Hay Festival 2013

The Middle East correspondent analyses the state of the region, the response of the international powers and the feelings of the people on the ground. Chaired by the British Ambassador to Lebanon.

The inside story of F Scott Fitzgerald’s New York of 1922 with its speakeasies, high society and organised crime that was the context for the creation of his great American novel.

The Professor of Neuroscience discusses the process of normal decision-making – our strategies, biases that affect us and influential factors. She will describe the abnormal patterns found in patients with conditions such as severe depression, Alzheimer’s and accidental brain damage. Examining how the brain can be manipulated to improve cognitive function in these patients, she will consider the use and the ethical questions of ‘smart drugs’.

In The Other Typist the captivating and mysterious Odalie starts working at an NYC police precinct at the height of Prohibition in 1924. In the Costa First Novel-winning The Innocents the bride-to-be’s beautiful and reckless cousin Rachel returns to disrupt the wedding plans.

On 1 April 2013 a new organisation, Natural Resources Wales, came into being, merging three existing bodies. With responsibility for ecosystems management including forestry, waterways, grants legislation, enforcement and much more, what does the new director see as the opportunities and challenges facing him? He talks to The Telegraph’s Environment Editor.

The creator of the indubitably hip New York Times #1 bestseller I Want My Hat Back is here on tour to share his latest, This Is Not My Hat. Hat-wearers especially welcome.

4+ years

Winnie The Witch gets involved in a prehistoric adventure with a rather surprised Triceratops, brought to life with Korky Paul’s high-energy live drawing.

5+ years

Exploring, questioning, visualising, conjecturing, explaining, generalising, justifying…are all at the heart of mathematical thinking. Come and take part in some stimulating activities designed to develop your capacity to work as a mathematician, with Cambridge University’s Charlie Gilderdale.

9+ years

The Google Executive Chairman examines the future of a connected world with its extraordinary potential for education, medical tech, communication and translations and the huge global challenges to privacy and security. Chaired by Marcus du Sautoy.

The super-verbal and brilliantly inventive journalist and author discusses his Booker-shortlisted novel Umbrella, films of his work and the possibilities of digital form.

The new, savagely funny novel from the Orange Prize-winning author of We Need To Talk About Kevin. When Pandora picks up her older brother Edison at her local Iowa airport, she literally doesn’t recognize him. The once slim, hip New York jazz pianist has gained hundreds of pounds. What happened?

Steven Hawking famously declared philosophy dead because it had not kept up with developments in modern physics. While acknowledging the spectacular achievements of contemporary science, the author of Reflections Of A Metaphysical Flaneur will argue that physics and the human race need philosophy more than ever.

Why is the current monetary system broken and how can it be fixed? At the heart of the ongoing economic crisis is the fact that governments across the world have given the power to create money to the private corporations that we know as banks. It doesn’t need to be this way – the founder and director of Positive Money explains.

The star of the award-winning The Lonely Beast is back and on a mission to restore peace to an island threatened by a scary monster.

Duration 45 mins.

4+ years

The Carnegie Medal-winning author talks to Camilla Knox Peebles about After Tomorrow, a thrilling adventure which explores what it would be like if children had to flee the UK as refugees.

Duration 45 mins.

10+ years

Chris Priestley and Jon Mayhew join newcomer Emerald Fennell to discuss why ghost stories and horror are so appealing. Chills, thrills, no frills. Bring your most horrifying questions.

11+ years

Mariella Frostrup interviews an exciting line-up of authors and special guests at the festival in this exclusive recording by Sky Arts.

Guests include John Banville, Hugh Dennis and a performance by KT Tunstall

Watch Mariella’s Book Show on Sky Arts 1 HD 8pm 6 June

Visiting his ageing mother Mary in her nursing home by the sea, the protagonist of this new novel sets out to recreate their buried family history, delving into the secrets and silences of Mary’s fractured childhood as he imagines the life of her spirited mother, Grace.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Gulag mines new archive material to chronicle Stalin’s brutal evisceration of the civil societies newly liberated from Nazi occupation as his secret police set out to convert a dozen radically different countries to a completely new political and moral system: communism. Chaired by Oliver Bullough.

The economic crisis offers an opportunity for capitalism to re-imagine itself again, to maximise efficiency, entrepreneurship and new sectors for growth. Chaired by Jesse Norman.