THE Swindon Festival of Literature returns next month after successfully hosting virtual events during the first lockdown. The town’s long-running cultural extravaganza is using the lessons learned from its first online-only festival in 2020 to bring more fascinating talks by amazing authors to the people of Swindon. More than 40 events will be held between May 3 and 9 via the festival’s website and can be viewed from all over the world. Authors on this year’s line-up include Richard Thompson, Rowan Williams, Miranda Sawyer, Blake Morrison, Jasper Fforde, Ella Al-Shamahi, Natalie Haynes, Ollivier Pourriol, Sally Bayley, Richard Durrant, and Claudia Hammond.
Podcasts of the week: painful mistakes and extraordinary people theweek.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theweek.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Mel Giedroyc is taking part in the Cambridge Literary Festival.
- Credit: Laurie Fletcher
An innovative literary festival has announced its lockdown line-up for its spring return next month.
A year ago, Cambridge Literary Festival had to close its doors to live events due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Last April it delivered a scaled down online alternative,
The Listening Festival, and in November a full-scale virtual event.
With a new CLF website and two festivals delivered, organisers are ready to do it again from April 21 to April 25, with the line-up featuring award-winning authors, politicians and well-known TV personalities.
Douglas Stuart s debut novel Shuggie Bain was awarded the 2020 Brooker Prize.
Podcasts of the week: jailed fishermen, and royal sagas theweek.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theweek.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The Documentary Podcast strand in BBC Sounds has recently been doing a sterling job of exploring (alongside other subjects) various aspects of global healthcare, said Charlotte Runcie in The Daily Telegraph. One outstanding recent edition on compassion fatigue was a “harrowing” examination “of the human capacity to care for others, and how emotionally expensive compassion in extreme circumstances can be”. From Audible, The Bias Diagnosis looks at racial inequalities in healthcare systems, said Hannah J. Davies in The Guardian. Ivan Beckley, a final-year medical student and clinical entrepreneur, interviews patients who received “wrong or late diagnoses because of centuries of myths and falsehoods in medicine”, or because of false assumptions by clinicians. “Far from your standard gory medical show, this is a sociological investigation – and a shocking one.”