Lincoln Book Festival

I just wanted to update you all on my recent trip to the Lincoln Book Festival.  I attended the final two days of the festival with my husband and we both thoroughly enjoyed our time there.

The Friday evening session kicked off with an interview with Paul ‘Smiler’ Anderson talking about his recently published book Mods: The New Religion. Paul spoke about his personal discovery of the Mod movement during the late 1970’s revival. He also spoke about his many interviews with the Mods of the 1960’s which covered everything from fashion, music and their iconic scooters. I really enjoyed listening to Paul speak and his down to earth portrayal of the movement was fascinating.

The evening then progressed to an interview with Jenny Boyd. Jenny was a model in the 1960’s alongside her sister, Patti Boyd, who married George Harrison, and subsequently, Eric Clapton. Jenny herself was the inspiration for Donovan’s classic song, Jennifer Juniper. She spoke about her fascinating visit to India with the Beatles to visit the Maharishi and gave those of us who didn’t experience the decade at first hand a real insight into the times and attitudes of the young. Jenny has written a book called It’s Not Only Rock ‘n’ Roll in which she records the thoughts on creativity of 75 iconic musicians.

The following evening began with a presentation from Hannah Greig on her book The Beau Monde. Hannah is multi-talented. As well as being an author, she lectures on the 18^th century at the University of York and is a historical adviser for film, television and theatre productions. Hannah accompanied her talk with a power point presentation which illustrated her content perfectly and gave us a real insight into what being fashionable in the 18^th century really meant.

The festival concluded with Simon Heffer in conversation with Roger Hudson. Simon is the author of several books, his most recent of which is High Minds: The Victorians and the Birth of Modern Britain. These two lovely chaps sat and discussed Britain of the 1840’s; a period of vast change socially, religiously and politically. I found this talk particularly interesting as my dissertation during my university days was on this period of history. I was a bit startled to realise how much of my degree I had forgotten but Simon has certainly reinvigorated my own interest in the period and I am sure his book will be in my book collection very soon.

All the books were available to purchase and the authors made themselves available for signing.

My only regret of the festival is that I wasn’t there for the whole thing as my experience was fantastic and I can well imagine that we may go again under our own steam. I would thoroughly recommend to anyone within striking distance of Lincoln to consider going next year.

Thank you to everybody at the Lincoln Book Festival and Omnivore Magazine who made this visit possible.