Sunday 11th September

(Limited to 20 People) Walkers will meet at Ivy House

Join Harry Mount, author of A Lust for Window Sills - a Lover's Guide to British Buildings from Portcullis to Pebble-Dash, a funny, anecdotal history of architecture, for his personal view of Hampstead.

Harry is also the author of the international bestseller, Amo, Amas, Amat and All That - How to Become a Latin Lover [2006]. His previous book, My Brief Career [2004], told the story of his time as a libel barrister. He is also a contributing editor at Reader's Digest and writes regularly for The Spectator, The New Statesman, The Daily Mail, Country Life, Literary Review and The Times Literary Supplement.

BBC Newsnight's Gavin Esler is the author of The United States of Anger, an examination of the political discontent within the United States, plus the novels A Scandalous Man (2008) and Powerplay (2009) which is set at a time of crisis at the end of the Bush administration.

Gavin Esler became the BBC's Washington correspondent in 1989, after a short stint on Newsnight. In 1997 he became the anchor for BBC News 24 reporting from all over the world. He returned to Newsnight in 2003.

Frank Ledwidge is a former senior military intelligence officer and veteran of all Britain's recent campaigns. A former barrister, he was Justice Advisor to the UK Task Force in Helmand in 2007. His book, Losing Small Wars: British Military Failure in Iraq and Afghanistan is published by Yale University Press.

Jill McGivering is an award-winning BBC broadcaster and writer. She's covered foreign news for BBC radio and television for almost twenty years. Her first novel, The Last Kestrel, looks at the impact of the war in Afghanistan. Her second, Far From My Father's House, is set in North-West Pakistan.

John Freeman is the editor of Granta. His reviews and essays have appeared in The Guardian, the Independent, The Times and The Wall Street Journal. His first book, The Tyranny of E-mail, was published in 2009.

*Unfortunately David Aaronovitch is now unable to appear at the event

This event is sponsored by GRANTA

POSTPONED

Felix Francis is the younger son of thriller-writing legend, Dick Francis, with whom he co-wrote the four most recent Dick Francis Novels; Dead Heat, Silks, Even Money and Crossfire. Sadly Dick died in February 2010 but his work will live on through Felix.

Gamble is Felix's first solo Dick Francis Novel.

Stephen Kon has been a keen follower of horse racing throughout his life, with a particular passion for National Hunt racing. He partly-owned a number of National Hunt horses and more recently a horse that ran on the flat. His professional work has also involved him with horse racing; as a competition lawyer he has acted for many years for Ladbrokes both in the UK and the EU. He has, over the years, read many of Dick Francis' novels and is a great fan.

Photo Credit: Debbie Frances

Booking opens 1 July

Will Carver, as the son of an army officer, spent most of his formative years in Germany. His rugby career took off aged 14, when he was scouted to play for London Welsh. At 17 he ran the 100m in 10.75sec and headed to the England trials but had to pull out due to injury. His sports career curtailed, he decided to become a writer.

Having studied Drama, Theatre & Television and embarked on a number of different jobs, he opted to take redundancy to write Girl 4. Happily, Random House offered him a publishing deal and a fantastic new career as an author began.

Peter Guttridge is a crime critic and novelist. He has been the crime fiction critic of the Observer for eleven years. The Times has said that his new Brighton trilogy - City of Dreadful Night, The Last King of Crime and The Thing Itself "demonstrates his great skill as a writer of English provincial noir" whilst crime author Mark Billingham says of it: "There are two words running through this darkly delicious piece of Brighton rock: 'must read'." His six satirical crime novels are described as "de rigueur reading" by the Good Book Guide. He has chaired many events - crime and non-crime - at a wide range of literature festivals but this is his first appearance at the Hampstead and Highgate Festival.

