The Literary Travel Blog

Literary Festivals in the UK

Thu, 9 May 2013 14:18:26 -0400

A guide to literary festivals in the UK, with link details

'Lawrence of Arabia' - T E Lawrence and the Desert Campaign

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 13:51:57 -0400

T E Lawrence, the Desert Campaign, and the legend of 'Lawrence of Arabia' which undermined his sense of self

T E Lawrence and Clouds Hill - where nothing is superfluous

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 13:43:59 -0400

T E Lawrence and Clouds Hill: 'Give me the luxuries and I will do without the essentials'

T E Lawrence: The extraordinary story of 'Lawrence of Arabia" and Clouds Hill

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 13:34:23 -0400

Clouds Hill is the purest expression of the mind of T E Lawrence, this remarkable 'dreamer of the day'

Harnham Bridge and Mill

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 09:57:37 -0500

A guide to Harnham, Salisbury

A guide to Venice and writers drawn to this beautiful and mesmerizing city

Sat, 15 Dec 2012 02:38:16 -0500

Exploring Venice through the writers drawn to this beautiful and mesmerizing city

Venice, Hemingway and Pound

Fri, 14 Dec 2012 08:17:35 -0500

Exploring the Venice of Hemingway and Ezra Pound

Venice, Caffe Florian and Casanova

Fri, 14 Dec 2012 08:02:11 -0500

Venice, Caffe Florian and Casanova, a history of glamour, intrigue and the pursuit of pleasure

Venice and Proust

Fri, 14 Dec 2012 07:44:46 -0500

Exploring Venice and Marcel Proust

Figsbury Rings

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 03:57:34 -0500

Figsbury Rings and E M Forster, a literary guide

Salisbury Cathedral and Close

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 07:06:07 -0500

A Guide to Salisbury Cathedral, Henry Fielding, William Golding

William Hazlitt and Winterslow

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 06:39:15 -0500

William Hazlitt, essayist, in Winterslow, near Salisbury

Literary travel: About Us

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 07:23:26 -0500

About Us: specialists in literary travel, literary tours and literary tourism

Daniel Owen Literary Festival

Tue, 2 Oct 2012 09:22:19 -0400

This year’s Daniel Owen Literary Festival, named after the foremost Welsh novelist of the nineteenth century, takes place from Saturday, October 13 to Saturday, October 20 in Mold, Flintshire. Events at this bi-lingual festival include: Dr. Angharad Price giving the annual Daniel Owen lecture in 2012 Folk music with Sian James - a literary event with music Book launch – the history of Mold by Bill Pritchard A Heritage walk, talk, tea and cake with Christopher Williams, former Clwyd County Archivist, at Loggerheads Country Park This year’s programme is part of the long-term vision to establish a community arts and literature festival around the figurehead of Daniel Owen and his work – a writer, local businessman and politician and a Welsh national cultural figurehead.

Bridport Literary Festival

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 09:16:42 -0400

What's on at this year's Bridport Literary Festival in Dorset

Thomas Hardy and Dorset

Sun, 10 Jun 2012 10:52:38 -0400

Thomas Hardy and Dorset: A Guide and Literary tour of Hardy's Wessex

Sylvia Townsend Warner

Mon, 6 Feb 2012 08:47:10 -0500

On Sylvia Townsend Warner at Chaldon and Frome Vauchurch in Dorset

Brympton Festival

Mon, 6 Feb 2012 08:42:02 -0500

Information about Brympton Festival, April 20-26, 2012

Is the Amazon Kindle for you?

Thu, 8 Sep 2011 10:04:44 -0400

A beginner’s guide to enjoying the Amazon Kindle

A lover without indiscretion is no lover at all

Thu, 8 Sep 2011 09:22:32 -0400

‘A lover without indiscretion is no lover at all. Circumspection and devotion are a contradiction in terms’ Thomas Hardy, from The Hand of Ethelberta Reminds me of Notting Hill, the Richard Curtis film starring Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts. I’m channelling Hardy today in preparation for guiding the cameraman and producer from an indie production company tomorrow, scouting the landscapes that inspired Hardy. Hoping for some good cloud formations in a clear(ish) sky so that the views from the high hills - for example at Bulbarrow, on the exposed slopes of which Tess laboured in the freezing winter digging turnips on ‘Flintcombe Farm’ – are at their magnificent best.

St James's

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 09:03:01 -0400

London Tours and Literary Trails: St James's Park and 18th century London

Henry Fielding in Lyme Regis (and in love)

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 07:55:19 -0400

The adventures of Henry Fielding at Lyme Regis, Dorset, for the purpose of carrying off an heiress

Mozart in London

Fri, 1 Jul 2011 05:05:54 -0400

London Tours and Literary Trails: A guide to Mozart in London, including private and group tours

A literary tour of Salisbury

Sat, 25 Jun 2011 14:10:59 -0400

A literary tour of the city of Salisbury and surrounding areas, including Stonehenge

Translation, travel and the books we read

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 08:33:43 -0400

How translation changes books and travel can change the traveler

London: City of Words

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 04:34:16 -0400

A literary companion to London, exploring the lives, works and relationships of the writers who have lived in this city, from Chaucer to Zadie Smith

London Literary Trails and Tours

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 11:15:29 -0400

Explore London's rich literary history and geography with literary trails and tours including Shakespeare, Dickens, Johnson and Boswell ...

The Virginia Woolf Trail

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 09:03:01 -0400

The Virginia Woolf Trail explores the life and work of Virginia Woolf and members of the Bloomsbury Group

Iris Murdoch

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 08:46:44 -0400

A series of walks in London relating to the novels of Iris Murdoch

Death in Venice - Don't Look Now

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 09:06:00 -0400

Death in Venice, and other stories of passion, intrigue

Hampstead & Highgate Literary Festival

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 07:39:24 -0400

This, the third Hampstead and Highgate Literary Festival, will be taking place once again at Ivy House, former home of prima ballerina Anna Pavlova, from 11-13th September 2011. Guests scheduled to appear include: Raymond Blanc, Esther Freud, Peter Snow, Edna O’Brien, Diana Athill, Fatima Bhutto, Nicholas Parsons, Andrew Morton and Stephanie Flanders. Jane Rusbridge will lead a series of creative writing and publishing workshops. More authors are being added to the line-up. Bookings open online on 1st July at www.hamhighlitfest.com The Festival is organised by the London Jewish Cultural Centre in partnership with the Ham&High newspaper. Venue: Ivy House, 94-96 North End Road, London NW11 7SX Close to Golders Green tube station. 268 and 210 buses stop outside.

Chiswick Book Festival

Mon, 9 Aug 2010 14:50:26 -0400

There's an interesting range of authors lined up for the second Chiswick Book Festival which is taking place the weekend of 17 – 19th September at the picturesque Norman Shaw Church of St Michaels and All Angels, Bath Road, London W4 1TX and the Tabard Theatre in Turnham Green, W4. Authors attending this year include Terry Pratchett who will be opening the Festival with his only talk to promote his new book ‘ ‘I Shall Wear Midnight’, followed by BBC Presenter, Michael Wood who will be doing his first talk on his new book ‘The Story of England' as a main event on Friday 17th September in advance of his new television series coming up in October. Charlie Higson will be leading the Children’s Festival on Saturday morning, Allison Pearson will be taking the stand to talk about ‘I Think I Love You’ on Saturday at 12.15 and Mavis Cheek and Prue Leith will be leading a women’s fiction panel on Saturday afternoon interviewed by Fanny Blake, books editor at Woman & Home. Andrew Motion will be speaking on the evening of Saturday 18th September about Larkin and his new selection of poetry from Faber. On Sunday there's Adele Parks on ‘Men I’ve Loved Before’ and Val McDermid doing the main crime event on Sunday afternoon…. For tickets and information, see: www.chiswickbookfestival.org.

