Charleston Farmhouse is one of my favourite places to go to in the summer. Not only is it historically the meeting place of the bohemian 'Bloomsbury set' which includes my heroes Virginia Woolf, E.M Forster and T.S. Eliot, it is also beautiful house with a garden that comes to life at this time of year.
2014 marks the 25th anniversary of the Charleston Festival and despite living nearby all my life I've never actually been to the book festival due to school and university exams every May (thanks, education!). So this year I was determined to get tickets. I managed to nab a pair for Ian McEwan in conversation with historian Asa Briggs and another for a talk on the book 'Her Brilliant Career' by author Rachel Cooke.
So, on Friday I went along to the first of these talks. Although I've only read two of Ian McEwan's novels: Atonement and On Chesil Beach I nonetheless consider myself a bit of fan (Atonement is up there as one of my all-time favourites) and made sure to get a signed copy of Sweet Tooth.
McEwan was in conversation with Asa Briggs who is still writing history books well into his nineties. The talk was a great Bloomsbury-style conversation which covered everything from science to psychology, history to politics. I really enjoyed listening to this type of intellectual chat, it was one of those talks where ideas flow from one thing to another a great speed and my brain often found it hard to keep up with it all. I love conversations that link seemingly disparate things together although I think that post-uni I may have lost my skills of concentration! And I never thought I'd say I miss seminars...
Below are some photos from visit number one... stay tuned for Part II and all things fifties!
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What a beautiful place! I love McEwan's books, I'd have loved to have gone to that talk x
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