BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Dorchester Literary Festival - ECPv6.15.18//NONSGML v1.0//EN
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
X-WR-CALNAME:Dorchester Literary Festival
X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com
X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Dorchester Literary Festival
REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H
X-Robots-Tag:noindex
X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:Europe/London
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:+0000
TZOFFSETTO:+0100
TZNAME:BST
DTSTART:20220327T010000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:+0100
TZOFFSETTO:+0000
TZNAME:GMT
DTSTART:20221030T010000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:+0000
TZOFFSETTO:+0100
TZNAME:BST
DTSTART:20230326T010000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:+0100
TZOFFSETTO:+0000
TZNAME:GMT
DTSTART:20231029T010000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:+0000
TZOFFSETTO:+0100
TZNAME:BST
DTSTART:20240331T010000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:+0100
TZOFFSETTO:+0000
TZNAME:GMT
DTSTART:20241027T010000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:+0000
TZOFFSETTO:+0100
TZNAME:BST
DTSTART:20250330T010000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:+0100
TZOFFSETTO:+0000
TZNAME:GMT
DTSTART:20251026T010000
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241015T120000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241015T130000
DTSTAMP:20260408T082400
CREATED:20240515T140717Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240702T143311Z
UID:10000059-1728993600-1728997200@dorchesterliteraryfestival.com
SUMMARY:Jim Down – Life in the Balance
DESCRIPTION:A Doctor’s Stories of Intensive Care \n\n\n\n\n\nDr Jim Down brings us to the very heart of the intensive care unit – the section of the hospital where the sickest patients are brought to be cared for until their condition improves. With honesty\, humility and a streak of dark humour\, Dr Down describes the quietly heroic work of doctors and nurses on the ICU\, a place which sits at the cutting edge of medical technology and where a split-second decision can make the difference between life and death. \n\n\n\nFrom headline-grabbing cases like that of Alexander Litvinenko\, poisoned by Russian agents and admitted to Down’s ward\, to the appalling aftermath of a train crash\, and the mundane daily struggle to simply find enough beds\, Jim Down provides a unique insight into life on The Unit\, and the critical medicine doctors and nurses perform there. \n\n\n\nLife in the Balance offers the first real glimpse of intensive care medicine\, its immense challenges\, deleterious effects on doctors’ mental health and enormous rewards. Its profundity will make you reconsider the fragility of life and reframe your understanding of what it means to care. \n\n\n\nDr Jim Down is a consultant in critical care and anaesthesia at University College London Hospitals. He chairs the ICU consultants’ group\, the department of anaesthesia weekly scientific meetings\, and the UCLH Trust guideline committee. During the Covid-19 pandemic he worked on UCLH’s busy ICU ward\, and was interviewed by the BBC for a groundbreaking report depicting medics on the frontline. His account of that period\, Life Support\, was published in 2021. \n\n\n\nDr Jim Down will be in conversation with Dr Helen Thomas \n\n\n\nTickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)
URL:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/event/jim-down-life-in-the-balance/
LOCATION:Dorset Museum\, High West Street\, Dorchester\, DT1 1XA\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Adult
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/LifeInTheBalance-High-Res-cover-scaled.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241015T103000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241015T113000
DTSTAMP:20260408T082400
CREATED:20240515T140717Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240702T142527Z
UID:10000058-1728988200-1728991800@dorchesterliteraryfestival.com
SUMMARY:Nigel Toon – How AI Thinks
DESCRIPTION:Those who understand how AI thinks are about to win big. Leading British AI entrepreneur Nigel Toon explains why it’s so exciting and how it can be controlled. \n\n\n\nHow AI Thinks shows us how we can harness the electrifying intelligence of machines. Unlike other books on AI which often scare us\, through storytelling that shows us how we think\, Nigel Toon helps us understand AI and its incredible possibilities. He explains that AI is a tool that we can control and how it will augment our own amazing human intelligence. ‘In my role running an AI company\,’ says Nigel Toon\, ‘I am often asked about artificial intelligence\, but people are prone to say that they don’t understand it and fear it. AI is complex and so\, like other powerful tools that have come before\, our lack of understanding can easily lead us to think that it might present a threat to humanity. We need to learn more\, not just about the risks but also about the benefits that this important new technology can deliver\, because it will end up changing our lives and\, perhaps more importantly\, the lives of the next generation.‘Over the course of a career spent at the forefront of technology\, I have been directly involved in developing the underlying technology that makes AI work\, and I understand how this story will play out. I want to help you learn how AI thinks’. \n\n\n\nNigel Toon is a leading figure in AI and is often called upon to speak at major industry events. He has been recognized with numerous industry awards including\, ranked #1 on Business Insiders ‘100 most influential people shaping British technology’ and as one of the ‘Top 100 entrepreneurs in the UK’ by the Financial Times. \n\n\n\nNigel has a background as a technology business leader\, entrepreneur\, and engineer having been CEO at three successful VC-backed processor companies\, including Graphcore which he co-founded and which developed a new type of microprocessor to accelerate Artificial Intelligence. He was previously a senior executive at a major Silicon Valley\, publicly listed semiconductor company. He has served as a Board Member and Chairman for several technology businesses and currently sits as a Non-Executive Director on the board of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) which is a non-departmental UK public body that directs over £8bn per year into research and innovation funding. He has also been a member of the UK Prime Minster’s Business Council. \n\n\n\nThis event is kindly sponsored by C P Fry \n\n\n\nTickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)
URL:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/event/nigel-toon-how-ai-thinks/
LOCATION:Dorset Museum\, High West Street\, Dorchester\, DT1 1XA\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Adult
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/How-AI-Thinks-HB-scaled.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241014T180000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241014T190000
DTSTAMP:20260408T082400
CREATED:20240515T140717Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240702T141443Z
UID:10000057-1728928800-1728932400@dorchesterliteraryfestival.com
SUMMARY:Jack Cornish – The Lost Paths
DESCRIPTION:A History of How we Walk From Here to There \n\n\n\n\n\nA journey across Britain’s millennia-old network of pathways\, revealing key moments throughout our history. \n\n\n\nHundreds of thousands of miles of paths reach into\, and connect\, communities across England and Wales. By 2026\, 10\,000 miles of undiscovered footpaths around Britain stand to be lost. Jack Cornish has dedicated the last five years of his life to walking these forgotten routes\, and this book\, The Lost Paths\, is the result. \n\n\n\nFootpaths\, tracks\, country lanes and urban streets illuminate how our ancestors interacted with and shaped their landscapes in the pursuit of commerce\, salvation\, escape\, war\, and leisure. Paths are an often overlooked part of our everyday life and our country’s history\, crucial to understanding the cultural and environmental history of us in the landscape. \n\n\n\nAfter dedicating his time and energy to fighting for their survival\, The Lost Paths is Jack’s personal journey and exploration of the deep history of English and Welsh footways. This narrative history takes us through ancient forests\, exposed mountainsides\, urban back streets and coastal vistas to reveal how this millennia-old network was created and has been transformed. \n\n\n\nThis is a celebration of an ancient network and a rallying cry to reclaim what has been lost and preserve it for future generations. \n\n\n\nJack Cornish is head of paths at the Ramblers\, Britain’s largest walking charity\, withover 100\,000 members. In 2017\, he walked across the country from Land’s End to John O’Groats\, and is ten years into a (probably futile) attempt to walk every street in London. \n\n\n\nTickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)
URL:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/event/jack-cornish-the-lost-paths/
LOCATION:Dorset Museum\, High West Street\, Dorchester\, DT1 1XA\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Adult
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/The-Lost-Paths-cover.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241014T160000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241014T170000
DTSTAMP:20260408T082400
CREATED:20240517T090740Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240702T140711Z
UID:10000084-1728921600-1728925200@dorchesterliteraryfestival.com
SUMMARY:Gavin Pretor-Pinney – Cloud Spotting For Beginners
