Taunton Literary Festival 4-25 November 2023
Welcome to the The Taunton Literary Festival. We are very grateful for the support and association with Taunton Libraries, Climate Action Taunton, The Egyptian Society Taunton, The Tacchi-Morris Arts Centre, the Castle Hotel and Bradleys Estate Agents in Taunton. If you are interested in sponsoring the festival in some way, including individual events, please do get in touch.
Sat 4 Nov 2023, 11.30 am
Vince Cable – How to be a Politician
Venue:Temple Methodist Church, Taunton, Taunton, TA1 3PY
Tickets £9 from: Brendon Books, Bath Place, Taunton TA1 4ER Box Office 01823 337742 or click here for online booking
Structured to follow the arc of a life in politics – from childhood aspirations and first attempts at getting elected, to navigating the back benches, ascending the greasy pole, dealing with detractors, facing crises, and finally escaping – this unique collection weaves together the wittiest, wisest and most acerbic political quotations from the last 2,000 years.Punctuated throughout by candid insights from Sir Vince Cable, How to Be a Politician is a timeless and entertaining education in the dark arts of politics. Sir Vince Cable is the former leader of the Liberal Democrats and served as Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills from 2010 to 2015.
2 pm Sat 4 Nov 2023
Mark Avery – Reflections: What Wildlife Needs and How to Provide It
Venue:Temple Methodist Church, Taunton, Taunton, TA1 3PY
Tickets £9 from: Brendon Books, Bath Place, Taunton TA1 4ER Box Office 01823 337742 or click here for online booking
In this informed, incisive and passionate commentary on the state of nature and conservation, Mark Avery reflects on our relationship with the wildlife around us. From the cats that pass through his garden to the chronic decline of farmland wildlife, from the Pasqueflowers he visits every spring to the proportion of national income devoted to saving nature – everything is connected, and everything is considered.
This book analyses what is wrong with certain ways we do wildlife conservation but explores some of its many successes too.
7 PM Sat 4 November 2023
Damien Lewis – From Desert Rats to Dogs of War: The Mavericks who Made the SAS
Venue:Temple Methodist Church, Taunton, Taunton, TA1 3PY
Tickets £10 from: Brendon Books, Bath Place, Taunton TA1 4ER Box Office 01823 337742 or click here for online booking
In the summer of 1943, the largest invasion fleet ever assembled sailed for fortress Europe, aiming to bulldoze its way onto Nazi shores. At its vanguard went a few hundred elite forces soldiers, the Royal Navy warship carrying them bearing the iconic winged dagger emblem on its prow, plus the motto ‘Who Dares Wins’. Led by the legendary SAS commander Blair ‘Paddy’ Mayne, these war-bitten, piratical raiders were tasked to do the impossible – to bludgeon their way through the most heavily defended enemy shoreline, so enabling the ensuing forces to follow on. If they succeeded, it would mark the turning point in the war. If they failed, the consequences were unthinkable. Against all odds, outnumbered some fifty-to-one, and facing a ferocious series of cliffside defences, they would have to dare all as never before. So begins the incredible true story of the SAS’s mission to liberate Europe. Replete with surprise, shock, action, heroic endeavour and glory, not to mention subterfuge, treachery and dismay, this is a classic combination of combat writing and breath-taking narrative non-fiction.
2.30 pm Sun 5 Nov 2023
Peter Clark – The Men of 1924 : Britain’s First Labour Government
Venue: Brendon Books, Bath Place, Taunton TA1 $ER
Tickets £8.00 from: Brendon Books, Bath Place, Taunton TA1 4ER Box Office 01823 337742 email brendonbooks@gmail.com or click here
The new Cabinet in January 1924 consisted, as governments had for generations, of twenty white, middle-aged men. But that is where the similarities with previous governments ended, for the election of Britain’s first Labour administration witnessed a radical departure from government by the ruling class. Replacing Stanley Baldwin’s Conservatives were Ramsay MacDonald’s Labour, the majority of whom had left school by the age of fifteen. For the first time in Britain’s history the Cabinet could truly be said to represent all of Britain’s social classes.This unheralded revolution in representation is the subject of Peter Clark’s fascinating new book, The Men of 1924. Who were these men? Clark’s vivid portrayal is full of evocative portraits of a new breed of politician, the forerunners of all those who, later in the last century and in this one, overcame a system from which they had been excluded for too long.