John Crace is a staff feature writer for the Guardian, where he is best known for the literary parody Digested Read. He has been described in The Oxford Book of Parodists as one of our two greatest living parodists. He has also written several books, including the semi-fictional comic memoirs Baby Alarm and The Second Half. His latest book out in September, Vertigo: One Fan's Fear of Success is the story of the existential futility that comes from 40 years supporting Spurs.
He lives in south-west London but travels to N17 for every home game.

Olivia Lichtenstein is a BAFTA award winning documentary filmmaker and the former editor of the BBC''s Inside Story. Her latest novel Things Your Mother Never Told You (Orion, September 2009) is a sharp, compelling and deliciously entertaining follow up to her acclaimed, award-winning debut Mrs Zhivago of Queen's Park.

John Sutherland is Lord Northcliffe Professor Emeritus UCL ('emeritus', he likes to point out, is Latin for scrapheap). His recent books include: How to Read a Novel (2006), Bestsellers: A Very Short Introduction (2007), Magic Moments (2008), The Curiosities of Literature (2009), Love Death Sex and Words (with Stephen Fender, 2010), 50 Literature Ideas you Need to Know (2010).

Joanna Briscoe author of Mothers and Other Lovers, Skin and Sleep with Me, has been a columnist for The Independent and The Guardian, broadcasts on Radio 4, and is currently a literary critic for The Guardian. Her latest novel is You.

POSTPONED

Patrick Bishop spent twenty-five years as a foreign correspondent covering conflicts around the world. He is the author of two hugely acclaimed books about the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, Fighter Boys and Bomber Boys, and a novel of the period, A Good War. His most recent bestseller is Ground Truth, which follows up the story of 3 Para, his epic account of the British deployment to Afghanistan in the summer of 2006. Follow Me Home is his second novel.

William Tyler is an experienced adult educator who loves to share his enthusiasm for history with others. He holds degrees from three British universities and has held senior positions in adult education, including the post of Principal of The City Literary Institute in London, one of Britain's premier Adult Education Colleges. His recent MBE was awarded for services to adult education.

Maximum number of people: 12

Defeating the Blank Page!

In this poetry writing workshop, Martyn Crucefix will introduce interesting and well-structured exercises so that participants will leave with 5 or 6 poems well on the way to completion. From devising name trails, extending the simple haiku form, writing about sacred objects, even attempting a blank sonnet, we will work in a friendly and supportive atmosphere. Suitable for those who want to break old habits or develop new directions in their writing. Invite your friends and family to hear you perform your new work at 4.45-5.30pm - no charge.

Martyn Crucefix has won numerous prizes including a major Eric Gregory award and a Hawthornden Fellowship. He has published 5 collections, including An English Nazareth (Enitharmon, 2004) and Hurt (Enitharmon, 2010). His translation of Rilke's Duino Elegies was published by Enitharmon in 2006, shortlisted for the Popescu Prize for European Poetry Translation and hailed as "unlikely to be bettered for very many years" (Magma).

POSTPONED

Melanie McGrath is an award-winning author of five works of nonfiction, including the bestselling Silvertown. White Heat is her first novel, a slow-burn mystery set on Ellesmere Island in the High Arctic, the first in a series featuring amateur sleuth Edie Kiglatuk.

Melanie is a regular contributor to The Sunday Telegraph, The Guardian, The Evening Standard and The Daily Mail and has presented an adventure travel show on The Discovery Channel. She has visited the Western and Eastern Arctic on a number of occasions, living with the local people, and has written extensively about Arctic life in the national press. Her Arctic nonfiction book, The Long Exile, was the inspiration for a feature length documentary directed by the award-winning Inuit filmmaker, Zachary Kunuk.

Marina Benjamin is a writer and journalist. A former arts editor of the New Statesman and deputy arts editor of the Evening Standard, she has written for most of the broadsheet newspapers and worked as a columnist for the Daily Express and Scotland on Sunday.

Marina is the author of three books; Living at the End of the World, which puts modern day end-time cults in the spotlight; Rocket Dreams, an off-beat elegy to the Space Age, and Last Days in Babylon, a family memoir narrating the life and times, trials and joys, of the author's Baghdadi-born grandmother. She continues to write, teach, give readings and review books for the Sunday Telegraph and Evening Standard.

