Tickets have gone on sale for this year’s Chiswick Book Festival, offering hundreds of readers a chance to hear and meet a host of top authors and buy signed copies of their books. The Chiswick Book Festival is run by St Michael & All Angels Church, Bedford Park, as part of its arts and community outreach and donates all its profits to reading and community charities. Since 2009 it has raised more than £150,000 for charities, including its current beneficiaries, Read for Good, Read Easy Ealing and Koestler Arts, as well as St Michael & All Angels Church, which runs the Festival and is itself a charity.
This year’s speakers include Samira Ahmed, Nick Clegg, Charles Cumming, Alf Dubs, Robert Hardman, Fergal Keane, Ben Macintyre, Blake Morrison, Kate Mosse, Adele Parks, Tony Palmer, Tony Parsons, Mary Portas, Anthony Seldon and Jacqueline Wilson.
The Festival will include a very special evening to mark 60 years since the Beatles recorded their ground-breaking music videos, Paperback Writer and Rain, in the beautiful 18th Century surroundings of Chiswick House & Gardens. It will celebrate that iconic moment and reflect on the group’s unique place in rock and social history with three Beatles experts and paperback writers. Broadcaster Samira Ahmed, author of the new BFI Classics book on A Hard Day’s Night (also filmed in west London), will chair a discussion on ‘The Beatles: Film, Fame and Social Change’ with Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn (The Beatles: All These Years, Volume 1 – Tune In) and Tony Palmer, author and director of the 17-part TV documentary series All You Need Is Love: The Story of Popular Music.)
They will be speaking in the Garden Pavilion at Chiswick House & Gardens at 7pm on Thursday 10 September 2026, in the presence of other Beatles writers and followers, gathered to celebrate the anniversary. Ten years ago, on the 50th anniversary, Chiswick House reflected on the significance of the two films.
This year’s authors were chosen by a new Festival programme group, set up to replace Jo James, who stepped down last autumn as Chiswick’s programme director after ten years. One of publishing’s best known and successful event organisers, Jo helped find her successors to ensure a smooth transition.
They include several seasoned book professionals who live in or around Chiswick. Jacks Thomas, who helped set up the Festival in 2009 when she ran Midas PR, returns as the Festival’s chair, a new role for Chiswick. Former director of The London Book Fair, she remains active in the books world, including as guest director of BolognaBookPlus and member of the BookBrunch advisory board.
Orna O’Brien, who has worked with Jacks for many years, is now Chiswick’s author programme co-ordinator, sitting on a programme group with Torin Douglas and two books professionals who have worked with renowned authors for many years. Patsy Irwin, who lives in Chiswick, retired as publicity director of Transworld last November after 35 years with the publisher. And Lisa O’Kelly-Reed, who lives in Barnes, was associate editor (books) of The Observer and now contributes to The Nerve and volunteers with literary charities.
The Festival has commercial partnerships with many local businesses and community partnerships with more than twenty local organisations and residents’ associations. It has formed a new partnership with BookBrunch, the digital hub for publishing and books, which provides a daily news service, in-depth reports and interviews for a community of publishing professionals and those passionate about the business of books.
The 18th Chiswick Book Festival will take place from 9-14 September 2026. For tickets, programme details and updates, visit the festival’s web site.
