Our Events
This is where we keep all our events in an ever-growing library of all that we do and have done so far.
Everything is archived here and easily searchable through the name of the author, and in the future, the title of the book and even the name of publisher.
​
Have fun browsing through the events, from author interviews to panel discussions, author readings and more.
​
We’re just getting going, but ‘great oaks from little acorns grow’ as the proverb - first used in Philadelphia’s The Examiner, 1833 - goes, so although the choices are limited at present, new events will be added every week for you to enjoy.
Michela Wrong
author of
Do Not Disturb
Michela Wrong
Half-Italian, half-British, Michela Wrong grew up in London.
She took a degree in Philosophy and Social Sciences at Jesus College, Cambridge and a diploma in journalism at Cardiff.
​
She joined Reuters news agency in the early 1980s and was posted as a foreign correspondent to Italy, France and Ivory Coast.
She became a freelance journalist in 1994, when she moved to then-Zaire and found herself covering both the genocide in Rwanda and the final days of dictator Mobutu Sese Seko for the BBC and Reuters.
She later moved to Kenya, where she spent four years covering east, west and central Africa for the Financial Times newspaper.
Joanne Harris
Masterclass
Photo Credit
Kyte Photography
Joanne Harris
Joanne studied Modern and Mediaeval Languages at Cambridge and was a teacher for fifteen years, during which time she published three novels, including Chocolat (1999), which was made into an Oscar-nominated film starring Juliette Binoche.
​
She has written 18 more novels, plus novellas, short stories, game scripts, the libretti for two short operas, several screenplays, a musical and three cookbooks.
Her books are now published in over 50 countries and have won a number of British and international awards.
She is a passionate advocate for authors’ rights, and is currently the Chair of the Society of Authors (SOA), and member of the Board of the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS).
​
Rev. Richard Coles author of
The Madness of Grief
Photo Credit
St Mary's Finedon Website
Rev Richard Coles
Reverend Richard Coles is co-presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Live and is regularly seen as a guest panelist on shows such as Would I Lie To You?, Have I Got News For You and QI.
Often described as Britain’s most famous vicar, Richard was the inspiration for the main character in the BBC hit comedy Rev, a programme for which he also served as consultant.
In the summer of 2016 he indulged a passion for fine cuisine by taking part in the BBC’s prime-time programme Celebrity Masterchef.
In 2017 Richard returned to our screens co-hosting BBC’s The Big Painting Challenge, alongside Mariella Frostrup.
In August 2017 he was the fifth celebrity announced for the line-up of Strictly Come Dancing.
He was partnered with Australian dancer, Dianne Buswell.
Jessica Moxham
Jessica Moxham thought she was prepared for the experience of motherhood. Armed with advice from friends and family, parenting books and antenatal classes, she felt ready.
After giving birth, she found herself facing a different, more uncertain reality. Her son, Ben, was fighting to stay alive. When Jessica could finally take him home from hospital, the challenges were far from over.
In this hopeful memoir, Jessica shares her journey in raising Ben. His disability means he will never be able to move or communicate without assistance. Jessica has to learn how to feed Ben when he can’t eat, wrestle with red tape to secure his education and defend his basic rights in the face of discrimination. As Ben begins to thrive, alongside his two younger siblings, Jessica finds that caring for a child with unique needs teaches her about appreciating difference and doing things your own way.
This uplifting story is about the power of family love, finding inner strength and, above all, hope.
Eleanor Ray
When Amy Ashton's world fell apart eleven years ago, she started a collection.
​
Just a few keepsakes of happier times: some honeysuckle to remind herself of the boy she loved, a chipped china bird, an old terracotta pot . . .
Things that others might throw away, but to Amy, represent a life that could have been.
​
Now her house is overflowing with the objects she loves - soon there'll be no room for Amy at all. But when a family move in next door, a chance discovery unearths a mystery, and Amy's carefully curated life begins to unravel.
If she can find the courage to face her past, might the future she thought she'd lost still be hers for the taking?
​
Perfect for fans of Eleanor Oliphant and The Keeper of Lost Things, this exquisitely told, uplifting novel shows us that however hopeless things might feel, beauty can be found in the most unexpected of places
Lucy Clarke
Lucy is a passionate traveller, beach hut dweller, and fresh air enthusiast. She's married to a professional windsurfer and, together with their two young children, they spend their winters travelling and their summers at home on the south coast of England. Lucy writes from a beach hut, using the inspiration from the wild south coast to craft her stories.
Sergei Lebedev
Sergei Lebedev was born in Moscow in 1981 and worked for seven years on geological expeditions in northern Russia and Central Asia. Lebedev is a poet, essayist and journalist. His novels have been translated into many languages and received great acclaim in the English-speaking world. The New York Review of Books has hailed Lebedev as 'the best of Russia's younger generation of writers'.
