What to see at the Hay Festival

If London for the Jubilee isn't your thing, why not head to Hay-on-Wye for ten days of literature in the breathtaking beauty of the Brecon Beacons landscape www.hayfestival.com)

Hay Festival

Michael Morpurgo The Hay Library Lecture Friday 1 June 2012, 2.30pm Venue: Llwyfan Cymru - Wales Stage The novelist delivers the inaugural Library Lecture on children's rights, readers' rights and the importance of libraries. Entry by library card but places must be booked in advance. Free but ticketed

Lucinda Dickens Hawksley Charles Dickens 200 Friday 1 June 2012, 2.30pm Venue: Big Tent The author presents an intimate portrait of her great-great-great-grandfather. Illustrated with personal memorabilia. Price: £5.00

Kim Wilkie Led by the hand Friday 1 June 2012, 5.15pm Venue: Llwyfan Cymru - Wales Stage The radical landscape designer surveys 20 years of his work, from the restoration of the Villa La Pietra in Florence to the strategic masterplan for the World Heritage Site at the Solovetski Archipelago. Price: £6.25

Michael Morpurgo and Maggie Fergusson talk to Peter Florence War Child to War Horse Friday 1 June 2012, 6.30pm Venue: Llwyfan Cymru - Wales Stage How the prolific children's novelist succeeded in weaving his biographer's histories into his own fictions. Price: £5.25

Salman Rushdie, Niklas Frank, Elif Shafak, Tishani Doshi and Jim Al-Khalili talk to John Kampfner Hay 25 - The way we live now 1 Saturday 2 June 2012, 7pm Venue: Barclays Pavilion In this first conversation about our big anniversary project, the panel discuss 3 of the 25 questions: What freedoms are you prepared to trade for security? If you became the leader of your country what would you fix first? We're building a library of literature, music and cinema. Which one book, film and album would you contribute to it? Price: £8.00

Adam Nicolson The Gentry Saturday 2 June 2012, 7pm Venue: Sky Arts Studio The writer introduces his sweeping, epic history of England told through the stories of 14 families down 700 years. Price: £7.25

Rowley Leigh talks to Rosie Boycott No place like home Saturday 2 June 2012, 8.30pm Venue: Sky Arts Studio The award-winning food writer and chef, founder of Kensington Place and Le Café Anglais, discusses his classic celebration of Seasonal English Cooking. Price: £6.25

Peter Florence and guests The 25th Anniversary Alphabet Saturday 2 June 2012, 9.45pm Venue: Barclays Pavilion Join the festival director and a glittering galaxy of guests, each of whom will take a letter or two for a two-minute adventure. Full details of the line-up will be published online on 30 May. Proceeds from the gala will fund access to the education programme for local schools Price: £7.25

Ian McEwan talks to Timothy Garton Ash Sunday 3 June 2012, 10am Venue: Barclays Pavilion The British Council series - 2 The author discusses his writing and previews his forthcoming MI5 novel Sweet Tooth. Price: £8.25

Salman Rushdie talks to Peter Florence Sunday 3 June 2012, 2.30pm Venue: Barclays Pavilion The British Council series - 3 The novelist discusses his fictions from Midnight's Children to The Enchantress of Florence. The event will be webcast live to British Council offices around the world. Price: £9.25

Ian McEwan talks to Timothy Garton Ash Sunday 3 June 2012, 10am Venue: Barclays Pavilion The British Council series - 2 The author discusses his writing and previews his forthcoming MI5 novel Sweet Tooth.

Price: £8.25

Adam Henson Adam's Farm - My Life on the Land Sunday 3 June 2012, 10am Venue: Llwyfan Cymru - Wales Stage Meet the Countryfile star. To join the Royal Welsh Show lunch and visit with Adam at Trevithel Court this afternoon, arranged with Sunderlands and Thompsons LLP, please contact John and Helen Price at Llwynberried on 01497 847326 for tickets. Lunch starts at 1.30pm. Please Note - Lunch tickets have now sold out. Price: £6.25

Sarah Raven Wild flowers Sunday 3 June 2012, 5.30pm Venue: Big Tent The broadcaster, teacher, gardener and cookery writer (Sarah Raven's Garden Cookbook) has travelled the length and breadth of the British Isles to find 500 of our most breathtakingly beautiful wild flowers. Price: £6.25

