Narc. Magazine Online
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Amy Mitchell looks ahead to Durham Book Festival, featuring some of the UK’s most exciting writers, thinkers, performers and broadcasters, with events exploring literature, politics, history, music and poetry
This weekend’s hot ticket is the lovely Durham Book Festival (Friday 9th October – Sunday 11th October), a long-standing highlight on the cultural calendar up North. This year the festival coincides with the National Year of Reading, a campaign that encourages people to lose themselves in the pages of a book. You may have spotted the sky-blue programme, or a bright yellow copy of Lucy Foley’s The Hunting Party – a locked room mystery which is this year’s Big Read with over 3000 free copies now in libraries, hospitals, local businesses and with students. Lucy (a Sunday Times bestseller) will also be talking on Saturday at the Gala Theatre about her new novel Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel, which sees her picking up the reins of Agatha Christie with a brand-new Miss Marple mystery – an exciting prospect for us armchair detectives. I love the home-grown northern voices feel that runs throughout the programme, featuring big names such as Pet Shop Boys’ Neil Tennant, actor Christopher Eccleston and fantasy novelist Susanna Clarke. Poetry also has a good showing with a Scratch Night kicking things off on Friday and Door-to-Door Poet Rowan McCabe on Saturday with his comedy spoken word show Hard Knocks. Sunday rounds things off with a Poetry Book Society showcase. There really is something for everyone at this year’s festival – folk, feminism, football, fantasy and a Festival Game Jam! And it is worth noting that all of the events are available as a live stream too.
My top picks are an eclectic mix: Jill Dawson’s Pixie – Tarot Evening which is a feminist reclamation of Pamela Colman Smith’s art work and career, Life Writing with Louise Doughty and Nicola Wilding who talk memoir, family history and secrets; Sleep Stories with three short stories inspired by women’s lack-of-sleep crisis and Folklore across Forms which explores myths, witchcraft and fairy tales of the British Isles with female writers – including Aimee MacDonald, a Durham-based Scottish writer whose debut novel The Last Witch on the Knock is top of my to-be-read pile for the autumnal season. Fancy a bookish weekend spent in a dreamy historic city? I’ll see you there.
For tickets and more information, click here.
