Another way of celebrating our 40th anniversary in 2023 was to slect one title for each year.

Jenny Brown, our founding Director, and Nick Barley, our Director for the last 14 years up to 2023, put their heads together to come up with a list of 40 titles that represent 40 years of wonderful Book Festival Programmes for them.

This is of course, a highly personal selection. For one, we have asked them to stick to literature for adults, and they’ve also tried to have a breadth of different authors represented. The titles were not necessarily published in the year they represent, but may have been chosen because their author took part in a particular Book Festival year. Some seminal names may be missing, you may not find your own favourites on this list, but that’s the nature of lists: they are difficult to select and, more often than not, controversial. Maybe this one will inspire you to dig out your own 40 titles from 40 years!