Brighton Festival 2013: Books & Debate

A range of literarature, spoken wordand discussion

Tracy Chevalier
Girl With The Pearl Earring established Tracy Chevalier as one of our most accomplished and popular writers of historical fiction.

Here she talks about, and reads extracts from her latest book, The Last Runaway, set in 1850s Ohio. The novels follows Honor Bright – a modest English Quaker with a broken heart. Emigrating to Ohio with her sister in the hope of making a new life, she soon discovers that 19th-century America is a hard, precarious place to live. It is divided by slavery, legal in southern states and opposed by many northerners. One day a runaway slave appears in the farmyard of Honor’s new family, and she must decide what to do. Drawn into the clandestine activities of the Underground Railroad, a network of people helping runaways escape to freedom, Honor befriends two surprising women who demonstrate what defiance can achieve. Eventually she must decide if she too can act on what she believes in, whatever the personal costs.
Fri 10 May, 8pm
Theatre Royal Brighton

Lionel Shriver

The New Writing South Annual Lecture
Who Needs Another Book?

“As time goes by, the number of books out there is only greater,” says Lionel Shriver. “It takes nerve to believe that anyone needs another one.” The hardest, most important, but least addressed of the creative process is that unsettled interval when you decide on your next project.

Following the publication of her latest book Big Brother, Lionel Shriver – whose international bestseller whose international bestseller We Need To Talk About Kevin won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2005 – ponders the questions that arise during that murky period. Why did I write the novels I’ve written? What dictates my subject matter? What should dictate my subject matter? With the ever-increasing number of manuscripts circulating, why the fatheaded insistence on writing yet another? And what about those subjects that readers might wish novelists to tackle but which are usually avoided?
Sat 11 May, 3pm
Concert Hall, Brighton Dome

Book Up

Highlights from the BOOKS and debat programme

Damien Barr – Maggie and Me
It’s 12 October 1984. An IRA bomb blows apart the Grand Hotel in Brighton. In small-town Scotland, eight-year-old Damian Barr watches in horror as his mum rips off her wedding ring and packs their bags. He knows that he, like Maggie Thatcher, must survive.

In his new book, Barr shows us how he did survive. He discovers that stories can save your life and – in spite of violence, strikes, AIDS and Clause 28 – manages to fall in love dancing to Madonna in Glasgow’s only gay club. Now a journalist living in Brighton, he talks about his experiences.
Sun 5 May, 12pm, Studio Theatre, Brighton Dome

Ralph Steadman and Ceri Levi – Extinct Boids
When filmmaker and conservationist Ceri Levy asked Ralph Steadman to produce one artwork representing an extinct bird for the exhibition Ghosts of Gone Birds, Steadman said ‘yes’. Then ‘yes’ again…and again… 100 paintings later, Extinct Boids was born.

From the Dodo to the fantastical Needless Smut, the roll-call of lost birds is a thought-provoking artistic journey characterised by Steadman’s fluid and flamboyant style. Extinct Boids details the discoveries they made on their travels through the savage seas of extinction, and highlights the more sober side of Steadman’s keen visual wit.
Sun 5 May, 3.30pm, Corn Exchange, Brighton Dome

Alan Rusbridger and Richard Sennett – Play It Again
In 2010, Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger set himself an almost impossible goal: to learn, in one year, Chopin’s fiendishly difficult Ballade No. 1. He faced a monumental task, both as an amateur pianist but, more especially, as an editor at the time of the Arab Spring, Japanese tsunami, English riots, WikiLeaks and the News of the World hacking scandal.
In his book Play It Again, he relates how he found the right teacher, the right piano and the right fingering; and gained insights and advice from pianists, theorists, historians, neuroscientists, amateurs – even secretaries of state. He talks about the book with the sociologist, author and amateur musician Richard Sennett.
Sat 11 May, 2pm, Theatre Royal Brighton

Polly Morland – The Society for Timid Souls
Polly Morland’s The Society of Timid Souls: Or, How To Be Brave won a Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Award for Non-Fiction in 2011. In it, she set out to conquer some of her own fears and to investigate bravery today. From the battlefield to the circus ring, from the mountain peak to the floor of Parliament, she spoke to people who have epitomized courage in our time and drew upon philosophy, literature, propaganda and popular culture to discover the true meaning of courage and find out how a Timid Soul may become a brave one.
Sun 12 May, 11.30am, Studio Theatre, Brighton Dome

Unbound meets the Catalyst Club
A unique and entertaining collaboration between some of the writers and creators from Unbound publishing and Brighton’s Catalyst Club. Over the course of the night, host David Bramwell, Julie Burchill, Red Dwarf star Robert Llewellyn and QI’s John Mitchinson will inspire you with a 15 minute talk on a topic close to their hearts.
True to Catalyst tradition these topics are kept a closely guarded secret until the night. The Catalyst Club is a popular salon-style event that has been running for nearly ten years and featured over 250 speakers on subjects ranging from bees and the Spartans to vaginas and crème brulee. Unbound is an award-winning pledge-based publishing company co-founded by John Mitchinson. Its authors include Terry Jones, Mrs Stephen Fry and Jonathan Meades.
Mon 20 May, 8pm, Studio Theatre, Brighton Dome