed on desert islands?

The trouble is, since discovering the wonders of audiobooks, I haven’t been able to go back. My fellow audiobook addicts will recognise the wonders of listening to a story while sitting in traffic, or gardening, or in the gym (I purposely finish on a cliff hanger, to make sure I face the horrors of the running machine again the next day). And on an island, I could listen to my stories while I collected water and built my raft?

There is, of course, another advantage of audiobooks on a desert island – the narrators’ voices to keep you company. I don’t know about you, but narrator voice plays a big part in my decision to buy any audiobook. I love it when an actor or author’s interpretation enhances a book, in the way it might in a screen adaptation. In all of my chosen books, the narrators did just that.

So, which three audiobooks have I chosen? Well, I’ve decided if I’m going to be stuck alone in the middle of an ocean, I want to take stories that will transport me on a journey in my head. So I’ve chosen three much-loved books set in three of my favourites places.

1. The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy

Cormac McCarthy is my all-time favourite writer, and The Crossing is one of my top ten all-time novels. Set in the wilderness of America’s South-west, it tells the story of teenage ranch-hand Billy, who traps a pregnant wolf on his family’s homestead in New Mexico and tries to return her across the border to the mountains of Mexico. I first heard the audiobook in the 90s, when I was driving through New Mexico on holiday with my husband. Listening – in awe – to how McCarthy captured the desolate beauty of the place in such simple, powerful language lit a fire under me, and inspired me to try fiction writing for the first time. My chosen version of the audiobook was narrated in the 1990s by Brad Pitt and I think it’s a perfect pitch interpretation of Billy the young ranch hand. (Sadly, this version is now only available on audio-cassette, I believe.)

2. Dark Pines by Will Dean

As a crime author, I couldn’t go to a desert island without a good mystery, of course. I’ve been hearing a lot about British writer Will Dean’s acclaimed Swedish-set mystery series. I love visiting Sweden (and am learning Swedish) so am currently devouring the first in his series, Dark Pines. In it, Tuva Moodyson, a Swedish investigative journalist, returns home from London to work at a local newspaper in a rural town, just as a mutilated body is found in the local forest during an elk hunt. Does the discovery have a connection to historic cases of other unsolved murders? Dark Pines is Scandi noir at its best: full of atmosphere in a place where dark secrets are buried in vast, empty landscapes. I’m hoping that taking the first of the Tuva Moodyson series to my desert island, will incentivise me to build my raft more quickly so I can rush home to read the next two in the series. It is narrated by Swedish actress, Maya Lindh.

3. Motherwell by Deborah Orr

This acclaimed memoir was written by newspaper journalist Deborah Orr, who died shortly before its publication. It tells the story of her life growing up in a working-class community in the Scottish town of Motherwell, in the 1960s and 70s, and her complex relationship with her mother. In it, she explores the complexities of family disfunction and how we survive it, all told with warmth and humour that made me cry and laugh out-loud (actress Gabriel Quigley’s narration is, again, perfect). I grew up in a nearby Scottish town at the same time, so much of Orr’s humour and cultural observations resonate personally with me, but this is a universal story, about resilience and how we emerge from family to become our own selves.

Louise’s latest novel is City Of Strangers (Pan Macmillan).

Hello booklovers,

We are extending another big thank you to our festival sponsors – today we are celebrating one of our bronze sponsors, Jackamans Solicitors.

Jackamans Solicitors is one of East Anglia’s longest established legal firms. Jackamans provides a comprehensive range of legal services to individuals and businesses with approachable lawyers and staff who are experts in their fields and who really care about their clients.

Whether you need help with moving house or moving on, Jackamans have the right expert to help you. Jackamans will talk to you in plain language and guarantee personal attention. You can give them a ring on 01394 279636 or check out their website here www.jackamans.co.uk.

This year Jackamans are very kindly sponsoring our live stream interview with Harriet Tyce.

A great big bookish thank you,

The Felixstowe Book Festival Team

My three books to take to a desert island would be…

I’m currently keeping myself busy communicating the science/maths behind the COVID-19 out break: https://kityates.com/public-engagement/. It helps that the last chapter of the Maths of Life and Death is all about how to predict, understand and stop epidemics.

Hello booklovers,

In the build up to our 2020 Online Festival we would like to say a huge thank you to our sponsors whose support is invaluable to our festival.

We’ll begin with our Gold Sponsor Kingsfleet Wealth. 

Kingsfleet Wealth have longstanding links with Felixstowe and have been valued supporters of Felixstowe Book Festival since its inception in 2013.

For 10 years Kingsfleet Wealth has served the people of Suffolk by providing Independent Financial Advice to individuals, trustees and Charities.  Kingsfleet Wealth are one of very few Chartered Financial Planning firms in the County and have pleasure in employing Suffolk people, using Suffolk suppliers and supporting Suffolk charities and enterprises.

This year Kingsfleet Wealth are kindly sponsoring our live stream interviews with George Alagiah, who will be discussing his debut novel The Burning Land and Nick Cottam  who will be chatting about the wonderful Life on the Deben.

You can find more information about Kingsfleet wealth through their website here: www.kingsfleetwealth.co.uk

A great big bookish thank you,

The Felixstowe Book Festival Team