Nature

Joanna Lumley in conversation with Philip Lymbery

For the Love of Life
Sheldonian Theatre 6:30pm Fri Jan 31 Friday, 31 January 2025 See this event
Philip Marsden

Under A Metal Sky: A Journey Through Rocks
Department for Continuing Education: Lecture Theatre 6:00pm Tue 1 Tuesday, 1 April 2025 See this event
Ian Collins

Blythe Spirit: The Remarkable Life of Ronald Blythe
Oxford Martin School: Seminar Room 4:00pm Thu 3 Thursday, 3 April 2025 See this event
Tony Juniper talks to Tom Heap

Just Earth: How a Fairer World will save the Planet
Pusey House: Chapel 2:00pm Sat 5 Saturday, 5 April 2025 See this event
Tom Heap

Land Smart: How to Give People and Nature the Space to Thrive
Weston Lecture Theatre 6:00pm Sat 5 Saturday, 5 April 2025 See this event
Nicholas Money

Molds, Mushrooms, and Medicines: Our Lifelong Relationship with Fungi
Oxford Martin School: Seminar Room 12:00pm Sun 6 Sunday, 6 April 2025 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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.