Novelist David Lodge to talk about his new memoir

Comic Tony Hawks and sci-fi writer Diana Gabaldon join programme

Award-winning novelist, playwright and literary critic David Lodge, pictured right, is to look back at his life and the early formative influences that turned him into the writer he is today in a major new event added to the FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival line-up. There are now more than 130 events available to book through this website. Tickets are already selling well, with the US author of the Outlander sci-fi adventure-romance novels Diana Gabaldon set to be one of the biggest draws of 2015. The television comic and bestselling author of Round Ireland with a Fridge, Tony Hawks, has also confirmed his event on his latest hilarious book, Once Upon a Time in the West . . . Country. In the children's and young people programme, there are confirmed appearances by Frank Cottrell Boyce, Cressida Cowell and Lauren Child, and veteran author Judith Kerr. Events previously announced include actress Celia Imrie, pictured left, Booker Prize-winning novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, multi-award-winning Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh, former Downing Street adviser to Tony Blair, Jonathan Powell, television and radio personalities Paul Heiney and Anita Anand, Nobel-prize-winning scientist Eric Kandel, and children's authors Philip Pullman, and Liz Pichon. These events and more are available to book through this website. Many more speakers and events will be added as times and venues are confirmed over the next few weeks. A walk-in and telephone box office will open in Blackwell's bookshop on Monday, January 19.