DESCRIPTION:An introduction to the wondrous world of clouds\, by the internationally bestselling founder of the Cloud Appreciation Society and a prize-winning children’s book author and illustrator.Have you ever watched a cloud being born?Clouds come in all manner of shapes and sizes\, from low-lying Stratus to high-flying Cirrus via roll clouds\, banner clouds and tornados. This beautifully illustrated guide reveals the facts\, secrets and stories of all the major cloud types\, and how they shape the weather around them. We learn their fancy Latin names\, explore the parts of the sky where they like to hang out\, marvel at the ways they play with sunlight – and even visit them on other planets\, where they are sometimes made of acid.Cloudspotting for Beginners will inspire curious minds with a lifelong sense of meteorological wonder. \n\n\n\nGavin Pretor-Pinney is founder of the Cloud Appreciation Society\, which has more than 47\,000 members in 120 countries. He is the author of the internationally bestselling Cloudspotter’s Guide and Cloud Collector’s Handbook. His third book\, The Wavewatcher’s Companion\, won the prestigious Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books. Gavin is a TED Global speaker with over 1.2 million views. He has presented television documentaries for the BBC and Channel 4 and is a Visiting Fellow at the Meteorology Department of Reading University and winner of the Royal Meteorological Society’s Michael Hunt award. \n\n\n\nTickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)
URL:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/event/gavin-pretor-pinney-cloud-spotting-for-beginners/
LOCATION:Dorset Museum\, High West Street\, Dorchester\, DT1 1XA\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Adult
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/cloud-spotting-for-beginners.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241014T140000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241014T150000
DTSTAMP:20260408T082400
CREATED:20240515T140718Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241001T162653Z
UID:10000056-1728914400-1728918000@dorchesterliteraryfestival.com
SUMMARY:Michael Peppiatt - Francis Bacon: a Self-Portrait in Words
DESCRIPTION:A new collection of letters\, statements\, studio notes and interviews reveals the innermost thoughts of Francis Bacon\, one of the 20th century’s most influential artists. Expertly annotated by Michael Peppiatt\, the documents selected for Francis Bacon: A Self-Portrait in Words illustrate Bacon’s sharp wit and ability to express complex ideas in highly personal\, memorable language. Split into four sections – Statements\, Letters\, Studio Notes and Selected Interviews – the book includes a large selection of letters to friends\, patrons and fellow artists\, as well as Bacon’s artist statements\, lists of paintings under way\, intriguing notes and interviews\, many of which have only come to light since his death. Bacon’s letters mirror and reveal his dominant preoccupations at different points throughout his long career\, with most of them having never been published before. Recipients range from Lucian Freud to Graham Sutherland\, and collectors Robert and Lisa Sainsbury to gangster Ronnie Kray\, as well as to many close friends and Peppiatt himself. Together with photographs\, archive material and works by the artist are numerous reproductions of Bacon’s characteristic handwriting\, from the briefest jottings and notes to more extensive letters and statements. Bacon frequently came up with memorable epithets and definitions. He delighted in doing with words what he set out to do in painting: ‘I like phrases that cut me.’ Michael Peppiatt explores the personal legacy of one of the 20th century’s most important painters\, presenting a compelling verbal self-portrait that reveals both man and artist. \n\n\n\nMichael Peppiatt is a well-known writer and curator\, who began his career as an art critic in London and Paris in the 1960s. Described by The Art Newspaper as ‘the best art writer of his generation’\, his previous books include Francis Bacon: Anatomy of an Enigma\, Francis Bacon in Your Blood and Francis Bacon: Studies for a Portrait. \n\n\n\nTickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)
URL:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/event/michael-peppiat-francis-bacon-a-self-portrait-in-words/
LOCATION:Dorset Museum\, High West Street\, Dorchester\, DT1 1XA\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Adult
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Francis-Bacon-jkt-scaled.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241014T120000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241014T130000
DTSTAMP:20260408T082400
CREATED:20240604T145418Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241008T144011Z
UID:10000097-1728907200-1728910800@dorchesterliteraryfestival.com
SUMMARY:Martin Gayford – How Painting Happens (and why it matters)
DESCRIPTION:In the words of the late Gillian Ayres\, this is a book about “what can be done with painting.” Drawing on decades of conversations with practicing painters\, acclaimed author Martin Gayford offers intimate insight into the practice\, meaning\, and potential of this timeless medium. \n\n\n\nAs a way of making images\, pigment applied to any surface from cave wall to canvas\, painting has been around for tens of thousands of years. Yet it has proved capable of endless renewal. Now in the third decade of the twenty-first century it is once more at the forefront of contemporary art. How Painting Happens will consider how and why this is so\, examining this perennial medium through the eyes of its exponents past and present. \n\n\n\nMartin Gayford will draw on interviews carried out over more than two decades with\, among many others\, Frank Auerbach\, Gillian Ayres\, Georg Baselitz\, Frank Bowling\, Richard Estes\, Lucian Freud\, Katharina Fritsch\, Rebecca Horn\, Shirazeh Houshiary\, Lee Ufan\, Paula Rego\, Bridget Riley\, Jenny Saville\, Frank Stella\, Hiroshi Sugimoto\, Wayne Thiebaud\, Luc Tuymans\, and Zeng Fanzhi. \n\n\n\nThese diverse artists talk about how they work\, the different routes by which they came to be painters\, their contemporaries\, and predecessors. With painters’ insight they discuss such previous exponents of the brush as Titian\, El Greco\, Edward Hopper\, Suzanne Valadon\, Petrus Christus\, Van Gogh\, Degas\, Klee\, and Delacroix. \n\n\n\nAltogether\, this book presents a fresh\, multidimensional perspective on the medium—so ancient and yet simultaneously so modern\, and still capable of doing things no other art form can. \n\n\n\nPraise for How Painting Happens:Critic and art historian Martin Gayford’s How Painting Happens (And Why it Matters) (Thames & Hudson) was hailed by Stephen Smith at the Financial Times: “Stimulating and sumptuously illustrated\, How Painting Happens is really two books in one\, a double-sided canvas. The ‘recto’\, as art world types would dub the ‘front’ side\, depicts humankind’s steady upward progress\, from scratches on a cave wall to the glorious\, inexhaustible possibilities of paint and beyond.” The Irish Times’ Gemma Tipton wrote that “How Painting Happens succeeds in providing keys to unlocking the puzzles of painting”\, as both a “erudite and insightful” read. Writing for the New Statesman\, Andrew Marr noted: “This is as clear a piece of writing about the experience of looking at a great painting as I have ever read.’  \n\n\n\nMartin Gayford is a writer and art critic. His books include Man with a Blue Scarf: On Sitting for a Portrait by Lucian Freud; Modernists and Mavericks: Bacon\, Freud\, Hockney and the London Painters; A History of Pictures: From the Cave to the Computer Screen and Spring Cannot Be Cancelled: David Hockney in Normandy\, both with David Hockney; Shaping the World: Sculpture from Prehistory to Now\, with Antony Gormley; Love Lucian: The Letters of Lucian Freud\, 1939-1954\, with David Dawson; and Venice: City of Pictures. \n\n\n\nKindly sponsored by Duke’s Auctioneers \n\n\n\nTickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)
URL:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/event/martin-gayford-how-painting-happens/
LOCATION:Dorset Museum\, High West Street\, Dorchester\, DT1 1XA\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Adult
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/How-Painting-Happens-jacket-revised-scaled.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241013T120000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241013T140000
DTSTAMP:20260408T082400
CREATED:20240517T092037Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240819T143756Z
UID:10000086-1728820800-1728828000@dorchesterliteraryfestival.com
SUMMARY:Wessex Writers – A Literary Walk
DESCRIPTION:12 Midday Sunday 13 October 2024 \n\n\n\nDuring this walk the Chairman and Academic Director of the Thomas Hardy Society\, Mark Damon Chutter\, will guide you through Dorchester and Fordington to explore the world of architect\, writer and poet Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)\, the  Dorset dialect poet and philologist\, William Barnes (1801–1886)\, and the LGBT pioneer Sylvia Townsend Warner (1883–1978). All of these writers feature Dorchester in different ways from The Mayor of Casterbridge to The Geate A Vallen-To -alongside the Diaries and Journals of Sylvia Townsend Warner. \n\n\n\nMark Damon Chutter is a Drama and English specialist. He is a Head of Performing Arts and has been teaching for 30 years. Mark was shortlisted as one of the top six teachers in the country by The  Times in 2014 and 2015. He is a member of the committee of the  Dorchester Civic Society and also of the Dorchester Town Council Heritage Committee and STAND. Come and join Mark for a fascinating walk and tour around the literary aspects of Dorchester. \n\n\n\nMeet at the Thomas Hardy Statue at the Top 0’ Town. The walk will be from  12 midday until 2pm. At 2pm there will be a cream tea at a cost of £10 per person. Please book separately and directly with The Old Tea House for this on 01305 263719. \n\n\n\nThis event is kindly sponsored by The Duchy of Cornwall
URL:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/event/wessex-writers-a-literary-walk/
LOCATION:Thomas Hardy Statue\, The Grove\, Dorchester\, Dorset\, DT1 1UT
CATEGORIES:Adult
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/hardy-picture-2.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241012T193000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241012T203000
DTSTAMP:20260408T082400
CREATED:20240515T140718Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240816T113919Z
UID:10000082-1728761400-1728765000@dorchesterliteraryfestival.com
SUMMARY:Ben Macintyre – The Siege
DESCRIPTION:Britain’s best-selling historian writes the first definitive account of the famous televised SAS storming of the Iranian embassy in London in 1980 \n\n\n\nOn April 30\, 1980\, six heavily armed gunmen burst into the Iranian embassy on Princes Gate\, overlooking Hyde Park in London. There they took 26 hostages\, including embassy staff\, visitors\, and three British citizens. A tense six-day siege ensued as millions gathered around screens across the country to witness the longest news flash in British television history\, in which police negotiators and psychiatrists sought a bloodless end to the standoff\, while the SAS – hitherto an organisation shrouded in secrecy – laid plans for a daring rescue mission: Operation Nimrod. \n\n\n\nDrawing on unpublished source material\, exclusive interviews with the SAS\, and testimony from witnesses including hostages\, negotiators\, intelligence officers and the on-site psychiatrist\, bestselling historian Ben Macintyre takes readers in his inimitably cinematic style from the years and weeks of build-up on both sides\, to the gripping minute-by-minute account of the siege and rescue. \n\n\n\nFeaturing individuals from Margaret Thatcher to Abu Nidal\, The Siege recreates the dramatic conversations between negotiators and hostages\, the cutting-edge intelligence work happening behind-the-scenes\, and the media frenzy around this moment of international significance. This is the fast-paced story of what really happened on those fateful six days\, and the first full account of a moment that forever changed the way the nation thought about the SAS – and itself. \n\n\n\nBen Macintyre is the multimillion-copy bestselling author of books including Colditz\, Agent Sonya\, SAS: Rogue Heroes\, The Spy and the Traitor\, Agent Zigzag\, Operation Mincemeat and A Spy Among Friends. He is a columnist and Associate Editor at The Times\, and has worked as the newspaper’s correspondent in New York\, Paris and Washington. Several of his books have been made into films and television series\, including Operation Mincemeat\, A Spy Among Friends and SAS: Rogue Heroes. \n\n\n\nTickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)
URL:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/event/ben-macintyre-the-siege/
LOCATION:The Dorford Centre\, 2 Bridport Road\, Dorchester\, Dorset\, DT1 1RR\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Adult
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/The-Siege-jkt.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241012T173000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241012T183000
DTSTAMP:20260408T082400
CREATED:20240515T140718Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240815T163427Z
UID:10000063-1728754200-1728757800@dorchesterliteraryfestival.com
SUMMARY:Kate Mosse – The Map of Bones
DESCRIPTION:A sweeping and epic story of adventure and courage\, injustice and triumph\, The Map of Bones by Kate Mosse is the sequel to the number one bestselling The Ghost Ship.Olifantshoek\, Southern Africa\, 1688. When the violent Cape wind blows from the south-east\, they say the voices of the unquiet dead can be heard whispering through the deserted valley. Suzanne Joubert\, a Huguenot refugee from war-torn France\, is here to walk in her cousin’s footsteps. Louise Reydon-Joubert\, the notorious she-captain and pirate commander\, landed at the Cape of Good Hope more than sixty years ago\, then disappeared from the record as if she had never existed. Suzanne has come to find her — to lay the stories to rest. But all is not as it seems… \n\n\n\nFranschhoek\, Southern Africa\, 1862. Nearly one hundred and eighty years after Suzanne’s perilous journey\, another intrepid and courageous woman of the Joubert family — Isabelle Lepard — has journeyed to the small frontier town once known as Oliftantshoek in search of her long-lost relations. A journalist and travel writer\, intent on putting the women of her family back into the history books\, she quickly discovers that the tragedies and crimes of the past are far from over. Isabelle faces a race against time if she is not only going to discover the truth but escape with her life… \n\n\n\nPainstakingly researched and beautifully told\, The Map of Bones is the fourth — and final — novel of The Joubert Family Chronicles\, following the bestselling The Burning Chambers\, The City of Tears and The Ghost Ship. \n\n\n\nKate Mosse CBE FRSL is an award-winning novelist\, playwright\, performer\, campaigner\, interviewer and non-fiction writer. The author of ten novels and short-story collections\, her books have been translated into thirty-eight languages and published in more than forty countries. Fiction includes the multimillion-selling Languedoc Trilogy (Labyrinth\, Sepulchre\, Citadel)\, The Joubert Family Chronicles (The Burning Chambers\, The City of Tears\, The Ghost Ship\, The Map of Bones) and No 1 bestselling Gothic fiction including The Taxidermist’s Daughter and The Winter Ghosts. Her highly-acclaimed non-fiction includes An Extra Pair of Hands: A Story of Caring & Everyday Acts of Love and Warrior Queens & Quiet Revolutionaries: How Women (Also) Built the World\, which inspired her one-woman theatre touring show. \n\n\n\nA regular guest on radio and television for literature\, Kate hosts the pre-show interview series at Chichester Festival Theatre and is a regular interviewer for literary and arts festivals including Letters Live\, the Hay Festival\, the Edinburgh International Book Festival\, the British Library and the Royal National Theatre. Her new podcast\, The Matilda Effect\, will be launched in summer 2024. \n\n\n\nThe Founder Director of the Women’s Prize for Fiction and the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction – the world’s largest annual literary awards celebrating writing by woman – she is the founder of the global #WomanInHistory campaign and has her own monthly YouTube book show\, Mosse on a Monday. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature\, Kate is also an Honorary Fellow of the Society of Authors\, a Visiting Professor of Contemporary Fiction and Creative Writing at the University of Chichester and President of the Festival of Chichester. In the broader arts\, Kate is President of the Festival of Chichester\, Patron of the Chichester Cathedral Festival of Flowers 2024\, Vice-Patron of the Chichester Cathedral Platinum Music Trust and Patron of the Chichester Festival of Music\, Dance and Speech. She is also an Ambassador for Parkinsons UK. \n\n\n\nKindly sponsored by the Thomas Hardy Society \n\n\n\nTickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)
URL:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/event/kate-mosse-the-map-of-bones/
LOCATION:The Dorford Centre\, 2 Bridport Road\, Dorchester\, Dorset\, DT1 1RR\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Adult
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/The-Map-of-Bones-jkt-1-scaled.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241012T160000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241012T170000
DTSTAMP:20260408T082400
CREATED:20240515T140718Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240815T163510Z
UID:10000054-1728748800-1728752400@dorchesterliteraryfestival.com
SUMMARY:Saul David – Sky Warriors
DESCRIPTION:The legendary ‘Red Devils’ were among the finest combat troops of the Second World War. \n\n\n\nCreated at Churchill’s instigation in June 1940\, they began as a single parachute battalion of 500 men and grew into three 10\,000-strong airborne divisions: the 1st\, 6th and 44th Indian\, each composed of parachutists and glider-borne troops. \n\n\n\nWearing their distinctive maroon berets\, steel helmets and Dennison smocks\, they served with distinction in every major theatre of the conflict – including North Africa\, Sicily\, mainland Europe and the Far East. They played a starring role in some most iconic airborne operations in history: the Bruneval Raid of February 1942; the capture of the Primasole\, Pegasus and Arnhem Bridges in July 1943\, June 1944 and September 1944 respectively; and Operation Varsity\, the biggest parachute drop in history\, near Wesel in Germany in March 1945. \n\n\n\nThis is a stunning and gripping new history of the British airborne experience across the Second World War. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSAUL DAVID is a historian\, broadcaster and the author of several critically acclaimed works of fiction and non-fiction\, including most recently Silent Warriors and Devil Dogs. His history books have been shortlisted for the Westminster Medal for Military Literature and variously named a Waterstones Military History Book of the Year and an Amazon History Book of the Year. He is Professor of Military History at the University of Buckingham. \n\n\n\nThis event is kindly sponsored by Dorchester Town Council \n\n\n\nTickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)
URL:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/event/saul-david-sky-warriors/
LOCATION:The Dorford Centre\, 2 Bridport Road\, Dorchester\, Dorset\, DT1 1RR\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Adult
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Sky-Warriors-cover.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241012T140000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241012T150000
DTSTAMP:20260408T082400
CREATED:20240515T140718Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240919T135856Z
UID:10000083-1728741600-1728745200@dorchesterliteraryfestival.com
SUMMARY:John Suchet – In Search of Beethoven: A Personal Journey
DESCRIPTION:John Suchet\, previously well-known TV news reporter and newscaster and now regular presenter on Classic FM\, is an acknowledged authority on Ludwig van Beethoven. He has written seven books on the subject and sold over 23\,000 copies of Beethoven: The Man Revealed. His latest release\, In Search of Beethoven\, stands apart as a deeply personal account of Suchet’s relationship with the great composer. Suchet charts a journey from Beethoven’s early years in Bonn to his life in Vienna\, following in the composer’s footsteps and interweaving his story with Suchet’s own. Suchet’s witty and insightful narrative offers a candid portrayal of Beethoven. “It’s not always easy to reconcile the genius with the deeply flawed individual\,” Suchet reflects. “Beethoven’s music has been my companion through the best and worst of times\, yet I find it difficult to forgive him for the pain he caused those around him. This book includes some truly surprising\, and not altogether welcome\, discoveries.”The book also sheds light on groundbreaking information about Beethoven’s health and ancestry. Drawing on the latest research from Cambridge University and the Max Planck Institute\, Suchet offers fresh insights into Beethoven’s heritage\, health struggles\, and pivotal life events\, such as his interactions with Mozart. “Beethoven scholarship does not stand still\,” remarks Suchet\, “and each new finding brings us closer to understanding the man behind the music.” \n\n\n\nJohn Suchet OBE is a bestselling author\, journalist\, radio and TV presenter. He was the voice of morning radio on Classic FM for almost a decade and before that\, he was one of the UK’s best-known television journalists and newscasters\, regularly presenting ITN’s flagship News at Ten for nearly 20 years. A recognised authority on Beethoven\, he is the author of the Sunday Times bestselling Beethoven: The Man Revealed (2020)\, as well as biographies of Mozart\, Strauss\, Verdi and Tchaikovsky. To date John has written seven books on Beethoven. In Search of Beethoven will be his eighth. \n\n\n\nKindly sponsored by Battens Solicitors \n\n\n\nTickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)
URL:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/event/john-suchet-in-search-of-beethoven-a-personal-journey/
LOCATION:The Dorford Centre\, 2 Bridport Road\, Dorchester\, Dorset\, DT1 1RR\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Adult
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/InSearchOfBeethoven-scaled.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241012T120000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241012T130000
DTSTAMP:20260408T082400
CREATED:20240521T115812Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240919T135346Z
UID:10000088-1728734400-1728738000@dorchesterliteraryfestival.com
SUMMARY:Rory Cellan-Jones – Sophie From Romania
DESCRIPTION:How do you welcome someone new into your home and heart? A week before Christmas 2022\, former BBC journalist and award-nominated podcaster Rory Cellan-Jones received a special delivery that changed the course of his life. This is the story of #SophieFromRomania\, told in full for the first time.In January 2022\, the Cellan-Jones-Coyle family said goodbye to their beloved elderly Collie Cross\, Cabbage. Newly retired\, Rory had become inseparable from her during daily pandemic walks which alleviated his Parkinson’s Disease symptoms. After a grief-stricken year\, Rory and his wife Diane contemplated opening up their hearts again and came across a dog listing for ‘a kind girl who loves everybody and is just looking for her forever home’.Bright-eyed\, big-eared and trembling\, Sophie arrives in London in a van from Central Europe on 17th December. Rory holds the Romanian rescue in his arms\, excited for their first walk together – unaware it is more than a year ahead. Sophie from Romania follows the journey of her adoption – from her battles with anxiety\, to the joys of play and her first foray outside – as Rory and Diane work with expert dog trainer Si to win Sophie’s trust\, and navigate Rory’s Parkinson’s diagnosis.This is a moving story of growing together through love\, kindness and a lot of patience\, revealing how adopting pets can be challenging but also full of rewarding moments. It’s also a celebration of rescue dogs\, and community as Rory uplifts fellow Romanian dog owners and his new friends from the #SophieFromRomania hashtag. \n\n\n\nRory Cellan-Jones is a journalist and former BBC News technology correspondent and has appeared on  many programmes including Breakfast Time\, Money Programme\, Newsnight\, and BBC News. He is the author of Dot Bomb\, The Secret History of Social Networking and Ruskin Park: Syliva\, Me and the BBC. He is also a member of Movers and Shakers a podcast discussion about life with Parkinson’s. \n\n\n\nTickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)
URL:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/event/rory-cellan-jones-sophie-from-romania/
LOCATION:The Dorford Centre\, 2 Bridport Road\, Dorchester\, Dorset\, DT1 1RR\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Adult
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/sophie-from-romania.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241002T190000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241002T210000
DTSTAMP:20260408T082400
CREATED:20240517T094029Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240925T092612Z
UID:10000087-1727895600-1727902800@dorchesterliteraryfestival.com
SUMMARY:Poetry Slam with Angie Porter
DESCRIPTION:An open mic event for local writers and poets \n\n\n\nJoin us to hear local poets and writers read and perform their work. To sign up to participate please contact us directly via contact@dorchesterliteraryfestival.com or just come along to listen. \n\n\n\nAngie Porter is a local poet\, performer and painter who brings creativity to the fore in whatever she does. Her monthly She Speaks poetry slams are hugely popular and Angie is actively involved in promoting new poetry work. Originally from Melbourne\, Australia\, Angie is currently researching her local roots and the immigration experience from rural Somerset to outback Australia in the early 1800s. \n\n\n\nThis event is sponsored by The Occasional Poetry Magazine (TOPM) a free publication produced by The Occasional Bookshop (Nangle Rare Books)\, 16 Durngate Street\, Dorchester DT1 1JP
URL:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/event/poetry-slam-with-angie-porter-2/
LOCATION:Shire Hall Museum Cafe\, High West Street\, Dorchester\, DT1 1UY\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Adult
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/poetry-slam-poster-scaled.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="Dorchester Literary Festival":MAILTO:contact@dorchesterliteraryfestival.com
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20231021T193000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20231021T203000
DTSTAMP:20260408T082400
CREATED:20230531T162718Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230810T141159Z
UID:10000042-1697916600-1697920200@dorchesterliteraryfestival.com
SUMMARY:Lemn Sissay – Let The Light Pour In
DESCRIPTION:For the past decade\, Lemn Sissay has composed a short poem as dawn breaks each morning. Life-affirming\, witty and full of wonder\, these poems chronicle his own battle with the dark and are fuelled by resilience and defiant joy. Let the Light Pour In is a collection of the best of these poems\, and a book celebrating this morning practice. ‘How do you do it?’ said night ‘How do you wake up and shine?’ ‘I keep it simple\,’ said light ‘One day at a time.’ \n\n\n\nLemn Sissay OBE is a poet playwright\, memoirist performer and broadcaster. He has read on stage throughout the world\, from The Library of Congress in The United States to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia\, from the Opera House of Dubai to London Palladium.   Lemn was awarded The Pen Pinter Prize in 2019  when his memoir ‘My name Is Why’ reached number one in The Sunday Times bestseller list.  \n\n\n\nLemn was Chancellor of The University of Manchester until 2022 and is now Honorary Chair of Creative Writing. His Landmark Poems in public spaces can be seen throughout Manchester and London at venues such as The Royal Festival Hall as well as at The British Council in Addis Ababa.  \n\n\n\nLemn was the first poet commissioned to write for the London Olympics 2012. He has judged many literary competitions including 2020 Booker Prize\, The Gold Man Booker Awards\, and The National Poetry Competition.  \n\n\n\nLemn was named MBE for services to literature by The Queen in 2014 and in 2021 he received an OBE for services to Literature and Charity. \n\n\n\nTickets £12.00/£6.00 (student)
URL:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/event/lemn-sissay-let-the-light-pour-in/
LOCATION:The Dorford Centre\, 2 Bridport Road\, Dorchester\, Dorset\, DT1 1RR\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Adult
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/let-the-light-pour-in-jkt-scaled.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20231021T173000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20231021T183000
DTSTAMP:20260408T082400
CREATED:20230502T074400Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230810T141240Z
UID:10000032-1697909400-1697913000@dorchesterliteraryfestival.com
SUMMARY:Cat Jarman – The Bone Chests
DESCRIPTION:In 1642\, William Waller and his Parliamentarian army came to Winchester with destruction on their minds. They forced entry to the magnificent cathedral that had stood on the site for over 600 years and began to smash things. \n\n\n\nIn the cathedral’s holiest place\, ten beautiful mortuary chests rested as they’d done since the 7th century. In search for treasure\, the soldiers ripped open the lids and when all they found were bones\, they flung them at the great West Window\, destroying the 14th-century-stained glass with its sacred images of the Virgin Mary and St Peter. The desecration was total – blood\, glass\, bayonets\, bones all scattered underfoot. The chests housed the mortal remains of West Saxon kings\, saints and bishops; of Queen Emma of Normandy\, William Rufus\, Harthacnut\, Edmund Ironside and Edward the Confessor. As the soldiers left\, local people picked through the damage\, gathering the glass and hiding the bone chests for safekeeping. \n\n\n\nSix chests remain today – with a jumble of the original bones. In 2014 they were opened for the first time to anthropologists and archaeologist\, photographed and catalogued so that the exact position of each individual item is a matter of record. Since then\, cutting edge science\, including isotope analysis\, carbon dating and DNA analysis has revealed astonishing new insights. In Bone Chests\, bestselling author of River Kings\, Cat Jarman builds on evidence from these bones of the men and women who witnessed and orchestrated the creation of England\, fuelled and fortified by the actions of invading and settling Vikings\, to tell an unforgettable new account of this early period of history. This is Anglo-Saxon history in technicolour\, with an important revisionist take on the role of women. \n\n\n\nDr Cat Jarman is a bioarchaeologist and field archaeologist specialising in the Viking Age\, Viking women\, and Rapa Nui. She uses forensic techniques like isotope analysis\, carbon dating\, and DNA analysis on human remains to untangle the experiences of past people from broader historical narratives. \n\n\n\nDr Jarman has contributed to numerous TV documentaries as both an on-screen expert and historical consultant\, including programmes for the BBC\, Channel 4\, History\, Discovery\, and more. \n\n\n\nDr Cat Jarman will be in conversation with Allan Mallinson. \n\n\n\nTickets £12.00/£6.00 (student)
