Dorchester Literary Festival

The Oldie Event – Giles Wood and Mary Killen – Country Life – in conversation with Harry Mount
2024-10-17 16:00 - 17:00 (Europe/London) | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
Former townies Giles and Mary swapped city life for rural Wiltshire over thirty years ago, and they’ve each embraced it in their own very different ways.Mary has happily traded sophisticated London salons for monthly lectures at the Farmers’ Club, competitive school quizzes, church interactions and local Auction House sales. While Giles has immersed himself in the catastrophic consequences of conventional farming, his organic no-dig veg-patch, the increasingly disproportionate response by local landlords to harmless trespassers and the strange death of the village house martins.For recent city escapees and indigenous country folk alike, Giles and Mary sift through the unhelpful dreamy myths and offer a practical reality, with robust back and forth on every aspect of life in rural outposts, including but not limited to planning wars, class wars, dog thefts, tree-felling fights, misunderstandings between incomers and natives and the role of the Heron Appreciation Society.The much-loved Wiltshire couple share their combined, hard-earned lessons, so we can learn the secret skills of grumbling and bumbling our way towards a new contented country life.

Giles Wood Giles Wood is an accomplished artist, and is also a published writer, with columns in The Telegraph and The Oldie. In the podcast space, he can be heard on Giles and Mary’s Oldie Newsround with Harry Mount.

Mary Killen is a busy journalist, with a weekly column in The Spectator, and regular contributions in many other national publications. She has been appearing on Channel 4’s hit show Gogglebox since 2015 with her husband Giles, sitting together in their cottage in Wiltshire. This is Mary’s seventh book.

Giles and Mary will be in conversation with Harry Mount, editor of The Oldie Magazine.

Tickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)

Kate Humble – Where the Hearth Is
2024-10-17 18:00 - 19:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
Kate Humble has a knack for sharing her own journey towards a more pleasing and purposeful life in a way that inspires readers, enables them to reassess their own lives and helps them achieve their personal goals. Having encouraged readers to reconnect with nature in Thinking on My Feet and simplify their lifestyles in A Year of Living Simply, she turns now to reimagining whatever we consider ‘home’ – examining her own experiences and expectations, ideals and memories, and considering the views of others living uniquely, extraordinarily, happily. She’s gaining insights from some unexpected quarters – including the animal kingdom.

As our time spent in office buildings and other traditional workplaces shrinks forevermore, feeling happy, healthy, productive and content in our homes (be they castles or caravans, flat-shares or farms, fixed or temporary, inner city/out of town/beyond) is more important to get right than ever before. Where the Hearth Is will resonate with all those seeking to make the most of their lives during the many hours we all spend at home – whether it’s a case of tiny adjustments while staying put, moving out, living differently or dreaming of building something new.

Kate will also discuss her latest cookbook Home Made: Recipes From the Countryside – a wonderful collection that features over 60 simple, sustainable recipes from Kate’s own kitchen table, making delicious, fuss-free meals accessible to everyone. Along with a wide range of recipes, Kate also offers inspiring stories from 20 individuals who play a role in bringing food to our tables, from basket-weavers and apron-makers to blacksmiths and woodworkers; potters and glassblowers to fishermen and cheese-makers;farmers and chocolatiers to distillers and salters. Foodies of all skill levels will find something to love, with delicious options for every course and occasion:

Kate Humble is an English television presenter and narrator, mainly working for the BBC, specialising in wildlife and science programmes. Humble served as president of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds from 2009 until 2013. She is an ambassador for the UK walking charity Living Streets.

Kate Humble will be in conversation with Steve Harris.

This event is kindly sponsored by Grassby & Sons Ltd

Tickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)

Adam Nicolson – How to Be
2024-10-18 11:00 - 12:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
What is the nature of things? Must I think my own way through the world? What is justice? How can I be me? How should we treat each other?

Prize-winning and bestselling writer Adam Nicolson travels through the transforming world of ancient Greece and asks what light its thinkers can throw on our deepest preconceptions. Sparkling with maps, photographs and artwork, How to Be is a journey into the origins of Western thought.

Hugely formative ideas emerged: fluidity of mind, the search for coherence, a need for the just city, a recognition of the mutability of things, a belief in the reality of the ideal — all became the Greeks’ legacy to the world.

Before the Greeks, the idea of the world was dominated by god-kings their priests and imagined metaphysical monsters. Then, 2,500 years ago, in a succession of small eastern Mediterranean harbour-cities, that way of thinking began to change. Men (and some women) decided to cast off mental subservience and apply their own worrying and thinking minds to the conundrums of life.

These great innovators shaped the beginnings of philosophy. Homer explored how we might navigate our way through the world. Heraclitus in Ephesus was the first to consider the interrelatedness of things. Xenophanes of Colophon was the first champion of civility. In Lesbos, the Aegean island of Sappho and Alcaeus, the early lyric poets asked themselves ‘How can I be true to myself?’ In Samos, Pythagoras imagined an everlasting soul and took his ideas to Italy where they flowered again in surprising and radical forms.

Adam Nicolson is the author of many books on history, travel and the environment. He is winner of the Somerset Maugham Award and the British Topography Prize and lives at Sissinghust Castle in Kent.

Adam Nicolson will be in conversation with Danny Danziger.

This event is kindly sponsored by Hall & Woodhouse.

Tickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)

Polly Toynbee and David Walker – The Only Way is Up
2024-10-18 13:00 - 14:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
Political change is coming. But the new Westminster government’s inheritance looks grim. We’re all in it together, the Tories used to say. But they look set to bequeath sharp social divisions, vastly increased inequality, a stagnant economy and unfulfilled commitments on climate change – and all this at a time of unprecedented international tension.