Malik vs Sardar - The UK/Asia Debate

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 05:34:14 -0400

As part of the Asia Literature Festival in London, Kenan Malik and Ziauddin Sardar go head to head in a war of ideas as they debate contentious issues that affect Britain today: the Rushdie affair and its repercussions, contemporary Islam, terrorism, free speech and Western values. Malik's 'From Fatwa to Jihad: The Rushdie Affair and its Legacy' tells the full story of the Rushdie affair and considers its resonance in modern Britain. In 'Balti Britain: Journey through the British Asian Experience' Sardar explores the main Asian communities in the UK in a quest to understand his own diasporic experience. These two authors are guaranteed to provide a thought-provoking, revealing debate and a lively evening. Moderated by Boyd Tonkin Tuesday 12 May, 6.45pm Tickets: £8 Asia House Friends/Concessions (students/60+): £5

Laurence Sterne and Shandy Hall

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 05:51:06 -0400

I was just updating some information on Yorkshire and the Brontes, and saw that there's an interesting series of exhibitions at Shandy Hall this year: An exhibition of County Maps celebrating the work of J L Carr, author of 'A Month in the Country', opens the weekend of 16/17 May with a sermon in Coxwold church by lay-canon Ronald Blythe (author of Akenfield) and the publication of a Pocket Book of the Quotations of Sterne. In July/August there is an exhibition of the original drawings for The Illustrated Tristram Shandy by Martin Rowson - Guardian political cartoonist. The exhibition will include new work by Rowson entitled Yoricks Progress. In September/October there is an exhibition for the 250th anniversary of the Black Page in Tristram Shandy. Also, for those who like to plan ahead, put 15-18 July 2013 in your diary: Plans are underway for The Tercentenary Conference, Laurence Sterne 1713 – 2013, to be held in York.

Tailor-Made Tours

Tue, 7 Apr 2009 13:40:07 -0400

Tailor-made literary and cultural tours in the UK and Europe

The Asia House Festival of Asian Literature

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 06:55:54 -0400

The only Festival in the UK dedicated to writing about Asia, The Asia House Festival of Asian Literature celebrates the newest and best of writing across a broad spectrum of Asian countries in a series of talks, debates and discussions. With over 25 authors covering ten Asian countries, The 2009 Asia House Festival of Asian Literature provides a unique, accessible way to interact with and understand these diverse cultures. The 2009 programme, running from May 11 - 22, offers a unique opportunity to engage with both prominent writers and emerging voices in the intimate and beautiful atmosphere of Asia House in Marylebone, central London. Among the authors speaking are: Aravind Adiga, Amit Chaudhuri, Tash Aw, Kenan Malik, Ziauddin Sardar, Kamila Shamsie, Nadeem Aslam, Daniyal Mueenuddin, Alice Albinia, Martin Jacques, John Man and Christina Lamb. For booking call 020 7307 5454 or email enquiries@asiahouse.co.uk Asia House, 63 New Cavendish Street, London W1G 7LP www.asiahouse.org

George Herbert and Bemerton

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 06:25:03 -0400

The poet George Herbert spent his last years his life as rector of St Andrews Bemerton

Literary Tours

Thu, 1 Nov 2007 08:45:16 -0400

Literary tours in Britain and Europe

The guardian Hay Festival in Segovia

Tue, 4 Sep 2007 06:26:23 -0400

The guardian Hay Festival in Segovia takes place 27-30 September 2007 The programme includes: Edwin Williamson, Professor of Spanish Studies at Oxford University and a Fellow of Exeter College, speaking on: how do you write a biography of Borges? The Muslim Woman, Sufism and Literature
Elif Shafak in conversation with Maureen Freely Literary Creation and the Politically Incorrect
Samih al-Qasim talks to Ignacio Gutiérrez de Terán A Parrot in the Pepper Tree
Chris Stewart talks to Manuel Pimentel A. C. Grayling speaking on The Concept of Liberty Wole Soyinka in conversation with Landry-Wilfred Mampika and 'In Conversations' with Hanif Kureishi and Arnold Wesker

