An eve-of-Fringe special. One newspaper this year said that after 5pm, Wanstead becomes a ghost town. The Fringe will be disproving it all throughout September – but for one night only we’re going to revel in it. Author and director Patrick Marlowe – an award-winning writer of ghost stories – will be testing your … Continue reading "Ghost Town Tales"
Andrew Weale, author of Newt in a Suit and Nora, visits Wanstead Library to tell his stories and delight the under-fives. Andrew was the winner of the Red House Children’s Book Award in 2013 and is also the author of Spooky Spooky House, A Quiet Day in the Jungle and Dinosaur Doo.
Leading science journalists Miriam Frankel and Matt Warren bring us extraordinary stories and studies that open our eyes to the inner workings of the mind. Every one of our thoughts, actions, moods and decisions is shaped by a whole array of factors, most of which we don’t pay any attention to. From culture, time and … Continue reading "Wanstead Book Festival presents: Miriam Frankel and Matt Warren"
Artists see things differently. Will Gompertz is familiar to audiences throughout the country from his years as the BBC’s Arts Editor. For years Will was a fixture on the Ten O’Clock News as he would introduce Turner or Booker Prize winners, or explain why a statue or painting had been sold for record prices. No … Continue reading "Wanstead Book Festival presents: Will Gompertz"
Jonathan Coe is one of Britain’s greatest living novelists whose books shine a light on how we as a society see ourselves. From his hit 1994 book What a Carve Up, through The Rotters Club, Number 11 and Middle England, he has found a moving, funny and true way to tell the story of Britain. … Continue reading "Wanstead Book Festival presents: Jonathan Coe"
It’s time everyone knew the story of Charles Ignatius Sancho. In the mid-1700s, a boy born on a slave ship found his way to Georgian London and miraculously survived. The boy grew and went on to tread the boards of London’s theatres, become a composer, lead the fight to end slavery and become the very … Continue reading "Wanstead Book Festival presents: Paterson Joseph"
Natalie Lee is familiar to thousands of people through her Instagram presence as @StyleMeSunday. Her book, Feeling Myself, is about how warped society’s approach to sex has become and how the shame that surrounds conversation about sex can hold women back. It’s an honest and revealing memoir in which she digs deep into her own … Continue reading "Wanstead Book Festival presents: Natalie Lee"
Forensic psychiatrist Sohom Das has spent 15 years trying to understand, treat and rehabilitate dangerous people. His work takes him to high-security prisons and securely locked hospital wards across the country, as well as to courtrooms where he gives evidence as an expert witness. ‘The vast majority of psychiatric patients are not violent,’ he says. … Continue reading "Wanstead Book Festival: Sohom Das"
Ladybird Books are instantly recognisable. As well as helping generations of children to learn to read, they represented a vision of how people perceived their lives as things were changing around them. Helen Day is the unofficial – but unchallenged – historian of the role the books played in our lives. She will be celebrating … Continue reading "Wanstead Book Festival presents: Helen Day – Visions of our future"
Until 1965, Wanstead was truly a part of Essex, and even now there are tell-tale signs all around us of a time before it became part of a London borough. In the 1980s, though, Essex became the stuff of tabloid headlines, supposed stereotypes and populist politics. Author Tim Burrows, in his book The Invention of … Continue reading "Wanstead Book Festival presents: Tim Burrows"
