UNBOUND: Five Dials

Jess Phillips (2017 Event) Journalist Julie Burchill calls her 'a breath of fresh air, with a dirty laugh'. In Everywoman, Labour politician Jess Phillips shouts long and loudly about the things she cares most about: poverty, equality, the rights of refugees and serving her… Sarah Moss: Unhappy Campers Soggy wellies and simmering resentments provide the backdrop to the latest novel from the scalpel-sharp Sarah Moss, who over the past decade has cemented a formidable reputation as one of Britain’s finest, wittiest writers. Summerwater takes us inside the… Patrick Gale: The Word That Speaks the Man Generations of children have been enchanted by Charles Causley’s bittersweet verses; there was even a campaign to make him Poet Laureate. Mother’s Boy, by bestselling novelist Patrick Gale, illuminates the life behind the poems. Brought up by an… The New York Times Book Review: The Power of Words This year is the 125th anniversary of The New York Times Book Review, a key part of the paper’s coverage of culture and news since 1851. Francis Brown, who edited the Book Review for 21 years from 1949, described it as ‘the period of Trollope and Dickens… Lucy Easthope & Gavin Francis: Coming Back to Ourselves After Disaster What does recovery mean, when a person has been through something they never could have prepared for? When the Dust Settles is crisis management expert Lucy Easthope’s memoir of existing in the aftermath of disaster. In Recovery, GP and author Gavin… Alistair Moffat: A Tale of Zero Hour In Alistair Moffat’s ingenious thriller The Night Before Morning, the summer of 1945 finds Hitler victorious and Britain under German control. The author of more than 20 books of non-fiction, Moffat is an incisive historian and hugely popular public… Philippe Sands with Ian Rankin: On the Trail of a Nazi Fugitive Philippe Sands’s celebrated 2016 memoir East West Street, expertly interwove the personal story of his ancestors in the Ukrainian city of Lviv with a professional interest in the establishment of international law in the aftermath of the Holocaust. His… Roger Robinson: ‘Ordinary Poems Won’t Change the World’ Earmarked as ‘the voice of our communal consciousness’ by Edinburgh International Book Festival’s 2018 Guest Selector Afua Hirsch, it’s hard to believe that Roger Robinson hasn’t been a staple of British public life since time immemorial. A fixture of the… Alan Warner: Confessions of a Rock Groupie 1970s England – the days of glam rock, then punk rock; of Multi-Coloured Swap Shop and Branston Pickle. This is the period Alan Warner sets his novel Kitchenly 434. The place: a remote country house owned by one of the world’s best-known rock stars, Marko… Cathy Newman at the Edinburgh International Book Festival Bloody Brilliant Women is Channel 4 News anchor Cathy Newman’s paean to those women who’ve shaped modern Britain, with the likes of Emmeline Pankhurst sharing pages with heroes like Beatrice Shilling, whose engineering prowess helped win the Battle of…