- 31 May -30 June 2024
- 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
- Essex Writers House
- Memoir
Inventory of a Life Mislaid – An Unreliable Memoir
Inventory Of A Life Mislaid follows Marina Warner’s beautiful, penniless young mother Ilia as she leaves southern Italy in 1945 to travel alone to London. Her husband, an English colonel is still away; in the war in the East as she begins to learn how to be Mrs Esmond Warner, an Englishwoman. Marina Warner is a writer of fiction, criticism and history; her works include novels and short stories as well as studies of art, myths, symbols and fairy stories.… 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
- Memoir
In Black and White
In her debut book, In Black and White, Alexandra Wilson re-creates the tense courtroom scenes, the heart- breaking meetings with teenage clients, and the moments of frustration and triumph that make up a young barrister’s life. Alexandra shows us how it feels to defend someone who hates the colour of your skin, or someone you suspect is guilty. Read more
- Memoir
The Gift of a Radio: My Childhood and other Train Wrecks
A portrait of personal and national dysfunction, drawing on themes of mental health, masculinity, grief, childhood guilt and what privilege looks like, Justin Webb’s memoir is candid, unsparing and darkly funny. Read more
- Festival Launch
- Memoir
Launch Event – An Uneasy Inheritance: My Family and Other Radicals
We are delighted to be launching this year's Essex Book Festival with Guardian columnist and broadcaster Polly Toynbee. One of the most respected, prolific, and razor-sharp voices in social commentary uses the prism of her extraordinary family to examine the true state of class in Britain. Read more
- A Criminally Good Day
- Memoir
The Real Prime Suspect
Jackie Malton The Real Prime Suspect Electric Palace, King's Quay Street, Harwich, CO12 3ER Tickets: £10 / £8 concessions (Students, Under 27s and Unwaged) Box Office: Online or Mercury Theatre 01206 573948 The Real Prime Suspect is a jaw-dropping, gritty memoir from Jackie Malton (with Helene Mulholland). Former DCI, Malton, is the inspiration for legendary TV detective Jane Tennison in Lynda La Plante's Prime Suspect starring Helen Mirren. Jackie will be taking a frank look at her prolific career… Read more
- Memoir
Bibliomaniac
Packed with anecdotes and tall tales, Bibliomaniac follows Robin up and down the country in his quest to discover just why he can never have enough books. It is the story of an addiction and a romance, and of an occasional points failure just outside Oxenholme. Read more
- Memoir
Miss Willmott’s Ghosts
Miss Willmott's Ghosts traces the remarkable life of the legendary eccentric trail-blazing, green-fingered heiress Ellen Ann Wilmott: the mastermind behind Brentwood's Warley Gardens, who famously booby-trapped her prize plants and sabotaged rivals’ gardens. Read more
- In Conversation
- Memoir
One Boy, Two Bills and a Fry Up
An evening with Labour MP and the Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting who will be in conversation with Professor Pam Cox, discussing his honest, uplifting, affectionate memoir and how the power of family and education helped him transform his life. Read more
- Memoir
Not That I’m Bitter
Helen Lederer is in joyous flow, mixing startling self-revelation with nail-sharp observation. Occasionally painful, yet unashamedly revealing, this laugh-out-loud account offers a front row seat to Helen’s life and explores how laughter can defeat the darker moments. Read more
- In partnership
- Memoir
Blythe Spirit
Ronald Blythe (1922-2023) lived all his life in East Anglia and is considered one of the greatest writers on the English countryside. Drawing on unparalleled access to letters, notebooks, published works, drafts, and conversations from decades of friendship, he tells the full story of Ronald Blythe for the first time. Read more