Photo Credit: Patricia Grey

When John White was killed by a bolt of lightning in 1964, the football world was rocked by the tragedy. White was just 27 years of age and nicknamed the 'Ghost' for the way that he could drift into space undetected. Six months before he died, his wife Sandra, gave birth to their second child, a son called Rob.

Rob White never knew his father. The Ghost of White Hart Lane is the result of Rob's interviews with his father's teammates, followers, and family members. Within these pages Rob White and Julie Welch have built up a portrait, not only of brilliant and gifted young man, but also of a lost era.

Julie Welch is the critically lauded author of Those Glory Glory Days, 26.2: Running the London Marathon and Out On Your Feet: The World of Hundred-mile Walking.

John Crace is a staff feature writer for the Guardian, where he is best known for the literary parody Digested Read. He has been described in The Oxford Book of Parodists as one of our two greatest living parodists. He has also written several books, including the semi-fictional comic memoirs Baby Alarm and The Second Half. His latest book out in September, Vertigo: One Fan's Fear of Success is the story of the existential futility that comes from 40 years supporting Spurs. He lives in south-west London but travels to N17 for every home game.

Benjamin Markovits grew up in Texas, London and Berlin. He left an unpromising career as a professional basketball player to study the Romantics. Since then he has taught high school English, edited a left-wing cultural magazine and written essays, stories and reviews for various publications.

His previous novels are The Syme Papers, Either Side of Winter and Playing Days, in addition to the novels Imposture and A Quiet Adjustment which began the Byron trilogy that Childish Loves completes.

A masterful story-within-a-story that turns on uncomfortable questions about childhood and sexual awakening, innocence and attraction, Childish Loves explores the lives of three very different writers and their brushes with success and failure in both literature and life.

Sameer Rahim is Assistant Books Editor at The Daily Telegraph.

Book for 5 individual events priced at £7, across the three days of the Festival, and save £5. Call 020 84511 7900 to take advantage of this offer which cannot be activated online

Photo Credit: Charles Glover

An irrepressible broadcaster and entertainer, Nicholas Parsons has enjoyed a long and varied career encompassing theatre, television, film and radio. He is perhaps best known as the straight man to Arthur Haynes in the '60s, as the presenter of Sale of the Century in the '70s and today as the chairman of the long-running Radio 4 panel game Just a Minute. He was awarded an OBE for his services to entertainment in 2003.

Leo Hollis is a publisher and the author of books on London and Paris. The Phoenix (2008) a history of St Paul's Cathedral, was received with critical acclaim. His latest book, The Stones of London: A History in Twelve Buildings (2011) tells the story of twelve London buildings in a kaleidoscopic and unexpected history of one of the world's most enigmatic cities.

Photo Credit: Jerry Bauer

Michael Slater's richly and precisely illustrated book, with many rare images, is a masterly work on the complete Dickens. He is Emeritus Professor of Victorian Literature at Birkbeck College, past President of the International Dickens Fellowship and of the Dickens Society of America, and former editor of The Dickensian.

Sam Leith was, until recently, the Literary Editor of the Telegraph. He now writes for many leading publications including the Guardian and the Evening Standard. His previous books, Dead Pets and Sods Law, have been published to critical acclaim. The Coincidence Engine is his first novel and has been selected as one of the Waterstone's 11 - a major new initiative created to uncover and champion the very best debut fiction.

Andrew G Marshall is the UK's best-known marital therapist and writer on relationships. He regularly writes for The Times, the Mail on Sunday, the Sunday Express and Woman & Home. Andrew has appeared on Lorraine Kelly Today and the Chris Evans Show on BBC Radio 2. He is the author of How Can I Ever Trust You Again?, I Love You But I'm Not in Love With You and The Single Trap.