The Only Way is Up gives us a ready reckoner on how to repair the damage and set the UK on the path to sustainable growth. Combining the latest data with expert analysis across health, children’s services, the economy, environment, policing and defence, Polly Toynbee and David Walker tell the story of what went wrong during the Tories’ wild ride and what must now be remedied.

Polly Toynbee is a journalist, author and broadcaster. A Guardian columnist and broadcaster, she was formerly the BBC’s social affairs editor. She has written for the Observer, the Independent and Radio Times and been an editor at the Washington Monthly. She has won numerous awards including a National Press Award and the Orwell Prize for Journalism.

David Walker is contributing editor of Public, the Guardian’s website for senior managers of public services. David has commented on public policy and management since stepping down last year as managing director, communications and public reporting at the Audit Commission. David is a member of council at the Economic and Social Research Council, where he chairs the methods and infrastructure committee. He is a trustee of the Franco-British Council and of Longview. He is a visiting professor at City University, London. With Polly Toynbee he is author of The Verdict, did Labour change Britain?

This event is kindly sponsored by Porter Dodson

Tickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)

Tom Heap – Land Smart
2024-10-18 15:00 - 16:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
We need land for so many of humanity’s growing needs, such as food, renewable energy, carbon storage and housing. Traditionally, we’ve stolen it from nature, but this has led to a mounting toll of extinction and pollution that is now punishing us. So, as there’s no land left to take, how do we get more from the same, or preferably less.

In Land Smart, Tom Heap, a presenter on BBC TV’s Countryfile, Radio 4’s new Rare Earth series and the anchor of The Climate Show on Sky News, tours the British countryside meeting the farmers, scientists, conservationists and even warehouse managers who are solving the most pressing challenges facing our countryside and the world.

If we use land cleverly it can give both humanity and nature the space to thrive on just the one planet. If not, we’re in trouble.

Tom Heap is a regular presenter on BBC1’s Countryfile, specializing in the more investigative films, and has made many BBC Panorama documentaries on food, energy and the environment. Tom is also the presenter of Radio 4’s new Rare Earth series and was the anchor of The Climate Show on Sky News. He was the creator and presenter of BBC Radio’s flagship climate change podcast ‘39 Ways to Save the Planet’.

Tom Heap will be in conversation with Mike McCarthy

Tickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)

Clare Balding – Isle of Dogs
2024-10-18 17:00 - 18:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
Every dog must have his day.Dogs are never just pets. Not for the British. We love them as members of the family. They work with us, sleep with us, eat with us, help us live our daily lives and come on holiday with us. Some parents will freely admit to enjoying the company of their dogs more than their children while many couples would choose the dog over their partner. So what is it that makes our bond so special?In this fascinating adventure across Britain, Clare Balding explores the many roles dogs fulfil and the history of how they became such an intrinsic part of our lives. She talks to people whose everyday survival depends on their dog, those whose experience of life has been transformed by them and what dogs have meant to her.From the mysteries of extinct breeds to the ancient dogs still thriving today, she journeys from Battersea to the Orkney Islands via Buckingham Palace to tell a moving and humorous tale of loyalty and partnership. Isle of Dogs is an unmissable read for anyone whose life has been transformed by a faithful hound.

Clare Balding is an award-winning writer and broadcaster who has been at the forefront of sports presentation since 1998. She has been a key anchor at seven Olympic and six Paralympic Games as well as multiple Commonwealth Games and Winter Olympics. She was awarded a special BAFTA in 2012 for her work at the London Olympics and Paralympics. In 2023, she took over as the lead BBC TV presenter at Wimbledon. She was a key commentator on the BBC’s television coverage of King Charles III’s Coronation in 2023 and for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee coverage in 2022. She has presented the television coverage of Crufts for nearly two decades and Lost Dogs Live on Channel 5, which helps reunite missing dogs with their owners. During most of her childhood she thought she was a dog and has tried to live with the mentality of a Labrador puppy: be pleased to see everyone and treat every new task as an exciting adventure. Her first book, My Animals and Other Family, was published in 2012 and won the National Book Award for biography of the year. In 2013, she was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List and in 2023 received a CBE for services to sport and charity in the Queen’s final Honours List.

This event is kindly sponsored by Domvs

Tickets £20 – includes a copy of the book.

Pam Ayres – Doggedly Onwards: The Collected Poems
2024-10-18 19:00 - 20:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
Pam Ayres has spent a lifetime providing hilarious and profound insights into the delights and tribulations of everyday life. As a young woman in the seminal decade of 1960’s Great Britain, she doggedly pursued a career as a performer and writer, stepping far outside what was expected of her. In doing so she created a life for herself of which she could only have dreamed, travelling the world and bringing roars of laughter wherever she went.

Now, Pam has gathered her career’s work of poetry, spanning six decades, into this beautifully illustrated collection. In doing so, she reflects on her writing and traces the course of her life from the young woman juggling various boyfriends, to the wife adrift amid the joy and terror of new motherhood, to her current position of astounded, adoring granny.

Included are the cavalcade of much-loved dogs, her lifelong fascination with wildlife, the travel, mistakes, regrets, the heartbreak of leaving the family home, and the sober business of ageing. Meanwhile, she continues to explore new avenues, such as writing lyrics for musical theatre. This collection is not just a testament to Pam’s remarkable legacy, but is a celebration of the human spirit, capturing the tears, laughter, joy, and wisdom from a remarkable woman whose work has provoked laughter and tears in people around the world.

This event is kindly sponsored by Hall & Woodhouse

Tickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)

Chris Atkins – Time After Time
2024-10-19 10:30 - 11:30 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
A funny, touching, challenging and campaigning book about our prisons’ crisis by the Sunday Times bestselling author of A Bit of a Stretch.

British prisoners have to endure the most inhumane and barbaric conditions imaginable, so why do so many of them keep going back?