6.30 PM Tue 6 November 2023
Rob Wilkins – Terry Pratchett: A Stroke of the Pen: Rediscovered Short Stories from Terry Pratchett
Tickets £8 from: Brendon Books, Bath Place, Taunton TA1 4ER Box Office 01823 337742 email brendonbooks@gmail.com or click here
A Stroke of the Pen is a beautifully packaged, exclusive collection of 20 rediscovered early short stories by award-winning and bestselling author, Sir Terry Pratchett, an award-winning and bestselling author, and creator of the phenomenally successful Discworld series. These are rediscovered tales that Pratchett wrote under a pseudonym for newspapers during the 1970s and 1980s.
Rob Wilkins, Pratchett’s former assistant, friend and head of the Pratchett literary estate will be in conversation with Pat & Jan Harkin the fans who discovered the short stories.
Tickets: £8 and £20 (Includes an advance copy of A Stroke of the Pen and receive free entry to the talk).
9.30 AM Tue 7 November 2023
Emma Carrol – Escape to the River Sea
FREE EVENT BUT PLEASE BOOK A PLACE. SCHOOLS, PLEASE CONTACT BRENDON BOOKS ON 01823 337742 or email brendonbooks@gmail.com The age range is 9-12
Beautiful and full of adventure, Escape to the River Sea is Emma Carroll’s compelling novel inspired by Eva Ibbotson’s bestselling, classic masterpiece, Journey to the River Sea. The arrival of a friend of the family, Yara Fielding, starts an adventure that will take Rosa deep into the lush beauty of the Amazon rainforest in search of jaguars, ancient giant sloths and somewhere to belong. What she finds is Yara’s lively, welcoming family on the banks of the river and, together, they face a danger greater than she could ever have imagined. Featuring places and characters known and loved by fans of Journey to the River Sea (including, among others, Maia, Finn, Miss Minton and Clovis) this spectacular story tells of the next generation and the growing threats to the Amazon rainforest that continue to this day. Emma will talk about this and her other books.
6.30 PM Tue 7 November 2023
Brian Clegg – Interstellar Tours
Venue: Brendon Books , Taunton, TA1 4ER
Tickets £8 from: Brendon Books, Bath Place, Taunton TA1 4ER Box Office 01823 337742 email: brendonbooks@gmail.com or go to www.brendonbooks.org
Take a voyage into space to explore the wonders of the galaxy and beyond. With award-winning science writer Brian Clegg as your deep space guide, step on board the starship Endurance and marvel at the fascinating sights of deepest, darkest space. Although our vessel is fictional, the phenomena you will visit, from the vast nebulae that are birthplaces of stars to stellar explosions in vast supernovas, creating the elements necessary for life – or from the planets of other solar systems to the unbelievably supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way – all reflect the best picture current science has to offer.
6.30 PM Wed 8 November 2023
Oggy Boytchev – Bullion: The Mystery of Gaddaffi’s Gold
Tickets £8 from: Brendon Books, Bath Place, Taunton TA1 4ER Box Office 01823 337742 email brendonbooks@gmail.com or click here
In March 2011, as the Arab Spring sweeps across the Middle East, NATO powers begin a bombing campaign against the forces of the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi. In London, a top secret team led by an abrasive Cold War veteran, Priscilla Clarke, has been given the task of finding the whereabouts of Gaddafi’s gold. The unaccounted stash is rumoured to be worth at least a hundred billion dollars. The aim is to prevent the gold falling into the wrong hands. The Russian military intelligence, the GRU, is also after Gaddafi’s bullion. Who will get to the treasure first?
A member of Priscilla’s team, a brilliant mathematician, is getting closer. An aspiring TV reporter finds himself drawn into the murky world of international espionage. Their separate nail biting adventures collide with disastrous consequences. When Priscilla discovers that somebody is betraying her, she takes the law in her own hands.
