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

See 2024 Events

Nature

Nick Acheson Interviewed by Lucy Lapwing

The Meaning of Geese: A Thousand Miles in Search of Home
Exeter College: Marquee 10:00am Sat 25 Saturday, 25 March 2023 See this event
Graham Harvey, Jake Fiennes and Sarah Langford

Saving the British Countryside and Our Health
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 6:00pm Sat 25 Saturday, 25 March 2023 See this event
Alister McGrath

Natural Philosophy: On Retrieving a Lost Disciplinary Imaginary
Bodleian: Divinity School 10:00am Wed 29 Wednesday, 29 March 2023 See this event
Benedict Macdonald Interviewed by Lucian Hudson

Cornerstones: Wild Forces That Can Change Our World
Oxford Martin School: Seminar Room 2:00pm Fri 31 Friday, 31 March 2023 See this event
Katherine Rundell

The Golden Mole and Other Living Treasure
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 12:00pm Sun 2 Sunday, 2 April 2023 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 is intellectual Viagra.

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.

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.

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.

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.