Big Book Weekend: Day One Round Up

Wow! What a day to kick off the Big Book Weekend! So many great authors to listen to and so many new books now added to my Goodreads/TBR lists. 

I couldn't get round to watching all of the events from each day so this is just a recap of those I did catch but there were so many other amazing events at the festival. If you didn't catch them live, you can head over to MyVLF.com  and sign up for absolutely free and watch all the events again 😊

Friday 8th May 2020

Alexander McCall Smith 

I started the day by listening to Alexander McCall Smith, presented by Shoreham Wordfest, talk about his most recent book: The talented Mr Varg and give a reading from the book which was so exciting to hear. I've listened to McCall-Smith talk in person at the Jersey Festival of Words a few years ago and he is such an engaging person. Unfortunately, I have not got round to reading any of his novels over the years however I am very aware of his hit series, The No1. Ladies Detective Agency of which there are currently 20 volumes with the 21st being written at the moment as Alexander McCall Smith revealed today. My thoughts were that a 21-book series seems like a lifetime commitment to one set of characters and I wondered if I would prefer to dedicate my time to the same characters or if I would prefer to write stand alone's. McCall-Smith says that he enjoys going back to the same characters and I think I like the idea of your characters becoming like good friends to you who you have many adventures with. I should state here that Alexander McCall Smith has many other well-reviewed books out there that are stand alone's (in fact, scrolling through the list online can seem almost endless!) and I am determined to choose one to at to my TBR list. 

Michael Morpurgo

Next, I attended the talk with Michael Morpurgo which I think has to be one of the highlights of the events I've attended this weekend. Presented by the Big Book Weekend themselves and interviewed by Clare Mulley, Michael talked about a number of his famous books including two of my personal favourites, War Horse and Eagle in The Snow. I just LOVE listening to Michael Morpurgo speak. He's got a very soothing way of talking which just makes you want to curl up and listen intently. Everything he says is like he's telling you a story and I wished they could have carried on for at least another hour because he's such a fascinating author and man to listen to. What I found most interesting was that Morpurgo confessed that as a child he was actually put off books by one of his teachers and now as an adult, he wasn't much of a reader which I found quite refreshing to hear from a renown author (particularly one of children's books) as normally you hear writers saying that the other biggest form of advice other than "write, write, write" is to read as much as you can.

Kate Williams - Rival Queens

In the afternoon I listened to three really interesting talks. The first was between Kate Williams and Jenni Calder (presented by Birnam Book Festival) where they discussed Kate's new book: Rival Queens. Being a massive history nerd, in particular a huge fan of the history of the British Monarchy, this is a book I will be reading as soon as I get the chance. You can tell instantly that Kate Williams is a university professor by the way she talks because she spent the whole talk discussing the life of Queen Mary of Scot's such enthusiasm that I could imagine myself sitting in a lecture with a group of students avidly taking into everything she was saying.  

Terry Waite - Isolation

Next up was Terry Waite in conversation with Tony Gallienne which was organised by the Guernsey Literary Festival. I've got to admit, I didn't know who Terry Waite was at first when I chose to watch this talk. I chose it because the subject matter was isolation and I was curious to see if it what it was about given that isolation has played a massive part of our lives lately. Whilst listening to Terry speak, I did a quick bit of research and discovered that Terry was Assistant for Anglican Communion Affairs for the then Archbishop of Canterbury in the 1980s and in 1987 he travelled to Lebanon to try and negotiate the release of four hostages but ended up being kidnapped himself and held hostage for four years. Terry and Tony discussed Terry's time in solitary confinement and he gave his thoughts on how we are all coping today with the lockdown and the human strength of survival. 

What I found amazing whilst watching and listening to Terry was just how humble and open he was. He went into some detail about the tortures that were inflicted upon him both mentally and physically over those four years and I just felt so much admiration for him. This was a worthwhile watch to put things into perspective at the moment. 

Rick Stroud - A Tribute to Victor Gregg

My last event for Friday was listening to Rick Stroud pay tribute to a man called Victor Gregg who is a 100-year old World War 2 survivor who not only fought at Alamein and Arnhem but was also a POW at Dresden. I love hearing stories like this and it seemed fitting to end VE day with a wartime tribute. Victor Gregg sounds like he's had the most fascinating life and I really enjoyed listening to Rick talk about Victor's life to some extent but he has also written a book on Victor's life called Rifleman which I am now desperate to read (after this weekend I think I need to make a TBR page on this blog to keep track of all these new reads!) 

So that's the end of my day one at the Big Book Weekend! I aimed to do one big blog post on all three days but there just so much to talk about with each event I think maybe three separate posts would be better! 😜