The story races from London to Tripoli and Vienna, from the mysterious Bear Valley in Southern Tyrol to the heart of the Sahara Desert. If you’re a fan of accurate historical detail and vivid geographical descriptions drawn on the author’s first hand experience, this a book for you.
The book is also an invaluable guide for anybody who wants to work as a TV reporter in a war zone.
Oggy Boytchev escaped from behind the Iron Curtain in 1986. A few months later he joined the BBC in London. He spent the next twenty five-years covering international conflicts, travelling on dangerous, often undercover assignments around the world. He is now a full-time writer
2.30 PM Thu 9 November 2023
Ferdinand Mount – Big Caesars and Little Caesars
PLEASE NOTE, THERE IS AN OPTION TO HAVE LUNCH IN THE COMPANY OF THE AUTHOR BEFORE THE TALK AT 1PM. THE COST INCLUDING THE TALK IS £45. IN THIS CASE, PLEASE BOOK YOUR TICKETS WITH THE CASTLE HOTEL. 01823 272671 www.the-castle-hotel.com
The world today is full of Strong Men and their imitators. Caesarism is alive and well. Yet in modern times it’s become a strangely neglected subject. Ferdinand Mount opens up a fascinating exploration of how and why Caesars seize power and why they fall.
There are Big Caesars who set out to achieve total social control and Little Caesars who merely want to run an agreeable kleptocracy without opposition: from Julius Caesar and Oliver Cromwell through Napoleon and Bolivar, to Mussolini, Salazar, De Gaulle and Trump. The saga of Boris Johnson and Brexit frequently crops up in the book, offering a vivid, if Lilliputian, instance of the same phenomenon.
Ferdinand Mount was Political Editor of The Spectator and Editor of The Times Literary Supplement. For two years he was head of Margaret Thatcher’s think-tank – The Number 10 Policy Unit. He is an authority on politics today, and write
s regularly for The Times Literary Supplement and the London Review of Books.
Please note, this event is in association with The Castle Hotel Taunton. We acknowledge and are grateful for their support.
7 pm Thu 9 Nov 2023
Vanessa de Haan – A Time to Live
Venue: Brendon Books, Bath Place, Taunton TA1 4ER
Tickets: £8 or £18.99 (includes a copy of the book to be signed on the night and free entry to the talk) from: Brendon Books, Bath Place, Taunton TA1 4ER Box Office 01823 337742 email brendonbooks@gmail.com or click here
Will he choose inheritance – or freedom . . . 1918: Freddie was destined for a different life, determined to make his fortune in the plantations of Ceylon. But just as the great war comes to an end, the eldest brother and heir to Coombe Hall, Edward, doesn’t return. Torn between duty and freedom, Freddie must now sacrifice his own dreams to keep the estate – and the future of Coombe – alive. And now he must now marry for an heir, not for love. But the turmoil of war didn’t end on the battlefield; the country faces upheavals like never before. And when an unexpected legacy blows in from Edward’s secret past, Freddie’s grip on the estate – and his future – looks more uncertain than ever.
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10 PM – 4 PM Fri 10 November 2023 SOLD OUT
Megan Stallworthy (Celandine Books) – Bookbinding Workshop: Link Stitched Books and Quirky Accordions
Venue: Taunton Library Meetings Room, Paul Street, Taunton TA1 3XZ
To purchase tickets or for further info please go direct to celandine Books in this case: www.celandinebooks.co.uk:
info@celandinebooks.co.uk 07582 783965
Learn bookbinding techniques to make two soft cover books with exposed stitching on the spines, using traditional link stitch and French link stitch. We will also make playful contemporary accordion books using a single sheet of paper, with hard covers. All the materials and tools will be supplied.
7 PM Fri 10 November 2023
Stephen Moss – The Owl and Other Great British Birds
Tickets £8 from: Brendon Books, Bath Place, Taunton TA1 4ER Box Office 01823 337742 email brendonbooks@gmail.com or click here
7 PM Sat 11 Nov 2023
Michael Malay – Late Light
Venue: Brendon Books
Tickets £8.00 from: Brendon Books, Bath Place, Taunton TA1 4ER Box Office 01823 337742 email brendonbooks@gmail.com or click here
This is a book about falling in love with vanishing thingsLate Light is the story of Michael Malay’s own journey, an Indonesian Australian making a home for himself in England and finding strange parallels between his life and the lives of the animals he examines. Mixing natural history with memoir, this book explores the mystery of our animal neighbours, in all their richness and variety.