Jeanette Winterson Monday 4 June 2012, 4pm Venue: Barclays Pavilion Why be happy when you can be normal? The novelist introduces her memoir of mothers, madness and identity; and, triumphantly a book about other people's stories, showing how fiction and poetry can form a string of guiding lights, a life-raft that supports us when we are sinking. Price: £7.25

Ian Rankin talks to Sarah Crompton Murder, Mood and Vinyl Tuesday 5 June 2012, 4pm Venue: Barclays Pavilion The Edinburgh crime-writer, tweeter and propper-up of the Oxford Bar talks about his writing life, his passions, and reveals....xxxx (you can't tell anyone until the day! Ed.). His latest novel is The Impossible Dead. Price: £6.25

Adele Nozedar and Lizzie Harper Hedgerow handbook Wednesday 6 June 2012, 6.45pm Venue: Digital Stage Recipes, Remedies and Rituals. With drawings by Lizzie Harper. Join Adele for foraging trips throughout the week.

Price: £4.25

Kate Humble Monmouthshire farm Humble by nature Thursday 7 June 2012, 5.30pm Venue: Llwyfan Cymru - Wales Stage The Springwatch star talks about her passion for Watching Waterbirds and her new project restoring her Monmouthshire Farm. Price: £6.25

John Julius Norwich The story of England in 100 places Thursday 7 June 2012, 6.45pm Venue: Llwyfan Cymru - Wales Stage The political, cultural, social, religious and economic story of England through 100 key places you can still visit today - from Stonehenge to The Gherkin. Price: £7.25

Hannah Rothschild talks to Martin Chilton The Baroness Saturday 9 June 2012, 4pm Venue: Sky Arts Studio The author and filmmaker conjures the life of her great aunt, the heiress Nica Rothschild, who abandoned her life of privilege in Europe for New York's 1950s Jazz scene. She was a patron and muse to some of the greatest C20th musicians. Charlie Parker died in her apartment, Thelonius Monk in her arms. Price: £5.25

Simon Jenkins A short history of England Saturday 9 June 2012, 5.30pm Venue: Llwyfan Cymru - Wales Stage The great and good journalist introduces his bold, taut history that identifies the key players and moments of change from the Saxon dawn of nationhood to the establishment of coalition government. In association with The National Trust, Wales Price: £6.25

Fiona Reynolds and Simon Jenkins talk to Revel Guest Octavia Hill's Grand Idea Sunday 10 June 2012, 10am Venue: Digital Stage The National Trust Director General and Chair celebrate the centenary of Octavia Hill, the social reformer and founder of the National Trust, and discuss her legacy in the work of the Trust today. Price: £6.25

David Starkey The very model of a modern monarchy Sunday 10 June 2012, 11.30am Venue: Barclays Pavilion The historian scrutinises The House of Windsor. Price: £6.25

Monty Don, Marcus du Sautoy, Andrés Neuman, Jim Naughtie and Rosie Boycott talk to Francine Stock Hay 25 - The way we live now 6 Sunday 10 June 2012, 1pm Venue: Barclays Pavilion The panellists discuss four of the 25 Questions. 25 years from now climate change will have created over 100 million refugees. Where should they go? What was the last thing you made with your hands? What makes you laugh? Would you like the United States of America to a) grow stronger? b) stay more or less the same? c) grow weaker? Why? Price: £5.25

Monty Don Gardening at Longmeadow Sunday 10 June 2012, 5.30pm Venue: Llwyfan Cymru - Wales Stage The cycle of the seasons in the Gardeners World garden at Longmeadow, from the earliest snowdrops of January through the first splashes of colour in the Spring Garden, the electric summer displays of the Jewel Garden, the autumn harvest in the orchard, and on to a Christmas feast sourced from the vegetable gardens. Price: £7.25

Steve Benbow The urban beekeeper Sunday 10 June 2012, 7pm Venue: Big Tent The visionary beekeeper started his first beehive ten years ago on the roof of his tower block in Bermondsey and today runs 30 sites across the city. His bees live atop Tate Modern and Tate Britain, Fortnum & Mason and the National Portrait Gallery, and he supplies honey to the Savoy tearooms, Harvey Nichols and Harrods. His bees forage in parks, cemeteries, along railway lines and in windowboxes, and because of the diversity of the plants and trees in the city, produce far richer honey and greater yields than they would in rural areas. Price: £5.25