Simone Buchholz
In 2016, Simone Buchholz was awarded the Crime Cologne Award, and second place in the German Crime Fiction Prize, for Blue Night, which was number one on the KrimiZEIT Best of Crime List for months.
David Baddiel
We are delighted to welcome Julia and David to our LoveReading LitFest studio to discuss some of the issues that led him to pen his ‘mercifully short polemic’, as he describes it, Jews Don’t Count; a call to start the complex conversations that really do need to be had.
Linwood Barclay
Linwood Barclay is an international bestselling crime and thriller author with over twenty critically acclaimed novels to his name, including the phenomenal number one bestseller No Time For Goodbye.
Hafsa Zayyan
Hafsa Zayyan is a writer and dispute resolution lawyer based in London. She won the inaugural #Merky Books New Writers' Prize in 2019. We Are All Birds of Uganda is her debut novel, inspired by the mixed background from which she hails. She studied Law at the University of Cambridge and holds a masters' degree from the University of Oxford.
Mercedes Rosende
Mercedes Rosende has a degree in law, a master's degree in integration policies, she was a union leader, teacher, columnist in written and radio media, television panelist, scriptwriter and an expert in electoral processes.
Tim Gutteridge
Tim Gutteridge is an omnivorous translator whose work includes thrillers, literary fiction and non-fiction, theatre, TV scripts, comics, academic writing and corporate communications.
Konnie Huq
Konnie Huq is the longest serving female Blue Peter presenter – from 1997 to 2008. Konnie both writes and illustrates the Cookie series, which is inspired by her own London Bangladeshi upbringing, her love of science and her unashamed nerdiness! Konnie is an ambassador for the Prince’s Trust and the British Asian Trust. She lives in London with her husband and two sons.
Gill Lewis
Gill Lewis worked as a vet in the UK and across the world before becoming the acclaimed author of several books for children, including Sky Hawk and Gorilla Dawn.
Meet the Experts
Luigi Bonomi
1 - The Agents
Paul talks with two of our best loved agents, Cathryn and Luigi, reflecting on what makes them tick and why they do what they do; this begins our series of ‘Meet the Experts’…a walk through the publishing industry.
Cathryn Summerhayes
2-Commissioning Editors
.jpg)
In the second episode of our series Paul talks with Francesca and Wayne about commissioning editors, their passion for the work they do and the part it plays in the publishing industry.
Wayne Brookes
Francesca Main
Opening Chapters
Kate Mosse
June 1572: for ten, violent years the Wars of Religion have raged across France.
Neighbours have become enemies, countless lives have been lost, and the country has been torn apart over matters of religion, citizenship and sovereignty.
But now a precarious peace is in the balance: a royal wedding has been negotiated by Catherine de’ Medici and Jeanne d’Albret, an alliance between the Catholic Crown and Henri, the Huguenot king of Navarre.
It is a marriage that could see France reunited at last.
Meanwhile in Puivert, an invitation has arrived for Minou Joubert and her family to attend this historic wedding in Paris in August.
But what Minou does not know is that the Joubert family’s oldest enemy, Vidal, will also be there.
Nor that, within days of the marriage, on the eve of the Feast Day of St Bartholomew, Minou’s family will be scattered to the four winds and one of her beloved children will have disappeared without trace . . .
A breath-taking novel of revenge, persecution and loss, sweeping from Paris and Chartres to the City of Tears itself – the great refugee city of Amsterdam – this is a story of one family’s fight to stay together, to survive and to find each other, against the devastating tides of history . . .
Katie Fforde
Lizzie has just arrived in London, determined to make the best of her new life.
Her mother may be keen that she should have a nice wedding in the country to a Suitable Man chosen by her. And Lizzie may be going to cookery school to help her become a Good Wife.
But she definitely wants to have some fun first.
It is 1963 and London is beginning to swing as Lizzie cuts her hair, buys a new dress with a fashionably short hemline, and moves in with two of her best friends, one of whom lives in a grand but rundown house in Belgravia which has plenty of room for a lodger.
Soon Lizzie's life is so exciting that she has forgotten all about her mother's marriage plans for her.
All she can think about is that the young man she is falling in love with appears to be engaged to someone else ...
Upcoming Events
George Butler
author of
'Drawn Across Borders'
Photo Credit
@GUSPalmer
George Butler is an award-winning artist specialising in current affairs and travel.
His work has been published by The Times, BBC, New York Times, The Guardian, CNN and more, and has been displayed in the V&A Museum.
His pen, ink and watercolour drawings are made in situ, and he has reported on a range of conflicts and crises in countries including Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Myanmar.
In 2014 George and three friends founded the Hands Up Foundation, which promotes awareness of the ongoing war in Syria and supports salaries of professionals in the country.
​
Drawn Across Borders is his first children's book.
