| 504 |
Lynda Murphy and Julie Rugg |
A Food Lover’s Treasury |
10am |
Festival Room 1, Christ Church |
£7.50 |
| |
|
** CANCELLED**
“I not only think about food all day,” said Henry Miller, “but I dream
about it all night.” In their hugely entertaining book, Lynda Murphy
and Julie Rugg have trawled through literature to unearth a feast
of literary gems about food, in a treasury that will appeal to all
foodies looking for a good excuse to re-read some of their favourite
classics. These extracts – some funny, some tragic, and some downright
bizarre – demonstrate that food is one of the great overlooked themes
of literature. |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 534 |
Abbot Christopher Jamison |
Finding Happiness |
10am |
Garden Marquee, Christ Church |
£7.50 |
| |
 |
Why
is ‘being happy’ such an imperative nowadays?
What meaning do people give happiness? Questioning the often unsatisfactory
prescription offered by modern consumer culture, Christopher Jamison,
abbot of the Benedictine monastery of Worth, looks to the older,
more modulated monastic tradition for answers. Examing in turn each
different aspect of the idea of happiness, he explains what monastic
wisdom has to say about them, and offers us steps towards our own
journey to finding happiness.
www.thetablet.co.uk |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 510 |
Stuart Sillars |
The Illustrated Shakespeare, 1709–1875 |
10am |
Blue Boar Marquee, Christ Church |
£7.50 |
| |
|
Building
on his earlier book Painting Shakespeare, Stuart Sillars’s The Illustrated
Shakespeare, 1709 – 1875 takes a fresh look at the tradition of
visual criticism and assimilation of Shakespeare’s plays. In his
talk based on his highly illustrated book, he helps us to see what
Shakespeare’s readers saw when they opened their editions across
two centuries and found images as well as dialogue.
Sponsored by Belgravia
Gallery |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 514 |
John Carey / Peter Kemp |
Work in Progress – William Golding |
10am |
The Newman Rooms |
£7.50 |
| |
|
Peter Kemp will talk to John Carey about his new book
William Golding, The Man Who Wrote Lord of the Flies, to be published
by Faber and Faber on 3 September.
Carey's is the first biography of the Nobel-Prize-winning novelist
and it is based on a huge, previously unexamined archive of manuscripts
held by Golding's family, which includes three unpublished novels,
early drafts of published works, and a two-and-a-half million word
journal that Golding kept for 20 years, giving a day-by-day account
of the composition of his novels and of his private disasters and
triumphs.
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 516 |
Templar Publishing presents… Emma Dodd |
Miaow Said the Cow |
10am |
Music Room, Christ Church |
£2.50 |
| |
|
Hens
oinking, sheep barking and mice mooing ... Find out why there are
funny farmyard sounds with author/illustrator Emma Dodd who will
be reading and drawing pictures from her new book, Miaow Said the
Cow. Practise your own animal noises and be ready for some audience
participation!
Sponsored by Critchleys |
Under 5s 30 minutes |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 526 |
Walking Tour - Political Oxford |
|
11am-1pm |
Meet at the entrance to Meadow Buildings,
Christ Church |
£16.00 |
| |
|
Oxford has always been an important political centre
and the University can count among its alumni 24 British Prime Ministers
and the Heads of State of many other nations including Bill Clinton.
The tour starts at Christ Church, proceeds to the Bodleian, Sheldonian
and Balliol College. Balliol has produced eminent public figures,
not least Edward Heath, Roy Jenkins and the current Chancellor of
the University, Chris Patten. |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 551 |
Sarah Hall |
How to Paint a Dead Man |
12pm |
Blue Boar Marquee, Christ Church |
£7.50 |
| |
|
Covering half a century, the award-winning novelist Sarah Hall
brings us a luminous and searching novel which opens in Italy in the
early 1960’s.
A dying painter considers the sacrifices and losses that have made
him an enigma. He begins his last life painting using the same objects
he has painted obsessively throughout his career – a small group
of bottles. In Cumbria 30 years later, a landscape artist and admirer
of the Italian recluse, enters the story.
Events then move to present-day London, and a world of darkness and
sexual abandon.
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 503 |
Claire Harman |
Jane’s Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered the
World |
12pm |
McKenna Room, Christ Church |
£7.50 |
| |
|
The author of acclaimed lives of Robert Louis Stevenson
and Fanney Burney, Claire Harman is one of our most accomplished biographers.