It is about the wonder these animals inspired in our ancestors, the hope they inspire in us, and the joy they might still hold for our children. Late Light is about migration, belonging and extinction. Through the close examination of four particular ‘unloved’ animals – eels, moths, crickets and mussels – Michael Malay tells the story of the economic, political and cultural events that have shaped the modern landscape of Britain.
For readers of Robert Macfarlane, Raynor Winn and Helen Macdonald, Late Light is a rich blend of memoir, natural history, nature writing, and a meditation on being and belonging, from a vibrant new voice. ‘Late Light is a book that glows with warmth in spite of its dark subtext. Malay’s prose is gorgeous and astute; he looks with fresh eyes at unpopular species and finds poetry and meaning.
6.30 Mon 13 Nov 2023
Sasha Swire – Edgeland: A Slow Walk West
Venue: Brendon Books, Bath Place, Taunton TA1 4ER
Tickets £8 or £22.00 (includes a copy of the book to be signed on the night and free entry to the talk).
from: Brendon Books, Bath Place, Taunton TA1 4ER Box Office 01823 337742 email brendonbooks@gmail.com or click here
From the bestselling author of Diary of an MP’s Wife comes a beautiful discovery of Britain’s great coastal pathIn Edgeland, the political diarist Sasha Swire escapes the confines of Westminster to walk the northern stretch of the South West Coast Path. Starting at Minehead in Somerset, she follows the well-trodden path to Land’s End in Cornwall, walking it in sections over a decade-long period, returning each year like a migratory bird from the spot she had previously left off from. The result is an immersive, beguiling and literary exploration of one of the most enigmatic, beautiful and popular coastlines on earth. She discovers that the path is not only a walk through Britain’s windswept and wave-battered western fringes but a tale about how we and nature have, through extraordinary resilience and a relentless spirit, learnt to tame the various forces that are stacked up against us. That we live at the edge of the possible.
2.30 PM Tue 14 Nov 2023
Karen Maitland – Rivers of Treason
Venue: Taunton Library, Paul Street, Taunton TA1 3XZ
Tickets £5 from: Brendon Books, Bath Place, Taunton TA1 4ER Box Office 01823 337742 email brendonbooks@gmail.com or click here
From the stark Yorkshire landscape to the dark underbelly of Jacobean London, Daniel Pursglove’s new mission sees him fall prey to a ruthless copycat killer… London, 1607. As dawn breaks, Daniel Pursglove rides north, away from the watchful eye of the King and his spies. He returns, disguised, to his childhood home in Yorkshire – with his own score to settle. The locals have little reason to trust a prying stranger, and those who remember Daniel do so with contempt. When a body is found with rope burns about the neck, Daniel falls under suspicion. On the run, across the country, he is pursued by a ruthless killer whose victims all share the same gallows mark. Are these the crimes of someone with a cruel personal vendetta – or has Daniel become embroiled in a bigger, and far more sinister, conspiracy?A new river of treason is rising, flowing from the fields of Yorkshire right to the heart of the King’s court . .
‘What a wonderful storyteller Maitland is’ THE TIMES PRAISE FOR THE DANIEL PURSGLOVE SERIES’Dark and enthralling’ ANDREW TAYLOR’This gripping thriller shows what a wonderful storyteller Maitland is’ THE TIMES’Colourful and compelling’ SUNDAY TIMES’Full of tension and danger… powerfully atmospheric’ JENNIFER SAINT’Goes right to the heart of the Jacobean court’ TRACY BORMAN’Spies, thieves, murderers and King James I? Brilliant’ CONN IGGULDEN’There are few authors who can bring the past to life so compellingly…Brilliant writing and more importantly, riveting reading’ SIMON SCARROW’A beautifully crafted thriller… Breathtaking and bone-chilling’ MANDA SCOTT’Maitland is a superlative historical novelist’ REBECCA MASCULL’Devilishly good’ DAILY MAIL’The intrigues of Jacobean court politics simmer beneath the surface in this gripping and masterful crime novel’ KATHERINE CLEMENTS’Beautifully written with a dark heart, Maitland knows how to pull you deep into the early Jacobean period’ RHIANNON WARD
Please note, this event is in association with Somerset County Council libraries. We acknowledge and are grateful for their support.
