Welcome to Cuckfield Life’s Cuckfield Bookfest event page. Here you will find our most recent information for everything Bookfest.

As a community interest group, Bookfest relies on the generous support from sponsors, benefactors and friends to help them host brilliant writers and new talents every year.

Cuckfield Book Fest – some tickets still available

By Sheila Mortimer

Tickets have been on sale since mid August and several sessions sold out within a week. But plenty of tickets are still available.
Ockenden Manor provides a delightful setting for the opening supper on 3rd October. A combination of a welcoming reception with sparkling wine, a delicious two course supper with wine included on each table, and an entertaining speaker will provide a night to remember.

There’s a distinct political flavour to Saturday with biographies of Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair but as a complete contrast and to mark the 250th anniversary of the birth of Jane Austen, we have the author of a series in which she imagines Jane Austen as a sleuth talking to the author of a new book whose literary sleuths are Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf.

Holy Trinity Church in Cuckfield is providing an appropriate venue for Andrew Ziminski’s book Church Going which is a stonemason’s guide to the churches of the British Isles. Also in the church on Saturday, in the centenary year of the birth of the trail-blazing African American, James Baldwin, four authors reveal the influence of his work on their personal journey.
A subject not often discussed is featured on Saturday evening when Helen Taylor, author of Childless by Choice, talks about what it means to live outside traditional family structures.

If you are a fan of crime fiction, don’t miss Simon Mason on Saturday night talking about The Woman Who Laughed, his intriguing story of the efforts of a Finder investigating a spate of murders which began in the Pandemic. There’s even a Jane Austen connection here as the main character has his beloved copy of Persuasion in his pocket to provide some relief.

On Sunday morning, Phil Craig will be talking to military historian and author, Gavin Mortimer about his book 1945: The Reckoning in which Phil reveals how the aims of the British state were set aside in favour of colonial power games after the war.
Cuckfield has a long connection with dinosaurs and Michael Taylor’s new book Impossible Monsters tells how the discovery of dinosaur fossils changed the world. Hermione Cockburn, born and brought up in Cuckfield, will be asking the questions.

The recent India/England test match series provided some outstanding games which may well have produced new converts to the sport. Daily Telegraph correspondent Tim Wigmore’s Test Cricket; A History is the perfect book for all fans and Tim will be discussing it with Peter Guttridge on Sunday evening. Two contrasting subjects also feature on Sunday. Anne Sebba’s The Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz gives a vivid account of the experiences of the 40 or sowomen who briefly came together to make the music that saved their lives. Tiffany Murray’s remarkable story in My Family and Other Rock Stars describes growing up in a rural idyll where Freddie Mercury might appear to play the piano.

Children will be welcomed in Holy Trinity Church on Saturday with two events and there’s a third on Sunday afternoon in the Queen’s Hall.

There’s an extra event this year. Alexander McCall Smith’s publicist recently asked us if we would like to host Alexander in Cuckfield. We were thrilled to be considered for this and so on Saturday 25th October, there will be a special event in Cuckfield Baptist Church at 7.30pm. The master storyteller will entertain us with tales from the latest 44 Scotland Street novel, Bertie’s Theory of Ice Cream, and discuss In the Time of Five Pumpkins, the new novel in the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, plus introduce us to his new stand-alone novel.

Once again, we hope you find something to enjoy. Cuckfield Bookfest takes place between Friday 3rd and Sunday 5th October, with a Literary Quiz on 26th September. There are many more events and you will find details on our website: www.cuckfieldbookfest.co.uk
Tickets are available for all events at: www.ticketsource.co.uk/cuckfieldbookfest