Our 2017 Slightly Foxed Readers’ Day was held on Saturday, 4 November at the Artworkers’ Guild in Queen’s Square.
Biographer and traveller Helena Drysdale explores the subject of ‘Life Writing’, weaving broader themes of travel, history and biography into a personal narrative. She is currently working on a book about her great-great-grandfather, author of the original Murray Guide to Greece.
Cartoonist Posy Simmonds’s Literary Life, first published in 2003, became an instant classic, skewering the pains and pretensions of the literary world with her wicked pen and inimitable flair. Now Posy is back at Readers’ Day by popular request to bring us up to date with Literary Life Revisited.
Adam Sisman, biographer of John le Carré, unpicks the contradictions and obfuscations in le Carré’s own account of his life. The master of spy thrillers, le Carré was arguably one of the most important and influential writers of the post-Second World War period.
Accompanied by a post-lunch glass of something strong and warming, well-known wine writer Henry Jeffreys introduces us to Empire of Booze, a rich and full-bodied history of Britain and the Empire, told through the improbable but true stories of how the world’s favourite alcoholic drinks came to be.
Anita Anand will hotfoot it from Radio 4’s Any Answers to talk about her biography of Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary (shortlisted for the SF Best First Biography Prize in 2015). She will also talk about her forthcoming collaboration with William Dalrymple on a history of the Koh-I-Noor diamond.
