Chorleywood Bookshop announces its first History Festival which will run over the course of three Wednesday evenings.
A stellar line up of authors will be appearing at the Chorleywood Memorial Hall to talk about both historical fact and fiction. The festival is pitched at all ages and will cover family sagas, love letters and romances to poetry, real life stories of remarkable heroes and lively intellectual debate
Wednesaday 17th September
The first event kicks off with Mandy Kirby who has edited Love Letters of the Great War which brings together some of the most romantic correspondence ever written. From the private papers of Winston Churchill to the tender notes of an unknown Tommy in the trenches these letters offer an intimate glimpse into the hearts of men and women separated by conflict. Mandy will be talking about some of the wrenching accounts of fear, jealousy, love and betrayal. Also featuring on the 17th is Juliet West who has written Before the Fall, a compelling tale of a love affair set in the East End during World War One which is based on an unforgettable real life story.
Wednesday 24th September
Fans of Downton Abbey won’t want to miss TV historian Kate Williams (24th Sept) who has written her first novel, The Storms of War, a family saga which involves a complex plot based in the summer of 1914. Kate regularly appears on radio and television as an expert on historical, royal and constitutional matters on the BBC and Radio 4 and is the author of five acclaimed non-fiction historical titles. She will be appearing alongside Adele Parks, Sunday Times writer and author of a number of best -selling novels. This is the first time Adele has written an historical novel and Spare Brides is the story of four female friends who are all very different in terms of class, relationship status and beauty, but their lives are drastically altered by the First World War.
Wednesday 1st October
The third and last event features three authors who have all researched elements of the war through the eyes of very different people. James Long has written The Balloonist which is a mesmerising novel of an almost forgotten service of WW1- one most dangerous job on the Western Front – a balloon observer hanging under a gasbag filled with explosive hydrogen.
Max Egremont’s book, Some Desperate Glory examines the war through the lives of the poets who fought at the front and Duncan Barrett focuses on the Post Office Heroes who Fought the Great War in Men of Letters. The Post Office was the world’s biggest employer when the war broke out and many employees found themselves on the front line, and their own letters are worked into Barrett’s fascinating book.
Tickets for the History Festival, which is sponsored by Hetheringtons Estate Agents, are £8 or £18 for all three events and are available from Chorleywood Bookshop 01923 283566 or online www.chorleywoodbookshop.co.uk
Prices £8 per ticket
Start time for all evenings: 7.30pm