Astronomy And Space

Joseph Silk

Back to the Moon: The Next Giant Leap for Humankind
Weston Lecture Theatre 10:00am Sat 16 Saturday, 16 March 2024 See this event
A C Grayling

Who Owns the Moon? In Defence of Humanity’s Common Interests in Space
Sheldonian Theatre 4:00pm Mon 18 Monday, 18 March 2024 See this event
Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Chris Impey chaired by Simon Ings

Why Space is for Everyone
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 12:00pm Wed 20 Wednesday, 20 March 2024 See this event
Andrew Davison interviewed by Gillian Straine

Astrobiology and Christian Doctrine: Exploring the Implications of Life in the Universe
Pusey House: Chapel 2:00pm Fri 22 Friday, 22 March 2024 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.

The Oxford Literary Festival is intellectual Viagra.

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 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.

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.

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.