11am – The Brewery Tap
Robin Bayley – The Mango Orchard
FREE – (booking required)
As a boy, Robin Bayley loved the stories of his great-grandfather’s Latin American adventures but there was something in these family tales that he felt was missing: the truth. Following in his ancestor’s footsteps, he sets out to discover the real story.
‘A magical Mexican adventure’ The Independent
11am – Quarterhouse
Vampirates!
£5 full / £4 child. / £15 Family*
A swash-buckling, fang-baring adventure story, based on the award-winning novels by Justin Somper.
Twins Grace and Connor Tempest are evicted from their lighthouse home, and separated by a violent storm. Rescued by a notorious pirate ship, the adventure begins!
Age 9+ (*2 adults & 2 Children under 12)
2.30pm – Quarterhouse
Thomas Penn – Winter King: The Dawn of Tudor England
£6 full / £5 conc. / £4 Friends
Whilst studying English at Oxford University, Thomas Penn first encountered the strange, seductive world of Henry VII through the Tudor poet John Skelton. Having gained a PhD in early Tudor history from Cambridge University in 2001, he moved to London, where he works in publishing and remains immersed in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.
Winter King is his first book.
4pm – Quarterhouse
Professor Michael Slater – Dickens’s “picturesque story”:
The writing of A Tale of Two Cities – Festival Read Event
£6 full / £5 conc. / £4 Friends
Professor Michael Slater, Emeritus Professor of Victorian Literature at Birkbeck, University of London and Past President of the International Dickens Fellowship will explore the origins of this most intensely dramatic of all Dickens’s novels. Focusing on the author’s own personal turmoil at the time of writing, and delving into his deep-rooted obsession with prisons and prisoners, his long-standing, passionate admiration for Carlyle’s The French Revolution, the ‘attraction of repulsion’ he felt for anarchic mobs, and a love of France that once moved him to sign a letter ‘Charles Dickens, citoyen français’.
Professor Slater will be signing copies of his latest biography ‘Charles Dickens’.
6pm – Quarterhouse
Wendy Cope – Family Values
£8 full / £7 conc. / £6 Friends
Award winning poet Wendy Cope’s new collection Family Values contains poems about her childhood, many of them rather sad and unhappy…she wouldn’t want anyone to think she was advocating family values as the politicians do. Wendy charms and amuses her audience with her wry, ironic poetry. At times sharp and punchy, at times soft and contemplative,
These new poems will be read alongside a selection of favourites from her previous bestselling collection Two Cures For Love.
8pm – Quarterhouse
Four Poofs & A Piano – Smoke & Mirrorballs
£15 full / £12.50 Friends
Following three sell out shows at the Edinburgh Festival, a successful UK tour and 9 glorious years as House Band for the BAFTA award winning Friday Night With Jonathan Ross on BBC1, the fabulous foursome are raring to go and delighted to present their Edinburgh smash Smoke and Mirrorballs.
The Folkestone Book Festival is a Creative Foundation Project.