Chiswick Book Festival

The Chiswick Book Festival is a vibrant gathering that unites top authors with their readers, celebrating a diverse array of genres including history, poetry, biography, fiction, and more. This year marks the fifteenth edition of the Festival, taking place from 6 to 13 September 2023, as a non-profit community event supporting local charities.

The full programme for Chiswick Book Festival is available here.

Events at the Tabard

Saturday 9th September

11am: Harriet Evans & Lucy Atkins: Friends, Family and Fiction

Harriet Evans (The Stargazers) was brought up in Chiswick and worked in publishing before becoming a Sunday Times best-selling author. Lucy Atkins (Windmill Hill) is an award-winning author, critic and Costa Book Awards judge. They talk with Caroline Raphael about the part friendships, family and mystery play in popular fiction.

12:30pm: Gardening’s Forgotten Feminists

With Fiona Davison and Rosie Fyles. In her first book, The Hidden Horticulturalists, Fiona Davison, head of libraries at the RHS, revealed Chiswick’s important role in training Joseph Paxton and other young working class men, who went on to create some of the world’s great gardens. In her new book An Almost Impossible Thing, she uncovers the radical lives of pioneering women gardeners in the years before World War I. She talks to Rosie Fyles, Head of Gardens at Chiswick House & Gardens Trust.

2pm: Chiswick’s People and Stories

100 years after Warwick Draper published his history, Val Bott and James Wisdom of the Brentford & Chiswick Local History Society discuss Chiswick’s fascinating past with Festival director Torin Douglas.

Sunday 10th September

11:30am: English Civil War: A Divided Kingdom

The atrocities of battle and the brutality of the English Civil War are brought to life in Charles Cordell’s book God's Vindictive Wrath, which ends at the Battles of Brentford and Turnham Green. The former soldier and diplomat talks to Julian Humphrys of the Battlefields Trust about his debut novel, the first in the Divided Kingdom series of English Civil War historical fiction.

1pm: Dorothy Wellesley & WB Yeats

100 years after WB Yeats won the Nobel Prize for Literature, Jane Wellesley tells the fascinating story of his intimate friend - and her grandmother - Dorothy Wellesley. Poet, gardener, traveller and heiress, Dorothy became the lover of Vita Sackville-West, wrecking her marriage to the Duke of Wellington. Chaired by Torin Douglas, member of the WB Yeats Bedford Park Artwork project.

2:30pm: Writing Suspense: Keep the Pages Turning

The writers in this panel are experts at building suspense and keeping the pace moving in their bestselling novels. Ava Glass, the CWA Dagger shortlisted author of The Chase and The Traitor, and Victoria Selman, the Sunday Times bestselling author of All the Little Liars, discuss how they ratchet up suspense and keep readers hooked.

Practical info

Tickets for all events at the Tabard are £10, while prices for other festival events may vary.

All tickets for the Chiswick Book Festival are available here.

Please note the Tabard's box office is not handling bookings or enquiries for these events. For any booking enquiries, please contact the Chiswick Book Festival organisers at boxoffice@chiswickbookfestival.net.