7 PM Tue 14 Nov 2023
An Evening With the Fire River Poets – The Thought of the Heart
Tickets £5 from: Brendon Books, Bath Place, Taunton TA1 4ER Box Office 01823 337742 email brendonbooks@gmail.com or click here
Fire River Poets was founded in Taunton in 1988. The name Fire River was chosen because the name of the River Tone that runs through Taunton appears to be a corruption of tan which meant fire in ancient Celtic. Hardly a fiery river, the Tone does regularly flood, taking on a tawny-reddish colour from the soil it carries with it…
As one of Somerset’s longest-established poetry groups, with a wealth of national recognition in publishing, events and awards, we bring you an evening of ten distinctive poetic voices from around the county. Please join us for an evening that will move, entertain, bring you up short and, above all, press the refresh button in your imaginations.
‘Poetry isn’t a profession, it’s a way of life. It’s an empty basket; you put your life into it and make something out of that.’ Mary Oliver. Poetry can tell us what human beings are. It can tell us why we stumble and fall and how, miraculously, we can stand up. Maya Angelou
‘Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.’ Robert Frost
6.30 PM Wed 15 Nov 2023
Felice Hardy -The Tennis Champion Who Escaped the Nazis
Tickets £8.50 from: Brendon Books, Bath Place, Taunton TA1 4ER Box Office 01823 337742 email brendonbooks@gmail.com or click here
At the age of twenty-seven, Liesl Herbst was the Austrian National Tennis Champion, a celebrity in Vienna. Liesl, her husband David and their daughter Dorli came to Britain after escaping the Nazis. In London, though initially stripped of their Austrian passports and rendered stateless aliens, both Liesl and her daughter Dorli competed at Wimbledon. They remain the only mother and daughter ever to have played doubles together at Wimbledon. This moving story of escape and survival is told by Liesl’s grand-daughter. It is as much a search for the author’s own identity as for her own children and grandchildren to ensure that their remarkable family history is never lost again. Illustrated throughout with family photographs and original documents, this is a story of survival against terrible odds, an inspiring tale of resilience and hope.
7 PM Thu 16 November 2023
David Sutcliffe – Cecil Sharp: Collector of Folk Songs and Dances
Tickets £8 from: Brendon Books, Bath Place, Taunton TA1 4ER Box Office 01823 337742 email brendonbooks@gmail.com or click here
Cecil Sharp was a leading figure in the Edwardian Folk Revival, collecting hundreds of songs and dances that were fast disappearing at the time but many of which we still use today. As well as the folk songs, carols and sea shanties, he rescued morris dances, sword dances and country dances. His work therefore confirmed the place of folk music and dance within English cultural life. He was an oral historian, meeting over a thousand informants and recording details of their lives. Here in Somerset he met 347 singers and took photographs of over 160 performers. No other collector took such care. As a musician, he performed the songs and dances at the folk festivals, concerts and teaching occasions that he organised throughout the country. In 1911 he set up a new body The English Folk Dance Society. But cultural norms change over time and Sharp remains a controversial figure today. The only biography of him was written in 1933 and a reappraisal of his life and work is long overdue.
2.30 PM Fri 17 November 2023 SOLD OUT
Dave Green – The Quantocks and North Somerset Coast : Landscape and Geology
This unique and diverse geology is also the reason why it is one of the most beautiful and varied stretches of landscape in England. With nearly 170 illustrations, including maps, charts, diagrams and colour photographs, this book describes and explains the evidence for the geological history of the area, from the Palaeozoic, through the Mesozoic to the Pleistocene and Holocene. Regional guides, which discuss the factors that led to the landscape we see today and offer places of interest to visit, cover: the Northern Brendon Hills and Minehead; the Southern Brendon Hills; Wellington and the Blackdown Hills; Wiveliscombe and the Vale of Stogumber; the Quantock Hills; West Somerset coast and the Cannington and Bridgwater Lowlands.
