Economics

Liam Byrne David Isaac

The Inequality of Wealth: Why it Matters and How to Fix It
Lincoln College: Oakeshott Room 7:00pm Wed 20 Wednesday, 20 March 2024 See this event
Stephen King

We Need to Talk About Inflation: Six Urgent Lessons from the Last 2,000 Years
Lincoln College: Oakeshott Room 2:00pm Thu 21 Thursday, 21 March 2024 See this event
Will Hutton talks to Ian Goldin

This Time No Mistakes: How to Remake Britain
Sheldonian Theatre 10:00am Fri 22 Friday, 22 March 2024 See this event
Anat Admati and Martin Hellwig chaired by Martin Wolf

The Bankers’ New Clothes: What’s Wrong with Banking and What to do about it
Oxford University Mathematical Institute: Lecture Theatre 1 12:00pm Sat 23 Saturday, 23 March 2024 See this event
Dieter Helm and David Stainforth Stephen Law

Oxford Debate. Our Climate Future and the Sustainable Economy
Oxford University Mathematical Institute: Lecture Theatre 2 2:00pm Sat 23 Saturday, 23 March 2024 See this event
Linda Yueh

The Great Crashes: Lessons from Global Meltdowns and How to Prevent Them
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 2:00pm Sun 24 Sunday, 24 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 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.

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.

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.

The Oxford Literary Festival is intellectual Viagra.

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.

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.