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Friday 24th September, 7.30 pm, Ship Theatre
Sarah Dunant
'Novel History
in Renaissance Italy'
 Sarah Dunant's masterly series of historical novels set in Renaissance Italy has won many
plaudits. 'She writes like a painter and thinks like a philosopher', says Amanda Foreman. Sarah will explore
how she has been able to bring alive the Italian Renaissance as seen through the eyes of women in her trilogy, The Birth
of Venus, In the Company of the Courtesan and Sacred Hearts. Sacred Hearts was serialised
on Radio 4's Book of the Week in 2009 and was a Best Read of the TV Book Club.
Sponsored by Hollybush Residents'
Association.
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£8
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Monday 27th September, 7.30
pm, St Nicholas Undercroft
Robert
Sackville-West
'Inheritance: The Private Life of a Public Place: 400 Years of the Sackvilles at Knole'
 As the 7th Lord Sackville, Robert
Sackville-West shares Knole not only with his family but with the National Trust and thousands of visitors. Inheritance:
The Story of Knole & the Sackvilles is a vivid chronicle of his rich family history from Elizabethan courtier
Thomas Sackville to the present day. A trained historian and publisher, Robert Sackville-West writes with historical
insight and sympathy about his illustrious and colourful ancestors, who included Charles Sackville, 6th Earl of Dorset, a
friend of Dryden and a lover of Nell Gwynne. He will tell the fascinating story of a family driven apart by bitter feuds
and lawsuits over inheritance, and of the great house at the centre of it all.
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Tuesday 28th September, 7.30 pm, Sevenoaks Kaleidoscope Library
Kirsten Ellis
'Star of the Morning: The Extraordinary Life of
Lady Hester Stanhope'
 New Zealand-born Kirsten Ellis will tell the astonishing story of Lady Hester Stanhope,
who spent her early life at Chevening House acting as a political hostess for her uncle, William Pitt the Younger. Famous
for her wit, beauty and energy, she became the greatest female traveller of her day, developing a passion for the Arab world.
She forged lasting friendships with pashas, emirs and sheikhs, and ended her life living in the Lebanon. Kirsten's
fine biography is based on meticulous research, and breaks new ground in not depicting Lady Hester as an English eccentric
but as a power broker and a woman of political ambition and influence whose role prefigured that of Lawrence of Arabia.
This event is sponsored by Sevenoaks Kaleidoscope Library.
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Wednesday 29th September, 10 am, Sevenoaks Primary School
Schools Event with Christopher
Lloyd
'What On Earth Happened?'
 This year's free event for schools will again be hosted by Sevenoaks Primary School
and pupils from other Sevenoaks primary schools will be invited to attend. After his enthralling talk on What
On Earth Happened? at last year's festival, Christopher Lloyd will return to speak about What On Earth Happened?
The Complete Story of the Planet, Life & People from the Big Bang to the Present Day. He raises plenty of questions
for the enquiring mind. How old is the Universe? What happened to dinosaurs?
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Wednesday 29th September, 7.30 pm, Sevenoaks Kaleidoscope
Library
Sue Brown
'The Deathbed Companion: Keats' Accidental Best Friend, Joseph Severn'
 Keats' death in Rome, convinced he was a failure, is the saddest episode in English
literary history. Everything we know about it comes from the letters of the young painter, Joseph Severn, who nursed
him. Who was Severn and how well did he protect Keats' posthumous reputation? Why was he venerated by the
Victorians but criticised by later Keats' scholars? Sue Brown, author of the first full biography of Severn,
Joseph Severn, A Life: The Rewards of Friendship, talks about the kind but ebullient man who is now buried
next to Keats in the Protestant cemetary in Rome.
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Thursday 30th September,
12.00 noon, St Julian's Club
Literary Lunch with
Juliet Nicolson
 Join us for a delicious lunch in the company of Juliet Nicolson, granddaughter of Vita Sackville-West.
Juliet will be talking about how she came to writing, and how great literature and personal experience were her inspirations.
Her two books, The Perfect Summer: Dancing into Shadow in 1911 and The Great Silence, 1918 - 1920:
Living in the Shadow of the Great War, explore the lives of individuals living at a time of huge social change before
and after the First World War. Juliet will reveal how the concept of change has fuelled her writing, and
will describe the important literary and family influences that brought her to a life of literature.
Please note
that the talk will precede the lunch.
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Friday 1st
October, 7.30 pm, Ship Theatre
A Poetry Reading
by Gillian Clarke
 To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Sevenoaks Poetry Society, we are
delighted to welcome Gillian Clarke, the National Poet of Wales, who will read and discuss her poetry. Gillian's
first full collection, The Sundial, was published in 1978, and since then she has become one of our best-loved and
most widely read writers, whose poetry is studied by GCSE and A-Level students throughout Britain. Her
poems are rhythmic and assured, urgent and lucid, and have been praised for their clarity and generosity of spirit.
Gillian is a tutor in Creative Writing, and President of Ty Newydd, the writers' centre in North Wales, which she
co-founded in 1990.