6:30 PM Fri 17 Nov 2023
Roger Morgan-Grenville – Across a Walking Land:A 1,000-Mile Walk Through a British Spring
Tickets £8 from: Brendon Books, Bath Place, Taunton TA1 4ER Box Office 01823 337742 email brendonbooks@gmail.com or click here
Please note, this event is in association with Climate Action Taunton. We acknowledge and are grateful for their support.
2 PM Sat 18 November 2023
The Countess of Carnarvon – The life of Lord Carnarvon and the finding of the tomb of Tutankhamun
Between November 1922 and spring 1923, a door to the ancient Egyptian world was opened. The discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun would be the most astonishing archaeological find of the century, revealing not only the boy pharaoh’s preserved remains, but thousands of finely crafted objects, from the iconic gold mask and coffins to a dagger made from meteorite, chalices, beautiful furniture and even 3000-year-old food and wine.
The world’s understanding of Ancient Egyptian civilisation was immeasurably enhanced, and the quantity and richness of the objects in the tomb is still being studied today. Two men were ultimately responsible for the discovery: Lord Carnarvon and Howard Carter. It was Lord Carnarvon who held the concession to excavate and whose passion and ability to finance the project allowed the eventual discovery to take place.
Carnarvon’s life, money and sudden death became front-page news throughout the world following the discovery of the tomb, fuelling rumours that persist today of ‘the curse of the pharaohs’. His beloved home, Highclere Castle, is today best-known as the set of Downton Abbey.
Drawing on Highclere Castle’s never-before-plumbed archives, bestselling author Fiona, the Countess of Carnarvon, charts the twists of luck and tragedies that shaped Carnarvon’s life; his restless and enquiring mind that drove him to travel to escape conventional society life in Edwardian Britain.
7 PM Sat 18 Nov 2023
Readings from Three Live Canon Poetry Competition Winners: Josephine Corcoran, Matt Bryden and Isabella Mead
Tickets £5 from: Brendon Books, Bath Place, Taunton TA1 4ER Box Office 01823 337742 email brendonbooks@gmail.com or click here
Josephine Corcoran has published two poetry pamphlets and a full collection, most recently Love and Stones (Live Canon, 2023). Her work as a short story writer and playwright has been broadcast on BBC R4. Originally from Southport, she now lives in Trowbridge, Wiltshire. Matt Bryden is a poet and teacher living in Devon. He has published a pamphlet Night Porter, a first collection Boxing the Compass and more recently an exploration of fatherhood amidst catastrophe, The Glassblower’s House (Live Canon, 2023). Isabella Mead is Head of Learning and Participation at the Story Museum in Oxford, a Trustee of Jane Austen House and a Poetry Ambassador at Keats House. From 2010 to 2012 she lived and worked in a rural area of Rwanda with Voluntary Service Overseas, an experience documented in Dear Rwanda (Live Canon, 2023). She lives in Bristol with her partner and her cat.
6.30 PM Mon 20 November 2023
Helena Kelly – The Life and Lies of Charles Dickens
Tickets £8 or buy an advance copy of the book from: Brendon Books, Bath Place, Taunton TA1 4ER Box Office 01823 337742 email brendonbooks@gmail.com or click here
Think you already know the story of Charles Dickens’ life? Think again.
Almost everything you’re familiar with was first mentioned in an authorised biography written by Dickens’ close friend John Forster 150 years ago. It’s the version of events that Dickens himself chose to make public, and newly accessible archives reveal that it’s crammed with gaps, inconsistencies, and outright lies. There’s the sister whose existence Dickens kept secret and the Jewish relations whose faith he strove to conceal. There’s plagiarism, fraud, and suicide. And that’s only for starters.
Helena Kelly, author of Jane Austen, the Secret Radical, retells Dickens’ story from his childhood to his deathbed, uncovers the truths he tried to keep hidden, and offers a fresh – and deeply troubling – perspective on the man who remains one of Britain’s best-known novelists. You won’t be able to look at him – or his work – in the same way again.
