Sunday 5 April 2020

Raffi Berg

Red Sea Spies: The True Story of Mossad’s Fake Holiday Resort
Oxford Martin School: Seminar Room 10:00am Sun 5 Sunday, 5 April 2020 See this event
Greg Jenner

Dead Famous: The Unexpected History of Celebrity from Bronze Age to Silver Screen
Worcester College: Lecture Theatre 10:00am Sun 5 Sunday, 5 April 2020 See this event
Maureen Webb

Coding Democracy: How Hackers Are Disrupting Power, Surveillance, and Authoritarianism
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 10:00am Sun 5 Sunday, 5 April 2020 See this event
Clare Clark and Naomi Wood

Art, Love and Politics in Weimar Germany
St Cross College 10:00am Sun 5 Sunday, 5 April 2020 See this event
Jenny Goodman

Staying Alive in Toxic Times: A Seasonal Guide to Lifelong Health
Weston Lecture Theatre 10:00am Sun 5 Sunday, 5 April 2020 See this event
Teddy Keen

Lost Book of Adventure
Cohen Quad: Lecture Theatre 10:00am Sun 5 Sunday, 5 April 2020 See this event
Anthony Horowitz

Licence to Thrill
Sheldonian Theatre 10:00am Sun 5 Sunday, 5 April 2020 See this event
Roy Strong

The Elizabethan Image: An Introduction to English Portraiture, 1558–1603
Cohen Quad: Lecture Theatre 12:00pm Sun 5 Sunday, 5 April 2020 See this event
Clover Stroud Interviewed by Lucy Atkins

My Wild and Sleepless Nights: A Mother’s Story
St Cross College 12:00pm Sun 5 Sunday, 5 April 2020 See this event
Julia Neuburger

Antisemitism: What It Is. What It Isn’t. Why It Matters
Sheldonian Theatre 12:00pm Sun 5 Sunday, 5 April 2020 See this event
Anna Hope Interviewed by Marlene Hauser

Expectation
Oxford Martin School: Seminar Room 12:00pm Sun 5 Sunday, 5 April 2020 See this event
Jack Price

The Future of Brain Repair: A Realist’s Guide to Stem Cell Therapy
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 12:00pm Sun 5 Sunday, 5 April 2020 See this event
Hashi Mohamed

People Like Us: Social Mobility, Inequality and making it in Modern Britain
Weston Lecture Theatre 12:00pm Sun 5 Sunday, 5 April 2020 See this event
Sally Gardner Interviewed by Jamila Gavin

Invisible in a Bright Light
Worcester College: Lecture Theatre 12:00pm Sun 5 Sunday, 5 April 2020 See this event
Sibeal Pounder

Bad Mermaids Meet the Witches
Cohen Quad: Lecture Theatre 2:00pm Sun 5 Sunday, 5 April 2020 See this event
David Robert Grimes

The Irrational Ape
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 2:00pm Sun 5 Sunday, 5 April 2020 See this event
Clarissa Campbell Orr

Mrs Delany: A Life
St Cross College 2:00pm Sun 5 Sunday, 5 April 2020 See this event
Daniel Russell

The Joy of Search: A Google Insider’s Guide to Going Beyond the Basics
Oxford Martin School: Seminar Room 2:00pm Sun 5 Sunday, 5 April 2020 See this event
Sarah Hopwood, Alistair Spalding and Lamia Dabboussy Chaired by Rebecca Jones

These Troubled Times: What is the Future of the Arts?
Worcester College: Lecture Theatre 2:00pm Sun 5 Sunday, 5 April 2020 See this event
Tom Holland Interviewed by Alex Preston

Gibraltar Lecture. Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind
Sheldonian Theatre 2:00pm Sun 5 Sunday, 5 April 2020 See this event
Suzie Hanna and Noreen Masud

Stevie Smith’s The Blue from Heaven: Film Screening and Workshop
St Cross College: Seminar Room 2:00pm Sun 5 Sunday, 5 April 2020 See this event
Lucy Worsley

The Austen Girls
Sheldonian Theatre 4:00pm Sun 5 Sunday, 5 April 2020 See this event
Andrew Robinson

Einstein on the Run: How Britain Saved the World’s Greatest Scientist
Oxford Martin School: Seminar Room 4:00pm Sun 5 Sunday, 5 April 2020 See this event
Kavita Puri Interviewed by Alastair Niven

Partition Voices: Untold British Stories
St Cross College 4:00pm Sun 5 Sunday, 5 April 2020 See this event
Mark Hanson and Peter Gluckman

Ingenious: The Unintended Consequences of Human Innovation
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 4:00pm Sun 5 Sunday, 5 April 2020 See this event
Duncan Hamilton

The Great Romantic: Cricket and the Golden Age of Neville Cardus
Weston Lecture Theatre 4:00pm Sun 5 Sunday, 5 April 2020 See this event
Robert Service and Catherine Belton Chaired by Matthew Stadlen

The Rise of Putin: Dashing Hopes for a New Russia
Worcester College: Lecture Theatre 4:00pm Sun 5 Sunday, 5 April 2020 See this event

Festival information:

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.

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 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.

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.

I came away buzzing and reassured that we still have in this century a wide ranging community fascinated not just by famous authors (I’ve rarely seen so many concentrated in one place) but by challenging ideas and questions.