Sponsored by Sevenoaks Poetry Society.
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£8
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Saturday 2nd October,
2.30 pm, St Nicholas Undercroft
Desert Island Books: Book Groups'
Tea
The theme for this year's Book Groups' Tea is Desert Island books. What eight
books would your group choose to take to their desert island? Come and join WEA tutors Alyss Dye and Christine Bett
to discuss your choices and the reasons you made them. Would you chose a favourite book from your childhood or one that
has had a significant impact on your life, a classic novel, a who-dunnit, or perhaps a self-help book or a volume of poetry?
Send in or bring along a list of the best eight books you and your group have read over the last few years. Tea and
cakes will be served.
Individual readers and their lists are welcome.
Sponsored by WEA: Sevenoaks
Branch.
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£5
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Monday 4th October, 7.30 pm, Sevenoaks
Kaleidoscope Library
Adrian Tinniswood: The Pirates
of Barbary
Adrian Tinniswood's 2007 book about the Verney family, shortlisted for the
Samuel Johnson Prize, told the story of the Jacobean Sir Francis Verney who ran away to North Africa, converted to Islam and
became a pirate. Adrian will be talking about his new book, The Pirates of Barbary: Corsairs, Conquests
and Captivity in 17th Century Mediterranean, which completes his tale of 17th century derring-do, when Barbary pirates
terrorised the Mediterranean and the Atlantic from their bases in North Africa. The book shows that piracy is nothing
new, and that Verney was not the only Englishman who swapped the comforts of home for a career of robbery on the high seas.
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£5
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Tuesday 5th October, 7.30 pm,
Sevenoaks Kaleidoscope Library
Jeremy Musson: Up and
Down Stairs
 Many more of us trace our ancestry back to scullery maids and footmen than to wealthy aristocrats, and the vanished world
of life below stairs increasingly fascinates us. Jeremy Musson's new book, Up and Down Stairs: The History
of the Country House Servant, uncovers the lives of the hundreds of servants who worked behind the scenes in every great
country house, cleaning, polishing, cooking, gardening and following dozens of specialist trades. From Knole to Waddesdon,
the great English houses formed self-contained hierarchies. Jeremy Musson was architectural editor of Country
Life for ten years and is an expert on country houses and their history.
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£5
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Wednesday 6th October, 7.30 pm, Sevenoaks
Town Council Chamber
Anna Parkinson: Unlocking the
Past with Plants
 In her book, Nature's Alchemist, John Parkinson, Herbalist to Charles I, Anna
Parkinson tells how a 17th century gardening book passed down through her family inspired her journey into the extraordinary
life of her ancestor John Parkinson, who was Britain's first official herbalist. Anna will describe how the story
of his life redefines the past, throwing new light on a vital historical period and reawakening our understanding of the power
of plants.
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£5
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Thursday 7th October,
7.30 pm, Plaza Suite, Stag Community Arts Centre
Michael
Burleigh: Moral Combat: A History of World War II
Michael Burleigh is regarded as the UK's foremost expert on Nazi Germany, and his book, The Third Reich:
A New History, won the Samuel Johnson Prize in 2001. He will discuss his new book, Moral Combat: A History
of World War II, which has been described by the Literary Review as 'elegant and thought-provoking ... and highly
disturbing'. Moral Combat takes a fresh look at the second world war and at the choices and compromises that
were made both by Germany and by the Western allies on the grounds of morality, from Nazi war crimes to the bombing of German
civilians. Burleigh's magnificent moral survey is an answer to anyone who thinks that the last word has been
said on the 1939 - 1945 conflict, or that easy judgements can be made.
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£8
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Friday 8th October,
7.30 pm, Ship Theatre
Lionel Shriver: So Much For That
Lionel Shriver's last visit to Sevenoaks was to talk about her controversial novel, We Need to Talk About Kevin,
which won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2005 and sold more than a million copies worldwide. On her welcome return
she will be highlighting her ninth novel, So Much For That, which enjoyed rave reviews in America. Described
by the Daily Telegraph as 'viciously funny and at times, unflinchingly cruel', it is an exploration of the USA healthcare
crisis, very timely in views of the recent battle in America over Obama's reforms. Lionel poses the unsettling question:
how much is one life worth?
Sponsored by the Sevenoaks Bookshop.
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£8
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Sunday 10th October, 2.30 pm, meet at Weald
Memorial Hall
Weald Literary Walk led by Gilly Moysey
 This is the seventh year of our popular literary walk around the village of Weald.
Weald has been home to many writers and poets including Edward and Helen Thomas, W.H. Davies, Arthur Koestler and Vita Sackville-West.
Gilly Moysey will lead an afternoon literary ramble in their footsteps. A visit will be made to Vita's world famous
garden at Long Barn, by kind permission of the owners. The walk will be followed by readings from some of the writers'
works and a delicious home-baked tea in Weald Memorial Hall. This event is always a sell-out, so this year a ballot
for tickets will be held on 27th August. Two tickets only per family.
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£8
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All events are correct at the time
of publication but are subject to alteration without notice.
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