- 28 May -30 June 2025
- Non-fiction
- SOLD OUT!
Essex Book Festival Launch: Billy Bragg
We are delighted to welcome singer, songwriter and activist Billy Bragg to launch Essex Book Festival 2018. Against a backdrop of Cold War politics, rock and roll riots and a newly assertive working-class youth, Billy charts the history, impact and legacy of Britain's original pop movement, and how Skiffle changed the world. Read more
- Non-fiction
Literary Lunch at Tymperleys: Anne de Courcy
Anne de Courcy hosts this year's literary lunch, sharing stories of social climbing American heiresses who crossed the pond to find titled husbands with power and privilege. This richly entertaining group biography reveals what they thought of their new lives in England, and what England thought of them. Read more
- Non-fiction
Rochester to Richmond: A Thames Estuary Sailor’s View – Nick Ardley
Brought up on a Thames spritsail barge, lifelong sailor Nick Ardley shares a reflective river journey between Rochester and London. A beautifully illustrated book for lovers of sailing amongst salt, marsh and mud, Nick was recently featured in BBC One’s Britain Afloat, a history of the Britain’s boats and waterways. Read more
- Non-fiction
Nathen Amin
The Wars of the Roses were a tumultuous period in English history, with family fighting family for the greatest prize in the kingdom – the throne of England. The story of the Beauforts, with their rise, fall and rise again, is the story of England during the period, a dramatic century of war, intrigue and scandal. Read more
- Memoir
- Non-fiction
Staunch
Honest, funny and poignant, Staunch follows Eleanor as she journeys to India with her grandmother and two great aunts in the wake of a painful break-up. As she spends time with the older women in her family, in the country they fled over fifty years before, Eleanor learns what it truly means to be staunch in the face of true adversity. Read more
- Discussion
- Non-fiction
- POSTPONED
All at Sea?
The unusually long coastline of Essex makes it especially vulnerable to flooding. Writer and social historian Ken Worpole will be in conversation with Hana Loftus. The talk will be illustrated with archive and contemporary photographs, and graphic material opening out to a discussion of the wider issues raised for the Essex coast as a result of Climate Change. Read more
- Non-fiction
Apples, Orchards and Community
Two different talks with a common thread. Hear Adrian May discuss how apples are closer to human life than Nature. Marina O’Connell will talk about how the back to the land movement is still relevant today with our climate crisis and in re-creating local food supplies. Followed by an open discussion, hosted by Ken Worpole around the subjects of apples, orchards and community. Read more
- Book Club Event
- Non-fiction
Essex Book Festival and the African and Caribbean Books and Writers Group present a digital book club with Toby Green – A Fistful of Shells
A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution. Described a s a book "that shakes history", Winner of the Historical Writers Association Non-Fiction Crown, the Jerry Bentley Prize in World History and the Nayef Al-Rohdan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding amongst many many other accolades. Toby Green, historian joins the Essex Book Festival and African and Caribbean Book and Writers Group digital book club to discuss, share his outstanding book.… Read more
- Essex Writers House
- In My Steps - Radical Walks in Essex
- Non-fiction
- SOLD OUT!
Radical Marshes – Wat Tyler Country
Tom King has an unsurpassed knowledge and passion for walking the Thames Estuary coastline. On this outing Tom takes us across the radical marshes into Wat Tyler country, leading us to where The Peasants Revolt began, through the lowlands and across the marshes to the White Lion Pub in Fobbing (which is thought to be haunted by previous occupants) for some respite. Meeting 11am Pitsea Station Length: up to 4/5 Hours Difficulty: Flat terrain but mixture of footing Read more
- Discussion
- Festival Launch
- Non-fiction
- ONLY A FEW TICKETS LEFT!
Festival Launch – We need to talk about Essex Girls
Join us for the Launch event of the 2021 festival with the amazing Women of Essex: Sarah Perry, Patron of Essex Book Festival, Syd Moore, Writer, Co- founder of the Essex Girls Liberation Front, Sadie Hasler, Playwright, Journalist and Director of Old Trunk Theatre Company, and honorary Essex Girl, Festival Director Ros Green, who will be discussing what it means to be an Essex Girl: the jokes, the misconceptions, and the strengths and growing movements that are starting to challenge… Read more
- In Conversation
- In partnership
- Non-fiction
How Britain Ends
Award-winning TV and Radio presenter, Scottish novelist and Journalist Gavin Esler will be discussing his latest book How Britain Ends to Professor Lorna Fox O’ Mahoney. Essential reading for anyone interested in how the UK has become so fractured, and how it might be put back together. This is a partnership event with University of Essex. Tickets : £10/ £8 /£5 Read more
- In Conversation
- In partnership
- Non-fiction
1, 2, 3, 4 The Beatles in Time
From the bestselling author of Ma’am Darling comes a kaleidoscopic mixture of history, etymology, diaries, autobiography, fan letters, essays, parallel lives, party lists, charts, interviews, announcements and stories. Best known for his parodies in Private Eye, critic and satirist Craig Brown’s One Two Three Four: The Beatles In Time, Winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2020. This a partnership event with Anglia Ruskin University. Tickets are £10/ £8 / £5. Read more
- In My Steps - Radical Walks in Essex
- Non-fiction
- SOLD OUT!
Witch Trail – Manningtree to Mistley
Syd Moore leads a guided walk from Manningtree to Mistley the setting for one of the biggest witch hysteria’s the county has ever seen, and which are mentioned in several of her books. The walk promises a discussion about witchfinder general and associates and their motivations, and a commemoration to some who the lost their lives. The walk brings the villages to life, where the participants are transformed back to the time of the witch trials. Read more
- Non-fiction
100 Great Black Britains
A pivotal investigation into the role Black Britons have played in the island’s history over the past thousand years, that brings many unjustly neglected figures vividly to life. This book is in collaboration with the 100 Great Black Britons campaign founded and run by Patrick Vernon OBE. In the wake of the 2018 Windrush scandal, and against the backdrop of Brexit, the rise of right-wing populism and the continuing inequality faced by black communities across the UK, the need for this… Read more
- Non-fiction
The Oak Papers
THE ESSEX READ 2021 James Canton spent two years sitting with and studying the ancient Honywood Oak. A colossus of a tree, it would have been a sapling when the Magna Carta was signed. Blending personal experience with cultural legacy, The Oak Papers is a meditative and healing book about the lessons we can learn from the natural world, if only we slow down enough to listen A BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week. A homage to the oak… Read more
- Non-fiction
- SOLD OUT!
How Spies Think; Ten lessons in Intelligence
Recounting the lessons learned from a career at the very top of the espionage tree, former GCHQ director David Omand demonstrates how the techniques employed by spies can prove hugely beneficial when tackling crises in everyday life. Join David at Shenfield Library to learn the methodology used by the British intelligence agencies to reach judgements, establish the right level of confidence and act decisively. “An invaluable guide to avoiding self-deception and fake news” - Melanie Phillips, The Times Tickets: Box… Read more
- Non-fiction
- ONLY A FEW TICKETS LEFT!
Thames Estuary Trail – A Journey Round the End of the World
Writer Tom King will be discussing the new edition of his now legendary book Thames Estuary Trail, complete with new chapters and adventures. Join us for what is sure to be an educating and illuminating night full of Tom’s many musings from along the trail, together a discussion around the two additional chapters with the opportunity to see and purchase the newly designed edition published on 30th May 2021 as part of Estuary 2021. Read more
- In Conversation
- In person
- Layer Marney Tower
- Non-fiction
Henry ‘Chips’ Channon: The Diaries (Volume 1): 1918-38
Born in Chicago in 1897, Henry 'Chips' Channon settled in England after the Great War, married into the immensely rich Guinness family, and served as Conservative MP for Southend-on-Sea from 1935 until his death in 1958. His political career was unremarkable. His diaries are quite the opposite. Elegant, gossipy and bitchy by turns, they are the unfettered observations of a man who went everywhere and knew everybody. Whether describing the antics of London society in the interwar years, or the… Read more
- Memoir
- Non-fiction
Why Can’t We All get Along : Shout Less and Listen More
Why Can’t We All Just Get Along: Shout Less and Listen More is part-memoir, part-polemic about the state of public discourse in Britain and the world today. LBC radio presenter and political commentator Iain Dale talks about our increasingly divided society, and explores the reasons behind why we have all become so disrespectful and intolerant. Tickets: £15 / £12 Read more
- A Criminally Good Day
- Non-fiction
Patricia Highsmith Centenary Discussion
Patricia Highsmith, who was born in the USA, spent much of her life in Europe and lived for some time in Suffolk. She was a complex person and there were many who did not like her character or her views. However no one is in doubt that she wrote some brilliant psychological thrillers, notably Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr Ripley, both of which have been made into successful films. Read more
- A Criminally Good Day
- Non-fiction
Dorothy L Sayers Lecture: Crime Fiction – A Readers Guide
Barry Forshaw, the UK’s leading crime fiction expert, examines – in lively detail – how female writers have energised the genre from the Golden Age to the present. Barry has met most of the key women writers from Patricia Highsmith to Patricia Cornwell and has a fund of fascinating anecdotes. Barry’s Crime Fiction: A Reader’s Guide covers everything from the beginnings of the genre to current bestselling writers from America, Britain, and all across the world. Read more
- Discussion
- Festival Finale
- Fiction
- For Writers
- In Conversation
- In partnership
- In person
- Non-fiction
- Outside
- Storytelling
- The Children's University
- Workshop
- Young Essex
Essex Book Camp
Join in the fun at the Essex Book Camp With a huge range of events for all ages, from author events with the likes of Good Morning Britain’s Dr Hilary Jones through to our fabulous storytelling yurt; woodland crafts and meditation walks; drop-in family yoga sessions and more, Cressing Temple Barns is the place to be this August Bank Holiday Sunday. Free Drop-In Activities for all ages we just need one large image of Shane Ibbs telling stories for this… Read more
- Non-fiction
Ravenous
Henry Dimbleby, founder of the Leon restaurant chain, government adviser and author of the radical National Food Strategy delves behind the scenes to reveal the mechanisms that act together to shape the modern diet and explain not just why the food system is leading us into disaster, but what can be done about it. Read more
