For years he was at the very heart of the Blair Government. A former Daily Mirror reporter and political editor, he faced his own demons in alcohol and stress before becoming one of the most influential people in the country through his work with Labour. In his diaries we get a fascinating and unique insight into the way Britain is governed and into Blair himself, from a man whose forthright views polarise public opinion. Interview is by Anna Botting.

The Alastair Campbell Diaries - Prelude to Power - Random House

Relax, have a cup of coffee, admire the view and enjoy the wonders of the spoken word. Nothing typifies the values and traditions of the Festival more than the River Readings. Some of the greatest poetry written is about love and war and this year Nansi Diamond has made her evocative selection of prose and poetry from this rich creative seam. Join Simon Williams, Lucy Fleming, Ferdinand Mount and Sally Nesbitt as the boat gently drifts downstream and you listen to some of the greatest lines ever written.

One of the BBC’s most distinguished foreign correspondents is also an acclaimed writer, winning a George Orwell prize for literature. Here he recounts the epic story of the last great stand of Empire, the desperate fight of a garrison of 1,500 men in the Indian village of Kohima near Burma, outnumbered ten to one by Japanese soldiers. A dramatic story filled with a cast of brave and extraordinary personalities, there were appalling losses on both sides as thousands of Japanese starved on the retreat along the ‘Road of Bones’. Journalist Stephen Robinson is the interviewer

Road of Bones: the Siege of Kohima 1944 HarperPress

Meet the creators of the hugely successful BBC series Cranford, based on the Elizabeth Gaskell novels. Now they have produced a lavishly illustrated guide to the fictional village inhabited by much-loved characters such as Miss Matty Jenkyns, Captain Brown, Miss Pole, Mrs Forrester and Lady Ludlow. Don’t miss this unique opportunity to join the authors and discovers what went on behind the scenes and finds out why we all want to live in Cranford - and some of us do.

The Cranford Companion - Bloomsbury

John and Myfanwy Piper were a highly productive couple, working in the fields of art, literature and music, and together they made a significant contribution to the cultural landscape of the twentieth century. Surprisingly, the centre of all this activity was a brick and flint farmhouse at Fawley Bottom near Henley, on the edge of the Chilterns, their home from 1935 for the rest of their lives. Curators, collectors and craftsmen came and went, as did a range of wellknown visitors, among them Kenneth Clark, John Betjeman, Osbert Lancaster, Benjamin Britten, and the Queen Mother. Frances Spalding will look at some of the things that inspired the Pipers and gave John Piper’s work – some of which hangs in the museum - such pivotal importance in the history of 20th century British Art.

John Piper, Myfanwy Piper, Lives in Art - Oxford University Press
Sponsored by the Bohun gallery

One of the most humorous and perceptive of writers, Matthew Parris once worked at the Foreign Office where he came across one of the great traditions that when leaving a foreign posting, Britain’s ambassadors were encouraged to write a valedictory despatch. Parris had the job of distributing these indiscreet and often very funny writings which were sadly abolished in 2006. Our Men often used them to settle scores, poke fun at foreigners and moan – but sometimes a bit of serious analysis was included. Andrew Bryson - a radio journalist working on the BBC’s Business News Unit - read about the despatches in one of Parris’s newspaper columns and produced and researched the resulting BBC radio series. Their book is an entertaining and frequently hilarious volume of the best of them. Parris worked for Margaret Thatcher before becoming an MP in 1979, but left after seven years to become an extremely successful journalist, broadcaster and Times columnist. Emma Freud is the interviewer.

Parting Shots - Penguin

The brilliant award-winning comedian will take us through his quest to uncover ‘the books that taste forgot,’ in an hour that pays homage to all that is excruciating in literature. Away from the comedy stage, Ince has spent most of the 21st century rummaging through charity shops, jumble sales, and the odd skip to create a hilarious collection of books that might accurately be described as the world’s worst. With readings from the books that have earned themselves the dubious distinction of inclusion in a book no author wants to be in, it should be the complete antidote to anyone daring to get too serious at the Festival.

The Bad Book Club - Sphere

Brilliantly astute and occasionally disquieting, this eye-opening book makes us look afresh at who we are and how we got here. In it, Mount looks at the astonishing resemblance between the classical world and twenty-first century society. The ways in which we eat and drink, bath, exercise, make love, ponder and enquire in our lives, correspond to the Greeks and Romans. A fascinating account of very different times - but very similar people. Distinguished historian Sir Alistair Horne conducts the interview.

Full Circle- How the Classical World Came Back to Us - Simon and Schuster

Relax, have a cup of coffee, admire the view and enjoy the wonders of the spoken word. Nothing typifies the values and traditions of the Festival more than the River Readings. Some of the greatest poetry written is about love and war and this year Nansi Diamond has made her evocative selection of prose and poetry from this rich creative seam. Join Simon Williams, Sally Nesbitt, Donald Trelford and Fiona Hayden-Cadd as the boat gently drifts downstream and you listen to some of the greatest lines ever written.

We can now confirm that the cast for this reading will include Simon Williams.

