I'm a big fan of bookclub meetings with friendly banter, good books and being a meeting of minds. The bookclub meetings held at the Festival last year were an absolute treat. Following the comedic revelation that I was not Carol Ann Duffy there were some wonderful insightful comments about her poetry. Sally Nicholls also gave a wonderful reading from Jackie Kay's short stories. One of my highlights of the Festival was hearing Jasper Fforde & Andrew Tate (two of my favourite writers) discussing Walden which somehow drifted into a discussion about the Muppets. It was an essentially Greenbelt moment – profound, spiritual and witty.

The people who came along to the sessions shared from their own experiences, talked of their responses to the books. (Thank you for that, I was deeply moved by some of the things you shared & said).

This year the literature subgroup have popped their collective thinking hats on, had some passionate discussion and have picked three very different books which we commend to you for discussion at the Festival.

1) Ali Smith – The First Person and Other Stories

Ali Smith is a wonderful writer and in the short story form her skills really zing. Smith has a knack for capturing conversations, pinning moments in a relationship & unlocking the process that goes into writing a novel. There's much here to delight and inspire, some of these stories will leave a smile in your mind.

2) Thornton Wilder – The Bridge of San Luis Rey

Wilder's novel won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928. The story of the collapse in 1714 of "the finest bridge in all Peru", killing five people, it is a parable of the struggle to find meaning in chance and in inexplicable tragedy – a struggle many people face today. In the wake of the 9/11 tragedy Prime Minister Tony Blair quoted from the novel at a memorial service.

In the novel, a Franciscan missionary sees the bridge "divide and fling five gesticulating ants into the valley below". He then sets out to trace the lives of the victims, linked only by their deaths, in an effort to understand the seemingly random nature of the tragedy. Wilder later explained that he was seeking to address the question: "Is there a direction and meaning in lives beyond the individual's own will?

3) Star of the Morning: The Extraordinary life of Lady Hester Stanhope by Kirsten Ellis

The life of Lady Hester Stanhope (1776-1839) sounds like something from fiction. She was Prime Minister Pitt's niece and companion. She joined her brother on a voyage to Spain and kept travelling. She travelled to Constantinople and Damascus and was the first European woman to enter the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, but eventually made a home in Joun, in the mountains of Lebanon. When her clothes were lost in a shipwreck she dressed like a Turkish man, smoked a long water-pipe and rejected her birth culture. Famous for her wit, beauty and energy, she became the greatest woman traveller of her day. She developed a passion for the Arab world and forged lasting friendships with pashas, emirs and sheikhs – and was revered by the Bedouin, whose cause she championed, as their ‘Star of the Morning.’

If you don't own any of these books, you should! Click on the titles of the books to buy them from Amazon, and a portion of money will go to Greenbelt. Your local library should also stock these.

You'll find these discussions in The Hub the venue where Visual Arts and Literature coexist. Bring a mug of something warm and prepare to share your thoughts with other equally passionate souls. I can't wait to hear what people will have to say about these books. Will you be there? You won't want to miss this, it's going to be great!

—-

Ben Whitehouse is Literature Coordinator for the Greenbelt festival. He writes a blog – White Like Milk – and you can follow him on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Benjiw

For those of you still yearning for a "Long Now" experience you should point your feet, trains and cars in the direction of Birmingham and check out an exhibition.

The Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery is hosting an exhibition of Craft and the Slow Revolution from the 17th October 2009- 4th January 2010.

The exhibition looks at how contemporary craftspeople respond to ideas about slowing down how we work and what we produce, and the importance of contributing to a more sustainable society.

Included in this exhibition is a giant wool hanging that will be partly created by visitors, and a family activity guide to find out more about the exhibits. The exhibition also includes film and photography.

It's held in the Waterhall and admission is free (my favourite word).

by Ben Whitehouse

Artistic director of Stan's Cafe (pronounced Caff and not cafe after a real cafe just off Brick Lane), James Yarker has been named in the Birmingham Post's Power 50 list. One of their most recent projects was a 24-hour Scalextrix race to coincide with the Le Mans race.

He co-founded Stan's Cafe in 1991 with Graeme Rose and has been producing wonderful, unique avant garde performance experiences since then. Greenbelt is very pleased to be hosting, with Christian Aid, Of All The People In All The World. Those on the programming group who have experienced the show are very excited about seeing how people will react to the exhibition over the course of the Festival weekend. This isn't something just to see once during the weekend, this is something to be visited again and again as the show grows and develops through audience suggestions, stats are collected and verified. This is something you'll either be dragging people along to see or you'll be dragged there by someone who has already seen it. (Can you spot that I've seen this already and want to be sure that you see it too?)

