Self catering accommodation Stamford, Bourne, Lincolnshire, and also Grantham

Oundle Festival of Literature

 

All the information on this page is courtesy of the Oundle Literature Festival. Download it on pdf here

The Oundle Festival of Literature is proud to announce that Kate Adie and Will Self will be speaking in Oundle in the first week of June and that Rupert Shortt will also be speaking at an event co-hosted by the Festival and Oundle School. The Festival will also have a presence at the re-launched Oundle Carnival on 20 June in the form of highly acclaimed storyteller Shonaleigh, as well as a presence at the Wellingborough Party in the Park on 5 July with performance poet Rob Gee. These events form part of the Festival’s 2009 extended programme following on from the successful festival fortnight in March.

 Kate Adie

Kate Adie, who has undoubtedly found herself in some uncomfortably tight spots, has long been fascinated by those who live in these tight spots with relative comfort and ease.   Into Danger is the fascinating result of her worldwide research into these individuals and explores their motives in choosing jobs that could put them directly into danger or even jeopardise their lives. From missionaries to gangsters, all Kate’s subjects are striking individuals with an inner strength and conviction that makes them inherently interesting. Grippingly told and with the wit, insatiable curiosity and sharp insight which are the hallmarks of Kate Adie’s writing, Into Danger is a fearless exploration of the furthest reaches of human capability..

 

Click here to download a pdf with all the details.

 

Will Self

Will Self’s latest novel, The Butt, is an uncomfortable and disturbing allegory of the liberal West in the post-9/11 era.  When Tom Brodzinski finally decides to give up smoking during a family holiday in a weird, unnamed land, a moment’s inattention becomes his undoing. Flipping the butt of his last cigarette off the balcony of the holiday apartment, it lands on the head of the elderly Reggie Lincoln, and burns him. Despite Brodzinski’s liberal attitudes and good intentions, the local authorities treat his action as an assault. Soon the full weight of the courts and tribal custom is brought to bear. What follows is a journey through a fantastically distorted world, a country that is part Australia, part Iraq and entirely the heart of distinctively modern darkness.

 

‘Self writes here with an adroit impersonation of coarse exuberance that makes The Butt as readable as a blokeish airport novel (though with a fuddlingly large vocabulary). But just beneath the brash surface shimmer the unmistakable apparitions of Self’s masters: Swift, Voltaire and Lewis Carroll are all partly responsible for the ingenious, mephitic invention that is The Butt.’ The Daily Telegraph

Rupert Shortt

In Rowan’s Rule, Rupert Shortt has written an authoritative biography of the Archbishop of Canterbury that presents both the public and the private man.  Written with Rowan’s cooperation, this book elucidates his ideas and paints a compelling portrait of a private and surprisingly vulnerable man at a time when church affairs are making headlines.

 

‘This excellent biography of the Primate of all England is theologically
heavyweight, psychologically perceptive and sometimes strikingly
critical.’ The Sunday Times

 

Rupert Shortt is Religion Editor of The Times Literary Supplement. His other books are Rowan Williams: An Introduction, God's Advocates: Christian Thinkers in Conversation and Benedict XVI