Althorp Literary Festival

The 13th Althorp Literary Festival will take place on four days - from Thursday 30th June to Sunday 3rd July, inclusive. Building on the success of Festivals past, the 13th Althorp Literary Festival promises to once again be an impressive event, with sessions from renowned historians, novelists, comedians, politicians, sportsmen, screenwriters, biographers and broadcasters.

It remains a unique and intimate celebration of the written word, taking place against the backdrop of one of England’s most beautiful, private, historic houses. This year’s line-up includes; Bill Bryson, Joan Bakewell, Loyd Grossman, Paula Byrne, Tom Bower, Hollie McNish, John Suchet, Sir Richard Eyre, Henrietta Knight, Paul Gambaccini, Suzannah Lipscomb, James Naughtie, Sara Pascoe, and Brian Blessed. We look forward to seeing you there.

Man Booker Prize longlist 2015

The longlist for this year's Man Booker Prize has been announced. This year’s list of 13 books was selected by a panel of five judges chaired by Michael Wood, who said: “The range of different performances and forms of these novels is amazing. All of them do something exciting with the language they have chosen to use.” The judges considered 156 books for this year’s prize and, first awarded in 1969, it is the second year in which it has been open to any writer, writing originally in English and published in the UK, irrespective of nationality.

The Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2015 is chaired by Michael Wood. The judges are: Ellah Allfrey, John Burnside, Sam Leith and Frances Osborne.

Transcendentalism of New England

The Transcendentalist movement was a reaction against 18th century rationalism and a manifestation of the general humanitarian trend of 19th century thought. The movement was based on a fundamental belief in the unity of the world and God. The soul of each individual was thought to be identical with the world - a microcosm of the world itself. The doctrine of self-reliance and individualism developed through the belief in the identification of the individual soul with God. Transcendentalism was intimately connected with Concord, a small New England village 32 kilometers west of Boston. Concord was the first inland settlement of the original Massachusetts Bay Colony. Surrounded by forest, it was and remains a peaceful town close enough to Boston's lectures, bookstores, and colleges to be intensively cultivated, but far enough away to be serene. Concord was the site of the first battle of the American Revolution, and Ralph Waldo Emerson's poem commemorating the battle, "Concord Hymn", has one of the most famous opening stanzas in American literature: