MERE Literary Festival opens on Wednesday 9th October with a chef who has put his knife skills to good use in his first crime novel and ends with a serious investigation into the controversial NHS child gender service. In between, it features a remarkable Edwardian, a challenging look at demographics and an ageing population, violence against women and the lives of a family in 20th century China.
This year’s festival, closing on Sunday 12th October with a poetry and art workshop, provides a lot of food for thought. And food is where Orlando Murrin begins – a 1992 Masterchef semi-finalist, television presenter and prolific cookbook writer, he has turned his creative talents to novels. Knife Skills for Beginners is set in a cookery school where a chef and teacher has to track down a murderer – while the police believe he is the culprit. The talk is at the United Reform Church on Wednesday 9th at 2.30pm.
At 4.15pm on Wednesday, Sandy Nairne will talk about his biography of Lord Desborough – Titan of the Thames, the story of the now largely forgotten William Grenfell, the epitome of the perfect English gentleman, mountaineer, public servant and sportsman who swam the basin of the Niagara Falls twice and was the driving force behind the 1908 London Olympic Games.
That evening, Can Brooks will talk about his new novel, The Catchers, a story of a song-catcher (collector) in the Appalachians and Mississippi in the 1920s.
On Thursday morning, Paul Morland will be at St Michael’s Church to talk about No-one Left, his troubling study of the consequences of a falling birthrate. In the afternoon Robert Ashton looks to the past, in Where Are All the Fellows Who Cut the Hay?, an ode too rural life and traditions of the past. Tim Tate’s talk on To Catch A Spy, at St Michael’s, tells a tale of spying scandals and government skulduggery which eventually turned into a very English farce.
On Thursday evening at St Michael’s, best-selling author Louis de Bernieres talks about Light Over Liskeard, his entertaining and magical story of discovering a new way of life in a wild corner of Cornwall as the modern world teeters on the brink of collapse.
The speakers on Friday 11th are Sally Smith on her boy The Women Who Went Round the World, Xinran talking about The Book of Secrets, a story of deceit, betrayal and political intrigue in modern China, Kate Morgan on The Walnut Tree, an exploration of women’s history and the British legal system, and Frame-Based novelist Keith Stuart on his new book Love Is A Curse, an investigation into a 150-year old family history.
The last talk, on Saturday 12th at the Grove Building, features Hannagh Barnes talking about Time To Think, her investigation into the truth behind the headlines about the controversial Gender Identity Development Service at the Tavistock Clinic in London.
For tickets and more information, visit mereliteraryfestival.com