Cliveden Literary Festival (11-12 October) is delighted to reveal this year’s list of speakers as tickets are now on sale. www.clivedenliteraryfestival.org • @ClivedenLitFest

Taking place at the historic Cliveden House in Berkshire, this year’s festival features the leading writers of today across culture, politics and history. Highlights will include: Michael Gove and Sarah Vine will tell Andrew Roberts about their marriage and divorce in the political spotlight; Salman Rushdie and Rachel Eliza Griffiths will discuss their creative partnership; beloved actor Richard E. Grant will talk to Georgia Beaufort about the highs and lows of Hollywood and his personal life; renowned philosopher Alain de Botton will discuss his theories of love, heartbreak and sorrow; and Wild Swans author Jung Chang and The Silk Roads’ Peter Frankopan will consider the past, present and future of China with Geordie Greig.

Meanwhile, panels of experts will gather to discuss 2025’s most compelling issues. In the political sphere, guests will learn about intrigue inside the White House, the divided American nation, and 21st-century espionage. In the literary realm, visitors will hear about the enduring allure of Jane Austen, or the writing of crime stories both real and fictional. And the most pressing questions in British politics will be cross-examined in Cliveden’s very own Question Time, with Alex Burghart and Emily Maitlis.

Across the weekend, the Festival will host a stellar cast of writers, philosophers, polemicists and politicians, including Anthony Horowitz, William Boyd, Douglas Murray – wow – and another favourite – Jake Wallis Simons,  and Caroline Derby; and our founders, Catherine Ostler, Natalie Livingstone, Simon Sebag Montefiore and Andrew Roberts.

Cliveden Literary Festival is renowned as a forum for lively discussion, thought-provoking ideas, and political  debate,  in  the  most  beautiful  of  settings,  with  something  for  everyone. Last year, Rachel Eliza Griffiths said ‘the setting of Cliveden… is a kind of mirror of the beauty that I find in books’.

Now in its eighth year, the festival revives Cliveden House’s rich history as a literary salon frequented by writers   and   thinkers   from   Alexander Pope  to  Alfred Lord Tennyson,  George Bernard  Shaw, Jonathan Swift and Sir Winston Churchill. Cliveden  Literary  Festival  is  run  by  a  committee  of  writers  and  historians  –  Andrew Roberts, Natalie Livingstone, Catherine Ostler and Simon Sebag Montefiore.

It’s a sell-out success every year, so hurry now, and book your tickets on the Cliveden Literary Festival website. It sounds its usual wonderful self.