Saturday at the Durham Book Festival

It's a busy Saturday for me next week at the Durham Book Festival.

First, I'll be hosting a School of Life event on 'Thriving not Surviving' with my School of Life colleagues Philippa Perry, John-Paul Flintoff, Roman Krznaric and Tom Chatfield. The TSOL gang have written a series of fabulous books which redefine the meaning of self-help. From the blurb:

In an age of moral and practical confusions, The School of Life offers a new take on the self-help book. For this special event we have invited four of the School of Life’s thinkers to share their views on how we can all survive living in the modern world. Philippa Perry takes on the subject of How to Stay Sane, John-Paul Flintoff tells us How to Change the World, Roman Krznaric advises on How to Find Fulfilling Work, and Tom Chatfield proffers advice on How to Thrive in the Digital Age. At the event, each of the speakers will give an introduction to their ideas and engage in debates with each other and you the audience about the subjects.

The books have been a huge success and were recently published in German translation. All four are very entertaining speakers and it promises to be a great event.

Straight after that I'll be doing a special event on A Box of Birds. I'll talking about how the novel came to be and its relations with the science of memory and consciousness. The event will be chaired by Professor Simon James of Durham's English Department. We'll be talking about the role of science in the novel, the rise and possible fate of the neuronovel, and what a properly scientific treatment of memory in the novel might look like. We'll also be talking about my new book on autobiographical memory, Pieces of Light: The new science of memory.

Those who have subscribed to A Box of Birds should be getting their copies before the end of the year (I've been working on the proofs this week). It's not too late to become a subscriber and get your name (or the name of someone you are gifting it to) in the back of the book.