Crime Fiction

Charlie Higson Interviewed by Triona Adams

Whatever Gets You Through the Night
Blackwell’s bookshop 4:00pm Fri 25 Friday, 25 March 2022 See this event
Mick Herron Interviewed by Triona Adams

A Thrilling Life: the Slough House Series SOLD OUT
Weston Lecture Theatre 10:00am Sat 26 Saturday, 26 March 2022 See this event
Lucy Atkins Interviewed by Simon Mason

Oxford’s Literary Ghosts and Magpie Lane
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 12:00pm Sat 26 Saturday, 26 March 2022 See this event
Sharon Bolton and Catherine Ryan Howard Chaired by Carolyn Kirby

The Pact and 56 Days
St Cross College 2:00pm Sat 26 Saturday, 26 March 2022 See this event
Alan Johnson

The Late Train to Gipsy Hill
Weston Lecture Theatre 4:00pm Sat 26 Saturday, 26 March 2022 See this event
Val McDermid Interviewed by Emma Smith

The Past is Never Dead: Crime Fiction from Christopher Marlowe to 1979
Sheldonian Theatre 6:00pm Sat 26 Saturday, 26 March 2022 See this event
Mark Grenside Interviewed by Matthew Stadlen

Fall Out: Making Movies Shouldn’t be Murder
Bodleian: Divinity School 2:00pm Tue 29 Tuesday, 29 March 2022 See this event
Alastair Lack

The Oxford of Morse, Lewis and Endeavour SOLD OUT
St John’s College 2:00pm Fri 1 Friday, 1 April 2022 See this event
Jeremy Black Interviewed by Triona Adams

The Importance of Being Poirot
Randolph Hotel: Ballroom 6:00pm Fri 1 Friday, 1 April 2022 See this event
Donna Leon Interviewed by Peter Kemp

Vice-chancellor’s Lecture: Give Unto Others
Sheldonian Theatre 6:00pm Fri 1 Friday, 1 April 2022 See this event

Festival information:

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.

The Oxford Literary Festival is intellectual Viagra.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.