The artist, co-creator of the Book of the Year, talks about the extraordinary project to reclaim and celebrate The Lost Words whilst she paints live onstage. She is accompanied by the music and song of Kerry Andrew performing the spells. All over the country, there are words disappearing from children’s lives. These are the words of the natural world – dandelion, otter, bramble, acorn – all gone. The rich landscape of wild imagination and wild play is rapidly fading from our children’s minds. Morris and her poet-spellcaster, Robert Macfarlane, have created a joyful celebration of nature words and the natural world they invoke. They capture the irreplaceable magic of language and nature for all ages.
Sponsored by Richard Booth’s Bookshop, which is hosting an exhibition of Jackie’s work until 31 August 2018

From the humble caterpillar to mighty elephants, animals have innate ability to forage for plant and mineral extracts, in order to look after their own emotional and physical health. If, however, an animal’s environment is devoid of these substances you can enrich their lives by offering many of these extracts for self-selection.

Novels by authors well-known from TV have been remarkably well received by readers. Apart from the authors’ fame as journalists and news readers on different channels, their forays into fiction have brought a new flavour to the literary scene. Fiction written by people who compile and convey news stories day after day contains dreams and stories that are worth taking a look at. What does journalism bring to literature? Marta Fernández and Sandra Barneda talk to Inés Martín Rodrigo and Jesús García Calero.

Produced live by the IE School of Communication Medialab team and broadcast via live streaming on the culture section of www.abc.es

North of Nowhere and Binny For Short are both set in seaside towns. These two acclaimed writers discuss the differences and similarities in their stories.

9+ years

The author pays tribute to Shakespeare’s 400^th anniversary in this brilliant new novel inspired by Othello. Her heartrending tale blends a love story with a sci-fi twist in an original Space-age adventure. Hear her discuss the story and her own love of Shakespeare with Claire Armitstead of the Guardian.

Sub-editors and journos beware…the comedians mock facts and folly in today’s papers. The home team is joined by Daily Mash editor Tim Telling.

An hour-long comedy play spun in the style of Jane Austen. A seasoned cast including fast-rising comics Cariad Lloyd and Rachel Parris present an eloquent, irreverent and 100% improvised take on Britain’s best-loved novelist. Swooning guaranteed.

If a nation is a group of people with a sense of kinship, a political identity and representative institutions, then the English have a claim to be the oldest nation in the world. They first came into existence as an idea, before they had a common ruler and before the country they lived in even had a name. They have lasted as a recognizable entity ever since, and their defining national institutions can be traced back to the earliest years of their history.

Is chaos descending on Mount Everest? Why are Sherpas and Westerners fighting on the slopes? How come the Nepalese authorities have had to put an army post at base camp? And what about the ever-younger age of climbers? Do 13-year-olds really belong in this lethal place? Everest Summiteer Matt Dickinson discusses these dramatic changes and presents a fact-filled journey to the top of the world’s highest mountain. He also discusses his new teen novel The Everest Files, which follows an Everest expedition from the point of view of a 16-year-old Sherpa climber.
8+ years

The recent Ebola outbreak highlights the serious threat that emerging infectious diseases can pose to global public health. Despite years of apparent preparations for a devastating pandemic, responses to outbreaks are cumbersome and delayed, and opportunities to save lives are missed. Over the past 15 years, the systematic failure to collect and share clinical data during epidemics, including zoonotic viruses such as SARS, H5N1, Nipah, and MERSCoV, has been a recurring problem. Understanding the inter-relationships between human behaviour, animal health and the environment is essential for mobilising successful responses to future spillover events. Professor Farrar is the Director of the Wellcome Trust.

Before becoming the world's most notorious dictator, Kim Jong-Il ran North Korea's film industry. He directed every film made in the country but knew they were nothing compared to Hollywood. Then he hit on the perfect solution: order the kidnapping of South Korea's most famous actress and her ex-husband, the country's most acclaimed director.

In a jaw-dropping mission the couple were kidnapped, held hostage and then 'employed' to make films for the Dear Leader, including a remake of Godzilla. They gained Kim's trust – but could they escape?

On 2 August 1947 a young man gets off a train in a small Swedish town to begin his life anew. Having survived the ghetto of Lodz, the death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, and the harrowing slave camps and transports during the final months of Nazi Germany, his final challenge is to survive the survival. In his intelligent and deeply moving book, Rosenberg returns to his own childhood in order to tell the story of his father; walking at his side, holding his hand, trying to get close to him again. It is also the story of the chasm that soon opens between the world of the child, permeated by the optimism, progress and collective oblivion of postwar Sweden, and the world of the father, darkened by the long shadows of the past.

Recent discoveries have allowed archaeologists to locate the site, near Torksey in Lincolnshire, where the Viking Great Army wintered in AD 872–3. Richards describes what archaeological fieldwork can tell about the Great Army and their camp.

The Untold Story: The Environment in Fiction 

When you stand in front of a work of art in a museum or exhibition, the first two questions you normally ask yourself are 1) do I like it? and 2) who’s it by? When you stand in front of a work of art in an auction room or dealer’s gallery, you ask these two questions followed by others: how much is it worth? how much will it be worth in five or ten years’ time? and what will people think of me if they see it hanging on my wall? A wry, intimate, and revealing exploration of how art acquires its financial value, from a senior director at Sotheby’s. Chaired by Hannah Rothschild.

Val McDermid is one of the best selling crime writers in the English-speaking world. Her prolific literary work, which has been translated into more than 30 languages, includes titles such as The Wire in the Blood, The Distant Echo and her latest work The Retribution. She has been awarded the prestigious Cartier Diamond Daggerprize for her contribution to the genre throughout her career. She speaks with the writer Tiffany Murray.

Event in English.

Co-organised with the British Council and the Arts Council of Wales and the collaboration of RBA publishing house.

Keyes’ stunning new novel The Woman Who Stole My Life is about losing the life you had and finding a better one. Her internationally bestselling novels include Rachel’s Holiday, Last Chance Saloon, Sushi for Beginners, Angels, The Other Side of the Story, Anybody Out There, This Charming Man, The Brightest Star in the Sky and The Mystery of Mercy Close.

Jelly Boots is a riotous celebration of words – silly words, funny words, new words, old words, words you only use in your own family and the very best words in the right order. Uncle Gobb and the Green Heads is the second uproarious Uncle Gobb adventure. Join Michael Rosen for an introduction to these and others of his much-loved and amazing stories.

The doyenne of literary translators, the English voice of García Márquez, Cervantes, Vargas Llosa and Roncagliolo discusses her craft.