Esther Walker has been a journalist for 8 years and has worked for The Times, The Evening Standard and The Independent. She is now freelance features writer and lives in London with her husband - the restaurant critic Giles Coren - and their daughter.

Kitchen Secrets is the long awaited new book from culinary legend Raymond Blanc, showcasing the recipes from both the first and the upcoming series of the acclaimed BBC 2 series Kitchen Secrets.

Totally self-taught, Raymond Blanc is one of Britain's best-respected chefs. His hotel-restaurant Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons in Oxford has been awarded two Michelin stars for the past 26 years and in 2007 he was awarded an OBE for services to culinary excellence.

'Only a few great chefs are produced every century. Raymond Blanc is one of those great chefs.' Marco Pierre White

Tim Hayward writes for the Guardian, FT and Saveur and appears regularly on the R4 Food Programme. He is also editor of food quarterly Fire & Knives. For no reason he can adequately explain he is currently trying to rescue a 90 year old high street bakery in Cambridge.

Photo Credit: Jean Cazals

Caroline Moorehead's new book, A Train in Winter (2011) is a story of resistance, friendship and survival. A writer on human rights for The Times and the Independent, she has also made BBC programmes on the subject. She wrote the history of the Red Cross, helped to set up a Legal Advice Centre for refugees in Cairo, and worked as volunteer with the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture.

Rex Bloomstein has pioneered Human Rights appeals on British television, opened the English prison system with series such as Strangeways and advanced the Holocaust documentary genre with the documentary feature, KZ.

POSTPONED

Martin Sixsmith's new book, Russia, is a new history of Russia and its people, published to accompany a landmark BBC Radio 4 series, which marks the 20th anniversary of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Martin Sixsmith studied at Oxford, Harvard, Leningrad and the Sorbonne before becoming BBC correspondent in Moscow, Washington, Brussels, Geneva and Warsaw. He then served as Director of Communications and Press Secretary to Harriet Harman, Alistair Darling and Stephen Byers.

Now a writer, presenter and journalist, he has written two novels, Spin and I Heard Lenin Laugh, and four non-fiction titles - Moscow Coup: The Death of the Soviet System; The Litvinenko File: The True Story of a Death Foretold; Putin's Oil: the Yukos Affair and the Struggle for Russia and The Lost Child of Philomena Lee: A Mother, Her Son and a Fifty Year Search.

Dan Lepard is the baking columnist for The Guardian, and an award-winning author and baker. His books include The Handmade Loaf, which has been described as 'oozing knowledge, curiosity and love for its subject.'

Andrew Morton, a leading authority on modern celebrity, has been called 'the king of celebrity biographers'. His 1992 biography, Diana: Her True Story has been translated into 35 languages and inspired films, documentaries and commentaries about the royal family. Morton has now written a book on the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton.

Witty, controversial but fair-minded, Morton has taken on some of the biggest shibboleth's on the planet - and lived to tell the tale. He spends his time between London, New York and Hollywood.

He had written 10 books over a decade before becoming an overnight sensation. It was only after Diana's tragic death in 1997 that Morton revealed that his explosive biography was written with her complete and intimate collaboration. Not only did Diana: Her True Story become a New York Times number one bestseller but his biography won him numerous awards, including Author of the Year by the British Book Awards, Investigative Reporter of the Year by What the Papers Say and Scoop of the Year by the London Press Club.

Olivia Lichtenstein is a BAFTA award winning documentary filmmaker and the former editor of the BBC''s Inside Story. Her latest novel Things Your Mother Never Told You (Orion, September 2009) is a sharp, compelling and deliciously entertaining follow up to her acclaimed, award-winning debut Mrs Zhivago of Queen's Park. She directed Prince William's Africa and the recently screened TV documentary Prince Philip at 90.

Photo Credit: Ken Lennox

Maximum number of people: 15

Improve your poetry and fiction writing skills. Discover the strengths and weaknesses of your poetry and fiction in a workshop that will help you push your writing to a higher level while respecting your unique voice. Participants will have their writing circulated to the group a week in advance so that we can arrive with considered feedback. You can also get answers on the publishing process from the workshop leader, who is the selecting editor at Ward Wood Publishing.