In her new book, she takes an intriguing new approach to Jane Austen,
concentrating on so much on the woman as the reputation. Tracing the
growth of Austen’s fame, and the changing status of her work in English
culture in the last 200 years, Harman examines her conversion into
a classic English author in the twentieth century, and the critical
wars that erupted as a consequence. The result is a refreshing new
view of a much tilled subject. |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 505 |
Helen Rappaport |
Ekaterinburg: The Last Days of the Romanovs |
12pm |
Festival Room 1, Christ Church |
£7.50 |
| |
|
Ever since 1918, mystery and conjecture has surrounded
the death of Tsar Nicholas II and his family. In her highly involving
book, Helen Rappaport offers an intimate account of the last days
of their lives, from the day a new commandant took control of them
in their closely guarded house in Ekaterinburg, to the moment they
were gunned down in the house’s basement thirteen days later. Marshalling
overlooked evidence from key witnesses, and challenging accounts of
their death, Rappaport brings those final tragic days vividly alive |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 511 |
Henry Hitchings |
The Secret Life of Words |
12pm |
Festival Room 2, Christ Church |
£7.50 |
| |
|
How often do you stop to think about where the words
we use have come from, or which words in English have been borrowed
from Arabic, French or even Dutch? In this award-winning book, a work
of great precision, clarity and grace, and the first work of non-fiction
to have won the prestigious John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, Henry Hitchings
delves into our promiscuous language and reveals how and why it has
absorbed words from more than 350 languages. |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 517 |
Templar Publishing presents… Emma Dodd |
Miaow Said the Cow |
12pm |
Music Room, Christ Church |
£2.50 |
| |
|
Hens
oinking, sheep barking and mice mooing ... Find out why there are
funny farmyard sounds with author/illustrator Emma Dodd who will
be reading and drawing pictures from her new book, Miaow Said the
Cow. Practise your own animal noises and be ready for some audience
participation!
Sponsored by Critchleys |
Under 5s 30 minutes |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 521 |
Colin Dexter and Laura Thompson |
“The Final Curtain?” |
12pm |
Garden Marquee, Christ Church |
£7.50 |
| |
|
Agatha
Christie apparently grew to dislike her famous detective Hercule
Poirot; Sir Arthur Conan Doyle only resurrected Sherlock Holmes
when forced to by popular demand. How best to draw the final curtain
on a popular character or leave a door open for return is discussed
by Colin Dexter, creator of the equally famous Morse, and Laura
Thompson, biographer of the queen of crime writing, Agatha Christie.
Sponsored the The
Macdonald Randolph Hotel
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 524 |
Writing for a Change - Responses to Climate
Change |
John Ashton, Peter Gingold, Jay Griffiths,
Philip Pullman |
12pm |
Newman Rooms, St Aldates |
£8.00 |
| |
|
Why has the artistic and particularly the written response
to climate change been so muted? Is a new self-awareness going to
be motivated more by fiction than by the writing of activists or is
this not the role of the writer? With authors Philip Pullman and Jay
Griffiths, John Ashton (the government’s Special Representative for
Climate Change) and Peter Gingold, Executive Director of Tipping Point.
Chaired by Georgina Ferry, science writer and author of Max Perutz
and the Secret of Life. |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 525 |
Walking Tour - Literary Oxford |
|
2-4pm |
Meet at the entrance to Magdalen College,
High Street |
£15.00 |
| |
|
Explore Oxford Colleges in the footsteps of famous
writers and poets. Start at Magdalen, home to John Betjeman and C.S.Lewis,
and walk through University College and Queen’s, ending up at
Merton, the College of Max Beerbohm and T.S. Eliot. On the way enjoy
readings from the poetry and prose of writers who have lived in and
written about the city and the University. |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 501 |
Rory McGrath |
Bearded Tit: A Love Story with Feathers |
2pm |
Hall, Christ Church |
£8.00 |
| |
|
Bearded Tit is comedian Rory McGrath's story of life
among birds - from a Cornish boyhood wandering gorse-tipped cliffs
listening to the song of the yellowhammer with his imaginary girlfriend,
to quoting the Latin names of birds to give himself a fighting chance
of a future with JJ - the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. Thoroughly
educational, occasionally lyrical and often highly amusing, the result
is a gag-ridden memoir that is both disarming and often surprisingly
moving. |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 506 |
Jill Dawson |
The Great Lover |
2pm |
Festival Room 1, Christ Church |
£7.50 |
| |
|
In this intriguing new novel from the author of the
Whitbread and Orange-shortlisted Fred and Edie, Jill Dawson reimagines
the life of poet Rupert Brooke through the eyes of one of his young
lovers. Nell Golightly is living out her old age in a Cambridgeshire
village when she receives a letter from a Tahitian woman claiming
to be his daughter and wanting to know all about him. What, she asks,
did he sound like and smell like, and how did it feel to wrap your
arms around him? Nell’s memories of her life as a young housemaid
and her encounters with Brooke reveal him as a far more interesting,
complex and troubled figure than the romanticised version allows.
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 522 |
Strong Women |
Becky Abrams, Miri Rubin, Bettany Hughes
and Anna Whitelock.
Chaired by Libby Purves |
2pm |
McKenna Room, Christ Church |
£7.50 |
| |
|
What makes women strong, and how do we define a strong
woman? How has the perception of the role of women - strong or weak
- changed through history to the present day? A wide-ranging and fascinating
discussion with Becky Abrams, author of Woman in a Man’s World,
historians Bettany Hughes and Anna Whitelock, authors, respectively,
of Helen of Troy and Mary Tudor: England’s First Queen and Miri
Rubin, author of Mother of God: A History of the Virgin Mary. The
event is chaired by writer and broadcaster Libby Purves.
Sponsored by FelicityBryan Literary Agency
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 536 |
Kenneth Powell |
Powell and Moya |
2pm |
Blue Boar Marquee, Christ Church |
£7.50 |
| |
|
Powell
and Moya were one of Britain’s most significant postwar architectural
practices, and in this comprehensive and engaging book, their history
has been chronicled for the first time the eminent architectural
author and critic Kenneth Powell.
Founded in 1946, the practice rapidly established a reputation
for an approach best described as ‘humane modernism’.
Structured by building type, this book reveals the principles
of design particular to Powell and Moya and tells how they were
at the forefront of hospital design and succeeded in bringing modernism
to Oxford and Cambridge.
Sponsored by Purcell
Miller Tritton
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 532 |
C J Sansom interviewed by Peter Kemp |
Revelation |
2pm |
Garden Marquee, Christ Church |
£7.50 |
| |
|
C
J Sansom has become, in very quick time, one of Britain’s
most popular and accomplished historical crime writers, whose gripping
Shardlake series explore in thrilling detail the sinister underside
of Tudor England. Set in 1543 as Henry VIII attempts to woo Lady
Catherine Parr, Revelation centres on a series of chilling murders,
all of which seem to have the Book of Revelation as their inspiration.
As London prepares for a purge of Protestants, hunchback lawyer
Matthew Shardlake vows to bring the killer to justice. CJ Sansom
talks to Sunday Times Fiction Editor Peter Kemp.
Sponsored the The
Macdonald Randolph Hotel |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 538 |
Graham Farmelo interviewed by John Carey |
The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul
Dirac, Quantum Genius |
2pm |
Newman Rooms, St Aldates |
£7.50 |
| |
|
Paul Dirac was probably the greatest British scientist
since Newton. A pioneer of quantum mechanics, regarded by many as
an equal of Albert Einstein, he was the youngest man to win the
Nobel Prize for Physics. He was a chronically shy and retiring man
whose childhood and later life was shadowed by tragedy. Drawing
on a previously undiscovered archive of family papers in Florida,
Graham Farmelo celebrates Dirac’s massive scientific achievements
and also paints a moving portrait of this remarkable and flawed
of men. Here Graham Farmelo talks to Sunday Times' Chief Critic
John Carey. |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 554 |
Bernard Donoughue and Shirley Williams |
Downing Street Diary: With James Callaghan
in No. 10
Volume Two |
3.30pm |
Garden Marquee, Christ Church |
£7.50 |
| |
 |
Bernard Donoughue wrote the book, but Shirley Williams is one
of the important figures that feature in the Downing Street Diary
that covers the years 1976-79, which is why she joins him to discuss
this, Volume Two of the series. Likened to Pepys’s diary,
and written when Bernard Donoughue was Senior Policy Advisor to
James Callaghan, this historic record gives a day-by-day (and often
minute-by-minute) account of the tumultuous events unfolding within
Downing Street as Britain plunged into the Winter of Discontent.
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 553 |
James Le Fanu and Rupert Sheldrake
Chaired by Alister McGrath |
The Mystery of Science:
Biology, Faith and Ethics |
4pm |
Newman Rooms, St Aldates |
£7.50 |
| |
 |
Is there ‘more than we know’ emerging from the Human
Genome Project and advance in brain imaging? Will Darwin’s
materialist evolutionary theory be eclipsed? James Le Fanu, author
of Why Us: How Science Rediscovered the Mystery of Ourselves, and
Rupert Sheldrake, author of ten books including the best-selling
Dogs that Know When Their Owners are Coming Home in discussion with
Alister McGrath, Head of The Centre for Theology, Religion and Culture
at Kings College, London.
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 546 |
Gillian Tindall |
Footprints in Paris |
4pm |
Festival Room 1, Christ Church |
£7.50 |
| |
|
This unique and intensely involving book evokes the texture and
atmosphere of a hidden Paris that has survived against all the odds
of time and chance. Using a handful of lives and a specific location
to exemplify 200 years of history, Gillian Tindall focuses on a few
of the oldest streets in Paris’s Latin Quarter.
Her study shows how Paris has drawn into its magnetic field people
who have variously found there education or enlightenment, a refuge
or a secret garden and sometimes even a different identity.
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 507 |
Tim Skelton & Gerald Gliddon |
Lutyens and the Great War |
4pm |
Blue Boar Marquee, Christ Church |
£7.50 |
| |
|
Although
Sir Edwin Lutyens is commonly celebrated for his large houses for
wealthy clients, much of his most poignant work was designed in
connection with the First World War and remains relatively unknown
today. In this intriguing talk, Tim Skelton and Gerald Gliddon explore
this under-explored side of one of Britain’s greatest 20th-century
architects, taking us from the Cenotaph in Whitehall and the nation’s
largest war memorial – the Memorial to the Missing of the Somme
at Thiepval – to some of the fifty memorials that he designed in
cities, towns and villages in Britain and abroad.
Sponsored by Purcell
Miller Tritton
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 523 |
Rebecca Abrams and Ann Lingard |
Science and History in Fiction |
4pm |
McKenna Room, Christ Church |
£7.50 |
| |
|
How
do fiction writers research scientific and historical facts for
their novels, and how important is factual accuracy? Do fact and
fiction make conflicting claims on a novelist - or does the power
of the story inevitably take over? These are just some of the issues
raised by novelist and journalist Rebecca Abrams (Touching Distance)
and novelist and scientist Ann Lingard (The Embalmer's Book of Recipes),
in discussion. Chaired by Jim Bennett, Director of the Museum of
the History of Science.
Sponsored the The
Macdonald Randolph Hotel |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 528 |
Anthony Kenny |
Philosophy in the Modern World |
4pm |
Festival Room 2, Christ Church |
£7.50 |
| |
|
Former president of the British Academy, current president
of the Royal Institute of Philosophy, and one of the executor’s
of Wittgenstein’s literary estate, Anthony Kenny is one of our
most distinguished philosophers. He is also an ideal guide to some
of philosophy’s thornier issues. Drawing on the fourth volume
in his history of western philosophy, Kenny offers a lively overview
of some of the key questions that have preoccupied modern philosophical
inquiry, from Kierkegaard onwards. |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 529 |
THE ORWELL PRIZE: Screening of NINETEEN
EIGHTY-FOUR (1984) |
followed by Q&A with Director, Mike Radford |
4pm |
Christ Church Cathedral School, Brewer Street |
£8.00 |
| |
|
“The year of the movie, the movie of the year.”
Sixty years after the publication of Orwell's seminal dystopian
novel, and 25 years after the release of this award-winning film,
director Mike Radford answers questions following a screening of
his work. The film's stars include John Hurt as Winston Smith and
Richard Burton as O'Brien.

|
NOTE: THIS FILM HAS A '15' RATING. |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 535 |
Gloria Hunniford |
Always With You |
4pm |
Hall, Christ Church |
£8.00 |
| |
|
When her 41-year-old daughter, Caron Keating, died
in April 2004 after a secret seven-year battle with cancer, Gloria
Hunniford was consumed with grief. In this moving talk, she reveals
the desperation she felt after Caron’s death, and the acute
loneliness she experienced, and how the letters she received from
fellow grievers helped her through some of her darkest days. The black
hole, she explains, is still there, sometimes as big as ever, but
she has found a way to live with it and around it. |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 552 |
|
Gillian Clarke with Peter Buckroyd introduced
by Peter McDonald |
5pm |
Music Room, Christ Church |
£5.00 |
| |
|
This
event is intended primarily for teachers of poetry for the 15-18
year-old age group. Gillian Clarke (many students' favourite poet
and a key AQA poety) will discuss the teaching of poetry with Dr
Peter Buckroyd, previously Chief Examiner, AQA GCSE English, and
the audience.
To be followed by a complimentary drink and nibbles to allow for
informal discussion.
Sponsored by Tower
Poetry
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 539 |
Sade Adeniran, Hisham Matar and CS Richardson
Chaired by Mark Collins |
Books in Crisis: How Do We get the Next
Generation Reading? |
5pm |
JCR, Christ Church |
£6.50 |
| |
|
The story is an international language, and as
we all know, the role it plays in learning is significant. But with
the growing influence of the internet and online content in abundance,
are today’s young people missing out? What are the consequences
of a society that reads fewer novels? The Commonwealth Writers’
Prize aims to encourage wider readership and greater literacy through
the promotion of books from across the 53 countries of the Commonwealth.
Join the panel of CWP-winning authors Sade Adeniran from Nigeria
(2008 Africa Best First Book winner with Imagine This), Hisham Matar
from the UK (2007 Europe and South Asia Best First book winner with
In the Country of Men) and CS Richardson from Canada (2007 Canada
and Caribbean Best First Book winner with The End of the Alphabet)
who will read from their work, and discuss these recent trends in
reading habits worldwide and what the consequences might mean for
the future of writers, cultures and literacy. Chaired by Mark Collins,
Director of the Commonwealth Foundation.
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 537 |
Mark Maslin |
Global Warming: A Very Short Introduction |
5.15pm |
Blackwell Festival Bookshop Meadows Marquee,
Christ Church |
Free |
| |
|
Global
warming is arguably the most critical and controversial issue facing
the world in the twenty-first century. Climate change expert Mark
Maslin will briefly examine the key topics in the environmental debate
- from the political controversies to proposed solutions such as carbon
trading. |
10 mins |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 547 |
David & James Livingston |
Blood Over Water |
6pm |
Blue Boar Marquee |
£7.50 |
| |
|
On a blustery, overcast April day in 2003, brothers David and James
Livingston raced against each other in the 149th Oxford-Cambridge
Boat Race, watched by more than 8 million people. It was the first
time that brothers had battled each other in this gladiatorial and
quintessentially British tradition for more than 100 years. Only one
could be victorious. In this book, David, who followed his family’s
footsteps by entering Cambridge, and James who went to Oxford, tell
their stories, giving a locker-room insight into one of the least
understood national sporting occasions. |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 544 |
Yaba Badoe, Rounke Coker and Uchenna Izundu |
African Family and Cultural Traditions |
6.pm |
Mckenna Room, Christ Church |
£7.50 |
| |
|
African family values will be examined from within by writers
writing away from the continent and a publisher devoted to championing
the good as well as the 'not so good' images of Africa to an international
readership. The panel will focus on the African family in all its
ramifications and complexities in a way that will provide a significant
set of insights into these relationships. With Yaba Badoe, Rounke
Coker and Uchenna Izundu. Chaired by Becky Ayebia Clarke of publisher
Ayebia. www.ayebia.co.uk
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 502 |
PASSING ON THE WORD |
PHILIP PULLMAN, KATIE WALDEGRAVE, WILLIAM
FIENNES, FRANCES WILSON |
6pm |
Hall, Christ Church |
£7.50 |
| |
|
‘Having
been a teacher myself,’ writes Philip Pullman, ‘I know
how writing – real writing, not the artificial exercises produced
for tests and examinations – can liberate and strengthen young
people’s sense of themselves as almost nothing else can.’
For this reason, he and a host of other leading authors –
Romesh Gunesekera, Mark Haddon, Helen Simpson and Zadie Smith among
them – have been lending their support to First Story, a new
initiative arranging and paying for acclaimed writers to work in
state schools across the country as writers-in-residence. In an
event organised jointly by First Story and The Royal Society of
Literature, Pullman explains why children thrive on creative writing,
and invites Katie Waldegrave to tell First Story’s story.
William Fiennes, prize-winning author of The Snow Geese and The
Music Room, joins acclaimed biographer Frances Wilson in discussing
the rewards and challenges of working in ‘difficult’
schools, and pupils from Highbury Grove School and Cranford Community
College read from their work, and talk about it with Philip.
In association with Royal Society
of Literature |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 508 |
Anna Nicholas |
Cat on a Hot Tiled Roof |
6pm |
Festival Room 1, Christ Church |
£7.50 |
| |
|
Coming
to grips with phantom sheep, midnight snail hunts, Catalan lessons,
ghosts, floods and flighty hens are all part of PR consultant Anna
Nicholas’ new world, when she moves her family to rural Mallorca
to escape the stresses of London life. What she has not told her
long-suffering husband and son, though, is that she is harbouring
a bizarre dream to open a luxury cattery on the island, despite
the fact she is continuing to commute back to her Mayfair agency
to earn a crust. This witty and heart-warming memoir celebrates
the highs and lows of downshifting, and the perils and pleasures
of life in rural Spain.
Sponsored by Cox
& Kings |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 512 |
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown |
The Settler’s Cookbook |
6pm |
Festival Room 2, Christ Church |
£7.50 |
| |
|
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown’s family history is one
of constant displacement and repeated relocation, in which the feeling
of being settled has come, not from putting down roots, but from
taking up a pot and creating a feast that tastes and smells like
home. The Settler’s Cookbook, traces the long journey of the
East African Indians through famine, persecution and upheaval.
Warm, enchanting and evocative, this is the cultural and culinary
history of the people, and the recipes and stories they passed on
which continue to feed and inspire friends and relatives to this
day. |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 517 |
Donna Dickenson, Susie Orbach and Ray Tallis |
Are You your Body? |
6pm |
Newman Rooms, St Aldates |
£7.50 |
| |
|
Over the past decade the pressure to perfect and redesign
our bodies has been unprecedented. So has the commercialisation of
the human body from BC to AD--before conception to after death. Is
your body a capital investment? Is it just another consumer item?
Is it 'the real you'? Or are we really our minds rather than our bodies?
Join Donna Dickenson (Body Shopping: Converting Body Parts to Profit),
Susie Orbach (Bodies) and Ray Tallis (The Kingdom of Infinite Space)
for a wide-ranging discussion. |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 527 |
Tamasin Day-Lewis, Kit Hesketh-Harvey, Sam
Leith, Harry Mount, Sarah Sands and A N Wilson. Quizmaster James Walton |
The Reader's Digest Word Power Quiz. |
6pm |
Garden Marquee, Christ Church |
£8.00 |
| |
|
Big
names from the Reader’s Digest will test their knowledge and love
of words in the first ever Reader’s Digest Word Power Quiz.
Two teams will compete to win the Word Power laurels and we expect
the competition to be fast and furious. Joining us are Tamasin Day-Lewis
(cookery writer, film-maker and RD columnist), Kit Hesketh-Harvey
(Kit of Kit and the Widow, lyricist and RD contributor), Sam Leith
(author and RD contributor), Harry Mount (author and editor of the
Word Power column), Sarah Sands (Editor-in-Chief of RD) and A N Wilson
(author and RD Literary critic).
Our quizmaster is the writer and broadcaster James Walton, another
RD contributor, who’ll be setting the questions and keeping score
will be RD researcher Rachael Adams.
And audience members will have a chance to demonstrate some Word Power
of their own with prizes for the winners. |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 520 |
Ben Crystal |
Shakespeare on Toast: Getting a Taste for
the Bard |
7pm |
Blackwell, 48-51 Broad Street |
£7.50 |
| |
|
Shakespearean actor Ben Crystal brings the language
and colourful characters of the world’s greatest writer to life. In
his lighthearted but highly accessible book, he opens the door to
a fresh understanding of Shakespeare’s plays, helps us negotiate our
way through his more challenging writing, and makes him newly accessible
and relevant. As The Independent said of the book, “Having Crystal
as a companion through the stickier parts of Hamlet and Macbeth is
like going to the theatre with an intelligent friend.” |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 533 |
Desmond Guinness |
Dinner |
7pm Drinks Reception, 7.30pm Dinner |
Freind Room |
£99.00 |
| |
|
The Hon. Desmond Guinness has spent a lifetime visiting
decayed and remote historic houses all over Ireland - as well as meeting
their remarkable and eccentric owners. After a splendid Christ Church
dinner in the 18thcentury Lee Building, Mr Guinness will share his
memories of great irish eccentrics and their homes. Includes drinks
reception, 3-course dinner, wine and coffee. Only 40 places are available,
so please book as early as possible.
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 543 |
Howard Jacobson |
The Act of Love |
8pm |
Hall, Christ Church |
£8.00 |
| |
|
Celebrated novelist Howard Jacobson talks about adultery in his
new novel The Act of Love. Described as a tour de force by Harold
Pinter, The Act of Love is a story about sexual obsession. Shocking,
unashamedly perverse, mordantly funny, and at the last heartbreaking.
The Act of Love tackles one of the last taboos of erotic life.
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 509 |
Bill Heine |
Heinstein of the Airwaves |
8pm |
Festival Room 1, Christ Church |
£7.50 |
| |
|
Oxford BBC Radio broadcaster Bill Heine upset the police
so much when he first took to the air that they refused to speak to
him for two years and stopped giving the Oxford station travel information.
Heinstein of the Airwaves, is a late-in-life coming-of-age story about
pushing the boundaries. It’s a portrait of a place – Oxford
– and the nightmares that lurk among the dreaming spires. It’s
also a picture of a very private person who, very publicly, has a
shark sticking out of his roof. |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 513 |
Ross King and Paul Strathern |
The Artist, The Philosopher and the Warrior |
8pm |
Blue Boar Marquee, Christ Church |
£7.50 |
| |
|
What led Leonardo da Vinci, the exemplar of Renaissance
man, to work for the tyrannical Cesare Borgia in 1502? How did he
become involved with Machiavelli? And what does this brief but striking
interaction of three of the most influential men of the entire Renaissance,tell
us both about the period and about them? In this fascinating discussion
between art historian Ross King and prize-winning historian Paul Strathern
(author of The Artist, the Philosopher and the Warrior), the legacies
of all three men are up for appraisal. |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 519 |
Emmanuel Jal interviewed |
Warchild |
8pm |
Newman Rooms, St Aldates |
£7.50 |
| |
|
Emmanuel Jal was just eight years old when he was taken
from his family home to become a child soldier with the rebel army
in Sudan’s bloody civil war. Beaten, starved and brutalised, Emmanuel
was put into battle in Ethiopia and southern Sudan carrying an AK-47
that was taller than him. Thrown into a desert prison when he attempted
to leave the SPLA, he finally escaped with the help of British Aid
worker, Emma McCune, and is now an internationally acclaimed rap artist
spreading messages of peace and reconciliation with his unique style
of gospel rap.
Supported by Ian and Carol Sellars. |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 542 |
Chris Patten |
What Next? Surviving the 21st Century |
8pm |
Garden Marquee / Christ Church |
£7.50 |
| |
|
Globalisation, energy, international crime, Weapons of Mass
Destruction, nuclear proliferation, small arms proliferation, international
drugs trafficking, climate change, water shortage, migration, epidemic
disease, the fraying of the nation state: the list of challenges
facing our world is itself proliferating rapidly and no one seems
to have much of a grip on what is going on.
Assimilating vast amounts of information from a multiplicity of
sources and drawing on his experience at the highest levels of national
and international politics, Chris Patten’s book analyses what
we know in each of these areas and argues how, in each of them,
we could get somewhere we might want to be.
Supported by Ian and Carol Sellars
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| 531 |
A screening of Arena: Paul Scofield |
introduced by Anthony Wall |
8pm |
Christ Church Cathedral School, Brewer Street
|
£7.50 |
| |
|
Arena
tells the story of the intensely private man who brought to life
some of the world's greatest dramatic literature, most notably with
his revolutionary portrayal of its zenith: King Lear.
BBC |
|
|
|