6.30 PM Tue 21 November 2023
Kalevala – Land of Heroes with Graham Fawcett
Graham Fawcett worked as a writer, deviser, interviewer and presenter with BBC Radio Three for twenty-five years and has also broadcast on Radio 4, the World Service, and the Italian Service.
2.00 PM Wed 22 November 2023
Simon Heffer – Sing As We Go: Britain Between the Wars
PLEASE NOTE, THERE IS AN OPTION TO HAVE LUNCH IN THE COMPANY OF THE AUTHOR BEFORE THE TALK AT 1PM. THE COST INCLUDING THE TALK IS £45. IN THIS CASE, PLEASE BOOK YOUR TICKETS WITH THE CASTLE HOTEL. 01823 272671 www.the-castle-hotel.com
The fourth and final volume in Simon Heffer’s critically-acclaimed sequence of books-High Minds(2013),The Age of Decadence(2017) and Staring at God(2019)-that chart the history of Britain in the century from the accession of Queen Victoria to the outbreak of the Second World War. Sing As We Go explores and explains the politics of the period, and puts such moments of national turmoil as the General Strike of 1926 and the Abdication Crisis of 1936 under the microscope. It offers pen portraits of the era’s most significant figures. It traces the changing face of Britain as cars made their first mass appearance, the suburbs sprawled, and radio and cinema became the means of mass entertainment. And it probes the deep divisions that split the nation: between the haves and have-nots, between warring ideological factions, and between those who promoted accommodation with fascism in Europe and those who bitterly opposed it.
Simon Heffer was born in 1960. He read English at Cambridge and took a PhD in modern history at that university. His previous books include: Moral Desperado: A Life of Thomas Carlyle, Like the Roman: The Life of Enoch Powell, Power and Place: The Political Consequences of King Edward VII, Nor Shall My Sword: The Reinvention of England, Vaughan Williams, Strictly English, A Short History of Power, Simply English, High Minds: The Victorians and the Birth of Modern Britain,The Age of Decadence, Staring at God and the recently published unexpurgated three volumes of The Henry ‘Chips’ Channon Diaries. In a thirty-year career in Fleet Street he is now a columnist for The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph.
Please note, this event is in association with The Castle Hotel Taunton. We acknowledge and are grateful for their support.
7:00 pm Wed 22 Nov 2023
Amano Tracy – The Birds of Uttarakhand – An Avian Rich Area of the Himalayas
Venue: Brendon Books
Tickets £5 from: Brendon Books, Bath Place, Taunton TA1 4ER Box Office 01823 337742 email brendonbooks@gmail.com or click here
Amano Samarpan Tracy has been photographing birds in the Indian subcontinent for almost thirty years during which time he has had three books published: two identification volumes on the birds of India (available for purchase) and a larger coffee style book, Indian Birds in Focus. During this talk, he will give an in-depth view through a slide presentation on the birds of Uttarakhand, an avian rich area of the Himalayas, where colourful creatures
abound. Amano was born in the west country and has lived most of his life in Somerset withmany breaks to explore the nature of India.
2.30 Thu 23 Nov 2023
Chris Ewan and Tim Weaver: Crime Writers in conversation
Venue: Taunton Library Paul St, Taunton TA1 3XZ
Tickets £5 from: Brendon Books, Bath Place, Taunton TA1 4ER Box Office 01823 337742 email brendonbooks@gmail.com or click here
Chris Ewan is the critically acclaimed and bestselling author of many mystery and thriller novels. Writing as C.M. Ewan, his latest books are nerve-shredding thrillers about ordinary situations gone wrong. His latest book, The House Hunt is a heart-pounding, claustrophobic thriller.
Tim Weaver is the author of the David Raker missing person mysteries, (his latese, The Last Goodbye, is number twelve in the series) as well as the stand-alone books Missing Pieces and The Shadow at the Door David Raker story collection. He has been a Sunday Times Bestseller and nominated for several awards.
7 PM Thu 23 November 2023
Robin Ince – An Obsessive’s Tour of Bookshops and Reflections on Humour and Humanity
Tickets £8.50 or buy an advance copy of the book from: Brendon Books, Bath Place, Taunton TA1 4ER Box Office 01823 337742 email brendonbooks@gmail.com or click here
Comedian, author and broadcaster Robin Ince (Of Infinite Monkey Cage fame) returns to Brendon Books.