80% of criminals who receive cautions or convictions are reoffenders.46% of ex-prisoners are re-convicted within a year of leaving prison.Reoffending costs the taxpayer £18 billion per year.

The numbers are staggering. But the reasons behind them will shock you. Former inmate and documentary maker Chris Atkins has spent the last six years tracking the fortunes of a dozen repeat offenders to understand why the state fails to keep them out of trouble.

Featuring funny, wild and poignant stories, Time After Time exploits Chris’s unprecedented access to the criminal underworld to understand why the system actually makes reoffending all but inevitable for ex-prisoners.

‘Eloquent, witty, engaging and enraged … the most important book you’ll read this year.’ Sathnam Sanghera

‘Chris Atkins brings a unique perspective, an unflinching eye and a dark sense of humour to hidden stories from the underbelly of the British justice system. Time after Time is entertaining, unsettling, illuminating and important.’ Rafael Behr

Chris Atkins is a BAFTA-nominated filmmaker. His documentaries Taking Liberties and Starsuckers were critically acclaimed and made front-page news. He has also worked extensively with Dispatches for Channel 4 and BBC Panorama. Following his release from prison, he is now back in North London, filming documentaries and writing.

This event is kindly sponsored by John and Jennie Paterson

Tickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)

Mick Conefrey – Fallen
2024-10-19 12:00 - 13:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
On 6 June 1924, George Mallory donned an oxygen set and set off for the summit of Everest with his young partner Andrew Irvine. Two days later they were glimpsed through clouds heading upwards, but after that, they were never seen again. Whether they died on the way up or on the way down no one knows.In the years following his disappearance, Mallory was elevated into an all-British hero. Dubbed by his friends the ‘Galahad’ of Everest, he was lionised in the press as the greatest mountaineer of his generation who had died while taking on the ultimate challenge. Handsome, charismatic and daring, he was a skilled public speaker, an athletic and technically gifted climber, a committed Socialist and a supremely attractive figure to both men and women.

His friends ranged from the gay artists and writers of the Bloomsbury group to the best mountaineers of his era. But that was only one side to him. Mallory was also a risk taker who according to his friend and biographer David Pye, could never get behind the wheel of a car without overtaking the vehicle in front, a climber who pushed himself and those around him to the limits, a chaotic technophobe who was forever losing equipment or mishandling it, the man who led his porters to their deaths in 1922 and his young partner to his uncertain end in 1924.

So who was the real Mallory and what were the forces that made him and ultimately destroyed him? Why did the man who denounced oxygen sets as ‘damnable heresy’ in 1922 perish on an oxygen-powered summit attempt two years later? And above all, what made him go back to Everest for the third time?

Based on diaries, letters, memoirs and thousands of contemporary documents, Fallen is both a forensic account of Mallory’s last expedition to Everest in 1924 and an attempt to get under his skin and separate the man from the myth.

Mick Conefrey is an award winning writer and documentary maker. He made the landmark BBC series Mountain Men and Icemen and The Race for Everest to mark the 60th anniversary of the first ascent. His previous books include Everest 1953, the winner of a LeggiMontagna award, and The Ghosts of K2 which won a US National Outdoor Book award in 2017.

Tickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)

Tom Baldwin – Keir Starmer, The Biography
2024-10-19 13:30 - 14:30 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
This authoritative biography by Tom Baldwin provides answers by drawing deeply on many hours of interviews with the Labour leader himself, as well as unprecedented access to members of his family, his oldest friends and closest colleagues.

Together, they tell an unexpectedly intimate story filled with feelings of grief and love that has driven him on more than any rigid ideology or loyalty to a particular faction.

The book tracks Starmer’s emergence from a troubled small town background and rebellious youth, through a storied legal career as a human rights barrister and the country’s chief prosecutor, to becoming an MP relatively late in life.

Baldwin provides a vivid and compelling account of how this untypical politician then rose to be leader of his party in succession to Jeremy Corbyn, then transformed it with a ruthless rapidity that has enraged opponents from the left just as much as it has bewildered those on the right.

Above all, this is a book that should be read by anyone who wants to understand how someone who has too often been underestimated or dismissed as dull, now intends to change Britain.

This will be the most important political book of the year’ MATTHEW D’ANCONA, EVENING STANDARD

‘The first serious and consistently readable biography of Starmer…It is a wonder that he has said so much to Baldwin’ PATRICK MAGUIRE, THE TIMES

‘Required reading for anyone who has an interest in who governs Britain’ ALASTAIR CAMPBELL

‘Highly readable… Baldwin has peeled back more layers than anyone else’ ROBERT SHRIMSLEY, FINANCIAL TIMES

‘Tom Baldwin’s portrait is of a tough, conscientious, and kindly man with the right values’ ANDREW MARR, NEW STATESMAN

‘A highly informative, illuminating and insightful biography… the most complete portrait we have yet been offered’ OBSERVER

Tom Baldwin is a journalist and writer who has worked for The Times and The Sunday Telegraph. He was a senior political adviser to Ed Miliband and the Labour Party’s director of communications and strategy.

Tom Baldwin will be in conversation with Danny Danziger.

Tickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)

Michael Mansfield – The Power in the People
2024-10-19 15:30 - 16:30 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
The internationally renowned human rights barrister shows us how the powerto change the world is in the hands of people, not the people in power.‘I want this book to inspire people, give them a blueprint for fighting their own battles, and challenge the status quo. To see that together, we are always stronger. To understand that those who stand in the way of change cannot do so forever.’ Michael Mansfield, KC

Barrister Michael Mansfield, KC , has spent his career fighting injustice, persecution and corruption. And be it the Birmingham Six, Bloody Sunday, Stephen Lawrence, the Marchioness, Hillsborough or Grenfell, he has come to learn one thing – that people power is unstoppable. Time and again he has witnessed governments, police forces, legal institutions and the establishment, try to block change and maintain the status quo in order to protect their interests. But almost every time he has seen that passion, perseverance, collectivity and courage create a powerful momentum which is increasingly difficult to stop.