Please send one fiction excerpt, up to 1,000 words, or up to 2 poems, 40 lines maximum, to sarah@ljcc.org.uk two weeks in advance.

Peter Snow is a highly respected journalist, author and broadcaster. He was ITN's Diplomatic and Defence Correspondent from 1966 to 1979, and presented Newsnight from 1980 to 1997.

An indispensable part of election nights, he has also covered military matters on and off the world's battlefields for forty years. Peter is married and has six children. His latest book To War with Wellington is the gripping account of a remarkable leader and his men.

Paula Kitching is an historian (specialising in Genocide and war studies), educational consultant and writer, who has been working with the London Jewish Cultural Centre for over fifteen years. She was an advisor to the Department of Education for over five years and currently works with the Historical Association, the Royal British Legion and HMDT (Holocaust Memorial Day Trust).

Photo Credit: Murdo Macleod

Rachel Johnson's latest book describes the challenge she faced when she became editor of The Lady, the oldest women's weekly in the world. How do you turn around a venerable title, full of ads for walk-in baths, during the worst recession EVER? Her previous books include The Mummy Diaries, the international bestseller Notting Hell, and Shire Hell.

Geoff Martin is the editor of the Ham & High newspaper.

Photo Credit: Grant Scott

POSTPONED

Rana Mitter is professor of the history and politics of modern China at Oxford University, and author of several books including Modern China: A Very Short Introduction. He is a regular presenter for Night Waves, Radio 3's arts and ideas programme.

POSTPONED

David Stevenson is a Professor of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and author of the highly praised 1914-1918: The History of the First World War in which he retells the story of the final year of the First World War. In a remarkable piece of original research he goes to the roots of this dramatic reversal of fortune, analysing the reasons for Allied success and the collapse of Germany and its partners.

David Edgerton is the Hans Rausing Professor at Imperial College London, where he was the founding director of the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine. He is the author of a sequence of groundbreaking books on 20th century Britain: England and the Aeroplane: An Essay on a Militant and Technological Nation, Science, Technology and the British Industrial 'Decline', 1870-1970 and Warfare State: Britain, 1920-1970. He is also the author of the iconoclastic and brilliant The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History Since 1900.

POSTPONED

Mark Malloch-Brown is Chairman of FTI Global Affairs focusing on advising corporates on the risks and opportunities associated with rapid changes in the global political economy. Formerly he was Minister of State in the Foreign Office, covering Africa and Asia, and was a member of Gordon Brown's cabinet. He had previously served as Deputy Secretary-General and Chief of Staff of the UN under Kofi Annan. For six years he was Administrator of the UNDP, leading the UN's development efforts around the world. Other positions have included vice-chairman of George Soros's Investment Funds, as well as his Open Society Institute, a Vice-President at the World Bank and the lead international partner in a political consulting firm. He also has served as Vice-Chairman of the World Economic Forum. He began his career as a journalist on The Economist.

He is chair of the Royal Africa Society and on a number of non-profit and advisory boards, including the International Crisis group, the Open Society Foundation and the Centre for Global Development in Washington. He is a member of the House of Lords and was knighted in 2007.

David Aaronovitch is a journalist, broadcaster, author and regular columnist for The Times and The Guardian. He won the George Orwell Prize for political journalism in 1998 and 2001.

Jane Fallon is the author of Getting Rid of Matthew, Foursome, Got You Back and her new novel The Ugly Sister (October 2011). She is also the multi-award-winning television producer behind shows such as This Life, Teachers and 20 Things to Do before You're 30.

Sara Lawrence is the chief chick lit reviewer at the Daily Mail, a travel journalist and also the author of two novels about bad girls at boarding school: High Jinx and Jinxed (both published by Faber).

Photo Credit: Lee Carter