Robin Ince’s stadium tour with Professor Brian Cox was postponed due to the pandemic. Rather than do nothing, he decided instead to go on a tour of over a hundred bookshops in the UK, from Wigtown to Penzance; from Swansea to Margate, including Taunton and Brendon Books. He returns to talk about his experience and the book that resulted and also to talk about his book I’m a Joke and So Are You: Reflections on Humour and Humanity, reprinted in paperback this year. Informed by personal insights as well as interviews with some of the world’s top comedians, neuroscientists and psychologists, this is a hilarious and often moving primer to the mind. We advise booking early as space in the bookshop is limited.
7:30PM Fri 24 Nov 2023
Tacchi-Morris Arts Centre, School Rd, Monkton Heathfield, Taunton TA2 8PD
Andrew Seaton – Our NHS: A History of Britain’s Best-Loved Institution
A bold new history of the NHS, exploring the conditions of its surprising survival – and the experiences of the people who keep it running.
In recent decades, a wave of appreciation for the NHS has swept across the UK. Britons have clapped for frontline workers and championed the service as a distinctive national achievement. All this has happened in the face of ideological opposition, marketisation and workforce crises. But how did the NHS become what it is today?
In this wide-ranging history, Andrew Seaton examines the full story of the NHS. He traces how the service has changed and adapted, bringing together the experiences of patients, staff from Britain and abroad, and the service’s wider supporters and opponents. He explains why it not only survived the neoliberalism of the late twentieth century, but also how it became a key marker of national identity. Perpetually “in crisis” and yet perennially enduring, Seaton emphasises the resilience of the NHS, the political values it embodies, and the work of those who have tirelessly kept it afloat.
“In Our NHS: A History of Britain’s Best-Loved Institution Andrew Seaton explores how the National Health Service, a great achievement for Aneurin Bevan and the left, became a national institution commanding widespread support. With an appreciation of the motives of those who have attacked its founding principles, to penetrating analysis of its resilience, this book is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the history of our NHS.”—Nick Thomas-Symonds MP, author of Harold Wilson: The Winner and Nye: The Political Life of Aneurin Bevan.
Andrew Seaton is the Plumer Junior Research Fellow in History at St Anne’s College, University of Oxford and is an expert in the history of modern Britain and the NHS. This is his first book
2 pm Sat 25 Nov 2023
Kate Rawles – The Life Cycle: 8,000 Miles in the Andes by Bamboo Bike
Venue: Temple Methodist Church, Upper High St, Taunton TA1 3PY.
Tickets £8 from: Brendon Books, Bath Place, Taunton TA1 4ER Box Office 01823 337742 email brendonbooks@gmail.com or click here
For years, Kate Rawles has combined adventure with environmental awareness – in the most eco-friendly ways she can. In 2016, aged 53, she built herself a bamboo bicycle and set out on an epic journey through South America.
Over 13 months she travelled the length of the Andes, 8000 miles, from Colombia to Cape Horn, through high mountains, salt flats, rainforest, desert and tundra. In her new book, The Life Cycle, she uncovers why biodiversity is so important and how it’s under threat – and meets the extraordinary activists who are working, in very different ways, to protect them.
Please note, this event is in association with Climate Action Taunton. We acknowledge and are grateful for their support.
7 pm Sat 25 Nov 2023
Simon Elliott – Hockney: A Graphic Life
Venue: Brendon Books, Bath Place, Taunton TA1 4ER
Tickets £8 from: Brendon Books, Bath Place, Taunton TA1 4ER Box Office 01823 337742 email brendonbooks@gmail.com or click here
Follow the journey of David Hockney’s exceptional life in a unique graphic novel format. From his childhood in Bradford and early years making it as an artist, to his sun-drenched Los Angeles period, his triumphal return to the UK and his recent iPad drawings that proudly exclaim that ‘spring cannot be cancelled’, this charming biography traces the captivating life and times of David Hockney.
Drawn entirely on an iPad in a fun, fully illustrated style – and in homage to Hockney’s own iPad drawings – this is a colourful, thought-provoking and joyous story of one of the world’s best-loved artists.