Farming | Oxford Literary Festival

Philip Lymbery Interviewed by Nick Higham

Pasture to Plate®. Saving Life on Earth: Feeding People without Trashing the Planet
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 10:00am Sat 30 Saturday, 30 March 2019 See this event
Graham Harvey Interviewed by Robin Hicks

Pasture to Plate®. Grass-Fed Nation: Getting back the Food we Deserve
Oxford Martin School: Seminar Room 12:00pm Sat 30 Saturday, 30 March 2019 See this event
Hans Herren and Philip Lymbery

Pasture to Plate®: How to Nourish the World
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 2:00pm Sat 30 Saturday, 30 March 2019 See this event
Henry Edmunds Interviewed by Philip Lymbery

Pasture to Plate®: Farming in Harmony with Nature
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 4:00pm Sat 30 Saturday, 30 March 2019 See this event
Charles Godfray, David Stanley, Maggie Charnley, Tony Wardle and Elinor Newman-Beckett Chaired by Lucian Hudson

Earthwatch Debate. Food for Thought: Can Veganism Save the Planet
Worcester College: Lecture Theatre 10:00am Sun 31 Sunday, 31 March 2019 See this event
Suzanna Crampton

Bodacious: The Shepherd Cat
St Cross College 12:00pm Sun 31 Sunday, 31 March 2019 See this event

Festival information:

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.

The Oxford Literary Festival has in my mind become the leading literary festival of the year. The organisation, the roster of speakers, the ambience and the sheer quality of it all is superb. May it now go from strength to strength each year stretching its ambition more and more. I believe it will.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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