To get a sense of what to expect from Of All The People In All The World head over to the Stat Centre, browse the stats already there and suggest a few of your own. You can also follow the development of the show as people upload photographs or mention it on twitter by going to the Rice Show website. You can also follow the show on Twitter and on the Rice Show Radio websites.

by Ben Whitehouse

I asked Jon Bounds to "write a post for the blog" and wasn't too sure what I'd get back. As usual I wasn't disappointed, Jon has delivered, in his own unique, way, something wonderful about his talks for the festival. Make sure you catch them, they're not to be missed!

The ways in which place affects us are too often cloistered in the work of travel writers or gap-year bloggers hemp-shirting their way across some of the developing World's most considered facades. That or dreamy-eyed nostalgists, moisting up over the bomb-cleared playgrouds of their youth. To descibe the now and your relation to it is to record history for the losers as well as the winners, it's to let location its due in your psyche, and it's honest.

In the post-spin age; the spun are dizzy with post-modernism, never more than an involuntary muscule spasm away from an arched eyebrow or a cheese football. We've long since given up on desire for the truth but prefer to band together and hunker down with whatever lie seems most palatable.

The job of the psychogeographer is to twist the facts into something relating the truth, and it's that which I've been trying to do for ten years of development, redevelopment and regeneration of Britian's most maligned conurbation.

I founded Birmingham: It's Not Shit in 2002, just as the city was embarrassing itself on the European stage again, not this time shooting for the stars with un-government backed bids for global sporting events but merely aiming the twelve bore directly a pied and not even standing up to Liverpool in the bidding for European Capital of culture status. The city's marketeers, all second-jobbing on their way to more suitable metropoli, presented a sheen of apartments, cafes and smiling mixed-ethnicity groups laughing just too much as one at how perfect their lives were. Liverpool presented some old film of the Beatles.

It's about to start all over again, and this time the site has been cited by the Council's Minister of Fun (er Cabinet Member for Culture and lesiure or something) as an example to follow. They're going to attempt to tempt the Turner Prize to some wasted industrial unit by giving the people what they want – Jasper Carrot and the Spitfire. Goldenballs.

I'm going to give three separate, but no-doubt interrelated talks at Greenbelt this year, one telling some of the story about how Birmingham is portrayed in popular culture and myth (and yes Benny from Crossroads will feature). A second will look more deeply at how the city sees itself – nominally from the upstairs window of a circular bus ride. Hundreds of Brummie kids spent Sunday afternoons in the sixties, seventies and eighties, riding round the outer circle. They gained a sense of the size of their city, a numerologist's appreciation of the codes and glyphs of the bus ticket and a life-long 'thing' for staring at the tops of middle aged mens' heads through a system of mirrors.

Whoever said that it was "better to travel hopefully than to arrive" never spent two and a half hours on a double decker and got off at the very same stop he got on at.

Or eleven hours come to that. I did, and I got about 30 people to do the same. I'll tell you why and what we found out.

My third talk is less inward-looking, and a bit more sweary. I'm going to look at the rapid spead of internet memes and how with just a soupcon of profanity, you too can become an interweb superstar. Or at least cost yourself a few hundred quid in hosting charges and destroy your employment prospects.

Jon founded Birmingham: it's Not Shit, a website that markets Brum without ever mentioning 'canalside living'.

Jon's worked in publishing, music journalism, and in a venetian blind factory. Now, after several years at the BBC, Jon is a freelance social media consultant and producer, writer and blogger. His common theme – tech plus people equals great things. He's obsessed by place.  www.jonbounds.co.uk

by Ben Whitehouse

The Third Tribe is the first book by newcomer novelist Rob Chidley and he's already attracting attention:

"Be prepared to be kept on the edge of your seats," says GP Taylor, the New York Times bestselling author of Shadowmancer. Rob Chidley's book is "gripping and exciting, The Third Tribe is a must read."

Russ Bravo, editor of Inspire Magazine, said, "The Third Tribe features characters that you care about, writing that engages and involves the reader and a message that is both powerful and desperately needed. Well worth reading!"

You can also add me to the list of people heaping praise on Rob's novel. I really enjoyed it and my copy has already been plucked from the bookshelf & is currently on a bedside cabinet somewhere near Telford.

