Browse information about all our Events and Authors including insights into the books they will be discussing at BookFest. Tickets will be available to purchase from 4th September (Friends of Cuckfield BookFest will have access from 1st September).

Thursday 6th October

Literary Quiz

The Hayloft, The Talbot, High Street, Cuckfield 7.30pm for 8pm This year the quiz is back upstairs...

Friday 7th October

Supper at Ockenden Manor

With Special Guest Steve Richards...

Saturday 8th October

Morning

Robert Lacey 11.30 – 12.30pm

Battle of the Brothers: William and Harry and the inside story of a Family in Tumult with Andrew Lownie. Raised to be the closest of brothers, the...

Afternoon

Lisa Jewell and Will Brooker 2.30-3.30pm

The Family Remains and The Truth about Lisa Jewell. Lisa Jewell’s first novel Ralph’s Party was the best-selling debut novel of 1999. Since then she has written 18 more, most recently a number of dark psychological thrillers. The Family Remains continues the story of...

Vanessa Berridge 1pm – 2pm

Borde Hill Garden A Plant Hunter’s Paradise with Andrewjohn Stephenson Clarke. Renowned for its magnificent collections of trees and flowering shrubs from across the world, Borde Hill is one of Britain’s great heritage gardens. This book is the first to tell the story...

Evening

Simon Williams and Lucy Fleming 7pm – 8.15pm

Posting Letters to the Moon. When Celia Johnson’s husband Peter Fleming was away during the war, they wrote to each other regularly and these touching and amusing letters tell of the experiences of both during these years. Celia coped with a large house full of...

David Hendy 5.30pm – 6.30pm

The BBC – a People’s History with Julian Worricker. In The BBC, professor and historian David Hendy traces the BBC from its beginnings through war, the creation of television, changing public taste, austerity and massive cultural change. The BBC has constantly...

Sunday 9th October

Morning

Steve Brusatte 10am – 11am

The Rise and Reign of the Mammals with Dr Hermione Cockburn. From one of our foremost paleontologists and author of the bestselling The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs (2018) comes a groundbreaking reappraisal of the history and evolution of the mammals, our own...

Gavin Mortimer 11.30 – 12.30pm

The Phoney Major The Life, Times and Truth about the Founder of the SAS with Alan Judd. Aristocrat, gambler, innovator and Special Forces legend, the life of David Stirling should need no retelling. His formation of the Special Air Service in the summer of 1941 led to...

Afternoon

Nick Wallis 1pm-2pm

The Great Post Office Scandal Nick Wallis has written the first definitive account of the Post...

Julia Boyd & Angela Findlay 4pm-5pm

A Village in the Third Reich; In My Grandfather’s Shadow with Nigel Jones. Drawing on archive...

Dame Eileen Atkins 2.30pm – 3.30pm

Will She Do? with Richard Digby Day. This is the story of a girl from a council estate in...

Evening

Clive Tyldsley 5.30 – 6.30pm

‘Not for me, Clive’ Stories from the Voice of Football with Gavin Mortimer. Football changes everything. It changes how we feel, how we think, how we behave. It turns us into someone else. This stunning, lyrical book is raw, funny and revealing about football and what...