Prolific author Tracy Chevalier will be discussing the many places and periods that she writes about, literary biographer Hilary Spurling turns her attention to Anthony Powell, an iconic figure of English letters, and writer and TED speaker Ann Morgan talks about her project to read a book from every country in the world in one calendar year.

Brian Clegg discusses big data and how the information revolution is changing our lives, whilst Steve Richards explores why conventional politicians are failing to adapt to the challenge of today, whilst Jamie Bartlett looks at radical alternatives.

We seek inspiration from outside the literary world as social and cultural historian Carol Dyhouse draws upon literature, cinema, and popular romance to show how the changing position of women has shaped their dreams about men, Pen Vogler tells us how she recreated recipes inspired by the novels and letters of Jane Austen and Alex Preston and Nicholas Ryle talk about how they were inspired by birds.

You can learn how to change the world through gentle protest with Sarah Corbitt and Craftivism, discuss gender with Juno Dawson, and delve into the world of therapy with Susie Orbach.

These are only a few of the highlights from the 2017 programme. For more information, head here.

John le Carré introduces his new novel, A Legacy of Spies, and iconic Cold War characters whilst author of The Handmaid’s Tale Margaret Atwood reflects on her visionary and dystopian work in the context of the Trump era and the real world it reflects. Along the same theme, Naomi Klein discusses her new book No Is Not Enough which looks at the tactics used to bring Trump into power and what happens next.

Feminism is still a big issue, and Laurie Penny and Rebecca Solnit each present their new essay collections, Bitch Doctrine: Essays for Dissenting Adults, a collection of Penny’s writing which provokes challenging conversations around the definitive social issues of today, and The Mother of All Questions, a piece that aims to open up a feminism for everyone.

The wonderful Zadie Smith reads from her most recent novel Swing Time and discusses writing fiction that responds to our current times, as White Teeth and On Beauty both did.

As part of Africa Utopia Poetry/music duo Gertrude & Jemma lead a performance of experimental and improvised sound exploring the relationship between words, music and silence in What The Trees Know / The Blindfold Session.

London’s award-winning LGBT literary salon, Polari, comes back for its tenth summer at the Southbank Centre, ad later in the year the Poetry Library will host exhibitions dedicated to The Mersey Soung, Joseph Conrad, the implications of Brexit and Indian poets.

There’s also the new exhibition A Fair Field Full of Folk which explores William Langland’s medieval poem Piers Plowman and features a rare opportunity to see an original sixteenth century manuscript of the poem, on loan from the University of London.

It’s all gearing up for the annual London Literature Festival in October, with even more education, entertainment, elucidation and astoundingly excellent literature on offer.

So if there’s anything that can tear you away from your book, it’s this.

Zadie Smith – Dominique Nabokov 2016 Copyright

At least not according to the prolific and talented Dame Margaret Drabble. And, as author of nineteen novels, twice editor of the Oxford Companion of English Literature, married to Michael Holroyd and younger sister of AS Byatt, she knows a thing or two about reading.

So too do her inquisitors, Susan Elderkin and Ella Berthoud, bibliotherapists and here at Folkestone Book Festival to ask Margaret about her reading history, influences, and prescribe some literary cures for any ailments she may be having.

Rather a practical lady, she seems to not have too many worries that might need curing, even with the duo’s hefty and brilliant compendium, The Novel Cure, sitting and waiting to be consulted. She clearly has a real love and affinity for literature, and as a young person fell in love with classics like The Marmalade Cat series by Kathleen Hale and was absorbed in the worlds of local Yorkshire authors the Brontes, but struggles to remember many more. She wishes she had kept a journal of the books she’d read, but now scribbles voraciously in the margins, and loves to go back and read the annotations, ‘a commentary on one’s life.’ Having always been a ‘big reader’ Margaret says that she only became a ‘circumstantial writer.’ Writing was a convenient career to have around children. Following the adage to ‘write what you know’ her novels are similar to Doris Lessing’s, one of her heroines, in that they are about the subject matter of women’s lives, or as Lessing said of The Needle’s Eye, ‘shabby houses and small children.’

It’s rather lucky that Drabble was so good at the career that she so understatedly describes her entry into. Her latest book, The Dark Flood Rises, is about dealing with ageing, and features a cast of characters who all approach it in different ways. We have Francesca, who keeps busy and tries to delay its occurrence through running, Claude, with a blasé attitude and lazy way of life, and Sir Bennett Carpenter, who continues to sustain a life of ego and wealth. There’s bits of Margaret in all of the characters, and a humorous conclusion – but the conclusion doesn’t mean that she has cracked the whole age, life and death thing. Although she has no worries about death – ‘I worry more about life’ – she does still have the same struggles and torments existence. Her biggest and most consistent issue is ‘what to have for dinner tomorrow’ and not getting bored at parties.

For the latter issue, Susan and Ella suggest that she reads Room by Emma Donoghue, which will at least make her appreciate human and physical world interaction. As a parallel to the theme of ageing and making peace with life, they suggest Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. However, Margaret has made her peace. Even with the Trump debacle. She won’t be writing about that anytime soon.

‘I write from the point of view of eternity, not the next terrible ten years.’

On which note our window into a bibliotherapy session and the inside world of Margaret Drabble ends, and the audience sighs – but at least we’ve always got our books to cure us.