You are Currently viewing Past Events, Click here to see upcoming 2024 Events

See 2024 Events

Architecture

Emma Wells

Heaven on Earth: The Lives and Legacies of the World’s Greatest Cathedral SOLD OUT
Weston Lecture Theatre 2:00pm Tue 28 Tuesday, 28 March 2023 See this event
Vicki Ambery-Smith Interviewed by Olivia Horsfall Turner

Jewellery and Silverware: Inspired by Architecture
Weston Lecture Theatre 4:00pm Thu 30 Thursday, 30 March 2023 See this event
Spencer de Grey Introduced by Christopher Le Brun

Royal Academy Lecture. From Stansted Airport to the British Museum: A Life in Architecture
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 4:00pm Sat 1 Saturday, 1 April 2023 See this event
James Stourton

Heritage: A History of How We Conserve Our Past
Blackwell’s bookshop 12:00pm Sun 2 Sunday, 2 April 2023 See this event

Festival information:

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.