Given his parentage – his father Macdonald Hastings worked for Picture Post and the BBC, and his mother was the glamorous journalist Ann Scott- James – it was hardly surprising that Max became editor of the Daily Telegraph and the London Evening Standard. It is also unsurprising that the family was supremely dysfunctional, as this moving and often wonderfully funny book reveals. For both hisparents, it was the second of three marriages, and his relationship with his late mother is obviously still painful. Find out more about his fraught but frequently comic childhood … and how the television was shot. Journalist Stephen Robinson will introduce his former editor.

Did You Really Shoot the Television? - Harper Press

Her first book, I Don’t Know How She Does It, was a phenomenal success, selling 3.5 million copies. Now, the long-awaited follow-up charts the life of 13 year-old Petra from South Wales, through her teenage infatuation with David Cassidy to marriage and motherhood. The title comes from the 1970 Partridge Family hit that made Cassidy a teen idol and the subject of Petra’s vivid adolescent dreams. Written with all the Daily Telegraph columnist’s trademark humour, feistiness and emotion it has received rave reviews. The Daily Telegraph's Lorna Bradbury is the interviewer.

I Think I Love You - Chatto

He is one of the best-known faces in television news, whether as a globetrotting reporter or the presenter of Newsnight. But there is another side to him, as an author. In his latest novel, Gavin Esler uses the experience gained over eight years as the BBC’s chief North America correspondent to tell the story of the decline in the US-British ‘special relationship,’ as seen through the eyes of our man in Washington, Alex Price. In an effort to calm troubled waters, the British invite the new American vice-president to come on a shooting trip to Scotland – where he disappears.As he is interviewed by Sky'sAnna Botting ,find out how close fact comes to fiction in this compelling hour.

Power Play - Harper Collins

Two acclaimed writers appear together to talk about their latest novels that put the microscope on two men whose pasts have an ever-increasing impact on the present and examine how people react to change. In his ninth novel, The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim – Viking, Jonathan Coe looks at a man for whom life is not good. Sim is newly divorced, estranged from his father, unable to communicate with his only daughter and there is nobody in the world with whom he can actually share his problems. He goes on a journey that carries him not only to the furthest point of the United Kingdom, but into some of the deepest and darkest corners of his own past. Blake Morrison returns to the festival to talk about his new book Last Weekend - Chatto and Windus. Set over a long summer weekend in East Anglia where golden couple Ollie and Daisy have invited Ian and his wife, Em, to stay, the scene is set for relaxation but dangerous tensions quickly emerge and resentments that have lain dormant for 20 years begin to bubble up. The rivalry intensifies as the two men resurrect a seemingly forgotten sporting bet made twenty years ago. Acclaimed novelist Tim Lott is the interviewer.

It has been two years in the writing, but finally Peter Hain’s biography of Nelson Mandela is complete. The anti-apartheid campaigner and former Labour minister has a personal and unique view of the iconic former president of South Africa. Hain grew up in South Africa in a family as opposed to the regime as Mandela himself. Hain’s mother, Adelaine, took food to the young Mandela in prison and at 15, Hain made a speech at the funeral of an activist hanged for bombing a railway station. Forced to leave South Africa, he came to London where he campaigned against sporting links with South Africa and led the Guardian to comment: ‘Peter Hain may go down in history as the man who made apartheid a national issue in Britain’. Former Observer editor Donald Trelford asks the questions.

Mandela - Octopus

Come on, they are the sort of questions we all puzzle over. What should education really be for? Does being happy make us good? And does being good make us happy? Is the mind all in the brain? The man who strives to answer them is A C Grayling, whose collection of short essays attempts to give us the answers. He is professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London and a prolific writer in newspapers and journals. Now is your chance to ask him some challenging questions.

Thinking of Answers: Questions in the Philosophy of Everyday Life - Bloomsbury

She is the glamorous aristocrat renowned for her historical biographies, he was a celebrated playwright and winner of the Nobel Prize for literature. When they met and fell in love, it was instantly front page news. Lady Antonia Fraser and Harold Pinter lived together from August 1975 until his death 33 years later. Throughout that time she kept a diary which makes up this moving account of their life together. Her entry for January 8th 1975 recounts the moment they met at a dinner party: ‘I went over to where Harold was sitting.“Wonderful play, marvellous acting, now I’m off.” He looked at me with those amazing, extremely bright black eyes. “Must you go”...’ Max Hastings will talk with Lady Antonia about this wonderfully personal book that pays testimony to a remarkable relationship.

Must You Go? My Life with Harold Pinter - Weidenfeld

Glover’s portraits are on display in the Highland Park Green Room in the Town Hall throughout the festival. His portfolio includes famous faces and local heores. He has spent the last decade capturing people’s lives with his lens. Here he shares his thoughts about his most important works. Interviewed by the BBC’s Jenny Walmsley.

There could be no better-qualified man to take us through the remarkable photographic account of the Antarctic expeditions of Scott and Shackleton. Hempleman-Adams was the first man to reach the geographic and magnetic North and South Poles as well as climbing the highest peaks in all seven continents; the Adventurers’ Grand Slam. Now he provides the expert narrative to the Heart of the Great Alone, based on pictures from the Royal Collection, many never seen before and captured by the lenses of their official photographers Herbert George Ponting and Frank Hurley. Sky's Anna Botting will be the interviewer.

The Heart of the Great Alone - Bloomsbury

Two course £14 supper after the talk can be booked by calling 01491 415600