URL:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/event/cat-jarman-the-bone-chests/
LOCATION:The Dorford Centre\, 2 Bridport Road\, Dorchester\, Dorset\, DT1 1RR\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Adult
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Bone-Chests-jkt.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20231021T160000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20231021T170000
DTSTAMP:20260408T082400
CREATED:20230502T074442Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230804T141942Z
UID:10000030-1697904000-1697907600@dorchesterliteraryfestival.com
SUMMARY:Adam Sisman – The Secret Life of John Le Carré
DESCRIPTION:Adam Sisman’s biography of John le Carré\, published in 2015\, provided a revealing portrait of this fascinating man; yet some aspects of his subject remained hidden. Nowhere was this more so than in his private life. Apparently content in his marriage\, the novelist conducted a string of love affairs over five decades. To these relationships he brought much of the tradecraft that he had learned as a spy – cover stories\, cut-outs and dead letter boxes. These clandestine operations brought an element of danger to his life\, but they also meant deceiving those closest to him. Small wonder that betrayal became a running theme in his work. \n\n\n\nIn trying to manage his biography\, the novelist engaged in a succession of skirmishes with his biographer. While he could control what Sisman wrote about him in his lifetime\, he accepted that the truth would eventually become known. Following his death in 2020\, what had been withheld can now be revealed. \n\n\n\nAdam Sisman said: ‘There was much that I was obliged to withhold from my biography of John le Carré\, published in 2015 while my subject was very much alive and looking over my shoulder. I came to realise that his turbulent personal life\, which he wanted to keep private in his lifetime\, was key to an understanding of his work. His son Simon urged me to keep a secret annexe for publication after his father’s death. The Secret Life of John le Carré is based on that annexe. It shows how le Carré conducted his affairs like espionage operations\, running women as if they were agents. The tension involved became a necessary drug to his writing. The book illuminates a hidden life of secrecy\, passion and betrayal. In the process it reveals a different John le Carré. Now that he is dead\, we can know him better.’ \n\n\n\nAdam Sisman is the author of Boswell’s Presumptuous Task\, winner of the US National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography\, and the biographer of John le Carré\, A. J. P. Taylor and Hugh Trevor-Roper. Among his other works are two volumes of letters by Patrick Leigh Fermor. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an Honorary Professor at the University of St Andrews. \n\n\n\nAdam Sisman will be in conversation with Danny Danziger. \n\n\n\nTickets £12.00/£6.00 (student)
URL:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/event/adam-sisman-the-secret-life-of-john-le-carre/
LOCATION:The Dorford Centre\, 2 Bridport Road\, Dorchester\, Dorset\, DT1 1RR\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Adult
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/The-Secret-Life-of-John-le-Carre-scaled.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20231021T140000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20231021T150000
DTSTAMP:20260408T082400
CREATED:20230216T105423Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230918T151225Z
UID:10000010-1697896800-1697900400@dorchesterliteraryfestival.com
SUMMARY:Edward Stourton – Confessions
DESCRIPTION:The son of ex-pat parents in colonial Nigeria\, Edward Stourton was sent back to Britain to be educated by Benedictine monks at Ampleforth\, at the time when\, it was later revealed\, the school and monastery were the setting for serial abuse cases. He then went up to Cambridge\, where his life as an undergraduate gave him access to a network of future ministers\, judges and newspaper editors. As a young journalist\, he reported first from party conferences and picket lines and then from war zones\, witnessing the events making international headlines\, from Haiti to Hong Kong\, before returning home to join the infighting on BBC Radio 4’s Today. \n\n\n\nDuring this time\, the Empire has given way to the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement\, men-only clubs have been replaced by Me Too\, and instead of a choice selection of voices on a handful of radio and television channels\, we have millions of voices on YouTube\, Instagram\, TikTok.The world has changed\, and so has Ed. Brought face to face with the author of his obituary and his own inevitable mortality\, Ed is prompted to reflect on the life he has led and the events that have shaped him. \n\n\n\nIn Confessions\, he describes this remarkable journey with candour\, humour and the insight that only forty years’ experience of writing and reporting can provide. \n\n\n\nEdward Stourton has worked in broadcasting for over forty years\, and regularly presents BBC Radio Four programmes such as The World at One\, The World This Weekend\, Sunday and Analysis. He has been a foreign correspondent for Channel Four\, ITN and the BBC and for ten years he was one of the main presenters of the Today programme. \n\n\n\nEdward Stourton will be in conversation with Kate Adie. \n\n\n\nTickets £12.00/£6.00 (student)
URL:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/event/ed-stourton-confessions/
LOCATION:The Dorford Centre\, 2 Bridport Road\, Dorchester\, Dorset\, DT1 1RR\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Adult
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/confessions-jkt-scaled.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20231021T120000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20231021T130000
DTSTAMP:20260408T082400
CREATED:20230502T074559Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230810T141434Z
UID:10000013-1697889600-1697893200@dorchesterliteraryfestival.com
SUMMARY:Anna Murphy – Destination Fabulous
DESCRIPTION:From the Fashion Director of The Times comes a wise\, inspiring and invigorating guide to making the most of life as a grown-up woman – from the practical (how to dress your best) to the existential (how to feel your best). \n\n\n\nAt 50\, Anna Murphy feels more visible than at any point in her life to date. Her new book\, Destination Fabulous\, is the toolkit you need to embrace your age and celebrate the wisdom and inner beauty that comes with it. \n\n\n\nIt’s not about impossible goals. It’s not about running a marathon (unless you want it to be). It’s not about denying the ageing process\, nor attempting to erase its signs. It’s not about letting everything go\, either. It’s about balance. It’s about the possible and the present. And it’s about the future you want.How do you lift and smooth your face naturally? Should you go grey\, and\, if so\, how? How do you deal with menopause? \n\n\n\nAnna combines her knowledge from years of writing about fashion and beauty with her openness to the alternative ways of thinking found in disciplines such as yoga and Chinese medicine. For her natural is always best. \n\n\n\nAs a leading fashion editor\, Anna knows that clothing can be the ultimate route into surfacing the true you. She shares all her tricks for finding your way to a wardrobe that will transform not just the way you look but the way you feel. And she shares the highlights of her conversations over the years with super-stylish agers such as Iris Apfel and Miuccia Prada. \n\n\n\nHow have they got it right? \n\n\n\nDrawing on the wisdom of writers as diverse as Pema Chodron and Eckhart Tolle\, Dorothy Rowe and Osho\, Nora Ephron and Mary Oliver\, she writes about saying goodbye to what doesn’t serve you and welcoming what does; about forging relationships that work for you as well as others; and about finding your purpose\, whether in your personal or professional life. Discover how the bumps on her road havehelped her find her way to her true path. Her hope is that this book will help you to find yours\, too.As Fashion Director of The Times\, it goes without saying that Anna Murphy is passionate about what we wear. The author of How Not to Wear Black believes strongly that the supposedly superficial act of choosing what to put on every morning can have a profound impact not just on how we look\, but how we feel. Her years of writing and research\, plus her own life experience\, have also opened Anna upto fresh thinking around beauty\, diet and exercise\, and – overarching all of it – the best ways to live a life that is contented and fulfilled\, especially as you grow old. \n\n\n\nAnna Murphy joined The Times as fashion director in 2015\, having been the launch editor of Stella at The Sunday Telegraph. She has interviewed the industry’s biggest names and done everything from wearing a frock made of bin bags to attempting the Angelina leg pop. \n\n\n\nAnna Murphy will be in conversation with Lulu Taylor \n\n\n\nSponsored by Domvs \n\n\n\nTickets £12.00/£6.00 (student)
URL:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/event/anna-murphy-destination-fabulous/
LOCATION:The Dorford Centre\, 2 Bridport Road\, Dorchester\, Dorset\, DT1 1RR\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Adult
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Destination-Fabulous.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20231021T103000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20231021T113000
DTSTAMP:20260408T082400
CREATED:20230426T143835Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230925T111116Z
UID:10000027-1697884200-1697887800@dorchesterliteraryfestival.com
SUMMARY:Miles Johnson – Chasing Shadows
