Hello booklovers,

Today’s the day! Welcome to the 2022 Felixstowe Book Festival. We hope you have enjoyed our Bookish Best blog series, celebrating 10 years of the Felixstowe Book Festival. We’ve been asking some of our 2022 guests some questions about their bookish lives over the past ten years. We’ve had some fascinating insights from Carol Drinkwater, Esther Freud and Alexander Larman, and will be finishing the series off with festival favourites Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, aka crime-writing duo Nicci French. Read on to see their bookish best bits from the past 10 years…

What has been your favourite read of the past 10 years?

G.B. Edwards was born in Guernsey in 1899. He was on the fringes of the London literary world in the 1920s and 1930s but he drifted out of it and lived a mobile existence ending up as an eccentric recluse. When he died in 1976, he left the manuscript of The Book of Ebenezer Le Page, the fictional autobiography of an ordinary Guernsey man, which had failed to find a publisher. Finally, five years after his death, it was published. It sounds extremely unpromising and when you start reading, it feels like the slightly rambling memories of an unliterary man. But gradually the book takes you over, you come to realise how beautifully shaped and written it is. It’s truly one of the most beautiful books written in English of the last fifty years.

What is the best independent bookshop that you have visited in the past 10 years?

We’ve just moved eastwards in London to Clapton. There are many wonderful things about the area – the wetlands, the River Lea, markets, various members of our family – but one of the most wonderful is our local bookshop, Pages of Hackney. Just walking around the shelves you feel the passion of the staff and of the community that they’re part of.

Who is your favourite author who has come to prominence in the last 10 years?

We’d never heard of Svetlana Alexievich when she won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2015. Odder still, she wasn’t a fiction writer but a journalist. But we read her book, The Unwomanly Face of War, in which she interviews women from the Soviet Union who joined the military in the Second World War and we were completely bowled over. It is one of the most vivid, heartbreaking accounts of the reality of war that we’ve ever read. It shows that great literature can come from anywhere.

Plenty of bookish insights to get stuck into here. Nicci and Sean will be joining us on Sunday 26th June at Harvest House – you can find out a bit more here: https://felixstowebookfestival.co.uk/events/nicci-french-the-unheard.

We hope you have a brilliant festival weekend and emerge loaded down with books and bookish inspiration. Have a wonderful time!

Bookish best,

The Felixstowe Book Festival Team x

Hello booklovers,

We hope that Bookish Best is giving you plenty of inspiration for books to read, bookshops to visit and events to attend at FbF 2022. Our next blog guest is Alexander Larman who shares with us his bookish best bits of the past ten years…

What has been your favourite read of the past 10 years?

The best book I’ve read in the past 10 years is an oldie but a goodie, Augustus Carp Esq. You know from the subtitle onwards – ‘being the autobiography of a really good man’ – of the kind of book that you’re in for, and this pitch-perfect satire on Victorian religious hypocrisy really ought to be far better known than it is. An amusing fact is that it was published anonymously, and the author was revealed to be the physician Henry Howarth Basford – honorary physician to George VI. I have no idea what he was like as a doctor, but as a comic novelist he was peerless.

What an inspiring series of bookish recollections. Alex will be joining us as part of our Three Generations of Royalty –  A Royal Event in the Year of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee event alongside Frances Dimond and Jane Ridley. You can find out more about this fascinating event here: https://felixstowebookfestival.co.uk/events/three-generations-of-royalty-a-royal-event-in-the-year-of-the-queens-platinum-jubilee

Bookish best,

The Felixstowe Book Festival Team

Hello booklovers,

Next up in our Bookish Best blog, celebrating 10 years of the Felixstowe Book Festival, we have a lovely contribution from Esther Freud. If you’re curious about what literary delights our festival patron has discovered since the first Felixstowe Book Festival then do read on…

What has been your favourite read of the past 10 years?

When Ruth Ozeki won the Women’s prize for fiction last week, it reminded me how much I loved her 2013 novel A Tale for the Time Being. It tells the story of a mysterious diary written by a troubled school girl in Tokyo which is found by a novelist named Ruth when it washes up on the Pacific northwest coast of Canada.  It is heartbreaking, funny, clever, and gripping as a thriller.  A novel within a novel that exceeds expectation in the breadth of its ambition.

What is the best independent bookshop that you have visited in the past 10 years?

Plenty of bookish inspiration here. Esther has kindly stepped into the breach for our opening event as Tessa Hadley can’t join us due to the train strike. Join Esther on Saturday morning at 10am in the Palm Court at Harvest House for chat, coffee and a special story reading.

Keep your eyes peeled for more Bookish Best instalments from your festival favourites!

Bookish best,

The Felixstowe Book Festival Team

Hello booklovers,

To celebrate our 10th festival we are running a special blog series, Bookish Best.

We are asking some of our 2022 speakers a series of bookish questions to give our festival fans some insight into the literary lives of our festival guests. We are delighted to be kicking off with the lovely Carol Drinkwater.

Wow, plenty of bookish inspiration from Carol here and many thanks to Carol for an excellent contribution. We’re really looking forward to seeing her on the 26th of June at Harvest House and you can find out more information about the event here: https://felixstowebookfestival.co.uk/events/carol-drinkwater-in-conversation-with-rachel-sloane

Keep your eyes peeled for more Bookish Best instalments tomorrow!

Bookish best,

The Felixstowe Book Festival Team x

Hello booklovers,

It’s not long to go until our festival weekend on the 25th and 26th of June. However if you can’t wait that long we are kicking off the literary festivities early with our launch weekend events on the 11th and 12th of June. Read on to find out more…

Martin Newell and the Hosepipe Band, Saturday 11 June 2022, 7-9pm 

Martin Newell and The Hosepipe Band return to the Felixstowe Book Festival with new offerings as well as poems and music that have proved popular with audiences in previous years.

New pieces include The Professor’s Garden, a quartet of poems celebrating the seasons, as well as the affectionate New Elizabethans a poem in which Martin reminds us what ordinary life was like when the Queen first came to the throne.

Ticketing information can be found here: Ticketing information can be found here: https://felixstowebookfestival.co.uk/events/martin-newell-and-the-hosepipe-band-2

Michael Pennington, In My Own Footsteps, Sunday 12 June, 7-8pm (Felixstowe Book Festival in association with Black and White productions)

Michael has been working as an actor and director for the past 57 years. He is an Honorary Associate Artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company and co-founded the English Shakespeare Company. He will be performing readings from his memoir which he says will be “generally funny, unexpected and full of heroes of the past – Paul Scofield, Peggy Ashcroft, Ian Holm, as well of my generation”.

Tickets for this event can be booked at https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/two-sisters-arts-centre

Hope to see you there!

Bookish best,

The Felixstowe Book Festival Team x

 

Hello booklovers,

A sneaky heads up for you – in conjunction with the Felixstowe Book Festival and Orwell Lady river trips, our fantastic festival patron Terry Waite will be holding an event on the Orwell Lady. The great news is that there are two tickets remaining! If you would like to get your mitts on these remaining tickets, follow the link here: https://orwelllady.co.uk/terry-waite-event/

Hurry, as they won’t be there for long!

Bookish best,

The FbF Team x

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