Literary Festival

I am finally home from the Cheltenham Literature Festival. I am utterly exhausted but I had the most amazing time and I am already planning and hoping for next year. To be so completely immersed in books was just wonderful.

In the end I was relatively restrained when it came to book buying. Two event books – The Book Smugglers and The Boy at the Back of the Class which I have been meaning to read for so long – plus Agatha Oddly and Wishyouwas. Agatha Oddly is another book I have been intrigued by for a while but one I have never seen in person and Wishyouwas was brand new and irresistible. There were many, many more books I could have bought, most especially The Murderer’s Ape which a colleague raved about but which sold out before I bought it. I will definitely be getting hold of a copy soon though.

I did however also buy a couple of tote bags because I just couldn’t resist them. Not that I don’t already have plenty of those!

I loved being at Cheltenham and I was very sad to leave it all behind me. On the other hand, it is very good to be home and back in my own space. The rain is simply pelting down outside and I am curled up by the fire. Evenings don’t get much better than that.

Once again, the Hay Festival is having to be held online this year. I am very much enjoying the flood of literary conversation – my favourite event so far has to be Graham Norton’s book club with Richard Osman and Marian Keyes.

Obviously, we would rather be there in person as however good the talks are it is not the same watching them on a screen at home. In a way though I am grateful. Although I have been to several book festivals I have never yet made it to Hay in person. Even if I did I would almost certainly not manage to get to as many talks as I see at home. I am so enjoying them and am very grateful that I happened – completely accidentally – to book a week’s holiday from work this week.

It has definitely also helped that that weather this week has been so fantastic. I have been able to spend a decent amout of time reading outside – just as if I were at the festival. I have perhaps spent more time out there than I should but I don’t regret it at all.

I can’t help hoping that even when book festivals are back in person there will still be an option to watch them online. It would open the talks up to a much larger group of people – last year the Cheltenham Festival had small in person audiences whilst still streaming online and that seemed to work very well. During this past year I have watched talks held all over the country and even in the US – talks I would certainly not have been able to attend in person. Having said that, I am so looking forward to being able to attend an actual book festival again.

In the meantime, I have plenty of talks lined up over the next few days. It is going to be great!