One of the best historical debut novels of 2024. Inspired by true events in 18th-century Venice, The Instrumentalist tells the story of Anna Maria della Pietà – orphan, musical prodigy and favourite student of Antonio Vivaldi. With host Sarah Lonsdale.

Bestselling Kent author of The End of Mr Y, Scarlett Thomas's latest novel, The Sleepwalkers, is a wickedly funny and sublimely creepy tale of a couple’s demise while holidaying on a Greek island. Playful and political... expect Daphne du Maurier meets Patricia Highsmith. With host Daniel Hahn.

The story of a young Syrian refugee woman who lives in Shatila, one of the world's oldest refugee camps, told by Meike Ziervogel, co-founder of an NGO for refugees in the Middle East. Meike talks to Daniel Hahn about how her writing draws on experience of working with displaced persons, and her own past.

British Bengali-born writer Tasneem Abdur-Rashid talks to author Maggie Brookes about her uplifting, laugh-out-loud story, The Thirty Before Thirty List, which confronts the choices that a young woman has to make between forging an exciting, independent life or accepting a life defined by family and tradition.

The lives of two east London teenage boys become fatally entwined in this assured debut addressing themes of the online 'targeting' and 'recruiting' of teenagers, masculinity and marginalisation, Britishness, and the pernicious pull of extremist politics. Darkly humorous and highly topical, this is an Observer Best Debut Novel 2024; and shortlisted for the prestigious Gordon Burns Prize.

Greg Mosse, Julie Wassmer and Jamie West talk about their latest novels and take a wry, amusing look at the foibles of some of their best cosy crime characters.

A sharp, funny, heartbreaking debut novel that explores the journey of self-discovery of a young woman who as a child was diagnosed with a condition that would alter the course of her life. With author and disability campaigner Chloe Timms.

Rethinking Hemingway, with translator Daniel Hahn and author Sonia Overall, whose novel Eden melds the persona of Hemingway himself with characters from his last book, written while he was living in Cuba.

A heartbreaking, sweeping portrayal of friendship forged in the trenches of the First World War, by the acclaimed author of Rain, which is based on the author’s own soldierly experiences in Afghanistan. 

The bestselling author of Small Pleasures discusses her new novel, Shy Creatures, about a talented artist incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital in Croydon in the 1960s, and the female art therapist who sets out to discover his story. With host Ann Morgan.

Story vs Plot – What's the Difference?

In this creative writing workshop with Monique Roffey, author of The Mermaid of Black Conch, and Passiontide, the discussion and exercises will focus on the very important difference between story and plot and why they are very different, yet often get mixed up. Suitable for long and short fiction writers.

Winner of this year's Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize, a tragicomic tale of two unemployed potters in ancient Syracuse who decide to stage two of Euripides' greatest tragedies in a quarry, using Athenian prisoners of war. A tale of brotherhood, war, art, and what happens when contemporary Irish dialect meets the ancients. With host Alex Preston.