WHY COFFEE IS A GREAT LEVELLER - MARCH 19 - 8.51am

A very sophisticated Costa

Bought a flat-pack DIY snow plough (surprisingly easy to assemble) so was able to get in this morning.
Currently in the “Green Room” which is very generously situated in the city’s Randolph Hotel.
This is where all the authors and speakers congregate before facing their audiences.
Have to say it’s reassuring to see so many gifted and brilliant individuals unable to use the coffee machine…

Title partner

International radio partner

Festival cultural partner

Festival ideas partner

Worcester College: Festival college partner

Supporters of the Irish programme

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. Sponsors of the programme of American literature and culture

Festival London hotel partner

Festival on-site and online bookseller

The festival hotel

Festival green room sponsor

Sponsor of Gibraltar Lecture

Broadcast media partner

Lincoln College

St Cross College

St John's College

The Queen's College

Exeter College

Keble College

Regional media partner

Local radio partner

Festival Digital Strategy & Web Design

Alumni Office

Oxford University Images

K T Bruce Photography

Festival information:

The Oxford Literary Festival is intellectual Viagra.

It was a privilege for me to visit the festival to receive the Bodley Medal. As an incidental blessing I saw Oxford at its most mysterious and atmospheric. It was a day of piercing cold and as I walked through the twilight from the Sheldonian to Christ Church, the streets were empty and the whole city was shutting itself away. Christ Church was silent except for the footfall of unseen persons around corners and the sounds of evensong creeping from behind closed doors. For the first time I understood thoroughly the power of college ghost stories.

A stimulating and rewarding on-stage conversation; a lively informed and tolerant audience; privileged access to the great treasures of the Bodleian, and finally, wonderfully interesting dinner companions to help me conclude the best day I have enjoyed at any festival – anywhere.

Every literary festival stays in an author’s mind for slightly individual reasons. I shall remember the Oxford festival for: - the size of the audience: at the top end of the range - their intelligence – this makes a huge difference for a speaker. In the Oxford audience I encountered many experts in the field my book covered and even one of the ambassadors I’d quoted - the beauty and the grace of the place itself – incomparable - the willingness of my hearers to buy books afterwards; I’ve never sold more.

The Oxford festival is the most elegant and atmospheric of literary festivals. It’s a pleasure to both attend and perform there.

The night in Oxford was the most beautiful event I have ever done. Not just the spectacular setting (of the Sheldonian), but an unforgettable evening.

Often as an author, I only occasionally get to meet the public who buy and read my books. The Oxford Literary Festival was a special opportunity for me and certainly one of the highlights of my career – it was an honour I will never forget.

I loved the whole atmosphere of the Oxford Literary Festival. From breakfast, alongside some of the attendees, who were talking books with each other a mile a minute, to the public event at The Sheldonian where everyone was lively and engaged – I felt I had arrived in a kind of literary heaven.

FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival partners & sponsors