In this short but powerful book, the veteran barrister draws upon his 50 years of fighting for justice and revisits his most important cases and clients, proving without doubt that when people get together they can make lasting and positive change. The power is in the people – not the people in power.

Michael Mansfield KC is an English barrister and head of chambers at Nexus Chambers. He was recently described as “The king of human rights work” by The Legal 500 and as a leading Silk in civil liberties and human rights.

Tickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)

Jonathan Dimbleby – Endgame 1944: How Stalin Won The War
2024-10-19 17:30 - 18:30 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
June 1944. Operation Bagration: the greatest defeat ever suffered by the German Armed Forces. More than two million Red Army soldiers, facing 500,000 German adversaries, finally avenged their defeat in Operation Barbarossa three years earlier. In the ensuing three weeks, Hitler’s Army Group Centre lost 28 of its 32 divisions.While the same month saw the Allies triumph on the beaches of Normandy, it was in fact the events on the Eastern Front in 1944 that were the knockout blow in the Second World War. Despite the myths that remain today, it was this brutal struggle from the Baltic to the Black Sea that saw the Wehrmacht crucially defeated.Drawing on previously untranslated German and Russian sources – many from ‘ordinary’ soldiers – bestselling historian Jonathan Dimbleby describes and analyses with authority and panache this momentous year in the East. He illuminates the bloody battles that raged along the 2000 kilometres-long front, while also explaining the unusual roles played by deception, the partisans, and the war within a war in Ukraine.Dimbleby’s gripping, masterly narrative sets the drama of the relationships between the “big three” of Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin against the history being created on the battlefield, and shows how his victories in 1944 enabled the Soviet leader to dictate the terms of the post-war settlement and lay the foundations for the Cold War.

Jonathan Dimbleby is the author of The Battle of the Atlantic and Destiny in the Desert: The Road to El Alamein, which was shortlisted for the Hessell-Tiltman Prize and was followed by his BBC2 programme Churchill’s Desert War. His other books include, Russia: A Journey to the Heart of a Land and Its People, Richard Dimbleby: A Biography, The Palestinians, The Prince of Wales: A Biography and The Last Governor: Chris Patten and the Handover of Hong Kong.

Jonathan Dimbleby will be in conversation with Allan Mallinson.

Tickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)

Mike Brearley – Turning Over the Pebbles
2024-10-19 19:30 - 20:30 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
Mike Brearley reviews his life with all its attendant emotions, tensions and moves, in what he calls ‘memoir of the mind’. This is book of his second thoughts and reassessments, allowing him to understand more fully things that were obscure to him earlier. After all, he says, ‘captaining ourselves, like captaining a team, requires a willingness to allow thoughts and feelings their space’.Deeply thoughtful, erudite and elegantly framed, this book seamlessly blends all aspects of Brearley’s life into a single integrated narrative. With wide-ranging meditations on sport, philosophy, literature, religion, leadership, psychoanalysis, music and more, Brearley delves into his private passions and candidly examines the various shifts, conflicts and triumphs of his extraordinary life and career, both on and off the field.

Mike Brearley was educated at Cambridge, where he read classics and moral sciences, and captained the university. He played for Middlesex County Cricket Club intermittently from 1961 to 1970, and regularly from 1971, captaining the side until his retirement in 1982. He first played for England in 1976 and captained the side from 1977 to 1980, winning seventeen test matches and losing only four. He was recalled to the captaincy in 1981 for the Ashes home series, leading England to one of their most famous victories. From 1981, he trained and continues to work as a psychoanalyst, and is a lecturer both on leadership and on psychoanalysis. He is the author of the bestselling The Art of Captaincy, On Form, On Cricket, Spirit of Cricket and has written on cricket and the psychology of sport for the Sunday Times, Observer, The Times and Prospect.

Mike Brearley will be in conversation with Paul Atterbury.

Tickets £12/£6 (Students)

The DLF Local Writers’ Forum – hosted by Don Nordberg
2025-10-16 14:00 - 16:00 | Shire Hall Museum Cafe, High West Street, Dorchester, DT1 1UY, United Kingdom
A gathering where writers with a local connection or subject can present their published work (fiction or non fiction) to other writers and anyone interested in writing. The event will be hosted by Don Nordberg. This is a great way to meet fellow authors and others with an interest in writing. Authors will be allocated a time slot and have an opportunity to sign and sell books.

Don Nordberg is a literary magpie, a journalist-turned-consultant-turned-academic, and the author of two books on corporate governance, with manuscripts of two novels edging towards publication. He’s published poems in small journals and research papers in prominent ones. He reads philosophy, political theory, and potboilers, too. A Chicago native, he’s lived in Britain, Germany, Switzerland, and the US while working for Reuters, and held professorial roles in management at Bournemouth University and in financial journalism at City University of London. He now writes two Substack publications: How to govern [not like that], and DonNordberg (is/on) writing, and he convenes the Dorset local group of the Society of Authors.

Please get in touch via contact@dorchesterliteraryfestival.com if you would like to present your book at this event.

Tickets £6.00 (free for writers presenting their work)

Tim Spector – Ferment – The life changing power of microbes
2025-10-18 10:30 - 11:30 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
Tim Spector is on a mission to bring fermenting into our lives and kitchens. Drawing on the latest science and his own experiments, Ferment is an accessible introduction to the life-changing benefits of fermentation – for beginners and enthusiasts alike.

Fermenting is one of the most ancient, nutritious and cheap techniques for preparing and preserving food and drink. With little more than time, patience and basic equipment, the humblest of ingredients can be transformed into nutritious foods with an astonishing range of benefits for our gut health, immunity and daily mood. Including practical tips and some of his favourite recipes, Ferment cuts through myths and misunderstanding to help us navigate the fascinating world of ferments and shows how they can help improve our health, our meal times and our planet.Tim Spector is Professor of Epidemiology at King’s College London. He is the bestselling author of The Diet Myth, Spoon-Fed, Food for Life and The Food for Life Cookbook, and scientific co-founder of ZOE, the nutrition science company. With a focus on cutting-edge science and honoured with an OBE for his work in fighting Covid-19, Tim stands at the forefront of his field. The original pioneer of microbiome research, he is among the top 100 most cited scientists in the world.

Tim Spector will be in conversation with Jenny Devitt.

Please note there is an overlap between this event and the preceding one, so you will not be able to attend both.

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)

Quentin Letts – Nunc
2025-10-18 11:00 - 12:00 | The Brownsword Hall, Pummery Square, Poundbury, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 3GW, United Kingdom
Sunday Times bestselling author Quentin Letts pens a new novel: a modern twist on one of the greatest (yet underlooked) narratives in Christianity: The ‘Nunc Dimittis’, based on ten verses in St Luke’s Gospel. This is the story of Simeon, a man who was told he would not die before he saw the Messiah. He waited at the Temple in Jerusalem until he saw the infant Jesus.

But who was Simeon? Why did he wait? And how did the month-old Jesus escape King Herod’s infamous massacre of the infants?

Nunc! transports you to the Jerusalem of Herod the Great, where Simeon’s old army friend Reuben runs a tea stall selling heavenly honey cakes and fig bread in Deuteronomy Square. When Bildad the beekeeper’s hive goes missing, grocer’s boy Benjamin, owner of a mule and cart that might be a getaway vehicle, is a suspect. The drawlingly subversive Zillah, whose political salon lends her influence, and Simeon’s long-suffering landlady Noor intervene, enduring a power-mad Roman centurion, Lucilius, and the snivelling authoritarian Kedar, the city’s clerk of works. Quentin Letts brings first-century Jerusalem to life and helps an ailing 21st-century Englishman come to terms with his future.

QUENTIN LETTS is political sketch writer for the Daily Mail. A regular broadcaster on radio and television, he was formerly New York correspondent for The Times, gossip columnist for the Daily Telegraph, theatre critic for the Sunday Times and parliamentary sketch writer for The Times. He is the author of the Sunday Times bestseller 50 People Who Buggered Up Britain. His hobbies are gossip, hymn-singing and cricket. He lives in rural Herefordshire.

Quentin Letts will be in conversation with Lulu Taylor.

Tickets £12.00 (£8.00 Students)

Please note that there is an overlap between this event and the following one and you will not be able to attend both.

Dr Julie Smith – Open When
2025-10-18 12:30 - 13:30 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
Million-copy bestselling psychologist Dr Julie Smith is back with the book for when being human starts to get complicated. When you feel overwhelmed, pressure to perform, are grieving, are making big decisions, when you get it wrong as a parent, when you want to win the argument, when you’re overthinking everything, when you want to fit in, and more.

Each chapter begins with a letter from Dr Julie to the reader offering comfort and perspective and follows with her trademark simple and straightforward advice to help you see clearly how best to respond and act.

Dr Julie Smith is the nation’s favourite psychologist. An author, online educator and Clinical Psychologist, Julie has a combined following of almost nine million. She shot to fame with viral videos on social media, and her drive to create accessible, good quality mental health resources, that were rooted in her decade of experience as a Clinical Psychologist led to her writing Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? A publishing phenomenon, the book spent over 100 weeks in the UK Sunday Times bestseller charts with 23 of those at #1.

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)

Max Hastings – Sword
2025-10-18 14:30 - 15:30 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
On 6 June 1944, when the Allied armies landed on D-Day, the Second World War had already lasted almost five years. Yet many of the British and American troops who invaded Normandy were virgin soldiers, never before committed to battle. They quit summer England to face, within hours, a storm of machine-gun and mortar fire. They witnessed scenes, above all of sudden death, such as no exercise had prepared them for.

In Sword, veteran chronicler of war Max Hastings explores with extraordinary vividness the actions of the Commando brigade, Montgomery’s 3rd Infantry and 6th Airborne divisions on and around a single British beach. He describes their frustrations, hopes, loves and fears through the apparently interminable years training and preparing in England, then their triumphs and tragedies on the beach and beyond. Here are the airborne assaults on the Caen Canal bridge and Merville Battery, the battles on the shoreline and against the German strongpoints inland, narrated and explained with all the insights that Hastings’ decades of study, veterans’ interviews and new archive research enable him to deploy.

The book offers a searching analysis of why British troops did not reach Caen on 6 June, as Montgomery had promised Churchill that they would – and the story of the brigadier who was sacked for that failure. There is also a host of personal portraits of key figures from commando leader Lord Lovat, famously brave but supremely arrogant, to tank colonel Jim Eadie, whose tanks of the Staffordshire Yeomanry repulsed a panzer division in the last hours of 6 June, and some of the humbler participants to whom extraordinary things happened. This is D-Day as you have never read the story told before.

Max Hastings is the author of more than thirty books, many of them about 20th Century wars, including All Hell Let Loose, Catastrophe, Vietnam and Abyss. In his early years as a correspondent, he reported on eleven conflicts including Vietnam, the 1973 Yom Kippur and 1982 Falklands wars for the BBC and various newspapers. A former editor-in-chief of The Daily Telegraph, he has won many awards both for his journalism and books, including Journalist of the Year, Reporter of the Year, Editor of the Year, together with a Somerset Maugham Prize and two RUSI Westminster Medals. He contributes to The Times, reviews books for the Sunday Times and writes a column for Bloomberg Inc.

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)

Gordon Corera – The Spy in the Archive
2025-10-18 16:30 - 17:30 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
How do you steal a library? Not just any library but the most secret archive in the world. The answer is to be a librarian. To be so quiet, that no-one knows what you are up to as you toil undercover over decades and so low key, that even after your escape, aided by MI6, no-one even notices you are gone.

The Spy in the Archive is the remarkable story of how Vasili Mitrokhin – an introverted archivist who loved nothing more than dusty files – ended up changing the world.

As the in-house archivist for the KGB, the secrets he was exposed to inside its walls turned him first into a dissident and then a spy, a man determined to expose the truth about the dark forces that had subverted Russia, forces still at work in the country today.

This is the story of one man’s journey from the heart of the Soviet state to disillusion and then betrayal and his determination to take on the most powerful institution in the world.

Gordon Corera is a journalist and writer on intelligence and security issues. Since 2004 he has been a Security Correspondent for BBC News where he covers terrorism, cyber security, the work of intelligence agencies and other national security issues for the BBC. He co-hosts The Rest is Classified podcast with former CIA analyst and spy novelist, David McCloskey.

Gordon Corera will be in conversation with Kate Adie OBE.

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)

Daisy Goodwin – Diva
2025-10-18 18:30 - 19:30 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
In this remarkable novel, best-selling author Daisy Goodwin brings to life a woman whose extraordinary talent, unremitting drive and natural chic made her a legend. But it was only in confronting the heartbreak of losing the man she loved that Maria Callas found her true voice.

In the glittering and ruthlessly competitive world of opera, Maria Callas is known simply as La Divina: the divine one. With her glorious voice, instinctive flair for the dramatic and striking beauty, she’s the toast of the grandest opera houses in the world. Yet her fame has been hard won: raised in Nazi-occupied Greece by a mother who mercilessly exploited her, Maria learned early in life how to protect herself. When she meets the fabulously rich shipping magnate, Aristotle Onassis, her isolation melts away. For the first time in her life, she believes she’s found a man who sees Maria the woman rather than the legendary soprano. Desperately in love, Callas follows Onassis into the world of International Café Society, mixing with celebrities like Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Princess Grace and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. And then, suddenly, it’s over. The international press announced that Onassis will marry the most famous woman in the world, former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, leaving Maria to pick up the pieces.

Daisy Goodwin will discuss Maria Callas’s colourful life, accompanied by live performances by Josephine Goddard, a celebrated soprano, and in conversation with Lulu Taylor.

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)

Have They Come For Me? A guided walk tracing Law and Literature in Dorchester with Mark Damon Chutter
2025-10-19 11:00 - 13:00 | Thomas Hardy Statue, The Grove, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1UT
Law and Literature in Dorchester: Meet at The Thomas Hardy Statue at the Top O’ Town

Join Mark Damon Chutter, Chairman and Academic Director of the Thomas Hardy Society, for a fascinating walk tracing the justice system in Dorchester, and some of the literary narratives surrounding it. These will include:

*‘Hanging’ Judge Jeffreys, who ordered the Monmouth Rebels’ execution during the Bloody Assizes and placed their heads on the spikes of St Peter’s Church.

*The Dorset Tolpuddle Martyrs, tried in the Shire Hall and sentenced for their religious beliefs at Galllows Hill ( Frink Statues).

* Thomas Hardy’s novels, including The Mayor of Casterbridge in which Henchard contravenes the moral code of the town and suffers from the lawlessness of the village of Durnover (Fordington); Mary Channing who it is suggested poisoned her husband in 1706 and was then burned at the stake in Maumbury Rings, and Martha Brown, the possible inspiration for the eponymous heroine Tess of the d’Urbervilles.

Meet at the Thomas Hardy Statue at the Top O’ Town at 11.00

At 1.00 pm the walk will end at the historic Old Tea House, formerly a prison and holding place, where there will be an optional cream tea ( £10.00 per person. Please book tea directly with the Old Tea House on 01305 263719)

Tickets £12.00 (£8.00 Students)

Mark Urban – Tank
2025-10-20 10:30 - 11:30 | Dorset Museum, High West Street, Dorchester, DT1 1XA, United Kingdom
“Tanks are like dinner jackets”, an Australian general once commented – “you don’t need them very often, but when you do, nothing else will do.”An authoritative history of the tank and the remarkable individuals who designed them and fought in them, from a former officer and best-selling historian.Tanks are the ultimate embodiment of industrial age warfare. In the popular imagination, they represent both a terrifying beast of destruction and a potent symbol of liberation.The technology behind these war machines has evolved relentlessly, and yet the coming of the information age has led many to predict that drones, missiles, and Artificial Intelligence have made the tank obsolete. Time and again, however, tanks have continued to shape – and be shaped by – battles around the world, from their introduction in 1916, through the Second World War and tank-on-tank fights in 1990s Iraq, to the current conflict in Ukraine.In Tank, best-selling historian and former officer in the Royal Tank Regiment, Mark Urban draws on wide-ranging accounts from soldiers, designers, and politicians, from Winston Churchill to Volodymyr Zelensky, to tell the remarkable story of one of the most important developments in military history. Through the ten most important vehicles ever made, Urban chronicles the incredible advances in tank technology – starting with the Mark IV, the first British tank to be used in large numbers in WW1, and following the story through the T-34 and Tiger to the M1 Abrams, a product of huge American Cold War investment that is still used to this day.Officially supported by The Tank Museum and using never-before-seen archival sources, interviews and declassified documents, this is a fascinating history of the vehicle that changed conflict forever.

Mark Urban is a writer and columnist for the Sunday Times, specialising in defence and foreign affairs. Until 2024, he was the Diplomatic Editor of BBC’s Newsnight programme. He formerly served in the British Army, both in the Royal Tank Regiment and in the Territorial Army. He is the author of several books, including Red Devils, Task Force Black (his deep-dive look at the SAS in the Iraq War, which was a Sunday Times number one bestseller) and The Skripal Files, a Sunday Times Best Politics Book of 2018.