Gods, Heroes and Romantics

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 05:28:30 -0400

Gods, Heroes and Romantics is a unique adventure in the classical world. A journey into history, myth and legend

Ancient Greece and the Classical World

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 05:11:36 -0400

A literary travel guide to Ancient Greece and the Classical World

King's Sutton Literary Festival

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 05:57:41 -0500

This year's King's Sutton Festival takes place on Saturday and Sunday 10 and 11 March in this charming village just outside Banbury in Oxfordshire. Writers appearing include Salley Vickers, who on Saturday 10th will be talking to Winifred Robinson about her latest novel The Other Side of You, and Margaret Drabble, who will be talking about her life and work on the Sunday. Full details and booking at www.kslitfest.co.uk

The Journey

Sat, 27 Jan 2007 07:30:18 -0500

‘A vast platform appeared before us, lit up by reflectors. A little beyond it, a row of lorries. Then everything was silent again. Someone translated: we had to climb down with our luggage and deposit it alongside the train. In a moment the platform was swarming with shadows. But we were afraid to break the silence: everyone busied himself with his luggage, searched for someone else, called to somebody, but timidly, in a whisper.’ From If This Is A Man by Primo Levi, trans. Stuart Woolf
27 January : Holocaust Memorial Day

Throw away other people’s maps

Mon, 22 Jan 2007 15:56:34 -0500

The second part of Zadie Smith’s beautiful and challenging article on writers and readers was published in The Guardian on Saturday. In the article she re-connects style with morality and life lived, and with it reclaims the actual experience, as felt, of reading - and why writing fiction, and reading it, matters. A truly thrilling read. ‘What unites great novels is the individual manner in which they articulate experience and force us to be attentive, waking us from the sleepwalk of our lives. And the great joy of fiction is the variety of this process …’ ‘Both the writer and the reader must undergo an ethical expansion – allow me to call it an expansion of the heart – in order to comprehend the human otherness that fiction confronts them with; both fail in varied, fascinating ways to complete this action as ideally it might be completed. …’ Follow the permalink to read more about The Word Travels unique creative writing journey in Prague and Krakow.

T S Eliot and East Coker

Sun, 7 Jan 2007 16:09:09 -0500

T S Eliot died on 4th January 1965. We visited East Coker and the Eliot Corner of St. Michael's Church, East Coker, where his ashes are buried below the memorial plaque set in the wall. ‘Home is where one starts from’ he wrote in 'East Coker', one of the Four Quartets, and his burial here marks his return to the parish of his forefathers. The church is set on higher ground just above the village of East Coker, on the Dorset / Somerset border and provides magnificent views of the rolling countryside beyond. There is something moving in the simplicity of the plaque, and the omission of his honours in favour of the simple description, ‘Poet’, that is wholly fitting of the kind of man, and poet, that he was. The stone includes the first and last lines from ‘East Coker’ - ‘In my beginning is my end ... In my end is my beginning’ and the one simple request that the beholder, of his or her charity, might pray for the repose of his soul. As the wind blows through the trees skirting the graveyard, it is a perfect place to rediscover, as lines in ‘East Coker’ have it, ‘Love is most nearly itself / When here and now cease to matter.’