I fired a number of questions at Rob recently to find out a bit more about him in preparation for the Festival, here are his answers in full.

Tell us about your novel.
It’s called The Third Tribe and it’s my first novel. It is a story set in world where water is a scarce resource and where rain is totally unheard of.  It is about Ruth, a desert child from a nomadic tribe and her discovery of the City – the last permanent settlement where peace and prosperity appear to reign through the thrifty rationing of bitter water. But there is a dark undercurrent of violence strangling the City and Ruth hears tales, told in whispers and handed down through generations, of a third tribe who exist beyond the settlement’s boundaries, and of their leader who leaves behind footprints filled with water as he walks.

Where did you find the original impulse to write this novel?
JK Rowling said that one day Harry Potter "came fully formed" into her mind.  Ruth dashed through mine, leaving an intriguing trail of chaos and questions, and it was up to me to find out who she was and what she was doing.  After I met her, I found there was a long process of exploration to go through to find out all the answers.  There was a desert landscape in my imagination, so ‘exploration’ was definitely the word.

Looking at The Third Tribe, what surprises you about it?
The characters seem to have lives bigger than the book’s story, which is ultimately a good thing! People who have read the book say that the main characters climb out of the pages and go off on new adventures.  There is more to this desert world than I’ve discovered, and it is as if my characters are independent of me. It feels like some have their own secrets I’m yet to discover.  I suppose unconscious processes in my mind have given them larger stories with more to tell, more than I’ve yet realised.  It is exciting and a little scary.

What are you reading right now? Are there any authors (living or dead) that you would name as influences?
For fiction: I’d say Susanna Clark and Bernard Cornwell. Bernard Cornwell’s most famous for the Sharpe stories, but he’s written a lot more including some terrific Saxon-era stories.   When reading his battle sequences, you can smell the blood, hear the bones cracking, and feel the swords parting the skin and sinews. Susanna Clarke is equally but differently brilliant.  Her stories are more mystical, comical and sinister, and the world in which they’re set has a superb breadth and depth to them.  Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is my favourite of hers.

For non-fiction: Anne Fadiman is one of the best writers I’ve ever encountered.  If you could distil joie de vivre into ink and put it on paper, only then could you say you were as good a writer as Anne Fadiman.  Her familiar essays in At Large and at Small: Confessions of a Literary Hedonist make life worth living.

What was the book that most influenced your life — and why?
This is very difficult, because influences are often so difficult to trace and attribute.  I was quite a late developer so far as reading went.  I even needed extra tuition at one point.  So when I borrowed my granny’s ancient copy of Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers, I felt like I would come of age as a reader, if only I could get through it.  To my delight, I didn’t struggle through it – in fact I was swept up by the story like nothing else.  Strangely, I’ve not read it since but I have felt it calling me of late.

If you had a book club, what would it be reading — and why?
I’d probably want to tackle Coleridge and Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads and the like, because I harbour a belief that Romantic poetry is best served in good company, with a decent wine and after a hearty walk.

What are your favorite books to give — and get — as gifts?
I have, in the past, tried to make rhetorical points through the books I bought other people.  I learned quickly that the best you can expect is a polite thank-you and a cold shoulder. So now I tend to buy books for others that I think they’ll actually enjoy, regardless of whether I think they’re good or interesting.

For myself, I’ve got a bit scared of people buying me books because I have a waiting list of about 40. When people buy you books and then when you see them two weeks later, they always want to know you’ve enjoyed it.  I’m probably about a year behind, if not longer.

Give us three "Good to Know" facts about you. Be creative. Tell us about your first job, the inspiration for your writing, any fun details that would surprise people reading the blog.
1) My first job was as an English teacher in a leafy Dorset Grammar School for boys.  I had great fun teaching The Charge of the Light Brigade with the aid of a genuine (and genuinely dangerous) 1812 Light Cavalry Sabre. My hope always was that my pupils would leave the classroom with a sense that any book could be picked up, explored and enjoyed.

2) Much of my writing seems to revolve around the question of identity which, the more I look into it, the more it seems to explain much of the joy, pain, brilliance and madness of this world.

3) For my wife’s recent significant birthday, I wrote a spoof children’s story called Mrs Lovely the Music Teacher, and I had it professionally illustrated.  It was about a wonderful, supremely busy and slightly maniacal music teacher who turns out to be a robot.  It’s a story which has become part of our lives!

What's your favourite way to unwind?
A long, strong combination of early summer sunshine, a pub garden, real ale and all my old University friends.

