Fergal Keane talking to Julian Worricker about ‘War, Fear… and the BBC’ at the 18th Chiswick Book Festival which took place from 9-14 September 2026. The annual Chiswick Book Festival (chiswickbookfestival.net) is a non-profit-making community event, raising money for St Michael and All Angels Church, which hosts the event, and three charities. All photos by Roger Green unless otherwise stated.Beloved best-selling children’s author Dame Jacqueline Wilson (l) returned to Chiswick to talk to former BBC arts correspondent Rebecca Jones (r) about her latest novel, Esme Pepper. Read the report on The Chiswick Calendar.Participants at the Chiswick Book Festival Local Authors Showcase on 9 September 2026 in the historic George IV pub in Chiswick. During the event, twenty authors had just two minutes to speak about their book, making for a fast-paced, fun and fascinating evening hosted by Capital Xtra presenter Jojo Silva, speaking below. Read the report on The Chiswick Calendar.The queue for Ben Macintyre talking to Charles Cumming at the 18th Chiswick Book Festival, 9-14 September 2026. The annual Chiswick Book Festival (chiswickbookfestival.net) is a non-profit-making community event, raising money for St Michael and All Angels Church, which hosts the event, and the three reading and arts charities above: Read Easy Ealing, Koestler Arts and Read for Good. In 17 years we have raised over £170,000 for charities. Read more about them here.Miranda Seymour’s book I, Vera: The Many Lives of Vera Gedroits, a Radical Princess, tells the astonishing story of a pioneering woman surgeon in imperial Russia who worked in battlefields and ordered Rasputin out of her operating theatre. In The Return of Russia, historian James Rodgers examines its recent relationship with the West, from the collapse of the Soviet Union to the present day. They talked to Michael Pugh (Riding Through War and Peace), who left his job in Moscow to ride through rural Russia on horseback.Lucy Cufflin and Donna Freed provided the anchovy canapés at the 2026 Chiswick Book Festival, paired with gin (below): Sudi Pigott, author of Consider the Anchovy: a journey in pursuit of the little fish with the big flavour, spoke with historian Anistatia Miller and Sipsmith co-founder Jared Brown (A Most Noble Water) who debunked the myth that William III, Prince of Holland, brought gin to England. Chaired by food author and broadcaster Jo Pratt.Continuing the food theme, the next session was also chaired by Jo Pratt. Felicity Cloake’s warm and witty first novel, The Underdog, follows a lawyer who abandons her career to pursue her dream of becoming a chef, while Bee Wilson’s memoir The Heart-Shaped Tin explores how everyday kitchen objects become vessels for memory, grief, love and identity. Together they use the kitchen as a lens through which to examine identity, reinvention and the courage to pursue what you want from life.Thirty years after founding the Orange Prize for Fiction (now the Women’s Prize for Fiction), best-selling novelist Kate Mosse talked to writer and journalist Natasha Poliszczuk about championing women’s creativity, her career as a bestselling author and her forthcoming book Autumn, a ‘love letter to Sussex’ and part of a series with Michael Morpurgo’s Spring, Bernardine Evaristo’s Summer and Val McDermid’s Winter. Read her interview with The Chiswick Calendar.Tony Parsons (Man & Dog: A Love Story) thanking two of the team from Waterstones Chiswick who handled the book sales during the Festival – in St Michael & All Angels Parish Hall (above) and St Michael & All Angels Church (below) with bookshop managers Chloe Jones and Josie Wilkes.Marking the centenary of Queen Elizabeth II, royal biographer Robert Hardman assesses her long and eventful reign in his book Elizabeth II. He was joined by journalist Catherine Mayer, author of Charles, The Heart of a King, whose latest book Divide and Rule: Royal Women and their Battles examines the rivalries and relationships that shaped the monarchy. Chaired by Julian Worricker, of the BBC Radio royal commentary team.Blake Morrison’s On Memoir: An A-Z of Life Writing is a delightful compendium of musings from the master of life writing, ‘the critic every literary editor turns to’ (The Spectator). He was joined by novelist and screen writer Louise Doughty who’s written her first work of memoir, On This Spot Fell One Tear of Love. Chaired by Chiswick Book Festival chair Jacks Thomas.In the 1990s, Mary Portas turned Harvey Nichols into ‘Harvey Nicks’ and changed the way we shop. She shared her experiences on TV as the BBC’s ‘Mary Queen of Shops’ and partnered with Save the Children to reinvent charity shops. Mary joined Helen Brocklebank, CEO of Walpole, which speaks for the UK luxury industry, for a wide-ranging conversation about Portas’ acclaimed memoir-cum-business manual, I Shop: Therefore I Am. She also caught up with fans at the book-signing afterwards!We couldn’t run the Chiswick Book Festival without our amazing volunteers and that includes the welcome team on our Tickets & Information desk under Box Office Manager Shelley Hasseldine!60 years after the Beatles were filmed and photographed at Chiswick House, recording their Paperback Writer and Rain videos, three Beatles experts celebrated that iconic moment and reflected on their unique place in rock history. (l-r) Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn (The Beatles: All These Years, Volume 1 – Tune In); Tony Palmer, director of the 17-part TV documentary series All You Need Is Love: The Story of Popular Music; and broadcaster Samira Ahmed, author of the BFI Classics book on A Hard Day’s Night. Afterwards they signed copies of their books (below). (l-r) Crime novelist and screenwriter Matt Baker (Patience, A Taste for Murder) and former Head of Drama at the BBC, Channel 4 and Company Pictures, John Yorke discuss the importance of great stories on the screen and on the page – and the art of adapting books for TV and film with Radio Times TV Editor and columnist Caroline Frost. The 2026 Chiswick Book Festival’s Young Poets Competition aims to encourage young people to enjoy creating their own poems. We look for original poems on any theme, up to 25 lines long. The winners received their prizes from Christopher Jarvis (left). Read the report at ChiswickW4.com.