DESCRIPTION:**Event Cancelled** We regret to say that this event has been cancelled. If you have purchased tickets\, please contact us for a refund. \n\n\n\nA true story of drugs\, war and the secret world of international crime. McMafia meets Narcos and the dark side of globalisation set in the US\, Italy\, Colombia and the Middle East.A compulsive true crime thriller about modern-day international drugs trafficking\, terrorism and geopolitical intrigue following an investigation driven by one DEA agent\, Jack Kelly. \n\n\n\nThree very different men battle to control their destinies as they hurtle through the hall of mirrors of the global shadow economy. \n\n\n\nJack Kelly\, a veteran US Drug Enforcement Administration agent\, tasked with following a trail of dirty money across continents from a top-secret investigative unit based in Virginia. \n\n\n\nSalvatore Pititto is an ambitious Mafia capo working on a vast cocaine shipment who becomes unexpectedly pulled into an arms-smuggling conspiracy. \n\n\n\nMustafa Badreddine is a ghost-like master terrorist wanted by governments across the world who has been secretly dispatched to Syria for his final mission. \n\n\n\nEach man\, born in radically different circumstances in the 1960s\, is in his own way grappling with the powerful and unstoppable forces that shape the world around us; forces which topple governments\, send refugees fleeing across borders\, and put guns in the hands of mercenaries and militias. Each has devoted his whole life to an institution-the DEA\, the Mafia and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah-and each will eventually be destroyed or betrayed by the thing they believe in the most. \n\n\n\nSet during 2015 and 2016\, as the global order began to implode under the pressures of the Syrian civil war and the European refugee crisis\, CHASING SHADOWS looks back over the historical conflicts\, events and personal histories that have shaped the lives of these three men. It’s a book that shows the betrayals\, the disillusionment and the violence as Jack Kelly hunts down his targets. \n\n\n\nTickets £12.00/£6.00 (student)
URL:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/event/miles-johnson-chasing-shadows/
LOCATION:The Dorford Centre\, 2 Bridport Road\, Dorchester\, Dorset\, DT1 1RR\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Adult
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Chasing-Shadows-cover.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20231020T193000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20231020T203000
DTSTAMP:20260408T082400
CREATED:20230622T110636Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231006T154752Z
UID:10000045-1697830200-1697833800@dorchesterliteraryfestival.com
SUMMARY:Louise Minchin – Fearless
DESCRIPTION:Louise Minchin went from presenting BBC Breakfast to competing for the GB Team in Triathlon in World and European Championship. In Fearless she sets out to push herself even further. Over 17 chapters\, Louise embarks on terrifying\, exhilarating adventures across the UK and the world to tell extraordinary women’s stories and to test herself. She free dives under the ice in the dark in Finland with the first female to swim a mile in the Antarctic Circle; she cycles across Argentina with one of the world’s most famous female endurance runners; she swims the shark infested water of Alcatraz with two teenage sisters; she explores the dark and wild caves deep under the earth in Somerset\, and more in the name of exploring what drives these incredible women\, their motivation\, resilience and determination.The book is not only a celebration of the bravery of these women\, Louise is determined to bust the myth that only certain people can do incredible things and have their own adventures. In Fearless you will find women spanning all backgrounds\, religions\, ages\, body shapes and sizes; older women\, younger women\, women with disabilities and more – all doing remarkable things that Louise wants to tell the world about. Fearless is a roller coaster of highs and lows\, with fascinating and thrilling momentsincluding ones when Louise fears for her life. It will leave you feeling empowered and inspired to get out there yourself – fearless\, in fact! \n\n\n\nLouise Minchin is a much-loved TV presenter\, journalist\, author and athlete. She presented the UK’s most successful morning television programme BBC Breakfast for two decades. She is the host of the toprated podcasts\, Push Your Peak and Her Spirit. Louise is Chair of the 2023 judging panel for the prestigious The Women’s Prize for Fiction. Throughout her career\, she has used her profile and voice to champion women’s stories and to push for change raising awareness of the menopause\, mental health\, women’s safety and more. A lover of adventure herself\, at the age of 45\, Louise was inspired to take up triathlon after a BBC Breakfast challenge. Three years later she represented her age-group in the World and European Championships. \n\n\n\nTickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)
URL:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/event/louise-minchen-fearless/
LOCATION:The Dorford Centre\, 2 Bridport Road\, Dorchester\, Dorset\, DT1 1RR\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Adult
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Fearless-Louise-Minchin-JACKET-IMAGE-scaled.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20231020T173000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20231020T183000
DTSTAMP:20260408T082400
CREATED:20230531T153804Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231015T120303Z
UID:10000041-1697823000-1697826600@dorchesterliteraryfestival.com
SUMMARY:Julia Bradbury – Walk Yourself Happy
DESCRIPTION:Part self-help and part-memoir\, this is the ultimate guide to walking yourself happy physically and mentally\, by one of the UK’s favourite TV personalities. \n\n\n\nThere’s a lot of talk about how we all must connect more with nature. But what does that mean? How do you do it? And what does it do for you in return? Can something as simple as going for a walk really improve your life? The simple answer is: YES.Walk Yourself Happy will explain the elemental link between our own health – both physical and mental – and the natural world.Julia knows first-hand the profound impact of nature: it has helped her survive breast cancer\, overcome infertility and continue through failed IVF treatments; it balances the soul and acts as a confidante and therapist. Through science-backed information\, practical tips and Julia’s own story\, Walk Yourself Happy will explore how nature can soothe anxiety and stress\, how a mountain or a tree can keep you company in times of grief\, and the importance of building nature into your everyday life\, so you eat well\, sleep better and move more.Walking\, one of the most accessible activities for most of us\, is the fastest and easiest way to embed yourself in nature. You don’t need expertise or equipment; you just need to put one foot in front of another. You don’t need an epic landscape either\, you can walk down the street or in your local green space. Though\, as you will learn from this book\, a walk in the park is rarely just that.We all have shocks and surprises that stop us in our tracks\, make us question who we are and why we are here. In walking\, we have the power to change our pace. And when we do that\, we can find union with nature\, camaraderie with friends and a form of intimacy with self.We can walk ourselves happy and we can walk ourselves healthy\, and we can rekindle the innate bonds\, all-but extinguished by modern living\, that we have always had to our natural environment. We can start today. \n\n\n\nJulia Bradbury is credited with revamping Sunday night primetime television on BBC One’s Countryfile\, where she was a co-presenter for five years. She has an impressive career which has seen her launch three television channels and present numerous significant long term series including Watchdog\, Top Gear and Countryfile. Outside her television life Julia is an ambassador for Keep Britain Tidy\, The National Trust and a champion for Ordnance Survey. She co-founded The Outdoor Guide\, which is an online resource and space for outdoor inspiration. \n\n\n\nHer passion is the outdoors and more recently following her cancer diagnosis and surgery\, she is dedicating her time supporting the benefits of healthy living and the virtues of nature therapy. \n\n\n\nJulia Bradbury will be in conversation with Steve Harris
URL:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/event/julia-bradbury-walk-yourself-happy/
LOCATION:The Dorford Centre\, 2 Bridport Road\, Dorchester\, Dorset\, DT1 1RR\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Adult
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/julia-Bradbury-jkt-scaled.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20231020T160000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20231020T170000
DTSTAMP:20260408T082400
CREATED:20230216T105200Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230918T151147Z
UID:10000009-1697817600-1697821200@dorchesterliteraryfestival.com
SUMMARY:Polly Toynbee – An Uneasy Inheritance
DESCRIPTION:One of the most respected\, prolific and razor-sharp voices in social commentary uses the prism of her extraordinary family to examine the true state of class in Britain. \n\n\n\nWhile for generations Polly Toynbee’s ancestors have been committed left-wing rabble-rousers railing against injustice\, they could never claim to be working class\, settling instead for the prosperous life of academia or journalism enjoyed by their own forebears. So where does that leave their ideals of class equality? \n\n\n\nThrough a colourful\, entertaining examination of her own family – which in addition to her writer father Philip and her historian grandfather Arnold contains everyone from the Glenconners to Jessica Mitford to Bertrand Russell and features ancestral home Castle Howard as a backdrop – Toynbee explores the myth of mobility\, the guilt of privilege\, and asks for a truly honest conversation about class in Britain. \n\n\n\nPolly 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 has been an editor at the Washington Monthly. She has won numerous awards including a National Press Award and the Orwell Prize for Journalism. \n\n\n\nPolly Toynbee will be in conversation with Kate Adie. \n\n\n\nSponsored by Porter Dodson \n\n\n\nTickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)