New Year’s Eve, Clavell Tower

Sun, 31 Dec 2006 15:17:08 -0500

New Year’s Eve, and a visit to the Dorset coast in bracing wind where the dogs rushed into the churning waves before we climbed up to The Clavell Tower, which stands high on the cliff above Kimmeridge Bay. The Tower was built in 1820 as an observatory by the eccentric occupant of nearby Smedmore House, the Revd John Clavell. After many years standing empty and neglected, and in increasing danger of falling into the sea due to coastal erosion, it is now being painstakingly dismantled and re-erected 25 metres back from the cliff face. The Black Tower
The Clavell Tower is the inspiration for The Black Tower, as it becomes (refaced with blocks of dark bituminous shale) in P D James’ crime thriller of the same name. The author’s detective, Adam Dalgliesh, is in Dorset to convalesce, but is soon plunged into a murder enquiry. Dalgliesh approaches the black tower with a sense of impending doom: ‘The view, spectacular and frightening, made him catch his breath … below, the cliff tumbled into a broad fissured causeway of boulders, slabs and amorphous chunks of blue-black rock which littered the foreshore as if hurled in wild disorder by a giant hand ... As he looked down on the chaotic and awe-inspiring waste of rock and sea and tried to picture what the fall must have done to Holroyd, the sun moved fitfully from behind the clouds and a band of sunlight moved across the headland lying warm as a hand on the back of his neck, gilding the bracken, marbling the strewn rocks at the cliff edge. But it left the foreshore in shadow, sinister and unfriendly. For a moment Dalgliesh believed that he was looking down on a cursed and dreadful shore on which the sun could never shine.’ Much later, the tower is the setting for the novel's chilling climax as Dalgliesh, engulfed in a dense sea mist and with his face against the tower, hears ‘the spine-chilling scrape, unmistakable, of bone ends clawing against the stone ... ’ Today the bright morning brought strong winds and waves crashing onto the shore, not ‘cursed and dreadful’ but still awe-inspiring in its raw, elemental power. We wish all our readers and literary travellers (and travelers!) a very happy new year.

Creative Writing Breaks

Thu, 21 Dec 2006 08:04:13 -0500

Creative writing breaks that combine walks in some of the most spectacular landscapes in Britain with the time and space to respond creatively in poetry, prose, photography or drawing

More thoughts on Prague

Mon, 18 Dec 2006 08:10:35 -0500

It is perhaps only in a city so full of paradoxes that, within the space of several weeks, two vastly different but brilliant writers could have been born. One was a Jew who would write in German, a vegetarian, teetotal and self-absorbed ascetic, a man so obsessed with the knowledge of his own responsibility, his mission as a writer and his own shortcomings, that he dared not have most of his works published while he was alive. The other was a drunk, an anarchist, a bon vivant, and extrovert who ridiculed his profession and his responsibilities, who wrote in pubs and sold his work on the spot for a few beers. Franz Kafka and Jaroslav Hašek, author of The Good Soldier Švejk, lived their brief lives (they both died prematurely, within a year of each other) separated by only a few streets. They each drew on the same period to create works of genius, but those works seem separated not just by ages, but by continents as well. Since then the people of Prague have used the word Kafkárna to describe the absurdities of their lives, and have called their own ability to make light of such absurdities, to confront violence with humour and utterly passive resistance, Švejkovina. Ivan Klíma The Spirit of Prague

Ian Fleming and James Bond

Wed, 6 Dec 2006 12:51:50 -0500

A guide to Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond, in London

Ivan Klima and The Spirit of Prague

Mon, 4 Dec 2006 13:11:46 -0500

I'm just re-reading Ivan Klíma’s wonderful collection of essays The Spririt of Prague, returning to one of my favourite writers partly in preparation for our creative writing trip to Prague in May 2007 (follow link for details). Klima writes very simply, with a wonderful carity and quiet authority. In the first essay, entitiled with characteristic understated irony A Rather Unconventional Childhood, he writes of his childhood which coincided, in Eastern Europe, with the triumph of Nazism and his confinement (as a Jew) in the transit camp of Terezin. The wry, observational tone of the writing works to devastating effect: ‘I also experienced my first real friendships at this time which , as I later came to understand, were really only prefigurations of the adolescent infatuations that transform every encounter, every casual conversation into an experience of singular importance. All those friendships ended tragically; my friends, boys and girls, went to the gas chamber, all except one, the one I truly loved, Arieh, a son of the chairman of the camp prisoners’ self-management committee, who was shot at the age of twelve.’ His experiences in the camp, and later under the communist regimes of the post-war years, lead him to the conclusion that ‘fanaticism of any kind is a psychological precondition, a precursor, of violence and terror, and that there is no idea in the world good enough to justify a fanatical attempt to implement it.’ A thought that resonates today. The Spirit of Prague and other essays, by Ivan Klima, translated from the czech by Paul Wilson (Granta Books, London, 1994)