Funny old weather this weekend. I dressed for winter thinking I was going to face wind and rain for my visit to the Bury St Edmunds Literature Festival yesterday. It was indeed a cold wind, but in the sunshine it could have been the height of summer. There I was in a long thick coat walking alongside people in T-shirts! Then, coming out of my event with Sarah Winman, it was only seven o'clock but pitch black. Of course it is the middle of October this week.
I've been enjoying the autumn cluster of book festivals in Leiston, Mannington and Bury, where I've had the privilege of interviewing some fascinating writers. Sarah Winman yesterday was wonderful, talking about her career so far and giving teasers about her next novel. Due to be published next September it is a prequel to 'Still Life'.
I'm back in Bury this evening, in conversation with novelist Megan Hunter. I will be reviewing her books in the coming weeks as I think she's an amazing talent. Do look her up, if you can. I was a bit wary of her writing after her debut 'The End We Start From' as there's a limit to how much dystopian fiction I can take on these days. But her subsequent books are brilliant and so different. The latest, 'Days of Light' takes the Bloomsbury Group as inspiration.
Always rather fascinated by the lives of these artists and writers, this week I was in London to see a play about John Maynard Keynes.
He is always rather overlooked in accounts of Charleston and the lives of Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant et al, yet he was very involved and this play, called 'The Standard of Living' and starring Rory Kinnear (though not for my visit, sadly), gave a completely different perspective.
Keynes was hugely influential as an economist, of course, but he also recognised the importance of the arts as essential for the public good. He founded the Arts Theatre in Cambridge, led the wartime Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts, and became the founding chairman of the Arts Council in 1945. He collected modern French Post-Impressionist and Cubist paintings (including works by Cézanne and Picasso) and also bank-rolled the Bloomsbury artists and writers.
What an interesting man and an incredible life. The play itself is a little odd in parts, though well worth seeing. It's written by James Graham who wrote 'Dear England' and he is soon to have a play about John Major staged in London.
So, I'll sign off now, and wish you well for this coming week with just one more thing to mention... if you are thinking of coming to the Gyles Brandreth and haven't yet got a ticket, you'll need to be quick. There are only a handful remaining!
Thank you for reading.