URL:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/event/polly-toynbee-an-uneasy-inheritance/
LOCATION:The Dorford Centre\, 2 Bridport Road\, Dorchester\, Dorset\, DT1 1RR\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Adult
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/An-Uneasy-Inheritance-HB-scaled.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20231020T140000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20231020T150000
DTSTAMP:20260408T082400
CREATED:20230216T104927Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230918T151105Z
UID:10000008-1697810400-1697814000@dorchesterliteraryfestival.com
SUMMARY:Tim Spector – Food for Life
DESCRIPTION:Food is our greatest ally for good health\, but the question of what to eat has never seemed so complicated. Bestselling author and top 100 most-cited scientist Tim Spector has the answers in this definitive\, easy-to-follow guide to the new science of eating well. \n\n\n\nTim Spector has pioneered a new approach to nutrition\, encouraging us to forget misleading calorie counts and nutritional breakdowns. In Food for Life he draws on over a decade of cutting-edge scientific research\, along with his own personal insights\, to deliver a new and comprehensive approach to what we should all know about food today. \n\n\n\nInvestigating everything from environmental impact and food fraud to allergies and deceptive labelling\, Spector also shows us the many wondrous and surprising properties of everyday foods\, which scientists are only just beginning to understand. \n\n\n\nEmpowering and practical\, Food for Life is nothing less than a new approach to how to eat – for our health and the health of the planet. \n\n\n\nTim Spector is a Professor of Genetic Epidemiology at King’s College London\, director of the Twins UK study\, Scientific co-founder at ZOE\, and one of the world’s leading researchers.  Food for Life\, his latest book focusing on nutrition and health was a Times and Sunday Times Book of the Year. \n\n\n\nSponsored by Poundbury Clinic \n\n\n\nTickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)
URL:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/event/tim-spector-food-for-life/
LOCATION:The Dorford Centre\, 2 Bridport Road\, Dorchester\, Dorset\, DT1 1RR\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Adult
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/food-for-life-jkt-scaled.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20231020T120000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20231020T130000
DTSTAMP:20260408T082400
CREATED:20230502T074727Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230830T113923Z
UID:10000017-1697803200-1697806800@dorchesterliteraryfestival.com
SUMMARY:Daniel Finkelstein – Hitler\, Stalin\, Mum and Dad
DESCRIPTION:A Family Memoir of Miraculous Survival\n\n\n\nFrom longstanding political columnist and commentator Daniel Finkelstein\, a powerful memoir exploring both his mother and his father’s devastating experiences of persecution\, resistance and survival during the Second World War. \n\n\n\nDanny’s mother Mirjam Weiner was the youngest of three daughters born in Germany to Alfred and Margarethe Weiner. Alfred\, a decorated hero from the Great War\, is now widely acknowledged to have been the first person to recognise the existential danger Hitler posed to the Jews and began\, in 1933\, to catalogue in detail Nazi crimes. After moving his family to Amsterdam\, he relocated his library to London and was preparing to bring over his wife and children when Germany invaded Holland. Before long\, the family was rounded up\, robbed\, humiliated and sent to Bergen-Belsen. \n\n\n\nDanny’s father Ludwik was born in Lwow\, the only child of a prosperous Jewish family. In 1939\, after Hitler and Stalin carved up Poland\, the family was rounded up by the communists and sent to do hard labour in a Siberian gulag. Working as slave labourers on a collective farm\, his father survived the freezing winters in a tiny house they built from cow dung. \n\n\n\nHitler\, Stalin\, Mum and Dad is a deeply moving\, personal and at times horrifying memoir about his parents’ experiences at the hands of the two genocidal dictators of the 20th century. It is a story of persecution and survival; and the consequences of totalitarianism told with the almost unimaginable bravery of two ordinary families shining through. \n\n\n\nDaniel Finkelstein is a British journalist and opinion writer. A former executive editor of The Times\, he continues to write for the paper. He has been Political Columnist of the Year four times and recently joined the board of Chelsea Football Club. He was appointed to the House of Lords in 2013. \n\n\n\nDaniel Finkelstein will be in conversation with Danny Danziger \n\n\n\nTickets £12.00/£6.00 (students) \n\n\n\nSponsored by Bound by Books \n\n\n\n(Julian Bunkall\, Simon Conibear\, James Emson\, Nick Harland\, Anthony Parson\, Kim Slowe\, Jonathan Walsh)
URL:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/event/daniel-finkelstein-hitler-stalin-mum-and-dad/
LOCATION:The Dorford Centre\, 2 Bridport Road\, Dorchester\, Dorset\, DT1 1RR\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Adult
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Hitler-Stalin-Mum-and-Dad.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20231020T103000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20231020T113000
DTSTAMP:20260408T082400
CREATED:20230502T074746Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230810T143827Z
UID:10000025-1697797800-1697801400@dorchesterliteraryfestival.com
SUMMARY:Jade McGlynn – Russia’s War
DESCRIPTION:Russia’s brutal assault on Ukraine has horrified the world. But many Russians appear to be watching an entirely different war—one in which they are the courageous underdogs and kind-hearted heroes successfully battling a malign Ukraine foe. Russia’s War takes us on a journey into this parallel military and political universe. Through interviews with dozens of officials\, elites\, and ordinary citizens from Russia and Ukraine\, as well as detailed analysis of Russian social media\, Jade McGlynn reveals the sometimes monstrous\, sometimes misconstrued attitudes behind Russian majority backing for the invasion. Treating Putin as the symptom rather than cause of Russia’s many ills\, Russia’s War illuminates the myths\, memories and myopia fueling the country’s war on Ukrainians and descent into self-destruction.  \n\n\n\nDr Jade McGlynn is a specialist in Russian media\, memory and foreign policy at the Monterey Initiative in Russian Studies and Kings College London. She is the author of The Kremlin’s Memory Makers and frequently writes and comments for the media\, including CNN\, BBC\, The Times\, The Spectator\, Telegraph\, MSNBC\, The Diplomat\, and Foreign Policy. \n\n\n\nDr Jade McGlynn will be in conversation with Allan Mallinson. \n\n\n\nTickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)
URL:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/event/jade-mcglynn-russias-war/
LOCATION:The Dorford Centre\, 2 Bridport Road\, Dorchester\, Dorset\, DT1 1RR\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Adult
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Russias-War-jkt-scaled.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20231019T193000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20231019T203000
DTSTAMP:20260408T082400
CREATED:20230605T073808Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230810T143906Z
UID:10000044-1697743800-1697747400@dorchesterliteraryfestival.com
SUMMARY:Alan Titchmarsh – Chatsworth
DESCRIPTION:Follow Alan into Chatsworth’s irresistible world of visionaries\, pioneers\, heroes\, villains and English eccentrics\, and celebrate the men and women who have shaped the history of the estate over five centuries. With his passionate knowledge of both the house and gardens\, as well as his long-established relationship with the Cavendish family\, Alan is the perfect guide with whom to explore the Palace of the Peaks. \n\n\n\nFeaturing stunning\, specially commissioned photography of the gardens and parkland\, alongside long-forgotten images and memorabilia newly unearthed in the estate archives\, this vivid companion\, crowded with character and colour\, is a book to treasure and revisit over and over again. \n\n\n\nAlan Titchmarsh MBE is known to millions through his career as a television presenter of shows including Love Your Weekend\, Love Your Garden\, Ground Force\, Gardeners’ World\, The Alan Titchmarsh Show and Spring Into Summer. He has written more than forty gardening books\, as well as twelve novels and three volumes of memoirs. He was made MBE in the millennium New Year Honours list and holds the Victoria Medal of Honour\, the Royal Horticultural Society’s highest award. \n\n\n\nAlan Titchmarsh will be in conversation with Paul Atterbury \n\n\n\nTickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)
URL:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/event/alan-titchmarsh-chatsworth/
LOCATION:The Dorford Centre\, 2 Bridport Road\, Dorchester\, Dorset\, DT1 1RR\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Adult
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/chatsworth-jkt.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20231019T173000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20231019T183000
DTSTAMP:20260408T082400
CREATED:20230426T142049Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230810T143956Z
UID:10000026-1697736600-1697740200@dorchesterliteraryfestival.com
SUMMARY:D J Taylor – George Orwell