Tickets £12.00 (£8.00 Students)

Barnaby Rogerson – The House Divided: Sunni, Shia and the Making of the Middle East
2025-10-20 12:00 - 13:00 | Dorset Museum, High West Street, Dorchester, DT1 1XA, United Kingdom
At the heart of the Middle East, with its regional conflicts and proxy wars, is a 1400-year-old schism between Sunni and Shia. To understand this divide and its modern resonances, we need to revisit its origins: to become familiar with ‘The House’ of Prophet Muhammad, the accidental coup after his death that set aside the claims of his son Ali, and the slaughter of Ali’s son Husayn at Kerbala. These events, known to every Muslim, continue to influence Middle East politics.

The House Divided follows these narratives through the first caliphates and the medieval empires forged by Arabs, Persians and Turks, to the contemporary Middle East. It shows how a dynamic range of identities – fuelled as much by ethnic, dynastic and national rivalries as by religious differences – have shaped the region. In 1979 this already complex world was jolted by the seismic shift of three revolutions – in Iran, Mecca and Afghanistan – whose effects are still being played out. Rogerson’s original and intimate approach takes the modern chessboard of nation states and looks at each through its particular perspective: of empires and occupiers, minorities and resources, sheikhs and imams. The result is a book of wide-ranging empathy, understanding and insights.Barnaby Rogerson has been travelling the Islamic world for the last forty years, first as a young man writing guidebooks, then as a journalist, and finally as a writer of histories. He is publisher of the acclaimed travel list, Eland Books. His books include The Prophet Muhammad: a Biography,The Heirs of the Prophet Muhammad and The Last Crusaders.

Barnaby Rogerson will be in conversation with Allan Mallinson.

Tickets £12.00 (£8.00 Students)

Geoffrey Guy – Quantum Biology
2025-10-20 14:00 - 15:00 | Dorset Museum, High West Street, Dorchester, DT1 1XA, United Kingdom
Drawing on the latest international research, leading physician and healthcare expert Professor Geoffrey Guy examines how quantum phenomena affect processes as diverse as the functioning of the brain and the body’s approach to combating inflammation and disease. He shows how we may need to rethink the ways in which energy and information are carried round our nervous system.

This groundbreaking book assesses the implications for cancer treatment and mental disorders and reopens discussion of areas such as light therapy. It also raises questions about the potentially damaging effects of space travel on astronauts’ health and how they might have to be mitigated.Key to the author’s approach is his ability to explain lucidly our current knowledge while drawing in cutting-edge research. Written for the general reader, but with a scope and depth that will satisfy medical professionals, Quantum Biology reveals the latest findings from this most fascinating medical frontier.Professor Geoffrey Guy has 40 years’ experience in medical research. As chairman of GW Pharmaceuticals plc, he was physician in charge of over 300 clinical studies. The author of more than 70 scientific publications and of A Worthwhile Medicine, he is Visiting Professor at the Universities of Buckingham and Westminster and chairman of The Guy Foundation.

Tickets £12.00 (£8.00 Students)

Meg Clothier – The Shipping Forecast
2025-10-20 16:00 - 17:00 | Dorset Museum, High West Street, Dorchester, DT1 1XA, United Kingdom
There’s a sea lover in every Brit. The Shipping Forecast on BBC Radio 4 has been keeping people up to date with the latest changes to British weather for a century – seafarers and armchair travellers alike. Since its first broadcast, the programme has captured the hearts and imaginations of this island nation, as well as providing a real and important service for those who might otherwise fall prey to storms and gales.The only official book celebrating the centenary, The Shipping Forecast takes you to the heart of what this enduring programme means to the nation. Meg Clothier, journalist and sailor, brings you on a fascinating exploration of our British maritime history, taking you from stormy weather up above to the seabed far below and from fishing boats to the art, songs and poems inspired by the forecast.

Whether you’re a long-time fan of this universally beloved British institution or a newer weather enthusiast, this joyous book invites you to sail away into the enchanting world of the forecast and is the perfect companion for anyone curious about our great British skies and seas.Meg Clothier studied Classics at Cambridge, sailed from England to Alaska, and worked as a journalist in London and Moscow. She has published three historical novels and also Sea Fever: A Seaside Companion, a book full of marine lore and seaside charm, with her brother, Chris. She lives on the sunny side of the Quantock Hills with her husband, two children and an improbable amount of vegetables.

Meg Clothier will be in conversation with Jenny Devitt.

Tickets £12.00 (£8.00 Students)

Natasha Solomons – Cleopatra
2025-10-20 18:00 - 19:00 | Dorset Museum, High West Street, Dorchester, DT1 1XA, United Kingdom
From the international bestselling author, an unmissable new retelling of the life of one of the most captivating and misrepresented female figures in history. A story of female power and vulnerability, of love and loss, fierce friendship and terrible betrayal. It’s time to meet the real Cleopatra.Cleopatra, Egyptian Princess, grows up the favoured daughter of the Pharoah, hiding amongst the scrolls in the great library of Alexandria with her beloved slave Charmian, longing for the chance one day to write her own story. Then, when her father dies, willing that Cleopatra rule with her selfish brother Ptolemy, danger stirs. As the young Egyptian Queen sails the Nile to greet her people, he plots todestroy her and take the throne for himself. But while Ptolemy has the power of Egypt behind him, Cleopatra has her wits. And when the great Caesar arrives from Rome, she realises he could be the key to her salvation – though courting this powerful man could cost her everything. Can Cleopatra save her life, her throne, her beloved Egypt and finally command her own history?

Natasha Solomons is the author of seven internationally bestselling novels, including Mr Rosenblum’s List, The Novel in the Viola, which was chosen for the Richard & Judy Book Club, and I, Mona Lisa. Her work has been translated into seventeen languages. She lives in Dorset with her family.

Natasha Solomons will be in conversation with Lulu Taylor.

Tickets £12.00 (£8.00 Students)

Terri Apter – Grandparenting: On Love and Relationships Across Generations
2025-10-21 10:30 - 11:30 | Dorset Museum, High West Street, Dorchester, DT1 1XA, United Kingdom
One in three people over the age of 50 has grandchildren. These grandparents are the first generation to be both psychologically aware and very hands on, playing an integral role in their grandchildren’s lives. When a child becomes a parent themselves, existing family structures are radically altered. Old tensions between parents and their adult children may come into sharp relief while new relationships with in-laws must be navigated carefully.

Grandparenting is the book for grandparenting in the modern age. In this warm, wise guide to being a modern grandparent, leading psychologist Terri Apter builds on cutting edge research as well as her own experience of being a grandparent. Drawing on case studies from across the world, the personal stories of so many different individuals give a real insight into the many problems that can arise in families. With an increase in divorce and in different family configurations, Apter’s book addresses many of the issues that can arise in more complicated family situations, exploring the psychological forces that bring generations together and set barriers between them. This innovative book is for grandparents and their adult children to help them become the best grandparents and parents that they can be.

Terri Apter is a psychologist, writer and Fellow Emerita of Newnham College. She is the author of many critically acclaimed books on family dynamics, including Altered Loves: Mothers and Daughters During Adolescence (a NYT Book of the Year), and The Confident Child (winner of the Delta Kappa Gamma International Educator’s Prize). Her reviews and articles have appeared in the Guardian, TLS, Financial Times, New York Times Book Review, and Psychologist and she is a regular blogger for Psychology Today.

Terri Apter will be in conversation with Dr Helen Thomas.

Tickets £12.00 (£8.00 Students)

Simon Bradley – Bradley’s Railway Guide
2025-10-21 12:00 - 13:00 | Dorset Museum, High West Street, Dorchester, DT1 1XA, United Kingdom
A Journey Through Two Centuries of British Railway History 1825–2025.In 1825 the Stockton & Darlington company strode into history with the opening of the world’s first public steam railway. What the S&DR had pioneered soon picked up speed, transforming lives and landscapes, connecting far-flung corners of the nation and creating its own distinctive environments and working worlds.

This ambitious and lavishly illustrated volume brings the story of Britain’s railways to life, spanning two centuries of achievement and change. Full of colour and incident, it is an exhilarating journey through time and space, revisiting favourite themes and introducing unfamiliar stories and places.

Simon Bradley is joint editor of the celebrated Pevsner Architectural Guides, to which he has contributed a number of notable revised volumes. He started trainspotting aged eleven, and his interest in railways has broadened and endured. He is also the bestselling author of The Railways: Nation, Network and People and St Pancras Station.

Tickets £12.00 (£8.00 Students)

Minette Walters – The Players
2025-10-21 14:00 - 15:00 | Dorset Museum, High West Street, Dorchester, DT1 1XA, United Kingdom
A bold and brilliantly inventive historical novel, set in the reign of James II at a time of rebellion and unrest, from a 25-million-copy bestselling author.

England, 1685. Decades after the end of the civil war, the country is once again divided when Charles II’s illegitimate son, the Protestant Duke of Monmouth, arrives in Dorset to incite rebellion against his Catholic uncle.Armed only with pitchforks, Monmouth’s army is quickly defeated by King James II’s superior forces and charged with high treason. Those found guilty will be hanged, drawn and quartered.As Dorset braces for carnage, the redoubtable Lady Jayne Harrier and a small group of trusted allies – including her courageous son and the independent-minded daughter of a local lawyer – contrive ways to save men from the gallows.Compelling and powerful, The Players is a story of guile, deceit and compassion during the dark days of The Bloody Assizes. Secrets are kept and surprising friendships formed in a dangerous gamble to thwart a brutal king’s thirst for vengeance…

Minette Walters is one of the world’s bestselling crime writers and has sold over 25 million copies of her books worldwide. She has won the CWA John Creasey Award, the Edgar Allan Poe Award in America and two CWA Gold Daggers. The Players is her fourth historical novel. She lives in Dorset with her husband.

Minette Walters will be in conversation with Lulu Taylor.

Tickets £12.00 (£8.00 Students)

Peter Ross – Upon a White Horse
2025-10-21 16:00 - 17:00 | Dorset Museum, High West Street, Dorchester, DT1 1XA, United Kingdom
Beautiful and strange, ancient monuments have long captured our attention and curiosity. We stand in awe before them, asking who created the Uffington White Horse – and why? What was it like to live in the shadow of Hadrian’s Wall? What stories would the towering megaliths of Stonehenge and Avebury tell if they could speak?

Uncovering the enduring mystery of ancient sites, award-winning writer Peter Ross once again invites readers to sit beside him as he celebrates their influence on art, culture and society, explores the way their meaning has evolved over time and simply delights in their magic.

Combining historical research and archaeological insights with stories from people to whom these sites are particularly important, Upon A White Horse journeys into the deep past of Britain and Ireland’s ancient landscapes.

Peter Ross is an Orwell journalism fellow. His writing has appeared in national newspapers and magazines in the UK and US. He won the non-fiction prize at Scotland’s National Book Awards with A Tomb With A View: The Stories & Glories of Graveyards, and his most recent book, Steeple Chasing, was a Sunday Times bestseller and was selected as Waterstones Non-Fiction Book of the Month. He is also author of the collections Daunderlust and The Passion Of Harry Bingo. He lives in Glasgow.

Tickets £12.00 (£8.00 Students)
