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Jersey's annual book festival has a definite feelgood factor this year.
With themes that range from gardening to marathon-running, events throughout the five-day Jersey Festival of Words are designed to promote wellbeing, inspire optimism and demonstrate the power of the human spirit.
For journalist Bryony Gordon, renowned for conducting the interview in which Prince Harry opened up about mental health, that spirit took her from being an overweight, addicted depressive to the finishing line of the London Marathon. Bryony will be at the festival to talk about her memoir Eat, Drink, Run.
For Laura Freeman, the battle was with anorexia and a remedy awaited in the vivid descriptions of food to be found in literature. The uplifting results are described in her book The Reading Cure: How Books Restored My Appetite.
For Clare Pooley, the enemy was alcohol and her day-by-day recovery is chronicled in The Sober Diaries,the entertaining book of her inspiring blog.
Also on stage at the fourth Jersey Festival of Words will be a panel of writers whose work has celebrated, both in fiction and fact, the healing power of the garden. In a Jersey Arts Centre event entitled The Garden: Our Oasis, novelist Tor Udall, author of the acclaimed A Thousand Paper Birds, will be in discussion with gardener and conservationist Kate Bradbury, whose labour of love to bring a tiny urban garden back to life is the subject of The Bumblebee Flies Anyway. They will be joined on the panel by photographer Lalage Snow, who has worked in war zones around the world and whose new book War Gardenshonours the civilians who have nurtured their private gardens as havens of calm amid the conflicts in Afghanistan, Gaza and the Ukraine.
And there will also be a series of talks by ‘happiness researcher’ Dr Andy Cope, an author and life coach whose series on The Art of Being Brilliantfor both adults and teenagers speaks for itself. Andy will also be presenting his million-selling series for children, Spy Dog.
Jersey Festival of Words chairman Jennifer Bridge said: ‘Modern life is complex and can be stressful. We can all benefit from some uplifting inspiration from time to time and this year’s festival programme offers it in abundance.’