Rob says that he enjoyed answering those questions and I'm fairly certain that the passionate reading community at Greenbelt will have questions of their own to grill Rob with over the weekend.

Carol Ann Duffy has been named as the new Poet Laureate, the first woman to be appointed in the 341-year history of the post.

She's the first woman, the first mother, the first lesbian to be appointed to the post. She was widely regarded as the runner up to the post when Andrew Motion was appointed ten years ago. She's won every prize going for poetry & is largely considered one of the best living poets.

When we were discussing which books to choose for the Greenbelt Book Club I remember mumbling something about Carol Ann Duffy looking likely to be named as poet laureate (this was back in early January) but not feeling too convinced about it. I wish I'd had the foresight to put a bet on the result.

We're reading her latest collection of poetry Rapture as part of the Greenbelt Book Club.

The internets is a great place to find the strangest things & today it threw a digested look at the news of the week filtered through an Auto-tune- it's the device that made Cher's voice go all wobbly in her 1998 track Believe and it can be used to make someone off pitch sound on pitch, I'm sure it could even make some of the flatter notes I've been known to sing in the shower sound lovely.

I saw this on the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC where two of the brothers (plus Sarah Fullen) gave a small clip of Katie Couric singing about thin ice at the North Pole. I was hooked. Firstly, the lovely Katie Couric singing about global warming. Secondly, making satirical use of an auto-tune? People plus technology equals lots of fun!!

These clip provokes three strong questions for me:

1) The auto tune has been around for a number of years and can be used to fine tune and repitch a singers voice. Why bother finding good singers at all? Why battle it out on X-Factor or graft playing small gigs when you can take someone, switch on a machine & "fix" the flaws in their voice? Katie Couric manages to sound good singing about thin ice just by applying a little technical wizardry. At the Grammy's in Feb 'Death Cab for Cutie' wore blue ribbons to protest the use of autotune in the music industry. I'd love to know what musicians who read the greenbelt blog or perform at the festival feel about the sly use of the auto-tune. Is there an expectation from performers that their voice will just be run through the magic box?

2) Satire is important to society. Towards the end of the Bush administration making satirical jokes about George W felt a little cruel. I thought satire might falter with the passing of the administration but it seems satire around the globe is alive and well, even under the shining leadership of Obama but now the satirical gaze appears to be pointing more at the people who report the news.

3) Who writes some of the things newscasters say? I know some of them are improvising to a point but in another clip where Katie Couric is talking about global warming she says there will be a "snowball effect" and we're "on thin ice"- the joke doesn't even really need setting up, it just spins itself.

For more auto-tuned news, both recent and not-so-recent check out the Gregory Brother's youtube channel or their website: http://thegregorybrothers.com/

(Make sure you catch Katie Couric on Auto-tune news #2 singing about thin ice, it's a revelation)

by Ben Whitehouse

One of the things I'm most looking forward to at the festival this year is the book club because I know it's going to be interesting. (Don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to lots of the Festival but I have a love affair with books which is why I'm the literature coordinator and not in charge of selection of toilets)

We've got an awesome line up of awesome speakers, musicians and big-brained thinkers across the this year but the things that makes my heart swell with affection every year is you, the festivalgoer, always passionate, always engaged and always with an insightful comment on your lips. (And this isn't me just trying to flatter you, gentle reader, I mean it!)

This year we've picked three very different books which we commend to you for discussion at the Festival.

1) Jackie Kay's collection of short stories – Wish I Was Here

This was selected as short stories don't often get look at enough. In travel terms a novel is a long trek from here to there; you can prepare for the long haul journey with lots of bags, equipment and correct clothes. Short stories are weekends away, you've got to travel light and pack generically without knowing what the weather or destination will be like. Booker Prize winner, Anne Enright said: "These stories charm, move and entertain the reader in full-hearted, direct prose. They are full of narrative satisfactions, written with a democratic ear and a poet's poise, with a lyrical twist of phrase that wrings precise emotions from the reader, every time."

2) Henry David Thoreau – Walden: Or, Life in the Woods.

With the book Walden Thoreau documents the two years where he built a cabin in the woods, moved into it and lived simply. The cabin experience represents the crucible where Thoreau developed many of his sharpest ideas, had formative experiences and turned him into the literary giant we know today. John Updike said that Walden risks "being as revered and unread as the Bible." Thoreau's reflection on his solitary two years living on the shores of Walden Pond was a book that once captured the imagination of Tolstoy and of Gandhi and we're hoping it captures your imagination too. To read the rest of John Updike's rather beautiful review of the book follow the link to the Guardian website.

3) Carol Ann Duffy's collection of poetry – Rapture.

This is a bit of a selfish choice, I read these poems recently at my own bookgroup at the insistence of a friend. She assured me these were some of the most affecting poems I'd ever read. I seem to involuntarily roll my eyes at this kind of hyperbole but I was quickly proved wrong. Poetry sometimes feels like the scrawny cousin of the short story but these poems demonstrate the economic beauty of the love poem. Xan Brooks wrote of the poems:  "Rapture is an extended rhapsody on a love affair, ushering the reader from first spark to full flame to final, messy conflagration."

If you don't own any of these books, click on the link below to buy them from the Greenbelt bookshop. Your local library should also stock these.

We'll provide you with space, bring a mug of something warm and prepare to share your thoughts with other equally passionate souls. I can't wait to hear what people will have to say about these books. Will you be there? You won't want to miss this, it's going to be great!

—-

Ben Whitehouse is Literature Coordinator for the Greenbelt festival. His blog- White Like Milk – is here and you can follow Ben on Twitter here: www.twitter.com/benjaminbrum

Let me introduce a good friend to you and while I do that I’ll also introduce you to a world you see everyday but may not have noticed. Those of you who watch tea-time quiz shows (or watch iPlayer) can see my friend Chris Wills for the next few days on A Question of Genius on the BBC, the latest in a number of TV quiz shows in which he’s participated.

His first quiz show experience was 15-1 back in 2001. Chris wasn’t terribly successful (partly as a result of getting picked on by a “retired paperboy”), but undaunted he then applied for another teatime quizzing legend, Countdown. This was a much bigger success, as he ended up becoming series champion and winning a large number of dictionaries in 2002. Various other stints have followed, including Mastermind and The Weakest Link – on the latter Chris won about £2,500 and a kiss from Anne Robinson.

However, it’s not the winning itself that’s most important to Chris, but – forgive the cliché – the taking part. Some people get a buzz from skydiving, drumming or dancing at a rave; Chris gets a buzz from appearing in front of a TV camera and showing off his general knowledge (or his ability with words and numbers and his love of pastel shades of clothing- apparently they look good on camera).

If he wins, fantastic; but even if he doesn’t, the experience is invariably a positive one, thanks to the other contestants and the production team. They’re all well looked-after, put up in nice hotels, get their travel expenses paid and generally pampered, all by people who work ridiculously long hours, often for relatively low pay and (if they’re freelance) perilous job security, yet somehow manage to remain friendly and enthusiastic. Chris tells me about there being an interesting community spirit within the world of TV quiz shows as he often sees people he’s faced before on other shows.

Chris and I have been friends for about three years, having first chatted on a social networking site; our friendship blossomed from there. Chris is a committed atheist, which may lead some to question how we can have a meaningful friendship without some sort of ideological conflict. In fact, it’s simple: Chris totally respects my Christianity, just as I totally respect his atheism, and whilst our beliefs may differ, faith has never been something that has dominated our friendship.

We often discuss how the actions of the Church (big C) impacts on society and I gain perspective on how my own faith works out in a secular environment. Faithfulness as friends is far more important between us, as is the common ground we share. Chris helps deepen my understanding and love of Doctor Who, he introduces me to great music which helps close some of the musical gaps in my knowledge and we regularly indulge in verbal flights of fancy.

Also, whilst Chris might be an atheist, this does not mean his mind is closed to spiritual matters. Last year, he came to Greenbelt for the first time, after being pestered by me for a few months and found this to be both an enriching and rewarding experience, as so many of the discussions that take place are not specifically around religion, but focus on wider issues of social justice, our perception of those around us and our search for ontological security in an increasingly uncertain world. (Chris wants me to use the word “ontological” – I frequently have to reach for a dictionary when talking to him) For Chris, who is currently doing a part-time Social Sciences degree, these discussions were both illuminating and thought-provoking, so much so he’s coming back this year.

So, although Chris prides himself on being the man with all the answers, he’s also someone who likes to ask plenty of questions. Chris will be taking part in a special Countdown challenge happening at the Hub during this year's festival.

Ben Whitehouse is Literature Coordinator for the Greenbelt festival. His blog- White Like Milk – is here and you can follow Ben on Twitter here: www.twitter.com/benjaminbrum

You can follow Chris Wills on Twitter by pointing your internet at: www.twitter.com/crispeater