As the festival season gets into full swing we ask some leading writers what this annual merry-go-round means to them. We venture deep into the Sussex countryside to catch up on the 25th anniversary year of the Charleston festival, based in a farmhouse where the Bloomsbury group used to hang out.
Ian McEwan gives us a sneak preview of his hotly anticipated novel, The Children Act, out in September. We listen in to a story-telling session by Alan Bennett, and talk to Helen Dunmore about the first world war. The human rights lawyer Philippe Sands tells us why he isn't taking a book to this year's Hay festival, but instead a musical project involving Richard Strauss and a Nazi lawyer. Plus the much-garlanded Australian novelist Tim Winton stops off en route for Charleston and Hay to tell us about his latest novel, Eyrie.
Reading list
The Lie by Helen Dunmore (Windmill Books)
Eyrie by Tim Winton (Picador)