DESCRIPTION:The definitive biography of one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century from the award-winning writer and critic\, D.J. Taylor. \n\n\n\nOver seventy years since his premature death\, George Orwell (1903-50) has become one of the most significant figures in western literature. His two dystopian masterpieces\, Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) have together sold over 100 million copies. Even now\, he continues to exert a decisive influence on our understanding of international power-politics. \n\n\n\nD.J. Taylor’s new biography\, the first full- length study for 20 years\, draws on a wide range of previously unseen material – newly-discovered letters to old girlfriends and professional colleagues; the recollections of the dwindling band of people who knew him\, new information about his life in the early 1930s – to produce a definitive portrait of this complex\, driven and self-mythologising man. \n\n\n\nD.J. Taylor’s previous biography Orwell: The Life won the 2003 Whitbread Prize for Biography. His other works of non-fiction include Thackeray (1999)\, Bright Young People: The Rise and Fall of a Generation 1918-1940 (2007)\, The Prose Factory: Literary Life in England Since 1918 (2016) and Lost Girls: Love\, War and Literature 1939–1951 (2019). He has written a dozen novels\, including English Settlement (1996)\, which won a Grinzane Cavour Prize\, Trespass (1998) and Derby Day (2011)\, both of which were longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. His most recent books are the short story collection Stewkey Blues (2022) and Critic at Large: Essays and Reviews 2010-2022 (2023). His journalism appears in a variety of publications on both sides of the Atlantic\, including the Times Literary Supplement\, the Guardian\, the New Criterion\, the Critic and Private Eye. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and lives in Norwich with his wife\, the novelist Rachel Hore. \n\n\n\nD J Taylor will be in conversation with Jason Goodwin. \n\n\n\nTickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)
URL:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/event/d-j-taylor-george-orwell/
LOCATION:The Dorford Centre\, 2 Bridport Road\, Dorchester\, Dorset\, DT1 1RR\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Adult
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Orwell-cover.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20231019T160000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20231019T170000
DTSTAMP:20260408T082400
CREATED:20230502T074829Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230810T144040Z
UID:10000022-1697731200-1697734800@dorchesterliteraryfestival.com
SUMMARY:Ferdinand Mount – Big Caesars and Little Caesars
DESCRIPTION:How They Rise and How They Fall: From Julius Caesar to Boris Johnson\n\n\n\nWho said that dictatorship was dead? The world today is full of Strong Men and their imitators. Caesarism is alive and well. Yet in modern times it’s become a strangely neglected subject. Ferdinand Mount opens up a fascinating exploration of how and why Caesars seize power and why they fall. \n\n\n\nThere is a comforting illusion shared by historians and political commentators from Fukuyama back to Macaulay\, Mill and Marx\, that history progresses in a nice straight line towards liberal democracy or socialism\, despite the odd hiccup. \n\n\n\nIn reality\, every democracy\, however sophisticated or stable it may look\, has been attacked or actually destroyed by a would-be Caesar\, from Ancient Greece to the present day. Marx was wrong. This Caesarism is not an absurd throwback\, it is an ever-present danger. \n\n\n\nThere are Big Caesars who set out to achieve total social control and Little Caesars who merely want to run an agreeable kleptocracy without opposition: from Julius Caesar and Oliver Cromwell through Napoleon and Bolivar\, to Mussolini\, Salazar\, De Gaulle and Trump. The saga of Boris Johnson and Brexit frequently crops up in this author’s narrative as a vivid\, if Lilliputian instance of the same phenomenon. \n\n\n\nThe final part of this book describes how and why would-be Caesars come to grief\, from the Gunpowder Plot to Trump’s march on the Capitol and the ejection of Boris Johnson by his own MPs\, and ends with a defence of the grubby glories of parliamentary politics and a thought-provoking roadmap of the way back to constitutional government. \n\n\n\nFerdinand Mount was born in 1939\, the son of a steeplechase jockey\, and brought up on Salisbury Plain. After being educated at Eton and Oxford\, he made various false starts as a children’s nanny\, a gossip columnist\, bagman to Selwyn Lloyd\, and leader-writer on the doomed Daily Sketch. He later surfaced\, slightly to his surprise and everyone else’s\, as head of Margaret Thatcher’s Policy Unit and later editor of The Times Literary Supplement. He is married with three children and three grandchildren and has lived in Islington for half his life. Apart from political columns and essays\, he has written a six-volume series of novels\, A Chronicle of Modern Twilight\, which began with The Man Who Rode Ampersand\, based on his father’s racing life\, and included Of Love And Asthma (he is a temporarily retired asthmatic)\, which won the Hawthornden Prize for 1992. He also writes what he calls Tales of History and Imagination\, including Umbrella\, which the historian Niall Ferguson called ‘quite simply the best historical novel in years’. \n\n\n\nSponsored by John and Jenny Patterson \n\n\n\nTickets £12.00/£6.00
URL:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/event/ferdinand-mount-big-caesars-and-little-caesars/
LOCATION:The Dorford Centre\, 2 Bridport Road\, Dorchester\, Dorset\, DT1 1RR\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Adult
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Big-Caesars-and-Little-Caesars-scaled.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20231019T140000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20231019T150000
DTSTAMP:20260408T082400
CREATED:20230216T104745Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230918T150901Z
UID:10000007-1697724000-1697727600@dorchesterliteraryfestival.com
SUMMARY:Justine Picardie – Chanel The Legend and the Life
DESCRIPTION:Justine Picardie spent years puzzling over the truth about Coco Chanel\, peeling away the accretions of romance and lies. Since its publication in 2010\, hers has become the definitive Chanel biography. To coincide with a major exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum her new edition delves even deeper into the life and legacy of this eternally alluring woman. \n\n\n\nCoco Chanel was an extraordinary inventor – she conjured up the little black dress\, bobbed hair\, trousers for women\, contemporary chic\, best-selling perfumes\, and the most successful fashion brand of all time – but she also invented herself\, fashioning the myth of her own life with the same dexterity as her couture. \n\n\n\nWhile Chanel was supreme innovator and vendor of all things elegant and beautiful\, what lies beneath her own glossy myth is far darker. Throwing new light on her passionate and turbulent relationships\, this beautifully constructed portrait gives a fresh and penetrating look at how Coco Chanel made herself into her own most powerful creation. \n\n\n\nJustine Picardie brings the mysterious Gabrielle Chanel out of hiding\, to celebrate her great achievements. She examines Chanel’s enduring afterlife\, as well as her remarkable life\, uncovering the consequences of what she covered up\, unpicking the seams between truth and legend\, yet keeping intact the real fabric of her past. \n\n\n\nJustine Picardie is the author of six acclaimed books. She is a contributing editor to Harper’s Bazaar\, having previously been its editor-in-chief. She was formerly an investigative journalist for the Sunday Times\, a columnist for the Telegraph\, editor of the Observer Magazine and features director of Vogue. \n\n\n\nTickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)
URL:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/event/justine-picardie-chanel-the-legend-and-the-life/
LOCATION:The Dorford Centre\, 2 Bridport Road\, Dorchester\, Dorset\, DT1 1RR\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Adult
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Chanel-jkt.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20231019T120000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20231019T130000
DTSTAMP:20260408T082400
CREATED:20230502T074908Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230810T144359Z
UID:10000011-1697716800-1697720400@dorchesterliteraryfestival.com
SUMMARY:Stephen Anderton – The Lives of the Great Gardeners
DESCRIPTION:The lives of 40 men and women behind some of the world’s most exciting gardens. Throughout history great gardeners have risen from all walks of life. Some have been aristocratic amateur gardeners\, others professional designers with an international practice. Some have come to garden-making from sister arts such as sculpture or painting; others have been hands-on nurserymen or botanists. What they all have in common is the ability to take an idea and develop it in a new manner relevant to their times. \n\n\n\nThe book contains four sections. ‘Gardens of Ideas’ moves from the politically allusive gardens of 18th-century England made by men such as William Kent\, to Charles Jencks’s Scottish garden inspired by 21st-century cosmography. ‘Gardens of Straight Lines’ explores the lives of the great formalist gardeners\, from Le Nôtre at Versailles to the rational English minimalism of contemporary designer Christopher BradleyHole. ‘Gardens of Curves’ begins with that great exponent of the English landscapegarden\, ‘Capability’ Brown\, and leads to the extraordinary Brazilian designer Roberto Burle Marx. Finally\, ‘Gardens of Plantsmanship’ moves from the father of naturalistic planting\, William Robinson\, to the sweeping prairies of New York’s favourite Dutch designer\, Piet Oudolf. \n\n\n\nAuthor Stephen Anderton is a journalist\, author\, lecturer and broadcaster. Best known as The Times’s long-standing writer on gardens and gardening (for which he has three times won first prize in the Garden Writers’ Guild awards)\, he worked for many years on the care and restoration of historic gardens\, latterly as National Gardens Manager for English Heritage. His books include Discovering Welsh Gardens and Christopher Lloyd: Great Dixter. \n\n\n\nStephen Anderton will be in conversation with Vanessa Berridge. \n\n\n\nSponsored by Monart Spa \n\n\n\nTickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)
URL:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/event/stephen-anderton-the-lives-of-the-great-gardeners/
LOCATION:The Dorford Centre\, 2 Bridport Road\, Dorchester\, Dorset\, DT1 1RR\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Adult
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/The-Lives-of-the-Great-Gardeners-pbk-jacket-scaled.jpg
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR