Dulwich Books Festival March 2012

March 2012 is a month of celebrating the cultural world of books in all its aspects. Dulwich Books Festival is a programme of author events and workshops. There are sessions about children's writing, visits from best-selling novelists, and headline, non-fiction authors. March will also see the return of our Saturday morning Storytelling for children.

We have 11 events beginning on March 1st, so take a look at the list below (it's in date order) and sign up for the ones you want to come along to.

Breaking into Children's Fiction
with Sarwat Chadda and Steve Feasey
Thursday 1st March 8pm

Tickets £15 which includes a copy of The Children's Writers' and Artists' Yearbook 2012 (published price £14.99) March 1st is World Book Day and as part of the celebrations we have invited two outstanding Young Adult authors, Sarwat Chadda and Steve Feasey to discuss how to become a children's author. The workshop will include a guide to submitting manuscripts and how understanding the book industry really helps. There will be ample opportunity to put your questions to the authors.

The workshop will be of direct interest to writers looking to break in children's publishing and to those just curious to know how it all works

Tickets are available at the bookshop, you can reserve a ticket by emailing dulwichbooks@yahoo.co.uk or buy online by following this LINK

This workshop is supported by The Publishing Training Centre the UK's foremost provider of training for the publishing industry

Children's Writers and Illustrators in South London Workshop
Saturday 3rd March 10am-4pm Open to all, tickets not needed
For the first Saturday of the Dulwich Books Festival local authors from CWISL will be taking over our children's section with storytelling, activities, workshops and much more. This will be a real hands on, get involved session, that your under 12's will relish.

CWISL is an active group of about 20 contemporary children’s writers and illustrators formed in the early summer of 2006 to support and promote good children’s books and their authors and illustrators.

An Evening with Clare Jacob
Tuesday 6th March 8pm
Tickets £10 which includes a copy of Clare Jacob's novel Ophelia in Pieces and we will be serving Tapas and Drinks
Join us for an evening with barrister-turned-author Clare Jacob, who will be discussing her debut novel Ophelia in Pieces, a story of love, life and law set in Camberwell. Rumpole meets Almodovar in this fast moving portrait of London legal life.

We're big Clare Jacob fans at Dulwich Books and held a party last summer when her novel was first published. She's a very engaging presenter and sweeps you into Ophelia's world.

On the eve of her 39th birthday, barrister Ophelia Dormandy decides she is going to make amends. Tonight, after months of late nights at her desk, she’s going to return home early, cook a special supper – maybe wear that red dress Patrick once said he liked...but Ophelia is in for a shock. Her home life implodes and work soon follows suit – before long, she’s broke, drinking too much and falling for a client of questionable innocence. And then she is faced with the most serious trial of her life, when a disgruntled defendant comes back to haunt her, threatening everything that she holds dear.

Tickets are available at the bookshop, you can reserve a ticket by emailing dulwichbooks@yahoo.co.uk or buy online by following this LINK

In Conversation: Vicky Pryce and John Lanchester
Thursday 8th March 7.30pm
Venue: Wodehouse Library, Dulwich College
Tickets £10 - refreshments included - all profits go to The Dulwich Helpline

Leading economist Vicky Pryce will be interviewing Whoops! author, John Lanchester, on economics and literature, focusing on his new book, Capital.

Whoops explored the credit crunch and the history of Western progress from the Cold War to the War on Terror and how this correlates with economic developments. Lanchester believes we are hard-wired to make economic mistakes because we make assumptions of rational conduct that do not always pay off – literally. The video of his talk to the RSA in February 2010 can be viewed here

In Capital John turns to fiction with is a post-crash state-of-the nation novel told with compassion and humour, featuring a cast of characters that you will be sad to leave behind.

Tickets are available at the bookshop, you can reserve a ticket by emailing dulwichbooks@yahoo.co.uk or buy online by following this LINK

The Letters and Diaries of Kathleen Ferrier with Christopher Fifield
Tuesday 13th March 8pm
Tickets £10 - refreshments included

Conductor of the Lambeth Orchestra, Christopher Fifield gives a unique and fascinating view into the personal life of contralto Kathleen Ferrier.

Born in 1912 Ferrier achieved an international reputation as a stage, concert and recording artist, with a repertoire extending from folksong and popular ballads to the classical works of Bach, Brahms, Mahler and Elgar. Her death from cancer, at the height of her fame, was a shock to the musical world and particularly to the general public, which was kept in ignorance of the nature of her illness until after her death. 

Christopher Fifield is known for his exploration of neglected compositions, often from the 19th century Romantic repertoire. He is also known to the classical music listening public for his concert intermission talks from The Proms and other broadcasts for BBC Radio 3, the BBC World Service, and Classic FM.

Christopher has also authored biographies of Max Bruch, Hans Richter. His most recent book is a meticulously researched history of the Ibbs and Tillett, classical music artists and management agency.

2012 is the 100^th anniversary of Kathleen Ferrier’s birth and so it is a good time revisit her life and times.

Tickets are available at the bookshop, you can reserve a ticket by emailing dulwichbooks@yahoo.co.uk or buy online by following this LINK

An Evening with John Walsh in Conversation with Nick Cohen
Wednesday 14th March 2012 8pm
Tickets £10 - refreshments included

Columnist for the Independent John Walsh hosts an evening with special guest Nick Cohen. Nick Cohen is a journalist, author and political commentator, he is currently a columnist for The Observer, a blogger for The Spectator and TV critic for Standpoint magazine. He formerly wrote for the London Evening Standard and the New Statesman.


The focus of the evening will be You Can't Read This Book: Censorship in the Age of Freedom

Nick’s previous four books are: Cruel Britannia: Reports on the Sinister and the Preposterous (1999), a collection of his journalism; Pretty Straight Guys (2003), a highly critical account of the New Labour project; What's Left? (2007), where he describes as the story of how the liberal left of the 20th century came to support the far right of the 21st; and Waiting for the Etonians: Reports from the Sickbed of Liberal England (2009). You can find a collection of his current writing on his blog HERE

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of Communism, and the advent of the Web which allowed for even the smallest voice to be heard, everywhere you turned you were told that we were living in an age of unparalleled freedom. You Can't Read This Book argues that this view is dangerously naive. From the revolution in Iran that wasn't, to the Great Firewall of China and the imposition of super-injunctions from the filthy rich protecting their privacy, the traditional opponents of freedom of speech - religious fanaticism, plutocratic power and dictatorial states - are thriving, and in many respects finding the world a more comfortable place in the early 21st century than they did in the late 20th.

Tickets are available at the bookshop, you can reserve a ticket by emailing dulwichbooks@yahoo.co.uk or buy online by following this LINK

"From Our Own Correspondents" with Colin Freeman, Richard Hamilton and Mary Harper

Thursday 15th March 2012 7.30pm

Venue: Wodehouse Library, Dulwich College
Tickets £10 - refreshments included - all profits go to The Dulwich Helpline

Join the BBC Journalists, Richard Hamilton, Mary Harper, and Sunday Telegraph Foreign Correspondent, Colin Freeman to talk about their latest books and also discuss their careers and the issues of the day.

About Richard Hamilton's The Last Storytellers - Marrakesh is the heart and lifeblood of Morocco's ancient storytelling tradition. For nearly a thousand years, storytellers have gathered in the Jemaa el Fna, the legendary square of the city, to recount ancient folktales and fables to rapt audiences. But this unique chain of oral tradition that has passed seamlessly from generation to generation is teetering on the brink of extinction.

Mary Harper – Getting Somalia Wrong. Somalia is a comprehensively failed state, representing a threat to itself, its neighbours and the wider world. In recent years, it has also opened up as a new 'southern front' in the war on terror. In Getting Somalia Wrong, is the first comprehensive analysis of the chaos into which the country has descended and the United States' renewed involvement there. The book also shows that though Somalia may be a failed state, it is far from being a failed society; in fact alternative forms of business, justice, education and local politics have survived and even flourished

After his bodyguards double-cross him, journalist Colin Freeman finds himself captured by Somali pirates - beginning a nightmare 40 days in the hands of some of the most dangerous men in the world. It is a terrifying experience - the gang's hideout is attacked by rival pirates, Freeman is threatened with being handed over to Islamists who wish to execute him and he constantly fears death at the hands of his constantly drug-addled captors. But he survives - thinner, greyer and wiser - to tell the tale of an astonishing adventure in a surprisingly funny and fond way.

Join in the debate sign up for what will prove an engaging, stimulating and entertaining evening

Tickets are available at the bookshop, you can reserve a ticket by emailing dulwichbooks@yahoo.co.uk or buy online by following this LINK

Saturday 17th March at Noon
The Thoughtful Bread Company comes to Dulwich
Bread Revolution is the first book proudly authored by Duncan Glendinning and Patrick Ryan of award-winning eco-artisan bakery The Thoughtful Bread Company.

The Bread Revolution is a call to arms, encouraging all of us to think again about baking our own loaves. It demystifies the whole process, offering an easy repertoire of delicious savoury breads and sweet dough treats, plus down-to-earth tips.

Its 60 inspiring recipes range from soda bread to potato and rosemary, healthy multi-seed wholemeal to an amazing sourdough that can fit in your busy schedule. Central to the book is the idea that bread can be a meal in itself, with ideas for quick lunches, children's teas and evening meals. Plus cinnamon Danish pastries and hot cross buns, and a host of thrifty recipes for your bread leftovers, from summer gazpacho to winter-warming bread and butter pudding

Enter our bread making competition
Duncan and Patrick will demonstrate how easy it is to make without additives - we are rather hoping they will be bringing samples BUT we want you to bring your self-baked bread and enter it into a competition that Duncan and Patrick will judge.

The competition will have two categories, one for bakers who are 14 or younger and one from bakers older than 14. Bake and bring and hear what the experts think! There might even be prizes!

And throughout the month....
Storytelling with Vanessa Woolf

Three Saturdays - 10th, 17th and 24th March 10.30am Free - just turn up and join in 45 enthralling minutes for the sevens and unders. 

Back by popular demand three Saturdays with the London Storyteller herself - Vanessa Woolf at Dulwich Books.