Programme of Events

Simon Bartram’s new series, Bob and Barry’s Lunar Adventures, features everyone’s favourite moon man and his alien dog side-kick, Barry. When the Stupendous Alacazamo finishes his magic show by making the moon disappear, it looks like Bob’s out of a job, but Bob is determined to discover the truth and bring the moon back. Join Bob and his dog Barry as they race to uncover the truth, with a little alien assistance.

The Disappearing Moon is the first book in this new series of fiction for young readers and is illustrated throughout in Simon Bartram’s detailed and humorous style. Simon won the Blue Peter Book Award in 2004 for his bestselling picture book Man on the Moon; A Day in the Life of Bob, and Bob has become one of the most popular children’s book characters. (Recommended for Years 1, 2 & 3)

We told you the Festival has gone Poetry Potty this year! Nick Perry, local poet, actor and playwright has just completed his first collection of comic poetry; and it's only taken him fifty years!  He has appeared in a number of shows from the Footlights to the Fringe.  His verse is hugely enjoyable and his manner of delivery second to none.  He is joined by Charlie Ottley, TV presenter of Travel Channel's Flavours of ... series, who is also a highly acclaimed columnist and BBC poet.  His latest work is Cautionary Verses and Ruthless Rhymes for Modern Times, a darkly funny collection of verse decrying the foibles of the modern world.  He is described as "the dog's Bellocs" and recommended by, amongst others, Quentin Letts, John Julius Norwich and Jilly Cooper. Bring your own drink and glasses.

Here we go! Literary Quiz with a twist is back again for another year. Form your team of six to eight people and register via paula@oundlelitfest.org.uk Bring your own refreshments - these are important! Pit your wits and see if you can stop the Pink Chickens from winning it three years in a row!

Sponsored by Holmewood Hall

Kes Gray’s first book, Eat Your Peas, has been on every child’s bookshelf since it was first published in 2000. Since then he has collaborated with illustrator Nick Sharratt on the best-selling series of picture books and books for young readers featuring the irresistible Daisy, and has produced the Vesuvius Poovius books, with illustrations by Chris Mould. The Independent noted him as one of the top ten children’s authors, and children and parents love him too! (Recommended for Years 1, 2 & 3)

Meet Michael Lawrence, author of the bestselling series Jiggy McCue. He presents, Rudie Dudie, the newest book about the boy to whom weird and wacky things seem to happen. Come and find out the real story behind the antics of Jiggy McCue and his creator. (Recommended for ages 9 +)

Stories told in pictures have been around for a long time, from prehistoric cave wall drawings through the Bayeaux Tapestry to the modern day. Writer and Comic Book Editor Tim Quinn leads this one-and-a-half-hour-long workshop in cartooning, including figure drawing, emotion, storytelling in pictures, character and story creation, and comic book history.  If you love to draw or just want to visit the world of comics and cartoons then you will have a whale of a time with the man who personally knows Beryl the Peril, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Korky the Cat, the Incredible Hulk and so many more! (Recommended for ages 7 – 700)

For over 30 years Tim Quinn worked for the world’s most famous comic book companies as scriptwriter, editor and illustrator, on everything from Beryl the Peril, Korky the Cat, Bunty, Desperate Dan, and the Bash Street Kids to Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk. With a lifelong love and encyclopedic knowledge of comic books Tim will take you on a hilarious and highly nostalgic trip through the last 150 years, screening images of the best and the worst strip creations. Wear a cape and mask! No nudity, swearing or violence but please come anyway. (Recommended for ages 9-150)

In 1940, the nation rallied behind Britain’s greatest ever war leader, Winston Churchill, in an extraordinary fashion. But thereafter, argues pre-eminent military historian Max Hastings, there was a deep divide between what Churchill wanted from the British people and their army, and what they were capable of delivering. In Finest years: Churchill as Warlord, Sir Max provides new perspectives on a man viewed by many as the greatest Englishman to have lived. He has reported from more than sixty countries and eleven wars for BBC TV and the London Evening Standard. He has won many awards for his journalism, including the Somerset Maugham Prize for his bestseller Bomber Command.
Sponsored by Oundle Mill
 

One of our finest and most intelligent actresses, Diana Quick has always been drawn to strong, exotic characters and her compulsively readable memoir explains why. Remembering her dying grandfather’s command to ‘marry a pure-blooded Englishman’, she decided to trace her roots, and A Tug on the Thread is the result. Listen as she unpeels the secrets of her family history in 19th century India and shows how they shaped her own life as a student at Oxford, favourite of Vogue, and her star role as Julia in the classic TV adaptation of Brideshead Revisited for which she was nominated Bafta and Emmy awards.

Sponsored by Fox Directories

Who’s afraid of William Shakespeare? Just about everyone. He wrote too much and what he wrote is inaccessible and elitist. Right? Wrong! Shakespeare on Toast knocks the stuffing from the staid old myth of Shakespeare, revealing the man and his plays for what they really are: modern, thrilling, uplifting drama. The colourful words and vibrant world of the world’s greatest hack writer are brought brilliantly to life by actor and scholar Ben Crystal. Sweeping cobwebs from the Bard – his language, his life, his world – Crystal reveals man and work as relevant, accessible, alive.

“Having Crystal as a companion through the stickier parts of Hamlet and Macbeth is like going to the theatre with an intelligent friend.” The Independent

“Politics-as-usual won’t deal with the problems we face, while the recipes of the green movement are flawed at source.” Prolific author of many books including The Third Way, eminent sociologist Anthony Giddens, discusses his important new book The Politics of Climate Change, in which he introduces a range of new concepts and proposals and examines in depth the connections between climate change and energy security. Giddens is a Fellow of King’s College Cambridge and Emeritus Professor at the London School of Economics.  He was Director of the LSE from 1997 to 2003, and was made a member of the House of Lords in 2004.  

Sponsored by Oundle School

In her authoritative new biography, art historian and critic, Frances Spalding, conjures the exuberantly creative life of John and Myfanwy Piper, artists and visionaries who believed national identity could be reshaped and reinvigorated through the arts. The Pipers’ creative partnership encompasses not only a long marriage, but also a genuine legacy of lasting achievements in the visual arts, literature and music. With John Piper’s magnificent stained glass windows forming a backdrop, this is a rare opportunity to hear Spalding’s masterly exposition of a couple at the very hub of creativity.

Sponsored by Vincent Sykes and Higham

Join the buzz, with novelists Jake Arnott, Sophie Hannah, Jojo Moyes and Stella Duffy! A mini festival all in one day, giving you the opportunity to share your reading enthusiasms with others, a chance to talk to authors about their work and what they like to read, and discover new ideas for your own reading. There will be group sessions with individual authors and panel discussions chaired by John Siddique, a poet, lecturer and extraordinary teacher with a passion for sharing and promoting literature.

Schedule:

10.00am - 10.30am - Registration and coffee

10.30am - 11.00am - Introduction

11.00am - 12.00pm - Break-out sessions with authors

12.00pm - 1.00pm - Lunch

1.00pm - 2.00pm - Panel Discussion

2.00pm - 3.00pm - Break-out sessions with authors

3.00pm - 3.15pm - Refreshments

3.15pm - 3.30pm - Finish

Pre-booking is essential. Please contact the Oundle Tourist Information Centre or Kettering Library for a booking form: ketlib@northamptonshire.gov.uk or 01536 512315.

In partnership with Northamptonshire County Council Library and Information Service
 

Jake Arnott’s novels have been published to critical and popular acclaim, earning the prestigious CWA Dagger in the Library award for crime fiction, and they have been made into two major television series by the BBC and ITV. Set in a brutal London underworld, his novels feature real-life villains and celebrities alongside their fictional counterparts, with bent coppers, cynical tabloid hacks and on the take politicians all mixed together. Fans include David Bowie, who called them “pure gangland bliss”. His latest novel, The Devil's Paintbrush, explores the dark side of Edwardian social classes and “the hidden ciphers that exclude the uninitiated”.

The Horse Dancer interweaves three love stories – of an estranged couple finding their way back to each other; of the bond that can be forged between two strangers; and of one girl’s devotion to her horse. Jojo’s debut novel, Sheltering Rain, has now been published in twelve countries and has sold more than 250,000 copies worldwide. Foreign Fruit, won the Romantic Novelist Association’s Novel of the Year Award in 2004 and she was shortlisted for the same award for both The Ship of Brides and Silver Bay.  The Horse Dancer is her seventh novel.

Loughborough Junction is a bit of London that would like to imagine itself as the edge of somewhere nicer, but Stella Duffy relishes its tatty ordinariness and makes it satisfyingly mesmerising for the reader. Like Hanif Kureishi's laundrette, The Room of Lost Things has an odd couple at its heart: Robert Sutton, 50-odd years a dry cleaner, and his successor, Akeel. Akeel's introduction to the "room of lost things" where Robert files the forgotten best man's speeches and love letters, forces the old man to come clean about his past, while the lives of his customers are as jumbled as a sack of dirty washing. Stella Duffy is the author of twelve novels, over thirty stories, and eight plays. The Room of Lost Things and State of Happiness were both longlisted for the Orange Prize, The Room of Lost Things won Stonewall Writer of the Year 2008. Her twelfth novel, Theodora, will be published by Virago in June 2010.

The bubbly, voluble, supremely self-confident, bitingly truthful and sensationalist bon viveur, film director, Sunday Times columnist and scourge of rip-off restaurants, Michael Winner, has an endless talent to outrage and amuse. In his colourful autobiography, Winner Takes All, he recounts his most historic and horrendous experiences and reveals the contradictions that make up Winner’s World; the shy schoolboy who mingled with celebs to write a gossip column aged just fourteen, the lover of fine food who wrote The Fat Pig Diet, and the man who makes chefs tremble, but whose catch-phrase is “Calm down, dear”. Witness them all in one inimitable personality at this must-see event.

 Sponsored by Smiths at No 4

Follow the trail around Barnwell Country Park.  Pause to enjoy a laugh or a thoughtful moment inspired by one of the many poems which celebrate your surroundings. There will be something for everyone, and for children, there is something extra.  Follow the Red Letter Trail and find what phrase from a well known poem is hidden there. Send your answer via email to paula@oundlelitfest.org.uk or post it in the box outside the park’s Information Centre with your child’s name and contact details.  There will be a prize for the first correct answer out of the hat! 

This year, the customers are in charge of the judging! Each year the participating shops use great imagination in decorating their windows with literary themes which are hugely appreciated by festival goers and authors so we thought it only right to give you, the public, the vote. All the shops will have a number in the window and you can vote for your top four using ballot papers which will be available from Oundle Tourist Information Centre between Saturday 6 and Friday 12 March. Please join in the fun!

Part of our Football Crazy weekend with the England and Norway Writers Teams. What was the meaning behind Beckham's choice of the number 23 shirt to play for Real Madrid? Was it because we have 23 pairs of chromosomes, Michael Jordan wore the number 23 shirt or because Caesar was stabbed 23 times? Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University and football fanatic, Marcus du Sautoy, feels moved to point out that many pundits seem to have missed the true significance of Beckham's choice; that 23 is a prime number. Through a series of interactive games, du Sautoy will explore some of the interesting properties of prime numbers and explain why they are important both for mathematicians and footballers. Du Sautoy is Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and presenter of numerous television programmes including The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures and The Story of Maths. Joe Dunthorne, author of Submarine, described by the Independent as “the sharpest, funniest, rudest account of a troubled teenager’s coming of age since Catcher In The Rye”, will pitch in too with his performance poetry. (Recommended for ages 11 to 111!).

Photo credit for Joe Dunthorne: Angus Muir.

Part of our Football Crazy weekend with the England and Norway Writers Teams. Enjoy an intimate evening of book readings and impromptu cameos on everything and anything by the players of the England and Norway Writers teams, while tackling a delectable three course meal. Come and see close-up whether or not the teams will attempt to psyche each other out in a battle of wits, in advance of Sunday’s Big Match. Only thirty places available, so book early!

Come and meet the author of the award-winning Noughts and Crosses Series!